Writing
2025
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Graz Photo Map
A map of photos from a walk around Graz, Austria.
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San Mateo Photo Bike Ride
A map of photos from a bike ride.
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Milan Photo Map
A map of photos I've taken from a day in Milan, Italy.
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Miami Photo Map
A map of photos I've taken around Miami, Florida, USA.
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Come and See
I watched a Soviet film and wrote about it.
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Vulnerability and Ivan Illich
How automobility separated us from reality itself...
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The Voter Who Can’t Drive
Car dependence doesn't just shape our cities—it shapes who gets to vote.
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SF Library
A photo diary of visiting the main San Francisco library branch
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SF Opera
A short photo diary of attending the San Francisco Opera's performance of La Boheme
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Lake Tahoe
A photo diary from a Juneteenth visit to Lake Tahoe
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June Daily Photos
A subset of the photos I took during a month of daily observational photography
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SFO Descent
Photos from flying into SFO airport
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The Bus
A peek at San Mateo County's bus ridership
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Boonville, CA
Attending friends' wedding in the northern reaches of California
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Temple Emanu-El
Photos of the beautiful architecture & decorations of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, California
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San Mateo-San Francisco walk
An organized group walk from San Mateo to San Francisco (20 miles)
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Child Portage
A variety of techniques and technologies for transporting young children short distances
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Bike to Work 2025
A photo journal of a bicycle commute to my workplace
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Bike videography
A short list of items that are good for capturing video and audio on a bicycle
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A new project
Photo diary from taking the Amtrak train from San Jose Diridon to Los Angeles Union Station (10.5 hours)
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San Jose-LA Amtrak
Photo diary from taking the Amtrak train from San Jose Diridon to Los Angeles Union Station (10.5 hours)
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San Pablo Reservoir
Photos from a walk along the San Pablo Dam Reservoir trail
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Caltrain to Golden Gate Park
A short video of travel from San Mateo to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park
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Polacon San Francisco
Photos from the San Francisco instant camera conference and photo walk
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Southern France, Pt. 3
Photos & observations of an American's trip to southern France, part 2
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Southern France, Pt. 2
Photos & observations of an American's trip to southern France, part 2
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Southern France, Pt. 1
Photos & observations of an American's trip to southern France
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Visiting the Miami Library
Thoughts & experiences from visiting the downtown Miami library
2024
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My commute
Photos I have taken from my bike + train work commute over the years
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Tiburon sans car
Travels within the San Francisco Bay to Tiburon, without a car
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SamTrans tour
A tour of SamTrans south base - the San Mateo County public bus agency
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Benches
A collection of bench photos, discussing their placement and design
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SLO by Amtrak
Photo diary from an Amtrak train ride to San Luis Obispo, California, with bicycles
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The Homevoter Hypothesis
A comprehensive summary of William Fischel's book on 'how home values influence local government taxation, school finance, and land-use policies
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Fifield-Cahill Ridge Trail
A trail run in the Crystal Springs Watershed, photos.
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Sony RX100 VI 📸
Some sample photos and thoughts on the Sony RX100 Mark 6 point-and-shoot camera
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Food photos over the years
Photos of food I've captured over the years.
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Traveling to Santa Rosa
Make your travels less stressful and more fun
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Saturday Bike Camping
A trip report from a sub-24 hour overnight bikecamping trip from San Mateo to Half Moon Bay.
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Conservatives & Bikes
How political conservatives think about bicycles as a political issue, and ways to speak to them.
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Purisima Creek
Photos from a running trip on the Purisima Creek trail with a local running shop
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Half Moon Bay
Photos from an anniversary bus/bike/hotel trip to Half Moon Bay
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Amtrak: Seattle-San Jose
A photo diary of riding the Amtrak Coastal Starlight from Seattle, WA to San Jose, CA
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Muni 30 Bus
A photo diary from riding the SFMTA Muni 30 bus
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Bike Camping
A photo diary from going bike-camping overnight at China Camp State Park, California
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Coyote Point
A photo diary of visiting Coyote Point Beach, in San Mateo County
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YIMBY Prom
A summary of attending YIMBY Prom, 2024
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E-Scooters: First Thoughts
Notes on buying and riding my first electric kick scooter, from Segway Ninebot, as a micromobility connoiseur.
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How I Bike to the Airport
Notes on my experience of bicycling and flying from San Francisco International Airport, using a folding bike
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Portals
Photos that illustrate the architectural & placemaking concept of 'portals'.
2023
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Visit to Newport Beach
Photos from traveling to Newport Beach, CA
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Bike Summit 2023
Photos & notes from attending Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition's annual Bike Summit, 2023
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BART with Mike
Notes and photos from riding the BART train with my neighbor Mike
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Rayban Stories
Notes from obtaining & using the first generation of Meta's smart glasses, the Rayban Stories
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Folding bikes or no?
A discussion of the pros and cons of folding bicycles, vs. normal ones (that do not fold)
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Car Country
Notes from reading the book 'Car Country', by author Christopher Wells
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Writing Without Bullshit
Key takeaways from Josh Bernoff's book on cutting the fluff and writing clearly.
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The Moral Imperative for Bike Lanes
How protected bike lanes save families $10,000/year and build safer, more independent communities.
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Biking to Work
How switching from car to e-bike for my commute helped me lose 15 pounds in a year.
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First Anniversary
Photos from our first wedding anniversary stay in San Francisco, across from the Ferry Building.
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Legion of Honor
A photo diary from a visit to San Francisco's Legion of Honor art museum on a foggy day.
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Running Injuries
Running injury rates are shockingly high. Key findings from academic studies on how to avoid them.
2022
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Why I bicycle
The simple reasons I ride: fun, cheap, healthy, social, and it feels like flying.
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A Los Angeles commute
Biking to work in LA on a borrowed hotel cruiser—photos from Venice to the Netflix offices.
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Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone
Screenshots and notes from the BBC documentary on the chaos of post-Soviet Russia.
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Post-9/11 Conflict
Data on the human cost of post-9/11 wars and the under-appreciated toll of PTSD.
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Half Moon Bay
Photos from my overnight bike camping trip over Highway 92 to Half Moon Bay.
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Onsite
The 'onsite' is the new offsite in the remote work era. Candid photos from team meetings.
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An updated goal list
A public list of my life goals: documentaries, powerlifting into my 70s, minimizing car use, and building family.
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Early life lessons
How my dad taught me about investing—starting with $1,000 from a summer job.
2021
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Saying thank you
Why 'thank you' is just a signal, not a payment—and what actions actually demonstrate gratitude.
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San Mateo County History Museum
A spontaneous visit to a hidden gem of Bay Area history—worth the $6 admission.
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Alternative experiment protocols
Beyond A/B testing: crossover, switchback, bandit, and staged rollout experiments explained.
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Podcasting workshop
What I'd teach in a podcasting workshop: why audio-only is underrated, low production costs, and practical tips.
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Being Ignored & Building Software
How I learned software engineering best practices by attaching myself to a quiet MIT grad—and the value of finding mentors who let you observe.
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Screenshare iOS to Zoom, Meet
Quick video guide on sharing your iPhone or iPad screen in Google Meet and Zoom calls.
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Chrome Productivity
A short video tutorial on Chrome keyboard shortcuts for Mac—plus lessons learned about video production.
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Chrome extensions I use
The four Chrome extensions I actually use daily: uBlock Origin, HTTPS Everywhere, LastPass, and one more.
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Jekyll + Emails
How I convert Jekyll blog posts into nicely-formatted HTML emails using the Loom theme.
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Improving Audio
Comparing three microphones for video calls: MacBook built-in, iPhone earpods, and Zoom H4N Pro—with audio samples.
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Content Marketing Tips
Distilled advice from Priceonomics and others: write about data, confirm biases, and focus on intros and conclusions.
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How I Got My Jobs
A brief summary of how I have obtained my jobs in tech
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How To Do Logging In Python
You can use this guide to discover, understand and use logging in your Python programs.
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Notes on remote work
Honest reflections on WFH after a year: the health benefits, the boundary problems, and what I actually miss about the office.
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Gift Giving
Research-backed insights on gift-giving: sloppy wrapping works, experiential beats material, and compliments outperform cash.
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It's all Legacy Code
99% of software engineering is refactoring other people's code. Here are the testing methodologies that make it manageable.
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Power
A meditation on where power comes from: knowledge, community, saying no, and the ability to be generous.
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Daniil Dubov
A chess grandmaster's observation: only 5-6 people in the world truly combine hard work, fitness, and competitive drive.
2020
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Technical Writing, the Google course
Key takeaways from Google's free technical writing course—practical tips for clearer documentation and communication.
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Tech Interview Gauntlet
A reality TV show concept where software engineers compete in live coding challenges for a job at a top tech company.
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USB Footpad Review
My experience with the Kinesis Savant Elite2 USB foot pedal—what works, what doesn't, and who it's really for.
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A Conversation with Ben Jacobson
An audio conversation exploring why stories matter, touching on sci-fi, dance, and the meaning we find in narrative.
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Live-Streaming Site in 30 Mins
A quick guide to setting up your own local video livestream using Docker, nginx-rtmp, and OBS.
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Pay remote workers a premium
Why remote employees should earn more: they work longer hours, lose office perks, and save companies money.
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Interrotron
A collection of resources for building DIY teleprompters and interrotrons to enable eye contact in video calls.
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30 Days to Backend Software Engineer
A 30-day curriculum to become a backend software engineer, plus recommended MIT and Linux courses.
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18% of Github Projects Have CI
A brief data-driven review of continuous integration adoption in open-source projects on Github
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Google Docs to Markdown
How I streamlined my blog publishing workflow using Google Docs and Apps Script to convert to Markdown.
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McCarthy vs. Roosevelt
Comparing two takes on 'the man in the arena'—from Teddy Roosevelt's famous speech to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.
Archive 2017–2019
- Building a Home Gym
- A Newbie's Guide to Digital Art
- Netflix DVD automation vids
- My current curiosities
- The Case Interview (of Software Engineering)
- OSI Layer Notes
- Java Primer for Python Developers
- The Morning Paper - Testing
- The Morning Paper - Virtual Machines
- How to Run Pandas' Test Suite
- Defining Runway
- mypy, the Optional Static Type-Checker for Python
- Make your own Google Analytics
- 10 Lessons from Magic the Gathering
- Better than the news
- Why weightlifting?
- An Optimized Alternative to RTFM
- Take a Break Ya Dingus!
- The Zero-Indexed Stock Market
- Software engineer? Start a podcast.
- How to Survive the Graveyard Shift
- Making Markets, Pawn Shops, and Farmer Joe
- The Declaration of Independence
- Querying Access Logs on AWS
- Entry-Level Software Engineering QnA
- Some more iPad weightlifting sketches
- Static Websites on Google Cloud
- Weightlifting sketches
- Why use Docker locally?
- Static Site Hosting on AWS
- The Net Present Value of Content
- Information Asymmetries and Paying it Forward
- Tumblr to Jekyll
- The Accidental Engineer
- Generative Text Models
- github-email-thief
- Make Your Own Gmail
- Modern anti-spam and E2E crypto