Cultures of Cooperation

Google's layoffs is eroding a culture of cooperation that took decades to build.

Read more …

Intermission - Q1 of 2025

Hate can be suppressed temporarily, but cannot be contained for too long.

Read more …

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: An anecdote

Intrinsic motivation is always better than extrinsic motivation. But not as good as it is when one is motivated both intrinsically and extrinsically.

Read more …

Buffer Bloat

In networking, adding too much buffering to intermediate network devices introduce unnecessary delays. The trade-off is that bursty traffic will have the appearance of getting through faster. But in reality, the speed of the network is still the same. Data just takes longer to get through.

Read more …

Fourteen Years

More reflections from foureteen years at Google.

Read more …

I Moved This Blog To Eleventy

At long last, this blog "outgrew"[1] Hugo and I had to go looking for a new static site generator.


  1. Of course, by outgrew I mean I got bored and wanted to play with a new static site generator. ↩︎

Read more …

Proof of Work

Working with a poorly thought-out, or overengineered technology stack, or an overly bureaucratic organization is also a form of proof-of-work.

Read more …

How to Solve a Problem in Three Steps

If you don't know what a refridgerator is nor what an elephant is you are likely to think that opening the door, putting the elephant in, and closing the door is a viable strategy for putting an elephant in the refridgerator.

Read more …

Asian Is Not a Useful Category

Asking if someone is "Asian" in a question of ethnicity or demographics or pretty much any context is bad. There is no reasonable conclusion you can arrive at about a person based on the fact that they are "Asian".

Read more …