the megaphone

Megaphones are amazing. For nearly as long as we have organized into large groups, we have rolled materials into tubes and spoken into them to help carry our voices to the back of the audience. Wit… [more]

Team! A Module For Teams!

Recently I found myself with some time on my hands... so I wrote a simple module for managing engineering team member information in automation projects.

Basically I was working on some auto… [more]

The Hunt Begins

Today my hunt for a new role begins in earnest. So I am dropping some thoughts and links here.

Why am I looking for a new role?

The company that I was at (Lumio) has ended in bankru… [more]

help the person next to you

What kind of man makes it through Hell Week? That’s hard to say. But I do know—generally—who won’t make it. There are a dozen types that fail: the weight-lifting meatheads who think th… [more]

Meet with me!

Come meet with me about software engineering things, career things, business things, or bike things.

If the calendar below doesn't work, it doesn't seem to love mobile devices, more]

Some Thoughts on Engineering Leaderhip

So this article started as a thread of tweets. I want to expand on it, so I am going to quote all the tweets here and the… [more]

Last Lectures

Way back in my year end review for 2021 I wrote,

As part of that effort I’ve worked to build a culture in engineerin… [more]

What Makes a Team Lead Great?

“Well, don’t you think that you as the commander have an obligation to create a vision for your command?” It was more of a statement than a question. “No, I feel that my job as the com… [more]

Lessons Learned From a Film Producer About Making Software

This last week, I had my leadership team in town for the first time in a while for some planning meetings, and some team building^more]

Today is going to be a great day, and other mindset shifts

This covers a bit more than a week, but it’s been wild over here. Onboarding into the company that acquired us, the whole family getting COVID (we’re all doing better thanks), and the associates qu… [more]

Book Review-Road to Valor

Review of "The Road to Valor" by Aili McConnon & Andres McConnon

I have love cycling, a fact you should be aware of if you intend to stick around here. Coupled with my love for… [more]

Organizational Design Democracy And Ownership

There are moments where the lightbulb comes on for you and things that have been bouncing on the tip of your brain just drop into place. This week I had one of those. And it was about why people le… [more]

Why weird team names make sense

I've managed teams named, among other things, Python-Brug, and Banpo. Named for bridges in different cities, while we worked on a product named Bridge. A lot of people look at those names and t… [more]

Software Engineer vs. Software Developer

What is the difference between a Software Engineer and a Software Developer? Or is there a difference?

So I've been building websites and web apps since we used to be called Web Masters.… [more]

Some thoughts inspired by "Toward peer review as a group engagement"

These are rough thoughts and should be taken as such. Think of them more as the interesting points that deserve thought in a context that the author of the paper (Andrea Bonaccorsi) was not specifi… [more]

Lumio UtahJS Conf 2022

Welcome!

I've been at Lumio for a few months now (ok fine 8 months) and I am looking for more people to join our rapidly expanding team. Check out the jobs, and more information about … [more]

Antisemitism ends with us

In 1096 the crusaders, Christian religious warrior pilgrims, set out for Jerusalem. Their cause was nominally to protect their Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters from the encroaching Islamic emp… [more]

2021: Year in Review

It has been quite the year!

As the pandemic has been dragging on, ramping up, slowing down, generally continuing to drag on.

Thoughts

I am excited for 2022.

2022! How did … [more]

Encourage teams to take risks

In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.

— Abraham Maslow

This last Sunday we went on a light hik… [more]

2020: A year

This has been a crazy year, but honestly an exciting one for me and my family. We've lived through multiple natural disasters, moved, changed jobs, survived a pandemic, had a new baby join us, and … [more]

Tech Things I read in 2018

This is going to be a pretty straightforward list of what tech related reading I did this year. It doesn’t include hundreds of blog posts and forum discussion. I’ll break it into two ca… [more]

design and the internet as ephemera

Hang tight... this is going to get a little esoteric.

The expirement really begins with three realizations. 1) That no one seems to agree on the direction that previous and next should be i… [more]

Critiques and Code Reviews

This is another of my attempts to clear out my drafts folder. I started writing it on 3 August 2011 (So long ago!). Still seems relevant.

Let’s talk about critiques, or as engi… [more]

Language Drift and finding code beautiful

I hate javascript Class. I like semicolons. This puts me in a specific group of developers who write js. It puts me at odds with many in the Eternal War of the Semicolon.

As I was driving int… [more]

Being Senior Part 1- the books and data

This is just a quick post to throw up the books I quoted from and a link to the data for anyone who attended my presentation at Utah JS Conference 2016 today. I am putting down my thoughts in a lon… [more]

people and connections

"I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; and when they can give and receive without judgement; and when they derive suste… [more]

Seeing and Speaking

I was reading this wonderful article from ia and it occurred to me that jargon and seeing are related to each other.

We know from resear… [more]

safe-shrinkwrap: for all your shrinkwrapping needs

One of the challenges that we have had in the recent past at work is with dependencies that don’t lock down their dependencies well. A lot of this probably rises from a misunderstanding of more]

reducing noise

Noise is everywhere in our lives. From commercials, to billboards, to a new crying infant, it is literally everywhere. Some of it is good noise. Some of it is distracting us from the things we want… [more]

2015: in review

It is said that change is the only constant and that certainly proved true this year around here in 2015. I started the year working as a Front End Stack team (core team) member for the LDS Church … [more]

Biology and CSS

I am the average height of my grandfather’s generation. I have brown hair, that is rapidly going gray even at the ripe old age of 31. I have blue eyes and olive skin.

Now that you know … [more]

Design Tools are Broken

To code or not to code? I try to push all my friends studying design to learn to code. It can only help them be better designers.

But this isn't an article about that. This is an article … [more]

On To New Horizons

"Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow." - Juliet (William Shakespeare)

For the last three and a half years I’ve been work… [more]

Confidence Without Ego

When I was young I thought humility was placing yourself below other people. To believe that they were better than me. To subserviate myself to their opinions and requests. I thought of the stereot… [more]

Moving the World

Dear America:

In the wake of yesterday's election it would be wise to reflect on these wise words from our first President, George Washington.

“I have already intimated to you th… [more]

There is a Right Way

I grew up working with power tools. I think I was 9 the first time I used a router. As a family we were making mancala boards for christmas presents for family and friends. The noise was intense, t… [more]

Don't Call Me. I'll Call You. Single Request Responsive Images

We’ve been talking about responsive design around the office a lot lately. It’s kind of a big deal these days. The holy grail seems to be responsive images, or a system that allows you … [more]

11

Today on the 10 year anniversary of September 11th I thought I would reminisce about my memories from that day, far from New York City. I am working to compile my families’ stories and may ex… [more]

Now Serving: Obsolescence

This article is part of a series, “Now Serving,” that takes a look at the changes in design, and consumer culture, that are happening right now.

“We have advanced technologi… [more]

Trust and the Box

Last Friday I was in Historic Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center(jsc) listening to Milt Heflin, one of jsc’s Associate Directors, describe some of the history that happened … [more]