20,000 Days

Today, July 18 2023, is the 20,000th day I've been on Earth. It feels like a big occasion. That big counter only turns over about once every 27 years or so. This 10K chunk -- what the ancient Greeks called a myriad -- is about as big a segment of life that I can conceive … Continue reading 20,000 Days →

Smart Cities (2013)

For our book club at OEF we're reading the book Smart Cities (2013) by Anthony Townsend. I just finished the Audible audio book and wanted to get my notes down in writing before they slip away. The book covers the deployment of digital technology for managing and understanding the city. There are a two main … Continue reading Smart Cities (2013) →

End-to-End Encrypted Messages Over ActivityPub

One important pattern in social networking is end-to-end encryption for direct messages. This is a structure in which the native or Web clients encrypt the message on the user's device, and no intermediate actor -- neither user's servers, nor any network node -- can read the message. This wasn't a big part of our planning … Continue reading End-to-End Encrypted Messages Over ActivityPub →

Re-designing the Mastodon User Interface for Better Personal Relationships

I did research as part of my graduate work in human-computer interaction at Georgia Tech. I focused on incremental improvements to the Mastodon user interface to focus on personal relationships. I'm presenting the prototypes and data that I developed here in summary. There's also a 45-minute video where I go over the research in detail … Continue reading Re-designing the Mastodon User Interface for Better Personal Relationships →

Speed and Scale

My organization, the Open Earth Foundation, started a kind of book club a few months ago. For the first event, we read through the IPCC’s 6th report on climate change. We enjoyed the conversation so much, we decided to continue the practice monthly. We missed a month, so I picked a book that I thought … Continue reading Speed and Scale →

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

One of my friends, Aran, just started playing Disco Elysium, the game my son and I have been playing together for months. It's a role-playing game set in the run-down neighbourhood of an occupied city in an alternate world. You play a detective for the local police investigating a murder who is in such a … Continue reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union →

At Confoo This Week

I'll be at confoo.ca this week, representing Open Earth Foundation. This is my first Open Source event representing OEF, and the first time I've been to any event in quite a few years. What are your best tips for a good conference?

PersistentVolume on Docker Desktop for Mac

So, my team is using Kubernetes for deploying a complex app in a developer environment on our desktop. We use the Kubernetes ("k8s") built into Docker Desktop. We need persistent storage, so we use a PersistentVolume with local-storage type. Initially, we thought we should put our data directory in a well-known directory, like /var/local/ or … Continue reading PersistentVolume on Docker Desktop for Mac →

Gangsters of Capitalism

I finished this audiobook last week, and I'm taking a few minutes to write down my thoughts before I forget them. It's a hard thing to remember to do! The book is called Gangsters of Capitalism, by Jonathan M. Katz. Superficially, it's a biography of the American Marine officer Smedley Butler, best known, I think, … Continue reading Gangsters of Capitalism →

Everything for Everyone

I received this book as a gift from my friend Heather Kelley for my birthday, but I just got around to reading it. Her note on the gift said, For my own birthday this year, I am giving friends copies of this book which I loved, and I hope it inspires you. I sent her … Continue reading Everything for Everyone →