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A simple LRU Cache in Python

In a previous post , I explained some of the basic concepts of how caches work in hardware at the CPU level. As I mentioned to start that post, caching is used in many different areas of computer science. So how can you use this new knowledge you have gained? One way you might want to implement a cache is if you have expensive database calls. Let's say that you have a web app where you are displaying movie information. When a user searches for a movie, your backend will query your database for the information related to that movie. For a simple web app with a small number of active users, you

Jeremy Maslanko · EN

Rethinking generational wealth

When I hear generational wealth mentioned, there is a certain image that I get in my head. Private jets, multiple houses, and never having to think about what something costs. There is probably a staff consisting of landscapers, housekeepers, nannies, lawyers, and accountants just to name a few. It is what I think about when I think of how the ultra-wealthy live their lives. With this image in mind, how do we actually define generational wealth? I am sure there are many definitions, but Investopedia defines generational wealth as "...generational wealth refers to financial assets passed from o

Jeremy Maslanko · EN

Diagnosing a Faulty Breaker with ChatGPT

Let me start with a disclaimer. This is not a how-to guide on how to replace a breaker. Working on breakers, live wires, and electrical panels can be extremely dangerous. If you are not confident in your handyman abilities, the money spent on an electrician will be well worth it. With that out of the way, let us move on to my situation. My wife and I bought our house in June of 2026. Shortly after moving, we noticed that the dishwasher was not completing its cycles, leaving an unwanted residue on the dishes from the soap that hadn't been fully rinsed off. We actually didn't know that the dishw

Jeremy Maslanko · EN

I Published a Book

I can now add 'Published Author' to my resume and if you look at my book on Amazon, I'm sure you will be impressed! Not everyone is able to churn out a book with OVER 40 pages like I can, and I didn't even need to include any pictures! Hopefully by now you realize I am being facetious. My 'book' that I published has less than 300 words. It would be more appropriate to call it a coloring book, however, that is exactly how I want it to be used. I try to read a fair amount. Any given year, I will read between 15-20 books which does not account for the countless articles I read on HackerNews. I ty

Jeremy Maslanko · EN

A Call to End Meeting Transcript Summaries

AI continues to leak into every part of business, and for the most part, I can see some sort of value proposition for the various features and products. Vision models have provided improvements over traditional OCR techniques, agentic patterns have enabled automation of more mundane tasks, and chat interfaces have given users a seach product that can provide answers to their specific question. Sure, none of these solutions are perfect and have their fair share of errors. But overall, they have been an improvement. Virtual (and hybrid) meetings have become the norm since COVID, however, meeting

Jeremy Maslanko · EN

I Forgot How to Spell

Over the past month or so, I have started to build a habit of journaling. One day while writing, I started to write a word and then stopped. The reason? I wasn't sure how to spell it. No big deal, let me Google it real quick and continue. However, in the next paragraph, I did the same thing. Okay, I don't like this. I know how to spell, right? Of course I do, but maybe there are a few words I need some help with. What I wanted to know, was, how did this happen? I learned how to spell in school and know how to read, so where did things go awry? When looking up words to confirm how they are spel

Jeremy Maslanko · EN

Best Practices for Religious Representation, Part I: Check for Traps

Religion suffuses role-playing’s most basic structure: the adventuring party with a fighter, thief, wizard, and cleric. Fantasy mainstays like demons, dragons, heavens and hells, pantheons, diverse monsters, and magic originate in religious lore. The decisions people make without thinking about their cosmology carry ideological weight that validates some demographics and denies others—and not even just in terms of religious identity. This article is a toolkit to help creators and players of games and fiction build religious characters and organizations, portray them with fairness and respect,

James Mendez Hodes · EN

Asian Representation and the Martial Arts

This article discusses how Asian martial arts stereotypes fit into orientalist dynamics, in which the Western gaze rewrites and reduces Asian experience to a cool violent thing for white consumption. I also point out how imperialist, exploitative attitudes complicate real-world martial arts practice. Finally, we’ll go over practical guidelines for representing Asian martial culture in your creative work. You’ll leave this article prepared not only to avoid racism, but also to craft stronger martial arts stories in general.

James Mendez Hodes · EN

How to Change Your Conversations About Cultural Appropriation

This article discusses cultural appropriation. More precisely, it discusses discussions about cultural appropriation, which stress me out more than any other cultural consulting topic. The question of whether a given expression is or is not cultural appropriation, and the corollary question of whether cultural appropriation is even real or not, tends to polarize and ossify conversations between otherwise like-minded people. But what if we reframed the conversation? What if we talked about the same content, but we broke the topic of cultural appropriation down into its component parts: the dist

James Mendez Hodes · EN

The most important point I can make about orcs

Seeing my friends and acquaintances struggle to explain why we feel so strongly about orcs to people who vehemently disagree, I thought I'd try rephrasing my orcticles’ most important point in language which both sides—since evidently now there are sides—could accept.

James Mendez Hodes · EN

Interview: Tony Chatman on Bias and the Uprising

This interview is with my friend Tony Chatman, a speaker and a corporate relationship specialist who works with organizations to create a more healthy and inclusive culture. As an uprising galvanizes the United States in response to police killing unarmed Black Americans like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, Tony speaks to me about unconscious and implicit bias, and the psychology of police brutality. This post’s crowdfunding proceeds go to bail funds and racial justice organizations across the United States.

James Mendez Hodes · EN

Representation Tier List

Would you care for a slightly more organized and precise way to discuss representation in media? Do you promise not to reduce discussions of representation in media to just this method of organization? Yes and yes? Cool. Here’s a tier list. Casual media enjoyers may find it fun to mess around with. Critics might get a little more use out of it, though many experienced critics already have favorite rubrics of their own. But if you’re in the business of creating fiction, or especially of helping others deepen diverse and marginalized themes and content in their work—cultural consulting, for inst

James Mendez Hodes · EN

Raindrops on a Pool

Sometimes, when people learn I’m a cultural consultant, they ask me why queer people, or people of color, or religious minorities, or disabled people, or any other subaltern population seem so sensitive about trivial things. A lot of the time, it’s this …

James Mendez Hodes · EN

Thousand Arrows is back in print!

On the cover of the Thousand Arrows ttRPG, a samurai in armor and a wide-brimmed hat smirks and brandishes her musket while a multi-tiered tower burs behind her. Art by Yoshi Yoshitani . Reload your muskets. Rally your troops. The battle to unify Japan begins anew. Thousand Arrows is back in print with Evil Hat Productions ! The tabletop roleplaying game of samurai warfare and drama, powered by the Apocalypse, returns with revised text and layout. Get it in PoD and PDF on 21 July! By the way… if you like games about East Asian historical settings, player characters in command positions, politi

James Mendez Hodes · EN

Day 5, 6, and 7: Krakow, Warsaw, and Kaunas.

The next two days were busy ones. First stop was Katawice. Here we stopped at a Lego store to get my passport stamped and pick up a few toys. I love some of the large display models and am putting photos up here for my daughter who got me started on Lego. I hope I will not bore you with the photos. Ready for Halloween We didn't manage any puzzle shops as they were all closed for the day by the time we arrived. Who shuts their doors at 3 pm on a Saturday when they should be open for me to shop? 😂 Can you spot our car in this sea of campers. I guess we are the poor folk now. Slumming it I think

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Day 8, 9, 10 Riga Latvia, Tallinn Estonia, and Äänekoski Finland

Today was a wasted day. We spent last night in a hotel so we had a long sleep. I went to charge around 11 and went back to get George at noon. Talk about having a lazy start. The room was amazing for such a small town. Black marble everywhere and just the sweetest place. We booked out the entire Diamond svećiu nami. Because we arrived so late, the owner had to stick around and wait for us to arrive. You see, the only downside of driving a Tesla is that other people do as well. We had to wait for over 30 minutes to get onto a charger, and since our battery was pretty low, we had to wait another

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Days 11 and 12: Kajaani Finland

Outside temperature today 5 degrees. Roxanne's use of Finnish language: 0%. I am going to start this blog with a quote from Tomas Linden: Btw. I enjoyed reading your travelblog! Especially the end when you write that you are coming to ”Vessa”. Vessa is toilet in Finnish The city you will be visiting is Vaasa (in Finnish, Sannas mothertongue) and Vasa (in Swedish, my mothertongue). OOPS. Messed that one up didn't I? When we arrive, I'll be sure to comment on the toilet(iness) of the city. Nah, I've been before, it is beautiful. I can't wait to go again. The main purpose of this trip was to come

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Vassa and another long overdue visit with Tomas

I first visited Vassa in 2014 . At this time, I was on a trip for my studies. This time, it was all puzzles. Kajaani itself had quite a few very nice buildings and some interesting 'graffiti'. After we finished in Kajaani, we headed to Vassa (not Vessa-lesson learned!). But first, a photo... This was our first of 3 loads. I only got the one. But you get the idea. We sent home a lot of boxes. And guess what!?! They are already in our beer garden. Have no fear, they are not sitting out in the weather, they have all been brought inside awaiting our return. The road to Vassa is amazing. It reminds

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Vassa part 2

After a good nights sleep, we went to work with Tomas. He is a woodworking instructor at a local community place. I'm being vague because I honestly don't remember the name of the place. We went in and George participated in a wood working lesson. I went to mail a few more packages, and buy some gloves because I stupidly sent them back to Panicale. Before I left though, I took loads of photos of man tools! (Another Heavy Photo post) That is a lot of man tools! This place is incredibly clean too. I mean, there is dust and all, but for the number of people inside working, I was surprised. I took

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Ferry from Turku to Stockholm

I messed up. I thought we were to get the ferry from Vassa to Stockholm but it actually leaves from Turku. We got up the next morning and left around 8:30~9:00. It was a wet miserable day, and I'm glad we decided to go straight to Turku without stops other than for charging. When we arrived, I headed right to the pier to find my way. We wanted to visit other puzzlers, but with the construction going on, it was quite confusing. We arrived around 4, but it took us a good 2 hours to find where to drive the car onto the ship. When we got there, we decided to wait it out rather than leave again. On

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is a city we have both been to many times so we decided to stop and visit with friends instead of sight see. Our first stop saw us with AnneMarie. She lives part time in Panicale and has invited us numerous times to her home. We had a few hours before meeting with our host for the next two nights so we stopped by. She has a lovely apartment with an amazing view. When we arrived, there was an author there whom we had met in Panicale very briefly last year so it was nice to catch up again. AnneMarie put on a nice spread and after a bit to eat, George took a nap while we sat and chatte

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

On the way to Billund

Since we were doing this trip and connecting it with DCD, we decided to make the trip to Billund as well. After leaving Philip's house, we headed over here. I wanted to travel to Aarhus because it is a city on the Eurorails map that we haven't visited, but in the end we decided the one hour detour was too much. We've been on the road too long, and when the notification popped up telling us we could get our room early, we didn't hesitate. Our first night we stayed at the Legoland Village Pirate Inn. This place is a hoot. First, it is self checkin, so I did. But then what do I do? Where is my ro

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

The Morning Ruck

2.2 miles. 35 pounds. By any standard, it’s a simple walk outside. For me, and I’m sure anybody else who gets up at 0530 to get some physical work in, it’s the discipline. The routine. [...]

| Hildebranski.com · EN

Recommend by Jack Carr

For most of my life, I’ve been a non-fiction reader, but Jack Carr posted a tour of his library that flipped a switch. In this video, he walks through the authors who he read and [...]

| Hildebranski.com · EN