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]

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]

Book Review-How to Survive in a Science Fictional Universe

Review-How to live safely in a science fictional universe By Charles Yu

If I said the words: “Primer with daddy issues” how would that mak… [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]

The infinite power of people

This afternoon I was reading a theological book (Jacob: a brief theological introduction by Deidre Nicole Green… [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]

Cultural Homogeneity

I've been thinking about France and French culture, and why it is that a country that only recently in the broad scheme of things adopted more equal policies around gender, is also a nation whe… [more]

Book Review-The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson

Review: The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson

No one does magical systems better than Brandon Sanderson. That’s a pretty absolute statement but one that I am comfortable with^more]

Book Review-Aloha Rodeo-Three Hawaiian Cowboys, the World's Greatest Rodeo, and a Hidden History of the American West

Review: Aloha Rodeo: Three Hawaiian Cowboys, the World's Greatest Rodeo, and a Hidden History of the American West by David Wolman and Julian Smith

Strap yourself in for a story where co… [more]

Book Review-The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaimon

I have a mixed experience with Neil Gaiman's work. Not because he isn’t a brilliant story teller, because he is. It’s more a conte… [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]

Human Communications Are Hard

Delays and technical issues bias us against others experiencing them.

This comes from 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]

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]

On Bikesheds

The really, really short answer is that you should not. The somewhat longer answer is that just because you are capable of building a bikeshed does not mean you should stop others from… [more]

Making the world more beautiful

Prompt: "You are tasked with making the world most beautiful. Where do you start?"

My first reaction is that I start with furniture. I believe that our perception of quality and beauty, whic… [more]

Vetting Information you read on the internet

Hi friends!

I realized that because of the certain set of skills I have been honing at work for the last decade I have some quick ways of vetting websites for content accuracy that the averag… [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]

The right Tools for the right job

Last week I did a bit of programming for Game Of Codes in my "free" time which lead me to a couple of interesting observations.

1. Number of passing t… [more]

Office Hours

If you hadn’t noticed from this post and the last one... I am feeling grateful and like I need to give back to the community a bit. So while Hack Night SLC is ramping back up I thought it would… [more]

Jumping on the AMA bandwagon

Today I am at React Rally in SLC and after a particularly inspiring talk by Preethi Kasireddy I created an Ask Me … [more]

So you Studied History and You're a Conservative... I am Sorry.

I started writing this in July of 2015 and never got around to publishing it. Now to clean out my drafts folder, and to get back in the habit of publishing here it is!

So you studied… [more]

Let's talk about Boot camps

So the giant article I’ve been planning to write from what I learned prepping for that talk I gave on being senior<… [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]

Now.

A quick quote to tide you over until the big write up lands...

“Everything is instant gratification and the problem is too many people have applied that instant gratificat… [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]

Getting Lost and Happiness

On the one hand, we are hard-wired to focus more on negative things. But at the same time, we are also all hard-wired to be seeking a sense of happiness and the desire to flourish,… [more]

Education, Money and Happiness

There are three things, once one’s basic needs are satisfied, that academic literature points to as the ingredients for happiness: having meaningful social relationships, being good at… [more]

Io: the language, not the moon

This is the first in the Seven Languages series of posts and covers the Io language, a small prototypal language.

Let’s get this out of the way righ… [more]

mourning

If I do this right then I will likely offend everyone, and then gently touch hearts so that we can all see eye to eye and heart to heart.

I am deeply deeply saddened by the news of the death… [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]

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]

The Problem of Over Communication

Just like under-communicating over-communicating poses a serious problem to organizations. Before you read this and immediately write it off as just another rant, think about it. How often do you r… [more]

REST vs. RPC and a mention of HATEOS

This is a modified and expanded version of an email I sent a few days ago, here for public consumption.

So RPC is great, right? I need to do X to my data so I’ll just make an endpoint c… [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]

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]

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]