The Singularity Already Happened for Dogs and They Seem Fine
Exploring how dogs have already experienced their own technological singularity through domestication and what we can learn from their adaptation
Blog
Stop blackpilling, stop dooming, forget p(doom), and learn to love building GPT wrappers
Why pessimistic AI doom scenarios are counterproductive and how embracing practical AI applications and building simple GPT-powered tools can be more valuable than endless speculation about existential risks.
It's 2025 But Is It 1995 or 1998?
Exploring parallels between today's AI boom and the dot-com era - are we in the early excitement phase or approaching a bubble burst?
Trend Reversal - Developed Economies Poised to Reap Greater AI/Automation Benefits
Comparing Vietnam to Japan while Exploring the countryside in Đà Lạt. Why developed economies like Japan will benefit more from AI and robotic automation compared to developing economies like Vietnam, leveraging existing infrastructure and efficiency.
My Thoughts on AI Progress and Alignment (April 2025)
Reflecting on Scott Alexander's AI 2027 paper and my current views on AI progress and the alignment problem.
Making the product sing
your b2b saas needs to sing to users like never before. But also it's easier than ever before.
Hallucination Yield or LLM Market Premium?
Exploring the concept of "Hallucination Yield" in large language models like ChatGPT and its potential to create a market premium.
New Technologies and Promising Companies for 2024
A list of new technologies and promising companies for 2024. Assessing the current state of the market.
Information Gradients Lead to Technocapital Sinks
Find new technologies before they are discovered by the market.
Creating Potently Agentic Individually Aligned Models
Lack of agency is the biggest problem with people attempting to use AI tools.
The human credulity defense is in finite supply.
The more content you consume, the less you are able to critically evaluate it.
How I built Bounty's internal customer service tools using Retool
Evenly spreading scheduled job load across hourly time buckets
The Semantic Search Engine and Unsupervised Learning Powering Saymore.ai
Divide & Conquer - Musk's Attention Hack for Startup Founders
Discover how startup founders can harness the power of polarization, drawing inspiration from Musks's attention-grabbing tactics to thrive in today's fragmented attention economy.
Attention in the Western Hemisphere is a Gaussian Beam
A Gaussian Beam only has one point of maximum focus, but when it is brought the bear upon a single point it's power is it's full potential
Bounty's Engineering Org Guiding Principles
Some guidelines I wrote down to help introduce new engineers to how I want the Bounty team to operate and ship code for the business.
UUIDs are so much better than autoincrementing ids and it's not even close
A year and a half ago we started building a startup and I chose to use UUIDs as primary keys and it turned out to be such a good choice.
Organizational Hierarchy as a Hidden Markov Model - For Sales
Thinking about modeling large organizations through the lens of a hidden markov model to get to a "yes" in the sales process.
Building a (software) engineering organization one year in.
Lessons learned, pain points, and my developing management philosophy.
Bureaucracy navigation as a service startup ideas
Trying to define whole categories of software related to automating bureaucracy and why they are good businesses.
Concerned about the world? Ask GPT-3!
What does the AI oracle completion API have to say about the current state of things in the world?
Sobol's Daemon is Alive
Comparing some common sci-fi tropes to forces of decentralization that actually exist.
Doing A Good Code Review Should Be Simple
I talk about why it's a good idea to use a checklist with code reviews and how subjective PR sizes when it comes to code.
The Great American Melt Up
I talk about the last 5 years and next 5 years looking at it through the lens of the 1920s and 1930s.
An Introduction To Ultra Long Term Trend Following
I explain how ultra long term trend following could work.
Wait For The Crash And Pick Up The Pieces
I talk about how to buy into emerging technology trends by avoiding the hype cycles.
All Markets Are A Dark Forest
Examples of the Dark Forest idea of markets in both the stock market and in crypto markets.
Predicting What Will Happen in 2021
At this point the possibilities diverge so wildly it really is quite fascinating.
Testing A Simple "Buy The Dip" Alpaca System (4 Months In)
I put a very simple buy the dip system live a few months ago against Alpaca to see what would happen.
"Donnie Pump" a Presidential Press Conference Trading System.
For a while it seemed like everyday in March of 2020 there was a White House press conference. This is an experiment building a system to help trade against this.
Buy Boeing, Sell Boeing?
Can you just buy every dip and sell every pop on some stocks?
Selling People What They Want, Not What They Need
A crucial mistake is selling people something they need, not what they want. Wants are what people seek out to purchase.
Why You Can't Narrow "any" in TypeScript
I recently discovered you cannot narrow "any" type in typescript with a typeguard.
Adding Jest To Sharepoint Framework React Sites in 2020
I recently started working on a sharepoint framework react site using typescript and I wanted to add Jest tests. Here is how to do it.
How I Built A Custom Art Commissions Site In 2019
I talk about my experience of building a custom art commissions site using MERN stack in 2019.
The Pros and Cons of Various Secret Storage Systems
I talk pros and cons of various systems of how to get your secrets deployed to prod running your server!
Evidence of Diminishing Attention Span of YouTubers
I accidentally do an experiment that reveals attention span dropping on youtube
How Does Sector Rebalancing Impact Returns?
I do some backtests with sector rebalancing and figure out if it is worth doing!
The Basic Math of Trading for Income
I break down some of the math of trading for a living to help me understand how to build a worthwhile trading system.
One Week Side Project Ideas
One week side projects I'm thinking of in February 2018.
My First Attempt At Systematic Trading Algorithms
My First Attempts at building a serious Systematic Trading Algorithm based on a long term trend following approach.
One to Three month side-project ideas list
One week side projects I'm thinking of in February 2018.
React Native Android app as a Module
I talk about how I used React Native in Android as a module that was part of a larger Android app
Kubernetes HPA uses cpu.request not cpu.limit
A full site build with React and Redux using "Create React App"
React Redux Mega Tutorial
A full site build with React and Redux using "Create React App"
Raspberry Pi Packet Capturer
Setting up a new PI to capture packets.
Introducing Submittal Extractor
Submittal Extractor is a Saas application I have been building over the past 6 months with the help of Messer Construction Co. in Cincinnati OH.
The State of Node Debugging
Using chrome dev tools for node debugging
When to use Object Pooling in Java
When does it make sense to use object pools in Java? Are connection pools the only object pools you should use?
Positive Risk Exposure
Positive risk exposures - good black swans
Looking back at my 2016 Reading List
I discuss some of the 56 books I read during 2016
Algorithmic Trading Experiments With Cryptocurrency
A summary of my attempts at algorithmic trading using various strategies on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Shutting Down Trollboxarchive
Why I'm Shutting Down Trollboxarchive.com, some stats and some explanations
Software Project Premortems
Applying the idea of a "premortem" to your side projects and opportunities at work
Correlating Sentiment with Bitcoin Prices
Is it possible to correlate bitcoin prices from chat logs on a bitcoin exchange?
Generating Signed Access Tokens (HMAC)
I talk about what a hashed message authentication code is, and I give an example in javascript
Yarn vs npm one week in
My thoughts on yarn vs npm after using yarn for a week.
6 months of pair programming
A six month retrospective on how pair programming every day work has been
How npm scripts really work
Why you should be using npm scripts instead of globally install javascript build tools
Finding Freelance Development Work
A quick overview on where to start in finding high quality clients
Version Control and Git For New Developers
Why version control and especially git is important for new developers to learn.
Generating Ideas For Software Projects
Ideas on how to come up with ideas for software projects and products
5 ES2015 Features You Should Use Today
top 5 es2015 features I think you will get the most benefit from.
The First 3 Things to Discuss With a Prospective Freelance Web Developer
I talk about scope of work, ballparking budget, and time constraints as the 3 things you need to discover immediately
Web Push Notifications with Web Workers
Recently I did some experimenting with Web Workers and in-browser push notifications
Making npm install faster
A couple of ways to make npm install run a bit faster on your builds.
Computer Science for the Self Taught Programmer
Thinking about writing a little E-Book for new developers.
The increasing commoditization of downmarket web development
what to do about wix, squarespace, weebly and whatever else.
git tip: replace your master branch with a fresh copy from upstream
some git commands to remove a borked local branch and check out a fresh copy from upstream
How to wrap console.log in-place with a prefix
Wrapping console.log so that you can add timestamps, script names, whatever else to node logs.
JavaScript constants using Object.defineProperty
I was working on a project with hundreds of globals right on the window object, and trying to convince them this was bad
Calling "forEach" on array-like objects (e.g. arguments).
An example of good thing I learned from "Secrets of a JavaScript ninja"
Gigabyte GA-H170-GAMING 3 motherboard Audio and Linux
An annoying troubleshooting experience where I learned about ALSA
Fun with semicolons in JavaScript
Stray semicolons in JavaScript and cause unexpected code execution
Jasmine - spyOn().and.callThrough() argument mutability
I made a pull request to Jasmine to add a feature to spies.
MongoDB Full-text Search Default Oddities
tl;dr - MongoDB does OR and doesn't order results by score by default
Android 4.1 and 4.2, GPU rendering and DOM not repainting
tl;dr - CSS "translate3d" is buggy on certain android versions
HTML5 Number Input validation is perturbing
HTML5 gives you element.validity for numbers
Searching Sphinx From PHP
Using Sphix with PHP and setting up indexes
Full text search with Sphinx and MySQL InnoDB
Configuring Sphinx to pull data directly from MySQL tables.
Microsoft AD LDAP authentication via Apache2
Doing LDAP auth directly with Apache and PHP, its actually pretty easy
LCD and Arduino
My experiments with buying a little 20x4 LCD screen to use with an arduino