syntax & signal

( It's not what you think.) Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash (This article was originally posted for paying members on Medium .) I’ll be honest, when AI first started making its rounds on the internet, I was skeptical. I’m the kind of person who often obsesses over my writing and how it sounds. How could machine learning replicate something that requires so much attention to detail? But now, I use AI tools often. Usually, I use it in my drafting process. AI is great when you have a solid idea but aren’t really sure where to start. But I’ve seen both the magic and the mess that is AI and LLMs and think it’s time we have a realistic discussion about what it can and can’t do for us. This isn’t a hype piece nor is it a take down post, by the way. It’s just simple truth on user experience, from one creator to another. What I Love About Using AI It saves me time There is something kind of satisfying about typing a few words and getting a full-fledged draft back. Whenever I get ...

Photo by Gustavo Zambelli on Unsplash (This article was originally posted for paid members on Medium. ) When I was 15, I discovered coding.  I was placed into a generic “Programming 1010” class in high school, and learned Scratch. Before this, I never really knew what I wanted to do as an adult. Often, people would ask me the dreaded “So, what do you wanna do when you grow up?” and I would answer with something just to please them. Oh, something with art maybe? I don’t know. Maybe a nurse. A teacher? Nothing ever stuck with me.  I was always a B average student in school. I did fine getting by, but I just didn’t have interests in the way that other people did. I grew up dealing with a pretty rough childhood, so I didn’t have time to discover what I really liked until I got older. My only hobbies at that point were listening to music and watching horror movies like the hormonal emo teenager I was (and playing Skyrim for 8 hours straight, of course). But something clicked in my...

  Ever wonder why there’s always a .99 at the end of price tags? The answer is science. (This article was originally posted for members on Medium .) Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

  Freedom. Flexibility. Creative control. These are all things that lure us into freelancing. And don’t get me wrong, for a while it feels amazing. You have the ability to choose  who  you work with,  where  you work and  what  you work on. But then comes the scope creep, unpaid admin hours, late-night revisions and a nagging feeling that maybe you should be doing  more . But that feeling will only lead to feeling worse, and ultimately,  burnt out. What if the key is actually doing  less ? That’s where minimum viable effort comes in, a mindset that might just save your creative career. What is minimum viable effort? Minimum viable effort is not about being lazy. But it’s also not about doing more. It’s about  being intentional. It’s about committing to sustainable output by consistently delivering just enough to meet goals, maintain quality and protect your creative energy. You still deliver quality content, but you’re not chasing p...

 Whether you’re a brand new developer or shifting careers, choosing the right programming language to learn in 2025 isn’t just about popularity. It’s also about positioning yourself as someone with the right set of skills for potential future employers. Over time we have witnessed various technological improvements that have lead programming as we once knew it to change vastly. For this article, I looked at a few different sources to figure out which languages are actually in demand right now. One interesting source I discovered is called SkillQuery (this isn’t sponsored, I just thought it was neat). This is a small project created by a PhD student to show which skills are actually in demand for certain industries. 1. Python This one is a dead giveaway.  As a statistics undergrad, the need to learn Python has been absolutely drilled into my head (although I prefer working with R a lot more). But I have to admit, this is for good reason. Most sources I checked listed Python a...

If you are new to the world of coding and computers, chances are you have asked yourself this question a multitude of times for various programming languages. And although it’s not a “programming language” in the traditional sense, HTML is no different. As the tech world rapidly evolves and new and improved tools with shiny, already built-in AI features become readily available to users, it almost seems like languages such as HTML are becoming less important. However, I would argue that this isn’t actually true. While learning just HTML on it’s own won’t land you a job in tech, it can certainly strengthen your skills and provide a solid base to expand on. In this article, I will give you 4 reasons why HTML is still worth learning in 2025. 1. HTML is the foundation for the internet Nearly every website you visit relies on some form of HTML. It’s essentially the skeleton of the internet. CSS just makes it pretty, and JavaScript makes it do things. HTML is the part that gives everything a...