The human behind the work: health, life, reflections
Personal
Birbs, week two — what the system got wrong, four times, and what came back from the dead Follow-up to "Monitoring the Situation — The Internet of Birbs" When I hit publish on the birbs post last Wednesday, I described an "AI-powered nest monitor" with a straight face.
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Two pale-blue speckled eggs on the sunroom bookshelf turned into three cameras, an Unraid NAS, two AI models, and a journal that writes itself every morning. None of it had to be useful — it just had to be possible. Because joy.
Building
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A little photo diary of Hacker Summer Camp 2025.
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It’s been just over three weeks since I randomly “let the Internet know” that I was heading in for unexpected heart surgery...
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Optimizing my home office space for a work-from-home/hybrid setup became a bit of a hobby during the pandemic, and since returning to the USA from Australia in 2021 I've essentially replicated the successful aspects of the Sydney setup, with a few modifications.
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As WFH was going from novel to normal, the thought occurred to me that "virtual semiotics" was quickly going to become a thing... The equivalent of the how to dress, where to sit, how to speak type advice executives get taught, but for a world which is virtual by default.
Personal
Outrage is cheap and of fleeting value. Introspection and change are expensive, precious, and resilient... and very easy to miss if everything is the other guy’s fault.
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My family and I are straight-up blessed with how we've fared this year, and I'm incredibly thankful for the myriad of people and things - but whichever way you cut it, 2020 was a dense and challenging year and not one I’d rush to repeat.
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"I'm exactly the same as I was nine months ago, but I'm also completely different."
Personal
Seasoned experts get as much out of the “feet on the street” insights and energy of younger mentee as the mentee gets from their wisdom of the mentor.
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I had a coach share this with me a little while back and it resonated - It's a valuable and simple framework, and a good set of questions to always be in a position to answer.