February 2012
11 posts
Green Days, Ctd
I landed in the Atlanta airport, and made small-talk with the other would-be soldiers. Unsurprisingly, most discussion revolved around what to expect over the next few hours. Nobody had a solid understanding about what was going to happen. We were waiting for a bus to take us to Fort Benning, Georgia, we knew that much at least. Beyond that? Hard to say.
I assumed it would be just like the first...
Green Days
I’ve decided I should write down as many of my Army experiences as I can before I forget them. It’s been over ten years since I left, and the memories are getting a little fuzzy around the edges.
“Sorry, I’m extremely homosexual.” That was my typical response when military recruiters would call the house. Nothing worked faster to get a Utah-based military recruiter...
Pork and Cabbage
I think this recipe came from my great grandmother. My mom taught me. Here’s her method with a couple of my own minor tweaks.
Ingredients:
Pork steaks (w/bones)
Cabbage
Garlic
Cilantro
Cayenne pepper
Black pepper
Mushrooms
Sugar snap peas
Bean sprouts
Macadamia nut oil
Tamari sauce
(Use your best judgment for quantities. I have no clue.)
Cut the meat from the pork steaks into...
Power
Everything depends on power. I don’t mean money power or political power, I mean flowing electrons.
Think for a moment about the broad impact that energy has had on human history. You may not believe that wars are waged primarily because of oil reserves, but there is no denying the overwhelming impact fossil fuels have had in shaping the Middle East. In Africa, a billion people live in...
How to Move to New York
In late 2009, I needed a change of scenery, so I switched departments at work to one that wanted me in New York. Moving to NYC is unlike any other moving experience I’ve had. Here are tips that worked for me in my move from Atlanta to Manhattan. Your mileage will certainly vary, but hopefully the general spirit of these tips will give you some useful insight.
Erase your preconceptions about...
Tracker School
When I was a little kid, I found a book at the library called Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Wilderness Survival. I saved up to get my own copy, and I read that thing into tatters.
My obsession with wilderness survival was probably rooted in a fantasy fiction series called Lone Wolf, which I had been reading during the same time period. These books were like those Choose Your Own Adventure books, but...
Anonymous asked: I was thinking about the image I have often seen in which you appear to have been assimilated by the Borg, and so I want to ask you how you feel about animals merging with machines in the coming years/decades. How long do you think humans have left as the dominant form of intelligence on this planet? Will the machines assimilate us or just put us in zoos?
Social networking considered harmful.
I used to create content. Now I am just a filter. Creating content used to be the thing to do on the Internet. Write a blog. Write a nice little how-to. Curate a wiki. Those activities are still possible today, of course, but social networking has created an immense gravitational field, drawing in would-be content creators. The default activity on the Internet today has become consuming and...
Being a good engineering team manager.
For the last few years, I’ve been a reasonably successful SRE team manager for Google. From this experience, and others in the past, I’ve developed a relatively basic philosophy:
Lead by example.
Keep your engineers happy.
That’s all. The language is succinct, but the practice can be tricky.
Leading by example is critical. It’s a way to inspire confidence from your team, and it’s vital for...
October 2011
1 post
Google Reader Social Retrospective →
(From http://bit.ly/tAXNlk) With the upcoming transition of social features in Google Reader to Google+, I thought this would be a good time to look back at the notable social-related events in Reader’s history.
Late 2004 to early 2005: Chris Wetherell starts work on “Fusion”, one of the 20% projects that serve as prototypes for Google Reader. Among other neat features, it...
How I Overcame Bipolar II (and Saved My Own Life)... →
(From http://onforb.es/mMbAZU) One morning, two weeks into the challenge, I woke up. The haze in my mind had lifted. It was a clear, crisp, brilliant sunny day in my mind—the first such day of sunny internal weather for years.
I thought perhaps this was just a hypomanic phase that would only last a few days before the depression sank back in. So I didn’t get my hopes up. But this time, it felt...
September 2011
2 posts
Pat Tillman’s Atheism →
(From http://bit.ly/rbg65e)
In the 2010 documentary film, The Tillman Story, the story of Pat Tillman and his tragic death at the hands of “friendly fire” is retold. Tillman was the NFL star who gave it all up to join the military cause in Afghanistan after being inspired by 9/11 to do something for his country. He did not do it for the glory or publicity, and gave up a lucrative football...