Feb 16How to vet software work culture during your interviewSoftware is not merely code. Software is code that expresses a set of human intents, goals, and expectations that will inevitably shift with time. When these intents, goals, and expectations only exist inside the heads of their original writers, you’ll have a huge disconnect, and that human disconnect will result…Software Development15 min read
Jul 25, 2021Learning About Grammatical AnimacyWhen I was younger, I thought different languages were just different lexicons that you could interchangeably slap concepts into. But of course, different languages of the world have such vastly different grammars and ways of describing the world that I always get my mind blown when I learn about a…Linguistics7 min read
Mar 21, 2021Producing Less Waste For Completely Selfish ReasonsA couple years ago, I started eating less meat for completely selfish reasons, and it ended up sticking far more easily than I ever suspected it would! For some reason, abstract ethical/environmental reasons or guilt have never, ever worked for me as standalone motivators to make lifestyle changes. However, my…Eco Friendly11 min read
Feb 2, 2021Being Deliberate About Your Pants And Power Tools: Material Awareness For The Lifestyle MaximalistDecember 2018. After burning one of many countless identical chunks of time sorting through my jam-packed drawer of tangled spare cables that I could have sworn I organized the month before, in a last-ditch effort to find something I thought I had at some point, I buckled and picked up…Konmari19 min read
Apr 25, 2020The Mind Is In The Body: Everything I wish I’d known about PTSD healing earlieror, my public cliff notes on trauma literature — Trigger warning: mentions most trauma related topics, but not in a visceral way Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist, therapist, biologist, or someone vaguely professionally licensed or trained in any way to give advice on these topics. …PTSD31 min read
Apr 21, 2020First Steps In Repairing An Urban Dweller’s Relationship With The EarthI grew up mostly divorced from nature in the sprawling concrete plains of suburbia. The trees I saw were surrounded by fences or sidewalks. I wasn’t told that meat came from animals, or how. Even once I realized, I just saw advertisements with happy farm animals basking in lush grass…Plants6 min read
Apr 20, 2020Mindfulness for Skeptical Nerdsa.k.a. a letter to my past self & the resources I wish I had earlier — I’ve been practicing various forms of mindfulness for a while. But after many years of thinking I wasn’t “good” at meditation because I was bad at clearing my restless mind, I finally started trying different approaches in earnest several months ago, and it’s been incredibly helpful for self-regulation and self-awareness. …Mindfulness6 min read
Mar 29, 2020The Five Stages of Bread EffortSo you’ve always wanted to become a devotee of the artisanal bread arts. Now that we’re all stuck inside, you’re ready to seize the day. Maybe you don’t actually want to do more than 20 minutes of work, maybe you want fresh bread but don’t have super strong bread opinions…Bread10 min read
Mar 27, 2020Spin Away Your Self-Quarantine Blues With Flow ArtsIf you haven’t heard of flow arts, you might be familiar with its showier sub-variant, firespinning. Bystanders often ask how we got into firespinning. The simple answer is that you start by spinning the objects while they’re not on fire. That’s flow arts. More broadly, flow arts describes a sort…Flowarts13 min read
Mar 22, 2020Tidying Your Digital LifeA work-in-progress primer to decluttering one’s digital life and minimizing the constant entropic battle against the mighty modern tides of non-consensual marketing clutter. It can be trickier to tidy in the digital world than the physical world because it is so much easier for junk to get into your digital…Tidying Up7 min read
