A format I’m experimenting with is a compilation of things outside this blog, whether they’re projects I’m working on or content found elsewhere on the Internet. Expect posts like this to arrive once each month.

Website

The upgrade on my website is currently in progress. You can check out its current state of affairs on the “2.0” branch: https://github.com/dandelarosa/dandelarosa-website/tree/2.0

Elsewhere in the Universe

Last month this section ended up being a huge splurge; let’s see if we can tone it down this time around.

Looking Back At The 2020 MLB Season

Congratulations to the Los Angeles Dodgers for winning the 2020 World Series. I had a slight preference for the Tampa Bay Rays winning, and I wanted the series to take all seven games, but in the end I was happy with the matchup. At the very least we got to witness this exciting play to end Game 4:

The Rays built a reputation for their unorthodox use of analytics, but no amount of min-maxing was enough to beat raw talent. There’s a reason why Randy Arozarena is nicknamed “The Cuban Mookie Betts” and not the other way around.

Fellow Mets fan and craft beer aficionado Ceetar commented on the season as a whole, writing it off as a failure. Perhaps with all the damage the pandemic has done it was hard to get any excitement for baseball. Unfortunately, given how persistent COVID has been it seems unlikely that we’ll revert back to a “normal” season in 2021.

Daniel Miessler

One content creator I started following this year is security researcher Daniel Miessler. He earned my admiration for being someone who covers both cybersecurity and politics (a lot of his political essays are critical of the left, but they are very much written from a desire to stop Trump from winning). But let’s move away from that topic and highlight the three most important articles Miessler wrote in 2020:

In “A 3-Tiered Approach to Securing Your Home Network” Miessler outlines a step-by-step approach anyone can follow to defend their computer networks. The most effective steps are listed first; doing just the first two items will protect you from the most common cyberattacks.

“Everyday Threat Modeling” reminds readers to evaluate threats (cyber or otherwise) from a practical, not reactionary standpoint. It provides a framework to quantitatively examine whether a particular action is worth the risk.

“Why Creators Should Move to Direct Support Monetization” is a call to content creators to examine how their content is hosted and monetized. Included in the essay is a diagram describing the levels of advancement a creator can ascend to:

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By the way, here’s where each of my projects are at currently:

Project Current Status Should Be Evaluation
This Blog Causal Casual OK :)
Annual Saga Experimental Professional Needs more love
DD64 Finance Experimental Experimental whatever…
DD64 Sportsnet Experimental Experimental whatever…

But Wait, There’s More!

If this month’s content roundup isn’t filling enough, YouTube star Super Eyepatch Wolf made a video about his favorite discoveries from this season. This one’s for you if you’re into anime, games, and wrestling. (Just a bit of warning: Eyepatch Wolf is also a horror enthusiast, so expect to encounter at least one mildly disturbing part in each of his videos.)