Sleeping on Stage
In favor of liking things, especially if the thing is Kamala Harris via Thing of Things October 18, 2024 A discussion I have with myself a lot The post Inner dialogue, walking down the sidewalk appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise October 10, 2024 This post was inspired by a week of working from Ambitious Impact’s office in London, and chatting with several of the startup charities there. While my experience is in the for-profit world, I think it’s applicable...
1 day ago
Start an Upper-Room UV Installation Company?
In favor of liking things, especially if the thing is Kamala Harris via Thing of Things October 18, 2024 A discussion I have with myself a lot The post Inner dialogue, walking down the sidewalk appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise October 10, 2024 This post was inspired by a week of working from Ambitious Impact’s office in London, and chatting with several of the startup charities there. While my experience is in the for-profit world, I think it’s applicable...
4 days ago
You're Playing a Rough Game
A discussion I have with myself a lot The post Inner dialogue, walking down the sidewalk appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise October 10, 2024 Thinking about replacability is hard via Thing of Things October 3, 2024 This post was inspired by a week of working from Ambitious Impact’s office in London, and chatting with several of the startup charities there. While my experience is in the for-profit world, I think it’s applicable to entrepreneurs working on impact-driv… via Home...
5 days ago
Moonlight
A discussion I have with myself a lot The post Inner dialogue, walking down the sidewalk appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise October 10, 2024 Thinking about replacability is hard via Thing of Things October 3, 2024 This post was inspired by a week of working from Ambitious Impact’s office in London, and chatting with several of the startup charities there. While my experience is in the for-profit world, I think it’s applicable to entrepreneurs working on impact-driv… via Home...
7 days ago
Examples of How I Use LLMs
A discussion I have with myself a lot The post Inner dialogue, walking down the sidewalk appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise October 10, 2024 Thinking about replacability is hard via Thing of Things October 3, 2024 This post was inspired by a week of working from Ambitious Impact’s office in London, and chatting with several of the startup charities there. While my experience is in the for-profit world, I think it’s applicable to entrepreneurs working on impact-driv… via Home...
8 days ago
Parental Writing Selection Bias
A discussion I have with myself a lot The post Inner dialogue, walking down the sidewalk appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise October 10, 2024 Thinking about replacability is hard via Thing of Things October 3, 2024 This post was inspired by a week of working from Ambitious Impact’s office in London, and chatting with several of the startup charities there. While my experience is in the for-profit world, I think it’s applicable to entrepreneurs working on impact-driv… via Home...
9 days ago
A Triple Decker for Elfland
A discussion I have with myself a lot The post Inner dialogue, walking down the sidewalk appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise October 10, 2024 Thinking about replacability is hard via Thing of Things October 3, 2024 This post was inspired by a week of working from Ambitious Impact’s office in London, and chatting with several of the startup charities there. While my experience is in the for-profit world, I think it’s applicable to entrepreneurs working on impact-driv… via Home...
12 days ago
Thinking About a Pedalboard
Thinking about replacability is hard via Thing of Things October 3, 2024 This post was inspired by a week of working from Ambitious Impact’s office in London, and chatting with several of the startup charities there. While my experience is in the for-profit world, I think it’s applicable to entrepreneurs working on impact-driv… via Home September 27, 2024 Lessons learned from the first 10 years The post Advice for getting along with your kids appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise...
14 days ago
Switching to a Yamaha P-121 Keyboard
The keyboard is a bit of an awkward instrument to travel with. It's quite large, to the point that you have to give up at least one seat in a typical car. What makes this especially frustrating is that I don't actually use the whole 88 keys: The very lowest notes tend to be boomy, while the higher notes are just not very useful in playing the kind of music I play. I use a bit over five octaves (B0-D6,...
21 days ago
Chevy Bolt Review
One thing I like about renting cars when I travel is that it's an opportunity to get a sense for a car that's a lot more detailed than what you'd get with a test drive. Traveling to DC for work a few days ago, I took the opportunity to rent a 2023 Chevy Bolt. This is the second time I've rented an electric vehicle, and overall it was the inverse of my experience renting a Tesla: With the Bolt, everything...
26 days ago
Source Control for Prototyping and Analysis
Some thoughts on principles via Thing of Things September 23, 2024 Lessons learned from the first 10 years The post Advice for getting along with your kids appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise September 16, 2024 If you're a kid like me, most kids have probably never heard of contra dancing before. You're probably wondering: contra dance -- what's that? Contra dancing is in some ways similar to square dancing. It's a group dance with a caller and… via Lily...
27 days ago
Editing at the Take Level
Some thoughts on principles via Thing of Things September 23, 2024 Lessons learned from the first 10 years The post Advice for getting along with your kids appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise September 16, 2024 If you're a kid like me, most kids have probably never heard of contra dancing before. You're probably wondering: contra dance -- what's that? Contra dancing is in some ways similar to square dancing. It's a group dance with a caller and… via Lily...
28 days ago
Switching to a 4GB SD
When I initially switched the computer portion of my rhythm stage setup over to a Raspberry PI I went with a 32GB SD card because that's recommended. But I don't need very much space for what I'm doing and a bigger SD card makes copies slow: the cheap cards I've been using take me over an hour to write with my Mac's card reader. I recently made some changes to my setup, removing support for bass whistle on the PI...
29 days ago
Becket First
And not owning slaves via Thing of Things September 20, 2024 Lessons learned from the first 10 years The post Advice for getting along with your kids appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise September 16, 2024 If you're a kid like me, most kids have probably never heard of contra dancing before. You're probably wondering: contra dance -- what's that? Contra dancing is in some ways similar to square dancing. It's a group dance with a caller and… via Lily...
about 1 month ago
Electric Mandola
And not owning slaves via Thing of Things September 20, 2024 Lessons learned from the first 10 years The post Advice for getting along with your kids appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise September 16, 2024 If you're a kid like me, most kids have probably never heard of contra dancing before. You're probably wondering: contra dance -- what's that? Contra dancing is in some ways similar to square dancing. It's a group dance with a caller and… via Lily...
about 1 month ago
Keyboard Gremlins
I had a great time playing Amherst last night with Cecilia, except for the keyboard gremlins. I just got a new keyboard (more on that later!) and it worked great when I tried it at home. At the dance, however, there were strange crackles. Even weirder, when I played the highest notes on the piano, I got a very small amount of phantom bass, maybe four octaves down. It got louder and quieter, as I turned the keyboard up and...
about 1 month ago
Pollsters Should Publish Question Translations
All the writing advice I have via Thing of Things September 5, 2024 Life for an American family in 1860s China The post Two 19th-century missionary memoirs in China appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise August 24, 2024 You’ve started a project or company. Great idea, great team, you’re cranking away. Build a prototype, work on acquiring the key partnerships, figure out launch planning, get a few initial users… simple enough right? via Home August 19, 2024
about 1 month ago
August 2024 Time Tracking
In favor of philosophical argumentation via Thing of Things August 22, 2024 You’ve started a project or company. Great idea, great team, you’re cranking away. Build a prototype, work on acquiring the key partnerships, figure out launch planning, get a few initial users… simple enough right? via Home August 19, 2024 About eight years ago, I was playing a game of Codenames where the game state was such that our team would almost certainly lose if we didn't correctly guess...
2 months ago
Apartment Price Map Discontinuity
I think Olympic women’s sports should be open to anyone assigned female at birth whose testosterone levels (whether exogenous or endogenous) fit within appropriate anti-doping guidelines. via Thing of Things August 16, 2024 Getting to "good enough" The post Relaxing my standards on housekeeping appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise July 31, 2024 overall direction • people management • project management • technical leadership • example divisions of labor via benkuhn.net July 21, 2024
2 months ago
Restructuring Pop Songs for Contra
One of the things I like about playing for contra dances is that you have a lot of freedom about what to play. As long as you meet the minimum requirements for danceable music (108-122bpm, contra phrasing) you can do almost anything. And then if you're a bottom left corner band you might want to play some pop covers. While lots of pop music has a tempo in the right range, it's much less common for it to have the...
2 months ago
FarmKind's Illusory Offer
While the effective altruism movement has changed a lot over time, one of the parts that makes me most disappointed is the steady creep of donation matching. It's not that donation matching is objectively very important, but the early EA movement's principled rejection of a very effective fundraising strategy made it clear that we were committed to helping people understand the real impact of their donations. Over time, as people have specialized into different areas of EA, with community-building and...
2 months ago
Simultaneous Footbass and Footdrums II
Abigail Shrier's bad book via Thing of Things August 7, 2024 Getting to "good enough" The post Relaxing my standards on housekeeping appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise July 31, 2024 overall direction • people management • project management • technical leadership • example divisions of labor via benkuhn.net July 21, 2024
3 months ago
Dragon Agnosticism
I'm agnostic on the existence of dragons. I don't usually talk about this, because people might misinterpret me as actually being a covert dragon-believer, but I wanted to give some background for why I disagree with calls for people to publicly assert the non-existence of dragons. Before I do that, though, it's clear that horrible acts have been committed in the name of dragons. Many dragon-believers publicly or privately endorse this reprehensible history. Regardless of whether dragons do in fact...
3 months ago
If You Can Climb Up, You Can Climb Down
A few weeks ago Julia wrote about how we approach kids climbing: The basics: Spot the child if they're doing something where a fall is likely. Don't encourage or help the child to climb something that's beyond their ability to do on their own. If they don't know how to get down, give advice rather than physically lifting them down. Don't allow climbing on some places that are too dangerous. I was thinking about this some when I was at...
3 months ago
Cat Sustenance Fortification
The importance of liberty via Thing of Things July 30, 2024 Giving up control over choices that don't belong to me The post Children’s appearance is overemphasized appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise July 27, 2024 overall direction • people management • project management • technical leadership • example divisions of labor via benkuhn.net July 21, 2024
3 months ago
Ball Sq Pathways
The nuance is in the post, guys via Thing of Things July 18, 2024 non-trust is reasonable • trust lets collaboration scale • symptoms of trust deficit • how to proactively build trust via benkuhn.net July 13, 2024 Helping kids learn to climb things that are at the edge of their ability The post Coaching kids as they learn to climb appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise July 10, 2024
3 months ago
Krona Compare
The nuance is in the post, guys via Thing of Things July 18, 2024 non-trust is reasonable • trust lets collaboration scale • symptoms of trust deficit • how to proactively build trust via benkuhn.net July 13, 2024 Helping kids learn to climb things that are at the edge of their ability The post Coaching kids as they learn to climb appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise July 10, 2024
3 months ago
Turning Your Back On Traffic
non-trust is reasonable • trust lets collaboration scale • symptoms of trust deficit • how to proactively build trust via benkuhn.net July 13, 2024 Effective altruism, rationality, metascience, economics, social justice, fun. via Thing of Things July 10, 2024 Helping kids learn to climb things that are at the edge of their ability The post Coaching kids as they learn to climb appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise July 10, 2024
3 months ago
Stacked Laptop Monitor Update
non-trust is reasonable • trust lets collaboration scale • symptoms of trust deficit • how to proactively build trust via benkuhn.net July 13, 2024 Effective altruism, rationality, metascience, economics, social justice, fun. via Thing of Things July 10, 2024 Helping kids learn to climb things that are at the edge of their ability The post Coaching kids as they learn to climb appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise July 10, 2024
3 months ago
Child Handrail Returns
non-trust is reasonable • trust lets collaboration scale • symptoms of trust deficit • how to proactively build trust via benkuhn.net July 13, 2024 Effective altruism, rationality, metascience, economics, social justice, fun. via Thing of Things July 10, 2024 Helping kids learn to climb things that are at the edge of their ability The post Coaching kids as they learn to climb appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise July 10, 2024
3 months ago
Spark in the Dark Guest Spots
non-trust is reasonable • trust lets collaboration scale • symptoms of trust deficit • how to proactively build trust via benkuhn.net July 13, 2024 Effective altruism, rationality, metascience, economics, social justice, fun. via Thing of Things July 10, 2024 Helping kids learn to climb things that are at the edge of their ability The post Coaching kids as they learn to climb appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise July 10, 2024
3 months ago
A Second Wetsuit Summer
Effective altruism, rationality, metascience, economics, social justice, fun. via Thing of Things July 10, 2024 Helping kids learn to climb things that are at the edge of their ability The post Coaching kids as they learn to climb appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise July 10, 2024 There've been regular viral stories about ML/AI bias with LLMs and generative AI for the past couple years. One thing I find interesting about discussions of bias is how different the reaction is...
3 months ago
AirBnB Baking
Helping kids learn to climb things that are at the edge of their ability The post Coaching kids as they learn to climb appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise July 10, 2024 The dispute over a concept via Thing of Things July 8, 2024 There've been regular viral stories about ML/AI bias with LLMs and generative AI for the past couple years. One thing I find interesting about discussions of bias is how different the reaction is in the LLM...
3 months ago
Summer Tour Stops
The dispute over a concept via Thing of Things July 8, 2024 Keeping donations high as our income rose and fell The post Still donating half appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise June 23, 2024 There've been regular viral stories about ML/AI bias with LLMs and generative AI for the past couple years. One thing I find interesting about discussions of bias is how different the reaction is in the LLM and generative AI case when compared to "… via...
4 months ago
Sample Prevalance vs Global Prevalence
The dispute over a concept via Thing of Things July 8, 2024 Keeping donations high as our income rose and fell The post Still donating half appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise June 23, 2024 There've been regular viral stories about ML/AI bias with LLMs and generative AI for the past couple years. One thing I find interesting about discussions of bias is how different the reaction is in the LLM and generative AI case when compared to "… via...
4 months ago
Travel Buffer
Against Sandwich Memeing via Thing of Things July 5, 2024 Keeping donations high as our income rose and fell The post Still donating half appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise June 23, 2024 There've been regular viral stories about ML/AI bias with LLMs and generative AI for the past couple years. One thing I find interesting about discussions of bias is how different the reaction is in the LLM and generative AI case when compared to "… via Posts on...
4 months ago
Cross Robin
what a weird fish via Thing of Things June 25, 2024 Keeping donations high as our income rose and fell The post Still donating half appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise June 23, 2024 There've been regular viral stories about ML/AI bias with LLMs and generative AI for the past couple years. One thing I find interesting about discussions of bias is how different the reaction is in the LLM and generative AI case when compared to "… via Posts...
4 months ago
Kingfisher Summer Tour 2024
Parenting is different from what you expect via Thing of Things June 25, 2024 Keeping donations high as our income rose and fell The post Still donating half appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise June 23, 2024 There've been regular viral stories about ML/AI bias with LLMs and generative AI for the past couple years. One thing I find interesting about discussions of bias is how different the reaction is in the LLM and generative AI case when compared to...
4 months ago
Text Posts from the Kids Group: 2019
(Some of these were from me; some were from Julia. Ones saying "me" could mean either of us.) 2019-01-05 Anna: I was kicking Lily over and I tripped on a balloon. Me: You were doing what? Anna: (pause) I was accidentally kicking Lily over and I tripped on a balloon. 2019-01-08 Anna asks me to give her pictures of different objects. Then she colors them blue. Blue every time, everything is blue. This one was "a mama frog and a...
4 months ago
Juneberry Puffs
ONE WEIRD TRICK to protect yourself against cults via Thing of Things June 18, 2024 There've been regular viral stories about ML/AI bias with LLMs and generative AI for the past couple years. One thing I find interesting about discussions of bias is how different the reaction is in the LLM and generative AI case when compared to "… via Posts on June 16, 2024 Topics that come up a lot The post Conversations I often have about parenting appeared...
4 months ago
Gizmo Watch Review
Summary: the watches do the basic things they need to and have let us give our kids more freedom, but there are also a bunch of annoying limitations and they're 36% more expensive than they look. I'm overall happy we got them. Our older two kids, Lily and Anna, are ten and eight, and are mature enough that they're able to cross streets and handle unusual situations. They can go to the park or a nearby friends house on their...
4 months ago
Calling My Second Family Dance
There've been regular viral stories about ML/AI bias with LLMs and generative AI for the past couple years. One thing I find interesting about discussions of bias is how different the reaction is in the LLM and generative AI case when compared to "… via Posts on June 16, 2024 Mentally ill people have always existed! via Thing of Things June 14, 2024 Topics that come up a lot The post Conversations I often have about parenting appeared first on...
4 months ago
Two Family Dance Flyers
Transhumanism as anti-ableist praxis via Thing of Things June 7, 2024 Topics that come up a lot The post Conversations I often have about parenting appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise June 4, 2024 This is a summary of the publicly available documents on the 2011-2012 FTC investigation of Google's allegedly antitcompetive actions in search and ads, followed by a tech-focused analysis of the decision from someone who's worked at the two compa… via Posts on May 26, 2024
5 months ago
Sev, Sevteen, Sevty, Sevth
Transhumanism as anti-ableist praxis via Thing of Things June 7, 2024 Topics that come up a lot The post Conversations I often have about parenting appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise June 4, 2024 This is a summary of the publicly available documents on the 2011-2012 FTC investigation of Google's allegedly antitcompetive actions in search and ads, followed by a tech-focused analysis of the decision from someone who's worked at the two compa… via Posts on May 26, 2024
5 months ago
Offering Completion
Effective altruism, psychology, rationality, politics, short stories, fun. via Thing of Things June 6, 2024 Topics that come up a lot The post Conversations I often have about parenting appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise June 4, 2024 This is a summary of the publicly available documents on the 2011-2012 FTC investigation of Google's allegedly antitcompetive actions in search and ads, followed by a tech-focused analysis of the decision from someone who's worked at the two compa… via Posts on...
5 months ago
Circuit Board Ordering
Somewhat against Emile Torres via Thing of Things June 3, 2024 This is a summary of the publicly available documents on the 2011-2012 FTC investigation of Google's allegedly antitcompetive actions in search and ads, followed by a tech-focused analysis of the decision from someone who's worked at the two compa… via Posts on May 26, 2024 Unfortunately we landed on a pretty bad drug as a default. The post How bad is alcohol? appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise May...
5 months ago
Searching Magic Cards
I like playing Magic, except for the "it's designed to pump away your money" aspect. So I like formats where I can play with other people's cards a lot! My favorite is probably drafting from booster packs where someone else will keep all the cards, but yesterday Stevie brought over a Forgetful Fish-style deck he'd put together, and we played a couple times. The only creature in this format is the Dandan, a 4/1 blue creature with: Dandan can't attack...
5 months ago
Duckbill Masks Better?
This is a summary of the publicly available documents on the 2011-2012 FTC investigation of Google's allegedly antitcompetive actions in search and ads, followed by a tech-focused analysis of the decision from someone who's worked at the two compa… via Posts on May 26, 2024 In praise of indoctrinating children via Thing of Things May 24, 2024 Unfortunately we landed on a pretty bad drug as a default. The post How bad is alcohol? appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise...
5 months ago
Quick Thoughts on Our First Sampling Run
Actually a book review and not a summary via Thing of Things May 21, 2024 Unfortunately we landed on a pretty bad drug as a default. The post How bad is alcohol? appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise May 6, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024
5 months ago
Scientific Notation Options
Advice for the excessively guilty via Thing of Things May 15, 2024 Unfortunately we landed on a pretty bad drug as a default. The post How bad is alcohol? appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise May 6, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024
5 months ago
Contra Caller Gender III
When I looked at the genders of dance callers at large contra dance events several years ago there was an interesting pattern where events were more likely to book a man and a woman than you'd expect by chance. With more years worth of data to look at, I thought it was worth checking if this was still the case. To see the effect most clearly, I looked at events with two binary callers. [1] Here's what I saw: You...
5 months ago
Embedded Whistle Synth
A few years ago I ported my whistle synth system from my laptop to a Raspberry Pi. This was a big improvement, but I still wasn't that happy: To get good quality audio in and out I was using a 2i2 audio interface, which is expensive, bulky, and has a lot of buttons and knobs that can be bumped. To use a single mic for both whistle and talkbox I was using a cheap passive A/B switcher. Which feels fragile,...
5 months ago
Somerville Porchfest Thoughts
This Saturday was Porchfest in Somerville, an annual festival where musicians around the city play on their porches and people wander around listening. As in the past few years Cecilia and I (Kingfisher) played for contra dancing: Harris Lapiroff called: If anyone has pictures of videos from the set, I'd love to see them as well. Overall, we had a great time! It was fun seeing so many friends, and the kids did some very good business with their bake...
5 months ago
Custom Audio Switch Box
Gently raised in Park Slope via Thing of Things May 7, 2024 Unfortunately we landed on a pretty bad drug as a default. The post How bad is alcohol? appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise May 6, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024
6 months ago
Four Unrelated Is Over
Gently raised in Park Slope via Thing of Things May 7, 2024 Unfortunately we landed on a pretty bad drug as a default. The post How bad is alcohol? appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise May 6, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024
6 months ago
Experience Switching to Right Shoulder Round
Contra dance has a figure where two people walk a small circle looking at each other. When it was introduced into contra in the 1970s as a borrowing from ECD, it had the name "gypsy", originally from Morris dancing, but many communities now use "right shoulder round". In many dance communities the debate over whether and how to switch functioned as a highly acrimonious culture war outlet. I really didn't want our group going through that, but talking publicly about...
6 months ago
Accidental Electronic Instrument
I've been working on a project with the goal of adding virtual harp strings to my electric mandolin. As I've worked on it, though, I've ended up building something pretty different: It's not what I was going for! Instead of a small bisonoric monophonic picked instrument attached to the mandolin, it's a large unisonoric polyphonic finger-plucked tabletop instrument. But I like it! While it's great to have goals, when I'm making things I also like to follow the gradients in...
6 months ago
Haymarket at Closing Time
Historically produce shopping was mostly in open-air markets, but in the US produce is now typically sold in buildings. Most open-air produce sales are probably at farmers markets, but these focus on the high end. I like that Boston's Haymarket more similar to the historical model: competing vendors selling conventional produce relatively cheaply. It closes for the weekend at 7pm on Saturdays, and since food they don't sell by the end of the market is mostly going to waste they...
6 months ago
Extra Tall Crib
Effective altruism, writing, life advice, politics, short stories via Thing of Things May 2, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband...
6 months ago
Playing Northboro with Lily and Rick
This afternoon Lily, Rick, and I ("Dandelion") played our first dance together, which was also Lily's first dance. She's sat in with Kingfisher for a set or two many times, but this was her first time being booked and playing (almost) the whole time. Lily started playing fiddle in Fall 2022, and after about a year she had enough tunes up to dance speed that I was thinking she'd be ready to play a low-stakes dance together soon. Not right...
6 months ago
Breadboarding a Whistle Synth
With my electronic harp mandolin project I've been enjoying working with analog and embedded audio hardware. And a few weeks ago, after reading about Ugo Conti's whistle-controlled synth I wrote to him, he gave me a call, and we had a really interesting conversation. And my existing combination of hardware for my whistle synth [1] is bulky and expensive. Which has me excited about a new project: I'd like to make an embedded version. Yesterday I got started on the...
6 months ago
Electronic Harp Mandolin Prototype
The necessity of birth control via Thing of Things April 22, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both …...
6 months ago
Contra Chord Simplification
Social norms via Thing of Things April 19, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both … via Posts on...
6 months ago
Events Booking New Callers?
Social norms via Thing of Things April 19, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both … via Posts on...
6 months ago
Backyard Office
Hopefully helpful feedback via Thing of Things April 16, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both … via Posts...
6 months ago
Spending Update 2024
Hopefully helpful feedback via Thing of Things April 16, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both … via Posts...
6 months ago
Four Local Gigs
Surveys matter! via Thing of Things April 12, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both … via Posts on...
6 months ago
Clipboard Filtering
Surveys matter! via Thing of Things April 12, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both … via Posts on...
6 months ago
Text Posts from the Kids Group: 2020
(Some of these were from me; some were from Julia. Ones saying "me" could mean either of us.) 2020-01-01 We went to the movies, and brought our own popcorn. When I passed the popcorn to Lily during the movie she was indignant, saying that we weren't supposed to bring in our own food. She ate one piece, but then said it wasn't ok and wouldn't eat more. When the movie ended, Lily wanted us to tell the people at the...
6 months ago
Interference Issues
I've been working on building an electronic harp mandolin (previously, previously, previously). I got it all hooked up, but unfortunately I'm running into pretty bad interference, and need to redesign it. Going back a bit, I had designed a circuit for testing and breadboarded it. It worked very well, and I wrote a bunch of code to interpret the pluck signals. [1] Here's a video of the breadboard version, showing both velocity sensitivity and direction detection: I did a bit...
6 months ago
Pandemic Identification Simulator
Groups to defer your donation choices to. via Thing of Things April 5, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds,...
7 months ago
Trying to Do More Good
This is an edited transcript of a talk I gave last week at Commonwealth School, a high school in Boston that I attended from 2000 to 2004. I'm typing from memory, so in places it may be closer to what I intended to say than what I actually said. It's been twenty years since I was a student here, but the place feels very similar. It's good to be back! I want to start with a conversation, sometime around 2003....
7 months ago
BIDA Election Thoughts
I'm a personal responsibility blogger in my old age via Thing of Things April 2, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have...
7 months ago
Pluck Sensor Circuit
A while ago I finished the "user interface" portion of my electronic harp mandolin. I'm happy with the signals the piezos put out, but now I need some electrical engineering to get the signals into a computer where I'll be more at home. Since I made a design with 13 piezos, I wanted something with at least that many analog to digital converters, and decided on the Teensy 4.0 with 14. It turns out that this only has ten easily...
7 months ago
Historical Contra Swing Holds
One of the most common and moves in contra dance is the 'swing', where two people face each other, hold on in some fashion, and quickly spin clockwise. In modern urban contra every dance has a partner swing (doing the figure with the person you chose to dance with, every 30s or so), and maybe a bit more than half have a neighbor swing (doing the figure with a series of other people you meet in line). The amount of...
7 months ago
Legality as a Career Harm Assessment Heuristic
In defense of trying things out via Thing of Things March 25, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both...
7 months ago
Converting Plucks to MIDI
In defense of trying things out via Thing of Things March 25, 2024 I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both...
7 months ago
Photo Curation Approach
I take a lot of pictures, maybe 10k annually. Most of them aren't that great, but if you take enough you'll get some good ones, and even the discards can be a useful reference. How do I handle these? I have an Android phone, set to automatically upload any pictures to Google Photos. My wife does as well, and we have it configured to use a shared camera roll, which is super useful. As soon as a photo or video...
7 months ago
Mandolin Harp Sensor Placement
I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both … via Posts on March 16, 2024 A useful concept via Thing of...
7 months ago
Prototyping Pluck Sensors
Harp guitars are a neat weird instrument that never really took off: You play it like a normal guitar, with six fretted strings, but there are also some number of extra harp strings you can pluck. I see four main downsides: They're bulky and hard to transport. You need to tune the strings to match the song. You don't have many note choices. Guitars are worse than mandolins. We can fix all of these: an electronic harp mandolin! It wouldn't...
7 months ago
Where are the Contra Dances?
I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both … via Posts on March 16, 2024 A useful concept via Thing of...
7 months ago
Parent-Friendly Dance Weekends
I posted a postmortem of a community I worked to help build, Clarendon, in Cambridge MA, over at Supernuclear. via Home March 19, 2024 In 2017, we looked at how web bloat affects users with slow connections. Even in the U.S., many users didn't have broadband speeds, making much of the web difficult to use. It's still the case that many users don't have broadband speeds, both … via Posts on March 16, 2024 A useful concept via Thing of...
7 months ago
How Much Have I Been Playing?
I. David Ley’s The Myth of Sex Addiction is a stupid, wrong book saved only by the fact that the people it’s arguing with are stupider and wronger. II. “Sex addiction” is a proposed mental health condition, not recognized by the DSM or the ICD, where a pe… via Thing of Things March 7, 2024 Your future happiness does not depend on how gorgeous this one day is. The post Your wedding doesn’t have to be that great appeared first...
8 months ago
Replacing the Water Heater's Anode
We installed a new water heater 8 years ago, and since then I've ignored it. It's an indirect model, heated by the same gas boiler that heats our house, and it has done its job well. When I was thinking about heat pumps, however, I reread the manuals for our existing system and noticed that the manufacturer recommends checking the anode annually. The idea is that water will corrode metal, but prefers some metals to others, so if you put...
8 months ago
MA E-ZPass Without a Car?
I. David Ley’s The Myth of Sex Addiction is a stupid, wrong book saved only by the fact that the people it’s arguing with are stupider and wronger. II. “Sex addiction” is a proposed mental health condition, not recognized by the DSM or the ICD, where a pe… via Thing of Things March 7, 2024 Your future happiness does not depend on how gorgeous this one day is. The post Your wedding doesn’t have to be that great appeared first...
8 months ago
Boston's Line 1
Your future happiness does not depend on how gorgeous this one day is. The post Your wedding doesn’t have to be that great appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise March 4, 2024 Against piracy via Thing of Things February 29, 2024 When the nurse comes to give you the flu shot, they say it won't hurt at all, right? And you trust them. Then they give you the shot, and it hurts! They lied to you. A lot of nurses...
8 months ago
Attending Sold-Out Beantown Stomp
Against piracy via Thing of Things February 29, 2024 When the nurse comes to give you the flu shot, they say it won't hurt at all, right? And you trust them. Then they give you the shot, and it hurts! They lied to you. A lot of nurses lie to children about shots and blood draws. Part of it is they probabl… via Lily Wise's Blog Posts February 28, 2024 This is an adaptation of an internal doc I wrote...
8 months ago
Ugo Conti's Whistle-Controlled Synthesizer
Against piracy via Thing of Things February 29, 2024 When the nurse comes to give you the flu shot, they say it won't hurt at all, right? And you trust them. Then they give you the shot, and it hurts! They lied to you. A lot of nurses lie to children about shots and blood draws. Part of it is they probabl… via Lily Wise's Blog Posts February 28, 2024 This is an adaptation of an internal doc I wrote...
8 months ago
Adding Sensors to Mandolin?
Against piracy via Thing of Things February 29, 2024 When the nurse comes to give you the flu shot, they say it won't hurt at all, right? And you trust them. Then they give you the shot, and it hurts! They lied to you. A lot of nurses lie to children about shots and blood draws. Part of it is they probabl… via Lily Wise's Blog Posts February 28, 2024 This is an adaptation of an internal doc I wrote...
8 months ago
Tour Retrospective February 2024
Last week Kingfisher went on tour, driving down to DC and back. It was a pretty good time! We planned the tour for the kids February vacation in case they wanted to come, and Lily decided to join us. Alex Deis-Lauby was calling, and she came with us as well. Getting the four of us, a keyboard, and all of our stuff into a sedan would have been difficult, so we rented a minivan. In general I'm a big fan...
8 months ago
Band Lessons?
More than half? via Thing of Things February 26, 2024 This is an adaptation of an internal doc I wrote for Wave. I used to think that behavioral interviews were basically useless, because it was too easy for candidates to bullshit them and too hard for me to tell what was a good answer. I’d end up grading eve… via benkuhn.net February 25, 2024 If I ask myself a question like "I'd like to buy an SD card; who do...
8 months ago
Update 2024-02-26
Update 2024-02-26: due to a serious typo all the results in this post were off by a factor of 100. Sequencing from individuals still looks promising, but by less than it did before. I've updated the numbers in the post, and added notes above the charts to explain how they're wrong. Thanks to Simon Grimm for catching my mistake. While this is about an area I work in, I'm speaking for myself and not my organization. At the Nucleic Acid...
8 months ago
Balancing Games
The most legible harm isn't the most serious harm via Thing of Things February 21, 2024 If I ask myself a question like "I'd like to buy an SD card; who do I trust to sell me a real SD card and not some fake, Amazon or my local Best Buy?", of course the answer is that I trust my local Best Buy1 more than Amazon, which is notoriou… via Posts on February 18, 2024 How do we prepare them...
8 months ago
Gut Renovating Another Bathroom
things I find fascinating: religion, scams via Thing of Things February 19, 2024 If I ask myself a question like "I'd like to buy an SD card; who do I trust to sell me a real SD card and not some fake, Amazon or my local Best Buy?", of course the answer is that I trust my local Best Buy1 more than Amazon, which is notoriou… via Posts on February 18, 2024 How do we prepare them for what we're...
8 months ago
Retirement Accounts and Short Timelines
things I find fascinating: religion, scams via Thing of Things February 19, 2024 If I ask myself a question like "I'd like to buy an SD card; who do I trust to sell me a real SD card and not some fake, Amazon or my local Best Buy?", of course the answer is that I trust my local Best Buy1 more than Amazon, which is notoriou… via Posts on February 18, 2024 How do we prepare them for what we're...
8 months ago
Evaluating Solar
In 2018, we installed 14 solar panels on the Northwest roof of our house. This is a little silly: wouldn't you want to install them facing the sun? The problem was the enormous tree to our Southeast, twice the height of our house, completely shading that area. It was a great tree, but it was causing problems for our neighbor, so they took it down a couple years ago. I looked at getting solar at the time and got as...
8 months ago
Kingfisher Winter Tour 2024
How do we prepare them for what we're not prepared for? The post Raising children on the eve of AI appeared first on Otherwise. via Otherwise February 15, 2024 I never know if my advice is cynical or not via Thing of Things February 13, 2024 On large platforms, it's impossible to have policies on things like moderation, spam, fraud, and sexual content that people agree on. David Turner made a simple game to illustrate how difficult this is even...
8 months ago
Experimenting With Footboard Piezos
In playing for contra dances it's rare to have a drummer. You mostly see them at big events where the finances work out for a fourth or fifth musician: in trio, or especially a duo, you generally can't allocate anyone just to drums. What you do see a lot of, however, is a musician playing foot percussion in addition to something else. There are a range of ways to do this technically (I wrote a post with lots of examples)...
9 months ago
A Strange ACH Corner Case
Juila and I were a bit late in deciding where we wanted to donate this year. We intended to sort this out in mid-December, but didn't nail it down until Saturday 2023-12-23. An electronic transfer saves the recipient money, but with the holidays we didn't end up receiving ACH details until the evening of Thursday 2023-12-28. I put in a "Next Day" transfer with Bank of America that evening, got an automated confirmation, and stopped worrying about it. A bit...
9 months ago
Running the Numbers on a Heat Pump
I recently looked into installing a heat pump mini-split system to heat and cool our house. While it's expensive to install, I had thought a combination of it being nicer than what we currently have and cheaper to operate would make it worth it. Unfortunately, after running the numbers on our utility costs it turns out it would be substantially more expensive to power than our current gas system. I got excited about a potential heat pump system after learning...
9 months ago