Chandler Swift
About
I’m a lifelong hacker (the good kind!). My parents have a story they like to tell at my expense: At just a few years old, I was interested enough in my Dad’s laptop brought home from work one evening to somehow manage to change the operating system language into German. Of course, I vehemently deny everything. The interest in computers has stayed, though I like to think I require a bit less supervision now, and I like to tinker with hardware and software everything in between. Things I like include C and Go and Linux and Assembly and MIDI and abusing hardware and…! Things I don’t like include: CSS. I run this software on this OS on this hardware. Ask me about my latest project!
As a musician I’m wrapping up a stint as the organist/pianist/accompanist at Pilgrim Congregational Church in Duluth, MN, and another as an accompanist for the Lake Superior Youth Chorus. When I’m in Duluth, I often play for Jazz at Blush on Monday nights (and if you play an instrument, please come join us!). I especially enjoy playing in small ensembles and with other people as much as I can.
In my free time, I try to remain active with my Boy Scout troop (of which I am an Eagle Scout), especially on outdoor activities. I enjoy reading science fiction, though I don’t have as much time for it as I might like. I appreciate XKCD comics, especially about technology.
Blog
Oct 2023 Advent of Code 2022: Day 22
Well, it’s been a bit, but I’m thinking I might have a chance at finishing 2022 off before 2023 starts…if only just! Quite a few things have changed since last time, not the least of which is this1:
chandler@boron:~$ uname -m
riscv64
I’m doing most of my non-employer-affiliated development work on a StarFive VisionFive2 these days (with a blog post likely to come at some point), and the transition to RISC-V ended up being pretty straightforward.
Jan 2023 Advent of Code 2022: Days 20 and 21
Two more down, today. Magit has been awesome, and I think I made it through the
entirety of both of these problems without reflexively opening a terminal to
solve some problem I encountered (either regarding git, or basic file
manipulation)!
Jan 2023 Advent of Code 2022: Days 18 and 19
I’ve been recovering from a rough bout of COVID-19, which really knocked me out
for a few days, and (in combination with a tough couple problems) set my AoC
progress back a few more days. But I’m back at it! Today: getting acquainted
with magit.
Jan 2023 New Year, New Router!
Over Christmas break, I replaced my old router (a standard x86_64 PC running pfSense1) with a new FriendlyElec NanoPi R2S, which has (for the first few days, anyway) been a fantastic bit of hardware. On the software side, I’m running OpenWRT, which is a stability upgrade from pfSense, and a major functionality bump from any other router OS I’ve tried. I’m now a few days in, and it’s been a really nice experience.
Jan 2023 Advent of Code 2022: Days 16 and 17
Well, it’s slow going. I was getting less than a day per day done, and now I’m back at work, so that’ll likely be even slower going forward. I’m retargeting mid-January for the end. But here are the next couple days’ worth!
Projects
Dec 2022 Advent of Code 2022
This is it: I’m finally going to finish Advent of Code this year! (A strong claim, given that this is my third attempt, but we’ll see!) This year, I’m planning to use this as an excuse to learn/relearn Emacs and Rust.
