The Twitter Advertiser Exodus
A $750,000 a month advertiser has left Twitter. One of hundreds. But in her post she explained the bases for the decision vis-a-vis her advertising investment in a neutral, non-ideological way. Peo…
How long would society last during a total grid collapse?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] In February 2021, a winter storm that swept through Texas caused one of the most severe power crises in American history. The cold weather created shockingly high electricity demands as people tried to keep their homes warm. But
The Twitter whistleblower story is worse than you think
Twitter's security issues might be "egregious," but they're also all too common.
Balloon framing is worse-is-better (2021)
Today in the US, most houses and apartments are built using light framed wood construction. This system consists of load bearing walls made from 2x4s or 2x6s, which support a wood-framed floor or roof - usually either trusses, joists, or engineered i-joists. This system is a variant of a framing style known as balloon…
Startup Restructuring 101
Because your lifeblood, Revenue and Funding, are drying up
Computer work lying down comfortably with a home-made stand over the bed
This article reports the result of a successful personal attempt to find an arrangement of keyboard, mouse and monitor for lying down comfortably while using a computer. It describes the arrangement and reports experiences using it. It does not discuss general motivations for working lying down.
Plagiarized in a plagiarism atonement essay
News broke this morning that upcoming author Jumi Bello plagiarized from Plagiarism Today when drafting a plagiarism explainer essay.
Apple launches Self Service Repair in Europe
Customers in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK can purchase genuine Apple parts and tools.
The most important thing to understand about queues (2016)
You only need to learn a little bit of queueing theory before you start getting that ecstatic “everything is connected!” high that good math always evokes. So many damn things follow th…
Arduino IDE 2.0
The most up-to-date version of the Arduino IDE. It provides a better overall user experience thanks to a responsive interface and faster compilation time.
New Ghostscript PDF interpreter
Details for Ghostscript's new PDF interpreter
Homebrew Bluetooth Headphones
Instructions to build your own 3D printed bluetooth headphones from readily available parts. All you need is a 3D printer and basic tools.
C Runtime Overhead (2015)
What do you do when libc is your bottleneck? If the total runtime of your process is under 10ms, most of this time (depending on your hardware) is spent waiting for the linker and C runtime to set things up. If you compare this to the Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know , it falls right above "disk seek" and…
How to request removal of your contact info from Google search results
A new tool in Google Search can help you easily control whether your personally-identifiable information can be found in Search results.
Procedural Worlds from Simple Tiles
In the two years after publishing this, I worked on refining this algorithm to power a real-time world generator, called Generate Worlds, and it lets you des...
How to create a blog post title optimizer with GPT-3 and Hacker News data
GPT-3 says the title for this post is very bad.
The case against a C alternative
Like several others I am writing an alternative to the C language (if you read this blog before th…
Help pick a syntax for CSS nesting
Two competing syntaxes need your help in determining which should be championed through to a specification candidate.
Teach your kids poker, not chess
Why poker may be more instructive as a game than chess
Who Uses To-Do Lists?
Successful people who use to-do lists and the boring takeaway.
Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity (2018)
Age-related declines in stem cell function can be reversed by a 24-hour fast, according to a new study from MIT. Biologists found fasting dramatically improves stem cells’ ability to regenerate, in both aged and young mice.
My First BillG Review (2006)
In the olden days, Excel had a very awkward programming language without a name. “Excel Macros,” we called it. It was a severely dysfunctional programming language without variables (yo…
LXC vs. Docker
Are you confused about whether to use LXC or Docker for your containerization needs? This article compares the two container platforms in terms of ...
Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician
In the summer of 2020, I took a 3 months sabbatical in order to finish an album. The experience deeply transformed how I make music – I now know I can make ...
What is a black start of the power grid?
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] November 1965 saw one of the most widespread power outages in North American history. On the freezing cold evening of the 9th, the grid was operating at maximum capacity as people tried to stay warm when a misconfigured relay tr
Lessons Learned after $5B of M&A
Learn key M&A insights from $5B in startup exits. Discover 10 proven strategies for founders on building relationships, navigating acquisitions & maximizing deal value.