I live in the mountains and in the mountains you need a chainsaw. Strangely, the time of year it’s the least fun to be outside is when I use the chainsaw the most. This is a result of holiday vacation, trees conveniently falling during winter storms, and short windows of time the county of Santa… more
It’s the calm before the presentation storm. Over the next three months, I’ve got four different presentations at Webstock and SXSW. I’m also the best man at a wedding in Washington, all of which means I’m spending most of my down-time thinking up things I’m going to say in the future. If you’re looking for… more
As soon as you decide to become a professional nerd, either via a university degree or simply because you sit up all night writing Python to scratch your particular technical itch, you think you absolve yourself of having to stand up in front of a group of people to make a presentation. And you might… more
Right this second, there are five books sitting on my desk. I’m not talking about the invisible books stacked up next to my monitor, I’m talking about the books I want you to see the second you walk in my office. They change over time, but right now they are: The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary… more
I’ve had a copy of Edward Tufte’s Visual Display of Quantative Information sitting on my desk for years. It’s one of those rare books you pick up every nine months and just wander about… pure visual eye candy. Tufte’s content strikes such a classic note with me, I remain convinced that’s he’s dead because it’s… more
I’m a database guy. This means when I have to build something with software, the first thing I’m going to think is, “How is a database going to help me here?” I’d argue there are two other application cults in this realm, there are the spreadsheet guys (sales/marketing/management) and language guys (engineering). My database biases… more
I build software for a living. I started out in quality assurance in the 80s and now I’m responsible for a reasonably large engineering organization tasked with developing four very different products. This week, the team sat down with the executives at the company and basically asked for several million dollars to finance the development… more
