design-of-homes

The Fireship videos on YouTube are excellent, entertaining and informative. I presume the videos are scripted - one of the reasons the videos are concise and no filler.

I haven't tried the Fireship courses, but I'm intrigued which teaching approaches preferred by developers: video, text, interactive exercises, book - a combination?

For me, I have found video instruction is massively varied. Although instructors may be familiar with a subject, some are not good at teaching. The best instructors understand their subject but also explain their subject clearly. Also, overly long videos can make watching video a chore. But there are always exceptions (e.g. Harvard online CS50?).

I don't look angry when focusing at the computer, instead I just look miserable! You know how the corners of your mouth are turned down (looking miserable) and you simply forget how you look (even if you are peforming a pleasant task).

I have to consciously turn up my mouth corners ever so slightly, relax my facial expression. It's not about turning into a fake smile. It can be a subtle change, but you immediately will spot change in your facial expression. And others (including strangers) will spot it too.

Look in the mirror at your natural expression and try the tiniest change to your expression. You'll immediately spot the change to you expression.

"I also question how well tiny homes make sense as a solution for long-term housing"

I also agree. This article is one of the few examples of a tiny house situated in what seems like a dense urban environment. In contrast, many tiny homes are placed among open space. The tiny homes don't feel cramped because they're surrounded by nature, with beautiful long uninterrupted views out of the windows. No noisy neighbours or traffic nearby either.

But take away the countryside location of these tiny homes and could the tiny house work in an urban environment? I doubt it. The future for housing for most people on the planet (including the US) is in cities and urban environments. Can you live in a tiny home where you don't have long, uninterrupted views out of your windows? Or where you only have windows along one side of your dwelling (e.g. single-aspect apartments). Do you feel you have enough privacy when your apartment or house is joined with your neighbour's home?

Millions of people already live in homes like this and have to contend with these issues. Can we have small or modest-sized homes that give us light, space, privacy, quiet and comfort in a noisy urban setting? It's one of the most pressing and important issues in housing design - and one that architects and home builders have failed to address.

Also, space can be 'modest' in size rather than 'tiny' and still be sustainable or amenable to high density. For example, London has it's own housing design guide that recommends new one bedroom apartments for two people to be a minimum of 50 square metres (538 square feet). That's still less than space standards in continental Europe but it's enough space to live comfortably even if it doesn't count as tiny by Western standards.

Harsh, but true in my experience.

I wrote a niche blog for several years. Why did I stop? Simply because hardly anyone was reading the blog!

At first, I was writing for myself and an audience was not important. But over time, I came to realise that, although the size of the audience was not important to me, the interest and engagement of readers did matter (especially for a blog with a very niche topic). Hardly any readers commented on my blog posts - which was important to me.

I don't regret writing the blog at all. Writing down my thoughts, experience or research all helped me better at writing.