an eddy in the bitstream
The proliferation of software coding tools that leverage so-called Artificial Intelligence via Large Language Models (LLMs) is really quite astounding. In the span of a couple years there is now an entire industry devoted to generating code and whole software applications using the barest of human language prompts. ChatGPT, make me a sandwich is the [ ]
Happy Charlotte’s Web Day to all the friends, writers, and those who are both.
In May 2022 I decided it was time to take a break from government service. I had been working with and in governments since 2015 and I was tired. I had the privilege and luxury to change jobs and start working in the climate change mitigation problem space. Below is the spiel I gave my [ ]
Today is the tenth anniversary of Charlotte s Web Day. It has never caught on widely, despite the shoutout from Wikipedia, but I have it on my calendar. This year I re-read the book again in a single sitting and, as usual, new sentences stuck out to me. Here s one. I only distribute pigs to early [ ]
Chris and I took our time getting this one done, which is one of the pleasures of recording in middle age. There s no hustle, and all our time constraints are self-imposed. This is an alternate vocal take on Ready for the Fall. The spoken part that Chris does reminds me of some of our early [ ]
Just after Christmas in 1997, I loaded up all my worldly possessions into my 1989 Honda Civic (which got 40+ miles to the gallon even back then!) and drove south from Saint Paul toward Atlanta. I was going to enroll at Emory s Candler School of Theology and work on a master s degree. I stopped in [ ]
The House of Mercy Band recorded several albums from 1999 to 2010. We were the host band at the House of Mercy church in Saint Paul. I don t think I m overstating things to claim that the band would not have made any records at all, and maybe never started a record label, if I hadn t [ ]
The spring I turned 40 I experienced a small songwriting flurry and several songs emerged. One of them was called A Little Heartache that I wrote for Angie Talle. I always love hearing Angie sing and when I asked her, one evening at the Turf Club back in the winter of 2011/12, when she was going [ ]
It was Molly Maher who referred to our house on Burns Ave as the Big Pink, after The Band album. The initial paint color when we bought the house was definitely Barbie Butt Pink. What a great old house in a great location. We had this carriage house too, which was essentially a two-story garage [ ]
Back in 1998 I was living in Georgia and I got lonely for all my friends in Minnesota. During that year I wrote a lot of songs because that s what (some) lonely people do, especially lonely people doing a lot of driving and spending tons of time alone. In 2020, like a lot of people [ ]