Someone recently told me that reading one of my blog posts led them to play Celeste. So in that spirit, here's another post about pastimes. This time, it’s on Slay the Spire. For the uninitiated, Slay the Spire is a card based roguelike where you fight increasingly unhinged enemies and build a deck along the way. Every run is different and often also ends in death. In this way it has a lot in common with Celeste, except in Celeste the thing killing you is a mountain and in Slay the Spire it's sometimes your own ability (or lack thereof) of doing basic arithmetic.
Coding & Side Projects
A Week Well Drawn
You know how you can get so absorbed in a book that it becomes your entire reality? The world outside the pages stops existing; you forget what you were worried about before you started reading. And then the story ends and you're launched, often abruptly, back into whatever life had paused from. That's exactly how last week felt for me. As a child I always wished to attend some kind of summer school but never got the chance to, so being able to volunteer at the UKMT Maths Summer School meant lot to me.
Crocheting Hector II: The Return of the Ruffle
I picked up crochet again a few weeks ago, after over a year of not touching it. For a while I was made to feel like it wasn't a worthwhile use of my time, and eventually I just put it down. Picking it back up has reminded me how grounding it is. There's something about … Continue reading Crocheting Hector II: The Return of the Ruffle
31 Posts and a Violin I Haven’t Learned to Play
Last year during my June half-term break I was “supposed” to be revising for my A-Level Maths exams. Part of that revision, inevitably, involved rewatching Sherlock on iPlayer for what was probably the third time. Somewhere between those episodes I decided two things: I was going to start a maths blog, and I was going to learn the violin. One of those happened. So here’s a post on my one-year anniversary of my blog!
From 0 Bars to 5G: What’s Really Going On
Ever wondered why you sometimes get perfect signal in some random field in Wales but can't even load a message while inside a lift? Or how you're able to make an emergency call even when your phone says No Service? Or why your phone switches from 4G to 3G (or refuses to load anything at … Continue reading From 0 Bars to 5G: What’s Really Going On
The Case for Side Projects
I used to think (and honestly, I still do sometimes) that I needed to “learn everything first” before starting a programming project. I’d spent hours reading textbooks or watching YouTube videos feeling like I was “being productive”. But I’ve never actually code. Part of me was scared of getting it wrong, of producing something “rubbish”. … Continue reading The Case for Side Projects
The National Cipher Challenge – More Than Just Codebreaking
I’ve been meaning to write about how I got into codebreaking, so here’s the start of a small series on maths, ciphers, and curiosity. A lot of experiences have shaped the curious, questioning person I am today, but I wasn’t always like this. Looking back, one of the biggest turning points came in Year 10, … Continue reading The National Cipher Challenge – More Than Just Codebreaking
