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Broken Clavicle
Towards the end of July 2026, on a weekday afternoon, I was riding my Brompton bike to West Oakland BART so I could go pick up my bib for the San Francisco Marathon. I was making a right turn at Horton and Mandela at speed, my back wheel slipped out in some debris and I…
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Roles and Requirements
If you can’t fill a role, the real requirements and job definition will change until the role can be filled, even if the desired outcome can’t be delivered by the new hire. It’s instructive to look at what’s happened to field engineering. When I started out in the mid nineties, an SE (sales or solutions…
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Silicon Valley Gets High On Its Own Supply
Picture a typical Monday morning catchup with Slack. “Great news,” says Bob, “I was experimenting this weekend and AI can automatically extract, maintain, and translate strings! Now we can finally do that localization project we’ve been ignoring for years!” Leadership chimes in with “LFG!” A few hours later, the rest of the problem has surfaced.…
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Always be Prepared for Hammertime
I’ve had a laptop stolen at a conference. I also remember poor designs that meant a liquid spill would instantly kill a laptop. I have also changed jobs plenty, usually voluntarily. I have developed some habits that I recommend no matter how careful you are with equipment or what shape your job is in. Gear…
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2025 Blogging Review
Posting 2025 was a busy year, and I didn’t get as much writing done as in prior years. My process hasn’t changed from that described here, but job, band, and fitness commitments have left me wrung dry. The weekly reminder to post something still goes off, but I have been ignoring it. In 2023 I…
