The feed of updates for mrshll.com
I took my shoes off out of habit. The floors felt icy though my socks as I shuffled around filling my milk crate with supplies. Peanuts, toilet paper, dog food, winter boots. I shut off the breaker for the tankless water heater and drained it. Nola from across the street told me it was better to turn that on manually once power was restored so that it didn't run without water -- the whole street…
Backslide. Into the mode where time becomes sand, fingers spread. Slip slip slip. Work becomes all I do. But I'm catching it this time - we just have a lot going on to start the year and I'm trying to do what I can to pitch in. The problem is I like the technical stuff so much that I become obsessed (maybe addicted, I'm realizing) and I happily work into the wee hours after Meadow is asleep. Then…
A slow start to the year. That is, nothing about it is slow - just me. I imagine Sisyphus takes his time returning to the bottom of the hill. The boulder, however, wastes no time. Moving to Nashville So much happened on this most recent trip up the hill. Okay, technically the actual move (from Boston to Nashville, where I grew up) happened late 2024. At the start of 2025 we moved into our home on…
Well, it's real now. We are moving to Nashville. I came to Boston in 2009 to study computer science and stayed for the career opportunities, loud and then quiet music scene (where I met Alejandra), and the wonderful friends we've made over the years. Becoming a parent has reinforced how important family proximity is. Last year [[2024-01-01|was a doozy]]. There were tough, tough moments, both from…
The last time I experienced a major solar eclipse Alej, Q and I traveled down to Nashville to experience totality. It really was something. I remember first darkness, then cicadas and bats coming to life, then humans all around us hollering and applauding. For a brief moment, everything changed and all life was connected to two distant, coincident bodies. This year we did not travel to totality.…
Last year was challenging. The most challenging in recent memory. It was my first full year of being a parent: sleep deprivation, the stress of "am I doing this right?!", and my health taking backseat (or stuffed into the trunk, more accurately). Pair that with an absolute extrinsically-forced cluster on the work-side. I haven't written about this publicly, but since a few months have passed I…
I come from a musical family, so growing up I learned to play many different instruments from guitar to drums to scratching vinyl. Later in life, I watched a violin-centric movie and decided I must learn, and took lessons. For each new instrument, strange in my hands, my grip would inevitably tighten. That tight grip prevented fluid movement and forced errors. Finding the right grip is movement…
Impenetrable fog settled on the Heights this past week. Weird warmth on wet made point light smear, the full moon a melodramatic dim blob. I gave my company the last week of the year off, so my last few days of the year have been spent with Meadow and Alejandra. During naps and after bed I prototyped wxql , a query language inspired by a conversation at my undergraduate advisor's retirement party.…
A few weeks ago was my undergraduate advisor Norman Ramsey's retirement party. Norman taught two main classes: Machine Structure and Assembly Language Programming and Programming Languages , which were both the most demanding and rewarding courses in the Tufts CS curriculum. Many students, myself included, found these courses formative, and the right of passage was the bedrock for the culture of…
They're tearing down the long-abandoned hospital next to my house. At one point a brick facade was visible below the outermost brick facade. Clearly from the era we all accept existed when craft was zenith. The under-brickwork was beautiful, ornate. It appeared as though the crew ripped a section of building off and paused at the discovery. Before: After:
We did it. Marsh, Meadow and dax, home alone for 48 hours after our mission abort trip to NYC due to the torrential rain and flooding. Alej went by train the next day while we three held down the fort. Very little time for my attention to wander, save nap times. During naps, I continue to think about weather forecasts, about the steep learning curve and convoluted methods of access. Of their…
Went down a TodePond rabbit hole over a cup of tea (i.e. this live talk ). Their energy and enthusiasm about spatial programming -- and their storytelling bringing us along the discovery journey -- was incredible. It was one of those mind expanding nights. I've been dealing in "spatial data" from the meteorology, satellite, and geospatial perspective for some time, but this concept of rule-based…
We've spent the last few months in the mountains of the western part of the state. Cool, misty mornings and sunny afternoons perfect for swimming in the many lakes and streams. My trail shoes got some solid miles; on my last run before we came home I saw three bears, a mother and two cubs rolling and playing and scratching trees. I don't think they saw me as I observed for a while before doubling…
Meadow is growing, work is A Lot, time is short, and the weather is weird. I think that sums up the time elapsed since [[2023-01-05]]. My days end and begin anew with Meadow's snores and smiles. Her glad recognition, in the valley of fatigue, is stronger than a cup of coffee. We've found a rhythm this past month and have started exploring more confidently; last week we went on our first hike…
The tv screensaver Powered by the Arts and Culture dept of the world's third-largest corporation. Displays 6 horses, wild? Grazing in Colorado mountains Cuts to concrete landscape - the Manhattan skyline as seen from Queens Cuts to abstract fan, the color of a torii gate, artist attribution illegibly small. The horses, free. The city, control. The shape, uncertain. Dear Arts and Culture dept, Is…
Reading, listening, watching Books finished recently: You're Paid What You're Worth by Jake Rosenfeld Neuromancer by William Gibson Good stuff on the net: ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web by Ted Chiang Frugal computing • Wim Vanderbauwhede Elsewhere Mynah helps you keep a digital garden, or wiki from a directory of markdown files. Orllewin: Playdate: Field Recorder ssh as an application…
Happy 2023! The fresh start. The clean slate. Especially for Alejandra and I, everything feels new. That's because we welcomed Meadow into our lives at the end of last year. We've both been on parental leave, and time is simultaneously whipping by and standing still. The last six weeks has been entirely spent with Meadow, learning how to be parents. It has been much more of a challenge than I…
Hosting Mastodon from your basement There are plenty of great resources to help folks with a moderate technical background setup a Mastodon instance, including the official documentation . However, I thought I would write down the steps I took in one place to set up werm.world , the Mastodon instance running on {zombiebox} in my basement. Outline: Setup a home server Setup Mastodon Instance…
A few years ago, a laptop of mine experienced inexplicable battery failure. Each time the laptop violently ceased operation when A/C power was removed, it communicated with me. "I am a homebody," it said, "and I wish to remain in the proximal comfort of the outlet." And a makeshift basement server, {zombiebox}, was born. With any home server, especially one exposed to the internet, there are a few…
Tonight I fixed Alejandra's favorite camera - her Dad's Ricoh Singlex TLS from the 70s. It had no shutter action and the view finder mirror was frozen in an upward position - meaning the viewfinder was blocked. I started by removing the battery but it seemed newish (these things used to run on mercury batteries and have since been replaced with equivalent voltages). From the manual the electronics…
I'm started to write this page on my 30th birthday, and am returning and revising it now on the last day of 2021. I don't think much of new years or birthdays, least of all my own. But lately, I've found myself daydreaming about the future. Maybe in part due to this feeling of emergence from the pandemic's isolation, or maybe it's something that happens to everyone at the three decade mark? Either…
Rethinking the future of work Work in Progress is a name that has fittingly been with me for a long time. It was the name of my first radio show, during the coveted 7 to 9 PM slot on Vanderbilt's WRVU while I was in high school. It embodies a spirit of always giving something a go because hey, it's a work in progress. And it's fitting for an area of interest of mine: structures of work,…
An interview on webrings and shrinking the web The webrings I've encountered have been an immense source of inspiration, social connection. At the start of 2021, I stumbled upon webring.xxiivv.com and was immediately drawn in to the thematic cohesion and shared pursuit of creating decommodified digital spaces, better tools, and experimental processes for creative projects. As someone who first…
"Running is a celebration of life" Zaf Ahmed, my middle and highschool coach told us. Those words echo 18 years later on my long runs. And Zaf was right (I should tell him) - there is a purity in the physical act and mental state that together make running. I can't think of a better description than Zaf's: a celebration. I'm sure fellow runners will understand. There is quiet ecstasy lying in…
The droplets fell from the un-fixable gutter with a tabla's rhythm. Two attempts prior, once by The Gutter Giants and once by handyman Jim (or John, I forget), had not been enough to quell its guttural(!) rebellion. The glowing readout from my backyard weather station informed me that this rain event was surpassing 1 full inch of rain. My two interconnected rain barrels ~on the verge of…
A year long interview run by Malcolm to better understand our mom Mom, While it may be closer to your next birthday than it is your previous one, Marshall and I wanted to make good on a birthday idea that we had and--Marshall's fault*--failed to execute on. Anyway, here's the idea: we're going to send you an email every week, asking you to write in response to questions and prompts. The jury is…
Notes ahead of my talk to the Tufts CS and Entrepreneurship Communities What sparked you to get the entrepreneurship bug One possibility is that both of my parents were self-employed. My dad is a music producer and my mom was a photographer and then a real estate agent. Observing their ability to set their terms of work, and pursuing their work in ways that made it rewarding to them probably stuck…
A reflection of how we work and grow as a fully remote team There are plenty of lists of tools for remote teams, and some fantastic examples of documented processes (ex Gitlab ). I'm spending some time this weekend writing about how we work at Upstream Tech. The tools, yes, but also the fabric, connections and culture of our remote work. A lot has changed since the write-up I did 2 years ago.…
I inherited a garden. Actually, I took over a friend's apartment lease and the garden happened to come it. Alden and Anna, the bequeathers, had to make a short-notice move because of family member's failing health. Quinalt and I had been living in a large apartment building on the other side of Union Square - our last choice, and the result of the typical Boston everyone-moves-on-the-same-day…
I met Jason early on in his climate journey. Via Twitter I think? We exchanged a couple of thoughts online and then had a coffee. A few months later, he had his podcast up and running and I had been enjoying the episodes. I wanted to discuss how we arrived at Upstream Tech, as unlikely contributors to climate change solutions, and how I think everyone can -- and many more people need to -- [[An…
Obviously my desktop background… Ah yes, the unflappable entrepreneur: knowing from Day 1 that their business will last decades — nay a century! Not I. If you told me, approximately two years ago, that Upstream would not only last two years, but continually gain momentum I’d respond “of course, of course!” but my stomach would ache with uncertainty. Alden and I were, after all, {an appeal for…
Hello Upstream friends, customers and supporters! We have big, happy news to share with you today. Upstream is joining Natel Energy ! To those of you who know us well, this may come as a surprise. Heck — we weren’t even planning on raising money! But when we first met Gia and Abe Schneider in Boston earlier this year, it became immediately clear that we had the same mission “to create economic…
As technologists, we have the privilege to exist in an era hungry for tweets, likes, cars that drive themselves, apps for exercise, sites to share other sites — and that gives us the opportunity to choose what we work on. This is a simple appeal: Make sure that what you spend 40+ hours a week working on — pouring energy, thoughtfulness and concern into — has impact. We know that technology has…