Category: Thoughts
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Coping With Bad Reviews
When your book doesn’t have hundreds of reviews, you hold each one dear, so much in fact that a good review can make your day, and a bad one can destroy your whole damn week. I used to be sort of paranoid about Kindle sales and reviews. I was deep into the check-the-KDP-dashboard-page-twice-a-day tunnel. But then…
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Path of Least Resistance
Change is hard. We all sort of know this, maybe just as something that gets said in certain contexts. There are obvious things like changing home or job, but today I’m thinking about subtler things, like changes in social rules. Governments promote change that’s good for the community (hopefully), but that sometimes is bad for subsets…
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Geek Tool: Victorinox MiniChamp Alox
When I was a kid, I suffered this kind of crush for Swiss Army* knives. I was so damn obsessed that I persuaded my parents to buy me a little one, which I still remember with love. Yes, love. You see, MacGyver was (is?) my favorite hero. And then, one day, when I was playing…
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Problem Solving
There’s something unique about working in engineering: problem solving. You are usually presented with a problem – be it a software bug, a performance issue, an engine that doesn’t start, or a mold stain on a wall – and work your way to find a solution. I tend to be pretty decent in my (by…
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The Future of Private Transportation
Recent history has often seen laws and regulations holding back technological and scientific development. I’m not going into controversial topics like stem cell production, instead I’ll give a look at something more mundane: individual transportation. Take Uber and all the controversy it has been able to generate: the technology was ready, but regulations, and the…