# 2015 Year In Reverse

Originally published: 2015-12-31
Canonical URL: /2015/Dec/2015-year-in-reverse/

([Previously](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/01/2014-year-in-reverse/), [previously](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2013/12/2013-year-in-reverse/).)

Dear reader (that's _reader_ in the singular because I doubt that there are two [actual humans](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2012/09/periphery-demographic/) who read my blog; it's [not because](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2012/10/its-not-that/) there are many and I'm addressing you individually), it's that time of the year again—the time of the year when it stops being the year. A time to think thoughtfully and ask, "What happened since the last time we did this?"

In the year 2015, this blog has seen (at press time) _43_ posts and _30_ comments. Among these—

We shared a recipe for a [more-wholesome-than-some-of-the-likely-alternatives breakfast](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/12/californian-raktajino/) (although honestly, I worry about coffee having unknown-to-me degenerative effects on the brain—just because lots of people in your Society indulge in a drug doesn't mean it's _safe_; it just means that any long-term damage has to be _subtle_ enough that people still feel safe using it—and is that really so high of a bar?). We heard some [error message free verse](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/11/apt-get/). I [wished for a crypto subplot](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/11/still-yet-another-idle-wish-for-a-future-star-trek-series/) in the yet-unnamed 2017 _Star Trek_ series. A [train was late](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/11/traffic-koan/). We heard a [poem about sin](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/10/the-sin-in-the-form/) and a [pæan to one's employer](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/10/company-loyalty/). A [tablet app for sports recordkeeping enthusiasts](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/10/app-ideas-i/) was proposed. I [got mail](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/10/open-paren-one-close-paren/). We considered the [quiet holocaust of things left unsaid](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/10/everyday-true-crime/) perpetrated by the forces of laziness and evil that lurk in people's hearts. I [got a patch into OpenStack Swift](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/10/getting-a-contribution-through-the-openstack-review-process/) (ninth draft landed as [06bede894](https://github.com/openstack/swift/commit/06bede894) on 7 October, first draft proposed for [review](https://review.openstack.org/#/c/203304/) on 19 July). You heard about some of [my favorite things in September](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/09/monthly-favorites-september-2015/). We went [back to basics](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/09/from-the-top/) on the justification of a classic property of arithmetic. I commented on [a certain matter of misperceived incentives](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/08/no-award/), and another matter of [determination in the absence of what others could discern as incentives](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/08/studying-on-the-weekend/). I went to the [first Rust conference](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/08/rustcamp-reminiscences/). My bold investigative reporting showed that the seemingly-straightforward [`$` directive treacherously means different things to different regular-expression engines](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/07/dollar/). I confessed to favoring a [nonstandard pronunciation of a file extension](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/06/__pycache__shibboleth-cpython-34-pyc/). I [mentioned that I was trying to write a compiler](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/06/compilers-week/), although honestly, I don't think it went so well (the lexer, parser, and obligatory Emacs mode weren't _that_ bad, but I kind of intuited the context-handling and code-generation parts, and should really get farther in the textbook and give it another try later). I explained [how erasure codes work](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/04/the-foundations-of-erasure-codes/). We heard some [more error-message poetry](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/04/post-ingress/). Some readers of this blog (!!) [relieved me of some of my confusion](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/03/xxx-ii/) about why the Rust borrow-checker rejects bad code that you might think is good if you grew up the cartoon fantasy world that calls itself Python. I explained why ["Pi Day" is an unholy festival of sin that is corrupting our children](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/03/pi-day-is-an-unholy-festival-of-sin-that-is-corrupting-our-children/). You [heard from me during February](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/02/permalink-or-it-didnt-happen/), and we saw [a macro that is just _too_ cute](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/01/xxx-i/).

Beyond these, there are many more things that remain to be said.

But they will have to wait until next year.