2024 — 2025

Hi! You and I may be friends or family. We might be Twitter Bluesky Mastodon buddies (and we should be). We could be neighbors across the street or across the cities. We might be passing acquaintances or going way back. It's really nice for you and me, for us to chat again, even if it's just with this letter.

Who am I again? Well, aside from the blatantly branded card that brought you here today, there's absolutely no way to know that I am Ryan Rampersad. I might be that weird Pokémon-enthusiast or that quirky branding guy with long hair and red ribbon, or that Twitter Bluesky Mastodon-enthusiast or that trusted technical advisor. You bet. That's me.

OK, what's up with this card? These cards have been delivered to fine folks everywhere since the famously fabled year of 2016. Why was 2016 renowned? Well, the best way I can put it is: "I don't know, I think I became an adult." Back then, I felt this overwhelming urge to send a heartfelt thank you. That's for all of you, collectively, but also for you—the person holding this card right now. Whether you're pulling late nights with me on the grind, wandering the park with Roxy and me, or out there across the globe making the dazzling magic happen, thank you. You're amazing. Seriously. I'm beyond lucky to have you in my life, and I'll say it here: the world is better because of you.

And who's that cute little dog? That's Roxy. She's the star. She's the best dog. We have a whole section dedicated to her too.

If this is your first card, a heartfelt hello world to you—welcome to what I hope will become a cherished custom. If you've received a card before, welcome back, and thank you for being part of this increasingly long legacy once more. Your continued curiosity and kindness mean the world to me. These cards are my small but sincere way of staying connected, and I hope to carry this cozy tradition far into the future.

Let's continue into my ramblings and musings!

Everyone's first question is: what kind of dog is Roxy? Here's how the story goes: she comes from my mom's cousin's farm where two dogs went into the barn and puppies came out. Allegedly, she is a terrier and beagle mix. Last year, we ran some box-kit rudimentary DNA tests on Roxy (which is fine, because she's a dog), and we found out she might be part Lhasa Apso. To be honest, whenever someone asks me now, I still say terrier beagle because that makes sense, and Lhasa Apso feels like I'm speaking nonsense. Either way, she's very much made by her own personality and how cute she is.

Roxy is 14 years old this year! Roxy is in pretty good health. Sure, she's no stranger to old age. She can't jump as high. She used to hop up the steps in the backyard from the yard level to the deck level, but she gave that up in winter last year - it was just too scary. To help her out last year, I built her an 8' long and 30' wide ramp. She loves that ramp. She goes up and down all day with it. She also kinda slides down the ramp when there's snow. The friction strips I added last year are starting to get old. She likes to jump off the ramp towards the end prematurely, so I have since added soft rubber tiles to cushion her jump fall. She used the steps for 12 years, so occasionally she forgets about the ramp, and tries to use the steps. She ends up realizing: "ooooh there's a ramp!"

Despite good overall health, she's also had her share of catastrophes. This year it was all due to chasing a cat in the backyard. Roxy loves her two cats (Jack and Tango). Rarely her two cats have escaped the house (wandered the backyard a bit), and Roxy has been very vocal and proactive to get them back in. She thinks all cats are her cats. When she saw an unknown cat in the yard, she thought it was her duty to find it immediately and ask it to return to the house. She went way too fast down the ramp and sprained her hip. For about a month, she couldn't really use her left back leg. She would hobble from room to room, but outside walks were too much. I would bring her to the park in the wagon so she could see somewhere different than the yard, and she would try to walk around and smell the trees. Since then, she's recovered just fine. She's getting daily "cosequin" chews for her joints, and from all signs, that's helping. She's back to her usual self again.

She will accept our usual neighborhood walks in desperation, but she loves going on walks outside of the neighborhood and she's always up for an adventure, especially in the woods. Since she can't walk as far as she used to, I bought her a push-pull wagon for her. This summer in fact, I would load her into the wagon so she could get further before overheating, and if she did get too hot, she could make it back home in the wagon too. Her feet sting in the cruelly cold winters. Using the wagon is a bit trickier in winter. She rejects the entire concept of a sled. When we go on a longer destination walk, Roxy can stay in the wagon for a little while, then get out and explore, and when she's tired again, she can hop back in. It's also nice so I can carry extra snacks and water. Everyone loves to see her in the wagon.

It's a shame I did not take a picture of this last year at the Minnesota State Fair. You know all those signs people buy and put in their houses? Like “Live Laugh Love”? I saw a sign I thought was funny, and that was accurate. “I work hard so my dog doesn't have to.” I think that's really fitting for me and Roxy.

Carl Sagan wrote Pale Blue Dot, a book inspired by an image taken, at his suggestion, by Voyager 1 on Valentine's Day in 1990. I've followed the tales of the Voyagers—these relics of human ingenuity born into the final frontier. Just how many times did they leave the heliosphere? Hearing about the Voyagers now feels like hearing stories about the good ol' days. Their antique systems silently hum and sputter, defy decay, and whisper a faint, sweet and sincere "hello" across the void every so often.

This year, I saw Bill Nye (yes, The Science Guy) live at The State Theatre, nestled in Minneapolis's iconic Hennepin Theatre District. Bill is as charming and insightful in person as you'd expect, peppering his humor with self-aware nihilistic comedy, science and child-like hope. Naturally, he touched on Pale Blue Dot. Projected behind him, the iconic image: a pixel of Earth, suspended in a sunbeam, embraced by space dust. I think it's more a conceptual icon, rather than a photographic masterpiece. At the very least, a reminder of our cosmic home. And as always, Carl's words frames it with grace:

I love the photo and the quote. These words have always stuck with me—humbling, uniting, and quietly profound.

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of welcoming a new group of software engineers during an onboarding session. These moments are some of my favorites—a chance to distill years of experience into something useful, and maybe sneak in a dozen jokes.

As I began the workshop, I performed the ritualistic incantation: "Can you see my screen?" My desktop was intentionally minimal, featuring one of macOS's default wallpapers—a breathtaking image of Earth seen from space. The crescent sunlight illuminated its curve, while couple tiny pinpricks of artificial light dotted the darkened hemisphere below. I've always been drawn to these sublime snapshots of the night—the way the scattered lights reveal the quiet hum of humanity even in the vast darkness.

"It all starts here," I said, pausing for effect, and already laughing at my joke. "This is the place where every single line of source code ever written came into existence, on Earth."

No one laughed. Some jokes don't take off. But something about that joke, the phrase behind it lingered with me.

The more I think about it, the more it magnificently mirrors Carl's sentiment, albeit from a smaller frame of reference, and with my unnecessary niche emphasis on computing. Every piece of software, every script, every groundbreaking algorithm or quick-and-dirty hack—it all comes from us, here, on this shared speck of a planet. All of the compilers, all of the operating systems, all of the databases, all of the networking apparatuses, all of the browsers, all of the blockchains, all of the very large matrices. That feels profound in its simplicity: all the computing, all the technology we rely on, admire, and sometimes ruminate is not born of nature but of us. Artificial, yes, but also something akin to magic. We did this. We made sand think.

With that comes both awe and responsibility. We created this incredible web of systems—flawed, fragile, yet inspiring. It's messy, miraculous, and deeply human. Can it make things better? Sure. Can it make things worse? Sure, we bemoan the cruft of legacy systems, rage at obscure bugs, and shake our heads at poorly documented code. But behind it all is a collective story—a reflection of the human endeavor to build, improve, and connect.

I love the feeling of creating something from nothing. It reminds me that in this vast universe, we're the ones who made this tiny world of computing. And that, for all its imperfections, is something worth celebrating.

Last year, I wrote about my Japanese journey. I shared how I embarked on learning a language that felt so vastly different. I wanted to see if I could learn the language mechanics that I thought, from my perspective, were so different and complicated. Since then, I have achieved mediocre speaking, rudimentary reading and decent typing hiragana, katakana, a few basic kanji, and even writing simple sentences. I did end up learning some foundational Japanese: nouns, verbs, grammer. It's really incredible to read basic Japanese writing or to hear basic Japanese phrases and understand that they mean something (which is often beyond me, due to my limited vocabulary). I can even haphazardly chat with people around the world!

Alas, here we are at 600 days. Six Hundred. 六百日! That was with the infamous Bird App, Duolingo. At first it was fun, except for the kana gates early on. Over a full year later though, there's too much gamification for me. The Bird App has points, streaks, leaderboards, and so on. Its system, designed to scale for millions of players, follows predictable rules and mechanics that are all too easy to exploit. Ripe for abuse. I ended up optimizing my playstyle to do as little work as possible while maintaining progress, which led to diminishing returns. 私は少し日本語がわかります。 Can you imagine what almost two years of actual practice would yield? Incidentally, while writing this, I finished my 604th day of learning with the Bird App.

It's really fun to sneak an occasional Japanese word into messages. It's like adding a little secret easter egg. But I think it's time to break the streak. I'll try my textbook again, and maybe find a few Japanese speakers to practice with. I still love the language, and there's so much more to learn. For now, though, I'll celebrate what I've accomplished so far: 六百日の努力は無駄ではない。 Six hundred days of effort is not wasted.

Like last time, I can't help but connect Japanese with work—software engineering—specifically, the importance of learning and practice.

Every so often, I hear, "I want my teams to save time." Let's give them this jumpstarter, bootstraper, scaffolder. Saving time—that's great. Optimizing the first week of development is needless rushing. That first week is 1% of ½ of 1 percent of that software's likely lifetime. Prepackaged, plug-and-play solutions might sparkle at first but often stumble under real-world pressures. When challenges arise, teams might default to excuses like, "We didn't know better; we just followed the script." However, taking the time to explore, experiment, and iterate builds software that goes beyond being merely functional—it becomes resilient and adaptable through the hard-earned knowledge gained along the way.

In the rush for quick wins and rapid results, it's easy to de-prioritize the slow, foundational learning and practice that builds practical understanding—things like exploring new libraries, practicing coding patterns, and experimenting with unfamiliar frameworks. These foundational efforts may not yield immediate results, but they lay the groundwork for deeper expertise and long-term success. Practice, prototyping and early experimentation often get pushed aside, seen as inefficient compared to delivering visible outcomes. But much like my Japanese journey, the value of these early efforts isn't always immediately obvious—it accumulates over time.

Now I know what you have been told. Relentlessly cunning peddlers have sold us the Scrum Game™—collect those points, craft those stories, proclaim those epics, run those sprints, achieve escape velocity! That's a recipe without serendipity. Software craftsmanship is not that kind of game. It's fueled by curiosity, deliberate practice, and the steady patience to learn what quick fixes can't teach. Software engineering thrives on natural curiosity, slow and meticulous practice, and patient, deliberate effort. None of that is in the Agile Manifesto, but it's a critical component of software engineering. Every prototype and exploration, like every practice sentence, strengthens our ability to tackle future challenges. The immediate results might seem small, but they compound into something far greater over time. Practice is not wasted effort.

Surprise! There's no regularly scheduled activity this year. Well, aside from deleting Facebook and other such nonsense from your life. Besides that, I wanted to share one more section with you.

Today, as I sit down to write, it's December 21st. To be honest, I'm a bit late with the letter-writing process this year. The winter solstice, true to form, draws the curtains on daylight early.

For many, there are days that feel like their own darkest day of the year. I've felt that way too. I can think of moments when I've been stuck in the valley-trough, unsure when—or if—I'd find the inflection point back upward.

Not long ago, I experienced one of those days. It was just terrible. The world around me was physically unchanged, yet my view of the present and future felt warped—at best skeptical, at worst catastrophic. That morning, I woke to an ominously dense fog blanketing the city. It smothered the trees, strangled the streetlights, and subdued the world. I moved through the day with the heaviness of someone trudging through a swamp, every step draining, every labored effort exhausting. Dreary was, as dreary does. It was melancholy personified meeting its mirror. But how did it all turn out? Well, we'll see—but on that day, the sun eventually broke through. The fog lifted, and the second wind of autumn's warmth returned.

Just like that fog burned away under the inevitable sunshine, the winter solstice reminds me that even the deepest night carries the promise of dawn. This letter, it seems, has taken on a distinctly astronomical tone this season, and there's no reason to stop now. The Earth's tilt is inevitable and predictable. While we often brace ourselves for the unknown, there's comfort in knowing that change, though inevitable, follows patterns we can learn to trust—or at least understand—or at least tolerate until the next unyielding cycle begins its requisite arc.

On the verge of my winter break, as I write this now, how can I complain? Today, I feel great, and on most days, I feel fine. I've achieved goals, made progress on challenging endeavors, and shared good times with even better people. With time, what was once terrible gives way to what will be lovely. With time, what feels fantastic might settle into the mundane. It's easy to dwell on the lows and to rave about the highs, but it's harder to grasp this cycle as a whole—a rhythm that spans years, not one that merely beats to moments and days.

Life's rhythm isn't meant to be understood moment by moment but as a whole—the ebb and flow, the light and dark, the valleys and peaks, all weaving together into something complete and meaningful. Just as our hemisphere tilts back toward the sun, so too do we shift, often without realizing it, toward clarity, warmth, and renewal. The fog and darkness teach us to value the light, just as the arduous days remind us of the triumph in the good ones. The solstice whispers its ancient promise irregardless: no matter how long the night feels, the dawn always comes.

As always, you are my honored guest here. Writing this letter is no small endeavor, and taking the time to read it is no small gesture either—thank you for that. Whether or not this years letter has an overarching theme is a mystery that only a full read (or a curious robot) could uncover. And yes, if you asked one of them, it would undoubtedly begin with, “Certainly!” But truly, thank you once more for being part of this tradition. I hope it brought a smile to your face, a moment of reflection, or maybe just a bit of joy. Heres to a year well-lived and an even better one ahead.

If you are adventurous and fastened your awesome card featuring Roxy the dog somewhere decorative or festive, please snap a photo and share it with me.

Thank you, and have a good one.

あなたは読んでくれてありがとうね！じゃね！
See you!

Thank you, and have a good one.