Just trying to leave the world a little better than I found it.
Over the last few months, I've tried vibe coding, a practice in which the software "developer" doesn't write any code but produces an application exclusively by chatting with an AI agent. It's all the rage these days, given the improvements made in the Large Language Model (LLM) space over the last couple of years. I had largely dismissed vibe coding, as its output felt like the What You See Is…
I'm getting older, which is not fun. Still feeling great, but definitely realizing that I'm no longer young. Little things are starting to ache, but overall, I feel comfortable and confident in my body. Which I'm extremely grateful for! But I've started looking at ways to stay strong and healthy as I continue to age. And the one thing that I'm finding extremely valuable is practicing deep squats!…
Today I am participating in the January 30th, 2026 national shutdown of (1) no work, (2) no school, and (3) no shopping. The demand is singular: Stop funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Over the last few months, we've all seen the continued escalation of concerning activity from ICE, especially in Minnesota. Minnesotans recently came out by the thousands in sub-zero weather to…
One of the recent issues of Nature magazine featured an article on the cover where I'm listed as an author! That's not a sentence I have ever thought I would write. So cool. If you want to check it out, the particular research article I'm listed on can be found on the Nature website and is open access so anyone can read it. To be fair, I didn't write a single word. Nor do I understand much of…
This year I had a professional and personal goal to "attend" a software engineering conference. While I had hoped to do it in person, nothing that was feasible for me to attend popped up, so I decided to watch the Rust Nation UK conference, which was published in its entirety on YouTube . While this summary is eight months after the conference, I found these talks to generally be quite useful to…
I turned 34 today, and this was the first year The Universe got me something for my birthday! It was COVID! Surprise! So thoughtful, right? I managed to dodge that sucker for 3 years and it finally caught up with me. The fun part is... I had a booster vaccine appointment canceled on me three weeks ago because they didn't have enough supply, and the next available appointment I could get was for…
Last weekend I was driving on the interstate on the way to Utah for a family vacation when I saw a sign saying it was going to narrow from two lanes to one. At that point, the right lane of traffic slowed to a standstill without the actual lane-narrowing signs and traffic cones anywhere in sight. Since I'm a nerd that reads a lot about urban planning and traffic, I knew that zipper merges are…
The year is 2023. The Internet is over two decades old. And yet, individual messaging apps can't communicate with each other. Today I was reminded of this absurdity when a friend proposed we move a planning discussion for an upcoming trip to a WhatsApp group. If you know me, you know that I think Facebook is absolute garbage and the pinnacle of surveillance capitalism. I will never use one of…
Style guides are used to get your team on the same page so you can work effectively together. Different guides cover various aspects of the software development process. Some exist to help you write readable code. Others give business context. And others help the team make consistent decisions. These guides can be a mix of tools and documents that help your team understand how to interact with the…
A few weeks ago I went on a backpacking trip with some of my childhood friends. We spent two nights camped out by a pristine alpine lake in the Sawtooth mountain range in Idaho. It was a much-needed break and a fantastic trip. Backpacking is one of my favorite hobbies because it gets me away from the normal pace of life and helps me reconnect with myself and my body, so I was already guaranteed to…
A major rule on the Internet is "don't feed the trolls ". It's good advice and a rule I generally follow. But sometimes you wind up talking to a troll unknowingly! This post is about my latest experience with an Internet troll, and a space for me to decompress and learn from the experience. The Troll Recently I went back and forth with someone on the Internet debating some details about the…
Recently I was notified that my team won the " Exemplary Achievement Award for Data Reuse " award from the National Institutes of Health! We built the Cell Type Knowledge Explorer . I was involved in building out the front-end API and website components that display the scientific information, while other teams and organizations handled the preparation and serving of the data to us. This is the…
Heyyyy 2022 wasn't half bad, right? And compared to the last few years we've had, 2022 was downright awesome. While I didn't complete all my goals from my "52 Things" list, I managed to complete 29 of them, which I think is a new high (but I'm too lazy to go check). The list is always incredibly aspirational and gives me a wide variety of things to shoot for through the year, so I'm really happy…
Midterms are coming up. GO VOTE! While I obviously have my preferences, I won't tell you how to vote, just to go do it. There's one qualification on that: do not vote for election deniers. Our elections are safe and secure. It's a federated system that would take a multi-state conspiracy to enact, with thousands upon thousands of people needing to be involved. It's not happening. So don't vote for…
Today my apartment complex locked me into my apartment. Upon that realization, I had a panic attack. It ruined my day to the point where I'm still on edge almost twelve hours later. Part of addressing the lingering symptoms of my panic attack is writing this blog post, where I'm sharing my experience to relieve stress. As such, it will likely be a bit more rambling and jumpy compared to my other…
The Internet is an incredible invention, likely to go down as one of the most consequential technologies in human history, right up there with agriculture, government, electricity, and industrial processes. For a large chunk of humanity, the web is already an integral part of our everyday lives. We pay our bills, chat with friends, apply for jobs, or even make a living from this incredible…
Recently I was working on getting a basic Node.js REST API running on Microsoft Azure's App Service platform. I've only used AWS professionally, but I wanted to get a sense of what it would take to run a simple website off of Azure so I decided to give it a whirl. The experience left a sour taste in my mouth and helped me understand why AWS is currently winning the Cloud Wars. Let's start with the…
JavaScript is everywhere. As the most popular language in the world right now, it's almost unavoidable. Especially if you're building things for the web. I personally hate JavaScript and tolerate TypeScript, but it's currently the best option for building websites, so I use it every day at work. While WASM is promising and will eventually bring all major programming languages to the web, we're…
Now that I've been working remotely for more than two years, I figured it's worth sitting down to hammer out my thoughts and reflect on what I do and don't like about a fully remote job. I'm going to try to be careful to separate remote work from the realities of pandemic life, but since the pandemic is ongoing, it might be difficult to tease out the differences. Recently my job has started…
Surprisingly, I haven’t written anything about one of the most meaningful decisions I've ever made. About six years ago I became a vegan! This isn't a secret to anyone who knows me, but I also don't really bring it up unless it's absolutely relevant (like when making sure I'll have food to eat at various events I attend). I would like to bring it up more often, since it's an ethical belief that I…
I'm so stoked! Obviously, FIFA is a garbage organization run by criminals, but also... THE WORLD CUP IS COMING TO SEATTLE. So yeah, mixed feelings, but I'm excited to show the world how amazing our emerald city really is.
I said I'm not writing about this again, but I will continue chaining together my periodic posts about gun violence in the United States every time something particularly egregious happens again. We just had the racist shooting in Buffalo . Now we've got the senseless Uvalde, Texas shooting . At this point I've given up hope that we'll do anything regarding gun control. There is so much we could…
We won the CONCACAF Champions League title tonight! It was the best soccer match I've ever attended. We set the CONCACAF Champion League attendance record with 68k+ people screaming out hearts out as we scored each of our three goals to win the championship! Next up for the Sounders is the 2023 FIFA Club World Cup against some of the best clubs across the world. And now that our CCL run is over we…
Audience This post is written for an audience of software engineers and assumes general Internet experience. Some definitions are provided below to provide context for those without a background in developing software. Definitions GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) : A European Union law focusing on data protection and privacy. California has a similar one called the CCPA (California…
Audience This post is written for an audience of software engineers and assumes general Internet experience. Some definitions are provided below to provide context for those without a background in developing software. Definitions Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) : Software with published source code that anyone is free to use, study, or modify JavaScript : The world's most popular programming…
Year two is over! I figured I would write a follow up to last year's post about what it's been like to live in a pandemic. I was desperately hoping there would be no need for a second one because the pandemic was over, but here we are. Thankfully, the naive optimism of my first year post largely worked out despite the pandemic entering its second year of changing the world. I was fully vaccinated…
Have you ever run into a pull request that seemed impossible to merge? One with hundreds of comments from a dozen people, with two folks passionately arguing about choosing variable names, which language features to use, or whether to delete that unused method that might get used someday. Nobody can seem to agree on a set of standards, and with no ultimate authority to turn to, the code review…
Go read it. This Is How You Lost the Time War is one of the most beautifully written pieces of fiction I've ever read. I even read parts of it out loud because the words were that delicious. I don't read out loud. Ever. I loved this book too much to write a detailed review. I'm still reeling from the experience and I can't wait to read it again. In short, it's a love story scattered through time…
Over the last year or so I've been occasionally hacking away at a web app called Dicebag , which will eventually become a collection of useful tools to facilitate in-person Dungeons & Dragons games. Part of this project stems from my lack of satisfaction with other tools I've found. Most tend to focus on running a game online or preparing for games in advance. I'm wanting something that enhances…
As the first year of the decade comes to a close, I can breath a sigh of relief. While 2021 wasn't great, at least this wasn't 2020. Personally, I had a pretty solid year. As a country and global society, things could've gone much better. Let's get the global bad out of the way first: The January 6th Insurrection, which will be discussed as one of the lower points in US history for decades Carbon…
Last week, the Missouri governor showed the world his technological illiteracy by vowing to prosecute a "hacker" that brought a major data leak to the government's attention . The entire tech community had a big laugh, since the government itself was sending Social Security Numbers to users that could be easily found with the barest modicum of tech know-how. The governor's public blunder never…
If you know me well, you know I'm a tad bit into podcasts. I listen to 28 different shows regularly, with 40 other shows I pick and choose from when I have the time. If I'm not listening to an audiobook, chances are I'm devouring a podcast. I've been in love with Podcasts since I discovered them over a decade ago. It's basically internet radio, except you're the DJ. Distributed through the…
It's that time of year again, where the sun sets before 7 PM and a perpetually gray blanket of clouds once again descends on the Emerald City. The Long Dark in Seattle has begun. As an introvert, fall and winter are two of my favorite seasons here in Seattle. The city slows down, social events become less frequent but more cozy, and I get to snuggle up in a blanket and read while listening to the…
In order to prepare to conduct a technical interview of a potential future co-worker, I decided to try to solve the problem we would be presenting to the candidate. I chose to do it in Rust (even though we don't use Rust on my team) so that I could approach the problem with a fresh perspective and potentially learn some new things about my favorite programming language. It turns out revisiting an…
I thought this was supposed to be over. The vaccine would show up, everybody would take it, and life would get back to that "new normal" everyone was talking about. But instead, we're seeing a fourth spike thanks to a brutal combo of the delta variant, vaccine hesitance, anti-vax propaganda, and a general unwillingness to make personal decisions while keeping the general public's health in mind.…
I am a professional web developer. I use JavaScript on a daily basis, but to be honest I harbor a bit of hate for the language. Don't get me wrong, it does its job and does it well enough, but... there's a reason TypeScript exists. Despite its glaring flaws, JavaScript is currently the most widely used programming language in the world. JavaScript's stratospheric growth is largely driven by the…
I got my second poke yesterday! A few hours after getting my second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, I was very tired and took a five hour nap, waking up just in time to go to bed. Unfortunately, I woke up in the middle of the night soaked in sweat with a pounding headache and a variety of bad dreams marching through my brain. It was an awful night, but I eventually got back to sleep and woke up at…
I got my first poke last weekend. Next one is on May 8th! My life is about to become very different, very soon. I can't wait! Go get your vaccine folks! It's a game changer. Life won't be back to "normal" (or whatever new normal we end up with) for quite a while, but being able to hang out with friends indoors playing board games or D&D will be an incredibly welcome change.
It's been a whole year. One that feels like a lifetime. A year ago I left my office at work for the very last time. I expected to be back in a couple months, but those months dragged on. I got a pay cut, which spurred me to find a new job. And even if I hadn't changed jobs, I still would not have revisited my old desk to this day. Worldwide tragedies have a way of shaking things up, and I'm sure…
Today, Mozilla shipped Firefox 85, in which they completely ripped out Adobe Flash functionality . And while Google hasn't quite shipped their Flash-less Chrome release yet, I don't care because Chrome is essentially Google-branded spyware that has no business being on my machines. So, in my world, Flash is dead. 💥💀⚰️ For those of you who didn't grow up in the early '00s playing online Flash…
Joe Biden is officially the 46th President of the United States! The inauguration was vastly different than any we've seen before. The new administration did the smart thing and limited attendance, both because of the pandemic and the threat of violence from those who participated in the January 6th violent insurrection/most incompetent coup attempt ever. I was fully expecting something to happen,…
After the unlikely, but very welcome, results of the Georgia special elections, new opportunities abound. It's been ages since we've had a unified Democratic government that will now have the ability to get things done! This is my wishlist of everything I want to see happen before 2022, when the GOP gets its next shot at taking back power. So many of these things are pie-in-the-sky given the type…
Wow, what a day. On January 6th, insurrectionists stormed the US Capitol building as Congress was certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. This came after Trump encouraged his fanatics to march to the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow democracy. The last time the Capitol was invaded was during the War of 1812, but this is the first time that traitorous flags were flown inside.…
Phew, we made it. Done with the worst year ever! I'm decently confident things can't get worse. Trump's loss and the coming rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine will remove two of the most immediate threats we face. I'm hoping the Biden administration hits the ground running and is able to fix a lot of the issues we have now around inequality, climate change, student loans, homelessness, etc. Yeah...…
In the United States, the general election is coming up in a couple weeks. While every election seems like "the most important ever", this one is particularly noteworthy. We're in the middle of a global pandemic, climate change is creeping closer, and economic inequality abounds. American democracy is under attack. Voter participation has been incredibly low over the last couple decades, and…
I'm all settled in my new apartment in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. I spent some time this morning walking around the neighborhood and seeing what kind of food, shops, and entertainment are nearby and I found some real gems! The neighborhood is quiet but alive, and it's got basically all the things I need to enjoy living in an area (movie theater, variety of resturaunts, rock climbing gym,…
I've got some exciting personal news: I recently accepted a position with the Allen Institute for Brain Science! I'll be working as a web developer to build out a scientific data sharing platform. After six years in IT consulting, I've decided to make the jump to the non-profit sector. I've wanted to work for a non-profit organization for a while, and now is the time for me to make that dream come…
We're a bunch of racists who use police power to punish black people because we never got over losing our slaves. Fuck the poverty to prison pipeline, the privatization of prisons, and the systemically racist police force and legislation that keeps it all running. ( Context )
The United States is democratic republic. That means that the people elect the representatives who make decisions on our behalf. But the democratic part of our system has been under attack for decades. You can see it clearly with the Supreme Court nominees. When Trump appoints a third SCOTUS judge, five of the nine serving justices will have been put in place by presidents who lost the popular…
I did it! I deleted Twitter. I had wanted to do so earlier, but ever since the great Twitter hack of 2020 , they had disabled the ability to export your data (which is a violation of the GDPR , by the way; what I wouldn't give for decent privacy laws in the US...). It feels a bit weird. I've had a Twitter account since 2008. It's something I still got value out of in 2020, unlike Facebook, which I…