Writing to /dev/null
/dev/null
For the unfamiliar, /dev/null is an example character device on linux. That is, it’s a file that’s not a file, but a device, used for communicating with the kernel (one of the lowest level of hardware control) from user space (where your apps live).
You can fwrite to /dev/null all you want, nobody’s listening. This is often used in bash scripts, to redirect errors or output you don’t want to see away from the terminal.
People read this sometimes
I definitely do a double-take anytime someone in the real world mentions browsing my website, my github, or particularly my blog. The first time it happened was at TREC, where another team found my articles on experiments we did on TREC News filtering by time and clickbait… like all academics, my need to gather citations and build reputation led me to even build bibtex into this blog template.
Certainly, there’s a link to my website on my mastodon, github, and resumé so of course, so occasionally I interview with people or discuss with real human beings something they read on my website. Always a strange experience.
My fullbright student has a blog
My former student May is working on computer science education in the Dominican Republic, and keeping track of the journey on her blog:
I love telling people how I feel and what I am thinking about, specially with my intended audience: friends and mentors. This blog will likely be tells of personal struggles, identity crises, cultural nuances and just, things that happen. All of those experiences will, of course, inform and sway the research in different ways …
Enjoy the 1-3 extra views per year, May. When you make it big, I’ll expect referral codes.