Author Archives: kchodorow

I’m working on a command-line tool that will require user login, so I wanted to have the flow that all the snazzy command-line clis use: pop up a browser window and ask you to login with <known provider>, then pass back something to the command line. Unfortunately, I had no idea what this type ofContinue reading “Login via command line”

Voronoi cells are basically the shape you see soap suds make. They have a lot of cool properties that I wanted to use for image generation, but I didn’t want to have to figure out the math myself. I found this really excellent tutorial on generating Voronoi cells, which goes into some interesting history aboutContinue reading “Generating Voronoi cells in Python”

This is a followup to my previous post on setting up big files on GCP. I ran into similar problems with Python as I did with static files, but my solution was a bit different. The right wayTM of running Python on GCP seems to be via a docker container. However, adding a virtual environmentContinue reading “How to set up Python on Compute Engine”

I’ve been working with some large models recently and, as a Docker beginner, shoved them all into my Docker image. This worked… sort of… until docker push started trying to upload 20GB of data. Google Cloud doesn’t seem to support service keys for docker auth (even though they claim to! not that I’m bitter), soContinue reading “How to get big files into Compute Engine”

Disclaimer: GV is an investor in Warp. Whenever I start a new Python project, I have to go look up the syntax for creating a virtual environment. Somehow it can never stick in my brain, but it seems too trivial to add a script for. I’ve been using Warp as my main shell for aContinue reading “Using Warp workflows to make the shell easier”

When I was a kid, I went to a tag sale “for kids, by kids” where kids sold their junk/toys to other kids. I was wandering around and saw a shoebox filled to the brim with marbles. I went over and there was a sign on the box that said, “25 cents/marble”. “How much forContinue reading “Why market cap is dumb”

I’ve been thinking a lot about construction. Taking a very specific part of the process, building the staircase: you find a carpenter and they build the staircase to your measurements. Generally your contractor will find someone with decent experience that they think will do a good job for whatever price you’re willing to pay andContinue reading “Shoulders of Giants”

When I’ve talked to people who’ve attempted to make meme tools, they say that search is a really hard problem. This sort of makes sense: one person might search “communism”, another “bugs bunny”, and another “we” trying to get this image template: I was thinking about it today, though, and you know what? All ofContinue reading “5-minute design: meme generator”

I’ve been using GitHub Copilot for Unity development and it is incredible. It has saved me from tons of bugs, speeded up my work by 2x, and even taught me a lot of C# (which Unity uses and I haven’t used before). How does it work? You install it as a VS Code extension andContinue reading “A review of GitHub Copilot”

Unity has a simple, easy-to-use 2D text option under UI->Legacy->Text. However, this puts a text element on the weird ethereal Canvas that UI stuff sits on, which is probably not what you want (or at least not what I want). I want my text to be nested in other sprites in my scene. To doContinue reading “Using TextMeshPro in a 2D Unity game”