A Note on Preparation Sometimes disaster isn’t dramatic — it’s engineered quietly through small misalignments, unverified assumptions, and one critical oversight that everyone swears wasn’t their fault. This recipe takes a dry, structured look at how everyday decisions combine into a perfectly avoidable catastrophe. It’s not food, but it’s absolutely […]
Artificial Intelligence, My Favorite Evil Machine
A sharp, memorable explainer that uses the dry humor of “my favorite evil machine” to cut through AI hype and fear. This piece reframes AI not as an autonomous threat, but as a powerful tool that amplifies human choices, incentives, and governance. Through humor, clarity, and structural precision, it teaches the core truth: AI has no intent — humans do — and accountability always lives with the people and institutions behind the system.
Codifying the Unwritten Rules
A definitive blueprint for neutral, low‑noise technical communities — the first public codification of the unwritten norms that make high‑performance environments functional, predictable, and safe. This essay explains why SDSUG formalized the expectations elite fields have relied on for decades: clarity, courtesy, neutrality, and no ideological tilt. It’s a manifesto for stewards who want to build rooms where people stop bracing, start collaborating, and finally breathe again — small, well‑run spaces where the work comes first and repair becomes possible.
Why So Many Websites Read Like War and Peace
Why So Many Websites Read Like War and Peace and Why That’s Not an Accident If you’ve ever landed on a website and thought, “Why is this so long?”—you’re not wrong. Somewhere between the opening paragraph and the fifteenth subheading, many modern web pages begin to feel less like explanations […]
Why I Removed Social Media Sharing Buttons
Why I Removed Social Media Sharing Buttons | Refusing to Feature Without Blocking For a long time, I featured social media sharing buttons prominently on my website. I didn’t find them especially useful. However, I thought they improved the experience for readers. Other people expected them. I believed, at the […]
Serious Horseplay | When Gifts Become Trojan Horses
Why high-trust tokens can create low-noise risk, and what “good tradecraft” looks like.
The Good Anomalies
The Good Anomalies | Noticing the Good After You’ve Spent Your Career Seeing the Bad Keeping your signal accurate after years of seeing the worst I spent a long time doing what people in high-friction jobs learn to do: log what matters. When your work lives close to risk—cybersecurity, incident […]