Political extremism, two faces of the same problem, and the people standing on the edge The Gig Man’s Life | Opinion There is an old political theory called horseshoe theory. The basic concept is that the further you travel toward the political left or the political right, the closer those extremes eventually become. Instead of…
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There are normal ways to spend a weekend. Then there is apparently the way I spend a weekend. The video is already up on YouTube and Rumble, and if you watched it, you got at least part of the experience. But looking back at the whole weekend on Monday morning, I have come to the…
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One of the things I have been realizing while working on the Phrankintosh project is that there is a very big difference between designing something that works and designing something that lasts. The first version of almost anything answers one basic question: Does it work? Does the board fit? Does the sled slide into the…
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Sometimes you ask what seems like a simple question and discover that you really should have known better. It started with actors who have appeared in both Marvel and DC movies. That sounds easy enough. Ryan Reynolds played Deadpool for Marvel and Green Lantern for DC. Ben Affleck was Daredevil before becoming Batman. Christian Bale…
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Apparently, there comes a point where your livestream branding can become a little too consistent. I figured that out when somebody called me and basically said: “Uh, dude, I just got notified that you had Breakfast Talk. Did somebody hack your channel?” Nope. Nobody hacked the channel. I had simply gone live at a time…
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There is a point after chopping wood where your brain probably should be allowed to shut down for the day. Instead, apparently, mine starts designing computers. This started as one of those backyard conversations where nobody is trying to solve anything. You’re tired, you’re sitting around talking shit, somebody brings up crabapple trees, somebody else…
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I recently watched a video discussing how Unix influenced modern operating systems. The video mentioned macOS, Linux, and Android, which are all obvious examples. But it left out one of the biggest operating systems Unix influenced: Microsoft Windows. That omission immediately stood out to me. I understand that Windows did not descend directly from Unix.…
Read MorePeople are sometimes surprised that I can spend hours talking about how systems work—how organizations develop habits, how incentives change behavior, and how complex problems rarely have simple answers. They hear that I spent time in special education and assume that means I couldn’t understand complicated ideas. That’s one of the biggest misconceptions people have…
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Stop Charging Admission to a Platform You’re Already Trying to Turn Into a Subscription Service I work in IT, and one of the things that has increasingly pushed me away from wanting to build and maintain Windows computers for people is surprisingly simple: Windows itself costs too much for what Microsoft is trying to make…
Read MoreBack in the early 2000s, somebody somewhere decided they were going to sell their soul on an online forum. It was one of those strange internet stories that sticks in your head because it sounds ridiculous at first. Selling your soul? Who would do that? Then you get older, look around at real life, and…
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