Articles
Education - Working Backwards
28 November, 2019Caveat Lector This started out as a simple idea: to work backwards from the adults we hope our children will be and use this to think about…
Greta vs. Mann (and the Lessons of Julian Simon)
16 November, 2019This one popped up in my feed yesterday: All of the different dimensions of climate activism are fighting each other for the moral high…
Keyboards vs. Long Form
21 October, 2019I’ve been writing a decent amount this year, including some longer-for-me stuff that I’m reasonably content with. I do all of my writing on…
The 50% WR Rule
10 October, 2019The 50% WR Rule As I’ve gotten a bit older, I’ve become increasingly interested in being in shape and staying that way for the long run…
My desk
29 July, 2019They say your desk is important. I don’t know if that’s true, but mine is important to me. It sits in a small room in an unimportant…
Outrage Theory of Opinion
21 July, 2019Outrage Theory of Opinion I’ve been spending a bit more time on Twitter recently - for better or worse, it’s the place where a lot of today…
Our Modern Lifestyle Makes Entrepreneurship Harder
07 July, 2019“The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.” - James Clear I was looking back recently at my Trello board of projects and…
Beringia, Climate, and the Problem with Experts
06 July, 2019Caveat Lector: I am not an expert in any of the below topics. As you’ll read below, I’m not sure how much my lack of expertise actually…
Fart Crowds
14 March, 2019Ever been out at dinner somewhere, or with a group of people, and someone let’s one rip? You know, friendly banter, good conversation and…
Three Frustrations
08 February, 2019Winter is always a slog for me, and despite my efforts to remain ever optimistic, Vitamin D deficiencies dictate some negativity. This has…
Artistry
13 January, 2019I know a lot of people use Spotify or Pandora, but for awhile now YouTube has been my jam when I’m at a computer. YouTube Red gets rid of…
CarMax - The Biggest Pivot Story Nobody's Ever Heard?
13 January, 2019CarMax is a monster . They’re a Fortune 500 company. They sell more used cars than any other company in the US. They also average a very…
Signal and Noise While Thinking
12 January, 2019My favorite place to write is a small breakfast cafe in my neighborhood. I head up there any chance I get, sit down with a Chai Tea and…
zOMG 2019 and Why Write Goals?
03 January, 2019It doesn’t seem possible. It doesn’t feel real. But 2019 is here. So enter it with zeal. Practicing poetry is not a goal of mine this…
2018 Wrapped
31 December, 2018This last week of the year has been a delightful piece of time off with family and friends, and I’ve been using the time to duck my head…
Fat People Drink Diet Coke
28 December, 2018Now that I have your attention with the not-quite-true clickbait headline, allow me to backpedal ever so slightly, before I drive on. A…
Federalist 51, Ocasio-Cortez, and Yeats
16 December, 2018We’ve got a new incoming Congress in just a month’s time, with a brand new fresh-faced class of freshman. And some of them really are…
Some Podcasts
24 November, 2018I really like Podcasts. They seem to have taken off in a really big way in the last five years, and it’s awesome. Unless you’re a big fan…
Write For Your Legacy
24 November, 2018It’s a wonderful Saturday morning, just after Thanksgiving, and I’m at my favorite local cafe - Donut King - with my two oldest kids. We…
I'm Building Three Instances of General AI
10 November, 2018I’m in the process of doing something very controversial. Some even think it’s impossible. I’m building some AGI systems. Not one, but…
The JAMStack is PRPL at Build Time
27 October, 2018Two interesting web-related things happened this week. First, I finally started reworking 12inchesbehind.com into a personal gallery for…
The Personal MBA
26 October, 2018You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library. Good Will Hunting I recently finished…
Nuclear Efficiency and The Wins In Front of Our Faces
08 September, 2018Big Ships A couple of weeks ago, I was headed over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to Delaware with a large container ship about to head out under…
The Best Test
23 August, 2018People love lists and litanies of superlative adjectives. The best. The most. The funniest. The smartest. The cheapest. The strongest…
Urgent and Important
05 August, 2018What should you do right now? Obviously the thing that has to get done right now. But how do you know what that is.. and then what? I…
Leaf Nodes
04 August, 2018When most people think of organizational structures, they usually think about trees. Workers who work all day generally sit at the “bottom…
The Tribalism Answer
30 July, 2018Aside from everything else he does or says, Jordan Peterson has gotten just one thing right , and this one thing is enough to have…
The Two Graphs That Made Me Stop Worrying About Impostor Syndrome
27 July, 2018Without further ado: Add it all up and you realize that Impostor Syndrome is kind of like a reverse Dunning Kruger effect . Dunning…
Book Review - Conspiracy
17 July, 2018A couple of weeks ago, I finished up Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue . I’ve been thinking about…
Introverted Idea Thievery (Listening)
02 June, 2018A friend calls me an idea thief. Not that I’m literally stealing ideas, but that I tend to ingest more than I output, especially in real…
The Most Important Skill You'll Ever Teach Your Kids
20 May, 2018My kids right now are 6, 3, and 1. They are completely amazing and I adore them. I can’t wait to see where things go from here. I also…
The Captain of The Ship
06 May, 2018Spend time leading any kind of team of skilled workers and you’ll quickly find yourself in a position of significant and unintuitive anxiety…
Math for Theologians
17 April, 2018Caveat lector : This is an opinionated piece around topics that have a shared surface area of controversy. The endless and unendable debate…
Pro-Imagination not Anti-Technology
31 March, 2018I had a cigar recently with one of my best friends, who is a teacher at a local private boys school. We live in a fairly affluent area near…
Why It's Insane To Consider Snow When Buying A Car Below The Mason-Dixon Line
21 March, 2018So here’s the thing: I’m a car guy and I’ve bought about 25 cars in my life. This means I talk to a lot of people about buying cars…
Hello Trello
27 February, 2018I’ve been on a roll lately. For once, some of my grand aspirations have started a slow transfer into reality. This is the 14th post of…
Photos Are Better Than Video
25 February, 2018At this point in our history, the technology and ability to take pictures and record video is completely ubiquitous. We can - and do…
Being Wrong for Leaders
24 February, 2018I love being wrong. It’s one of the best things to be. Being wrong generally means that you’re learning, assuming you accept your…
Golf and Baseball
19 February, 2018I listened recently to an Econtalk episode interviewing Bill James - the guy behind sabermetrics and the statistical view of baseball. If…
The Mailman - Why Introverts Should Write
18 February, 2018Spoilers! I’m talking about one of the big twists in Vernor Vinge’s True Names . If you want to read it first - and you should, it’s…
Asymptote Towards Truth
17 February, 2018Awhile back, a friend pointed out an apparent conundrum in his world view. His opinions, he said, aligned to what ended up being provably…
Gatsby Tumbld
16 February, 2018Last weekend, I made this . It was a fun little exercise and I continue to get utility out of having this, so I thought I’d go over what…
Wanna look good? Focus on Surface Area
12 February, 2018The last 15 months or so have been a winding path towards a healthier and better lifestyle. It’s a longterm process, and nowhere near done…
On the Dangers of Potential Energy
07 February, 2018My last goal of 2018 was to focus on doing , and to revive the joy of doing, without regard for the outcome. I’ve been trying to…
Two Weeks, Over Ten Pounds
24 January, 2018It’s been just over two weeks since I hopped back on the keto bandwagon, and I’m both frustrated and excited. Keto is the best way I’ve…
Mulatsag
20 January, 2018I’ve just come across the most fantastic word, and I have a thing for words . The word is mulatsag , which I have no idea how to pronounce…
Car Washes and Girl Scout Cookies
15 January, 2018I’m going to talk about some traditions we have with our kids in a rather stern way, so if you’re easily offended, feel free to leave now…
Alright 2018, What You Got?
06 January, 2018I already went over it, but 2017 was a banner year . A lot changed too. My wife and I joke a bit about the popular kids from high school…
2017 Review
04 January, 2018This has been an interesting year. Filled with way more ups and downs than I expected. After what has happened and what I’ve learned, I’m…
Your 30s - The Most Important Decade
08 October, 2017I’ve just recently turned 37. A younger version of me once thought this was hideously old, but now that I’m here I still feel young…
Three Girls
21 July, 2017Some people seem to think I do a lot of different things and that I push pretty hard when I do them. I’m not very gradual; once I’m into…
Bacon as a Health Food.
15 June, 2017So recently.. this happened: And through this process, I’ve learned I have a lot to say. And even more strangely, people sometimes listen…
Evergreen News
14 May, 2017I’m working right now to setup another blog, get a mailing list going, and build an audience. I’ve never actually tried to build an…
Words
13 May, 2017Language Philology is an underrated study. Tolkien was a diehard - that alone should tell you something. He invented something over 2…
Two Signs You Might Be A Bad Driver
12 March, 2017There’s a lot of bad drivers out there. Most of them don’t know it. It’s really hard to measure something like that. Heck, there’s a lot…
Steve.. Jobs?
02 January, 2017Within the last year, I’ve been compared to Steve Jobs four times, twice directly and twice by proxy. The first time I laughed, the second…
Welcome to 2017
01 January, 2017Well, shit. All of a sudden it’s 2017. Not sure how that happened, but it’s been an eventful and busy year. We added a porch to our house…
Some Haiku
15 October, 2016Haven’t been writing a ton, but I have accumulated some haiku over the last couple years. I figured I would put them all in one place, so…
Freaking Out.
05 July, 2016So I’m freaking out. Like totally. Just because I read something. What could I have read you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. I started reading…
Proprioception
06 March, 2015Most people think of our interaction with the world through the traditional five senses: vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch. But there…
Weather Needs An API
31 January, 2015Weather really needs an API. I’ve been thinking about this since I played around with OMGEarthquake awhile back. I had originally wanted…
The Year's Goals
05 January, 2015We’re a week into 2015 and I need to write down my goals for the year. I’m hoping this will be a tradition every year, since writing…
Things They Don't Teach You In School
10 September, 2014This is the transcript of a talk I gave at Howard Community College to Intro to Engineering students, September 2014 Hi everyone. My name is…
Career Goals
29 June, 2014When I got out of college, I set my first career goal. I think everyone does this at some point - it’s a natural and almost expected thing…
Three Kinds of Wine
05 July, 2013A bunch of my friends think of me as a wine snob. I can understand that to some extent, I like good wine. But a snob I am not, at least…
An Inspiration
16 June, 2013It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon and I am sitting in one of my favorite spots. It’s a small side table in the sunroom of a small red house a…
The (Re-)Privatization of Big Dreams
27 May, 2013The 20th Century had some really big ideas, not all good. Genetics. Nuclear Power. Computers. Nuclear Weapons. Socialism. Fascism…
Two Kinds of FOSS
17 April, 2013About a month ago, I went to 10Gen’s MongoDC Conference. It was a nice little day long conference; the speakers were highly technical and…
2 Month Check-In
11 March, 2013Last Wednesday was two months from my starting point, where I weighed 258. The last couple weeks, I’ve been hovering around 244. So I’m…
The Incredible Shrinking Man
29 January, 2013I had planned this to be a two week checkpoint.. I think at this point I’m just over three weeks. Progress so far has been good. It hasn’t…
It begins, now.
06 January, 2013I’m starting a new workout and diet regimen tomorrow. In the interest of disclosure and drive, I’m tracking my goals and progress here…
Voting With Your Pocketbook?
03 November, 2012Everyone seems to have this idea that Republican policy favors the rich while Democratic policy favors the poor. Additionally, everyone…
We Need More Scientist Saints
04 July, 2012A Simple Life Christopher Hitchens died recently. Much could be said of his life, but the quality that seems strongest is his biting…
Corbusier Fucked It All Up
24 March, 2012Forgive me for being a bit brash, but if I were to make the title more palatable it wouldn’t convey the same meaning. Le Corbusier really…
Speed Traps Are Dangerous
21 March, 2012I want to talk about something we all think we know. Speed traps, especially the unmanned stationary kind all over my home county in…
Constitutionalism
26 February, 2012A very curious thing has happened over the last fifty years or so. Politics has been ruined by technology and media. It started somewhat…
Money - Bullet Points
24 November, 2011So that’s a whirlwind tour of money and motivations. I’ve covered most of my bases, but there’s still some little tidbits and such that are…
Money - Psychology
23 November, 2011Psychology Some of the ideas I’ve presented so far are certainly different than how most people think about money, but they’re not original…
Money - Income, Expenses, and Value
22 November, 2011This is where we get into the meat and potatoes. This is where things get more fun. Since money is a tool, how and why should I use it…
Money - Wealth
21 November, 2011In the intro to this little series on money, I laid out a bunch of very simple concepts about what money is and how it works in our system…
Money - Intro
20 November, 2011Money is a funny thing. It can bring tremendous joy or pain. It can set wild expectations, deliver an emotional punch, and make us feel…
How I Use GMail
29 October, 2011Even in 2011, email is the most ubiquitous of internet communications. Everyone uses it. It becomes the basic hub of your entire internet…
The Importance of Crowds
22 October, 2011Fourth of July weekend this year found me on Bethany Beach sitting on a blanket on the sand waiting for the fireworks to start. The show…
I'll Never Own a Ferrari
17 October, 2011Over the weekend, my Dad went on a joy ride in a buddy’s brand new Ferrari California, a rare and exquisite moment in any car guy’s life…
What You'll Wish You'd Known
18 September, 2011An Ask PG thread on Hacker News had a comment so poignant I felt inclined to repost it here. The author suggested PG make another book…
Why Robert Reich is Both Right and Wrong
15 August, 2011I’ve seen this 2 minute economic summation from Robert Reich floating around in a bunch of different places and it has bugged me, so I’ve…
Pandering
08 August, 2011Awhile back, I wrote about some of my frustrations with the way our political parties go back and forth across their perceived spectrums…
Scarlet Tanagers
09 July, 2011This morning I sat at my normal Saturday coffee shop next to a table with a mother and her teenage daughter. Though it has become a common…
Public Insurance
03 May, 2011I’ve finally figured out what insurance is, aside from an elusive concept that everyone talks about and knows they need. Ready? Here it is…
Church Music
17 April, 2011Last week I went to Mass and it was frustrating. I wanted to share why. I went with my wife and her family to Mass in a different Diocese…
A Review of the Skeptical Environmentalist
17 April, 2011For a change, I thought I’d do a book review just like my dear friend Lib . And I’ve just finished a book worthy of review. That book is…
Buying Power
09 April, 2011During the last election, I wrote a little bit about why I didn’t vote for a candidate. Several people close to me were aghast at my…
Oeuvre
31 January, 2011The French have a wonderful way with words. It’s a beautiful language I don’t think I’ll ever be able to learn beyond a little memorization…
Picasso
30 January, 2011“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” This is one of my favorite little quips, courtesy of…
Living Memory
29 January, 2011Walter Breuning is a fascinating person I’m almost sure you’ve never heard of. Walter is 114 years old. He’s the oldest living man. He…
Why Everyone Should Write
14 January, 2011I have several favorite answers to this question . Here’s mine: Being able to answer questions reasonably is a sign of cleverness…
The Optimist's Dilemma
02 January, 2011Everybody’s heard the old idiom “Is the glass half full or half empty?” Probably too many times. I’m sick of it. The problem is that…
Statelessness
31 December, 2010I have, at the same time, both a wonderful and an abysmal memory. I cannot remember many conversations with friends; to their frustration I…
Going Forward, Why Apple?
18 December, 2010The other day I saw a Sprint 4G commercial, and it crystallized why I have and will continue to choose Apple products for the foreseeable…
Remarks from a Newlywed
13 December, 2010About a month ago, I got married. It was the best day of my life. Before the wedding I got into a habit of occasionally watching…
Discuss Disqus
13 September, 2010Is it just me, or is Disqus a very big deal? I don’t hear too much talk about them, but they seem to me to be on the edge of very big…
Against the Grain
12 September, 2010There is something fundamentally human about being contrary. Lemmings. Sheep. The Roman Mob. The “unwashed sea of humanity”. These aren…
Git - The Next Filesystem
06 August, 2010Not too long ago, Google released their cloud storage service called Google Storage. GS includes a REST API and looks remarkably similar to…
My Evented Life - Why Asynchronous I/O Does Not Work Everyday
06 August, 2010Recently, I (re)read two articles that made clear to me the misappropriation of time in most people’s lives. The first was Paul Graham’s…
The Long View on Fossil Fuels
04 August, 2010A couple of months ago I ran across this article focused around a particularly interesting graph: And the faux harrowing subtext: Look at…
Apple Computers, Microsoft Keyboards (Keyboardists, Mousers, and Tapists)
09 June, 2010I bought an iPad. It’s an experiment in trying to be more mobile. My goal is to find out if it can replace my laptop. I have my doubts so…
Reflectivity
28 April, 2010My friend Chris is a great reflector. I bounce shit off him all the time: questions, ideas of some sort or other, both work-related and not…
Knowing How to Not Know
25 April, 2010What We Want To Know What we want to know, I think, is everything. We humans have a passionate and innate desire to understand the world…
Some Predictions
24 February, 2010All sorts of people do predictions . I’ve never tried to think ahead so concretely, so it seemed worth a try. These are in no…
An Interesting Property of Champernowne's Number
11 February, 2010What is it? Most have probably never heard of Champernowne’s Number . I hadn’t either until recently. Champernowne’s Number is…
Wikiracing
01 February, 2010Edit: Well, I was all excited for about four days before I came across Wikiracing . I should have known this would have been thought up…
A Note On Post Length
16 January, 2010I originally started this whole shindig as an exercise to improve my writing process. I was anxious, as a matter of course, to improve my…
Standard Keyboard Shortcuts for Text Navigation
09 October, 2009Keyboard shortcuts are the fundamental key to speed and efficiency in dealing with a computer. Nowhere is this more visible than the text…
Letter to the SEB - 2009 Nationals Courses, Thoughts, and Thanks
24 September, 2009SEB, I wanted to briefly express my happiness after the 2009 Solo Nationals and Pro Finale in Lincoln, Nebraska. The site chosen was worlds…
Sensible Hire Defaults
01 July, 2009Recently, I’ve been close enough to hiring decisions to realize two things: Those hiring go about it all wrong. Because of this, it’s…
The Age of Methuselah
01 March, 2009There’s been an increasing amount of discussion about human lifespan and the potential through medicine and technology to extend it past…
Customer Service Matters
10 January, 2009Recently, I’ve had a couple of extremely positive experiences in customer service that have made me consider just how important it can be…
Denouement
04 January, 2009Now it’s New Year’s. It’s been two months instead of one, and this little place has been empty of new content. Even more drafts sit in…
See you in a month!
31 October, 2008It’s half an hour until midnight, November 1st. The excuses have been put aside. My study is complete; I have a comfy chair, a beautiful…
Six Rules for the Most Important Part of Your Software - Installation and Upgrade
22 October, 2008It doesn’t take the extreme examples to realize that the general state of user interfaces in software suck. The available levels of…
Absentmindedness and Smart People
18 October, 2008I had an interesting experience a little while back visiting a user of the product I help develop at work. This particular user was clearly…
A Contrarian View - Why Should I Vote?
16 October, 2008Anticipation (typical unrelated opening paragraph) Anticipation is a bitch. I’m two weeks away from starting one helluva task . My days…
An Automated Method For Making Your Writing Suck Less
22 August, 2008Inspiration Last night I was on a roll. I had all these thoughts going through my head. I had the main bits down for how to improve my…
Apple's Recent Missteps
27 July, 2008Apple is known for its exceedingly well planned and executed products. They charge a premium for them and they’ve built a fiercely loyal…
Everything's A Library
09 July, 2008I seem to alternate between one technical and one (somewhat) non-technical post - excepting travel logs. That’s fine by me. It provides…
Coda
27 June, 2008I have just one last vacation post before I get back to somewhat regularly scheduled programming. Since my trip I’ve had a bunch of other…
The Weekend
11 June, 2008Friday was my recovery day. The last week and a half had been a whirlwind, so it was time to relax. I slept in Friday, and participated in…
Thursday
29 May, 2008Thursday was Libby’s last day in Britain before flying back to Ireland for two more weeks in Galway. Like Tuesday, we had big plans to see…
A Surprise (actually, two)
23 May, 2008Onward I had been told to keep Wednesday open for some pre-scheduled events. As usual, I was a little hesitant whenever I have no control…
First Day in London
16 May, 2008Insta-Travel! This whole car thing is seriously overrated. And this is coming from a seriously big car enthusiast. Over the course of this…
A Brief Introduction to Britain
13 May, 2008Libby and I continued the next day to London, while Katie headed back to DC. We flew Ryan Air to Stansted (unbelievably cheap, although…
Driving to the Cliffs of Moher
12 May, 2008Pictures Just a quick note to say that, even though I’m way behind in detailing my recollections of this trip, all of the Ireland pictures…
Aran Islands
03 May, 2008We had a full day for exploring Galway before embarking for Inishmor. It was spent leisurely - walking about, peeking into little shops…
Arrival in Galway
30 April, 2008We’ve arrived! I’m sitting in our room at the SleepZone hostel in Galway. The plane from Dulles was.. interesting. There was quite a bit…
A New Travelog Begins!
28 April, 2008In about 8 hours time, I’ll be moving down a runway at 150+ mph in an Airbus A340 ready to take off for Dublin, Ireland. I figured since I…
Six Relaxing and Enjoyable Things You Probably Already Do But Could Be Done Better
14 April, 2008Wow. That’s a really long post title. It gets the point across though. Tonight I stopped by my friends’ house to hang out for a little…
You've Got To Be Kidding Me
08 April, 2008Sometimes the universe is just weird. Not weird in the things-are-really-completely-random way, but in the profound-truth-that-I-can’t…
Real Work Happens in Dark Rooms
27 March, 2008Sometime when I was young, my family got dimmer switches in our family room. I used to make it my goal in the evening to set the switch to…
Knight's Tour, Take Two
02 March, 2008Well, after last night’s post I did a little bit of reading on better ways to do this, aside from my horrible, ridiculously slow recursive…
Not much to see here yet..
02 March, 2008Finally, I have a proper blog again. It’s been a long time coming, since I’ve wanted to do a bunch of things in the process: learn…
Eat Flaming Death. Hehe.
02 March, 2008Aside from being an amusing bit of humor, this situation characterizes something that bothers me about how a lot of people tend to use a…
Knight's Tour, Take One
02 March, 2008There’s been a lot of little stuff that I’ve been wanting to practice in the Java language that I haven’t gotten the chance to look at in my…
Post
02 March, 2008“Hello World!”, Foo, or whatever other placeholder you’d like to call this :)
Antecedents
03 December, 2006The cobblestone steps lay bare in fluid echoes of the men who in antiquity poured a base of enlightenment from the wills of their fathers…
Remarks on the First Anniversary of Catholicism
30 April, 2006Here I am, slightly over one year into my journey as a Catholic, preparing again for Holy Week and Easter. It seems a reasonable time to…
Misnomers in Solo2
12 February, 2006While I’ve been champing at the bit, I’ve been thinking lately about some very common concepts in autocross that many people adhere to 10…
(Flat) Taxes
28 March, 2005It’s that time of year again, when in a frenetic mess we all try to perform our solemn duty of paperwork imposed upon us by the machinations…