archive

• “an open letter to 2024”
  

  before the open letter to 2024, i want to address 2023.

• radical simplicity
  

  i’m currently reading the book “radical simplicity”, by jim merkel, as a part of trying to sort out what is next in my life. there’s no shortage of things striving to get my attention, my energy, and my time, but the greater question is what do i want out of my life? and even more difficult that the what of it all, is the how.

• houston, we have a problem
  

  i’ve always believed in sharing things publicly that can help other people, even if it ”shows weakness”, or could effect my reputation or even my career. why this opening statement you ask? well i’m about to talk about my struggles with alcohol and then admonish our industry to bring this thing home.

• docker/python - best practices
  

  just like with my ssh page, i like to take notes for myself to make re-doing projects easier down the road. today, i want to note some real quick docker best practices for a python application.

• the hunt completes - a new chapter
  

  a while back i posted about job hunting while adhd, and i’m happy to report that i was able to make it work! i am now a principal technical marketing engineer for singlestore, where i will be focusing on bringing powerful messaging, connecting with developer communities, and creating lots of content for our customers.

• job hunting while adhd
  

  it’s no secret to anyone that follows me on mastodon, or that bird site, that i’ve been looking for a new job since the beginning of the year. i’ve been conducting the search openly, because it’s just too hard for me any other way. the problem with looking for a job while you’re currently employed is that you still have to do your other job and properly searching for a new one requires a lot of work. like a lot of work.

• own your content
  

  i’ve been a pretty adamant self-hoster for a long time. i love the concept of just throwing in the cloud, paying a low monthly fee to use it, and not dealing with organization or the underlying infrastructure - but this all sucks.

• home prod
  

  i’ve been running plex, sonarr, radarr, lidarr, nzbget, ombi, and more for a long time at home. it’s lived on my qnap goofynewton for as long as i’ve had it. i’m getting ready to migrate everything over to my nvme nas (more power and consolidation - to include my frigate/compreface/doubletake setup), so i figured i should document how everything worked in docker before i migrate to nixos to host it all. don’t worry my nixos friends, i’ll be sure to update with a part 2 describing that setup and configuration once i have it all working.

• technical product strategy, pt 2
  

  back in october i wrote on being a technical product strategist, where i discussed the need for someone who focuses on the holistic view of technical product strategy. this person (or more likely group of people) would bring a long history of technical experience, cross-functional work history, and be well connected in the industry - so they can take input from a number of different perspectives and distill it into a product strategy that meets their customer’s needs.

• 2022
  

  i’m going to preface this post with this, 2022 sucked.

• building an operating system | anselos - it begins
  

  on the list of things i thought i would be doing in my free time at the end of 2022, i did not expect to find write my own operating system, but there it sits, staring me in the face every day. those that know me personally know that i’ve got a lot of deep shit going on right now, but one of the ways i like to cope and release stress is to work on side projects. notice i said work on, not complete.

• it's been real twitter
  

  like so many other people, i have decided that it’s time for me to bail on twitter. this hasn’t been a decision i’ve taken lightly, because a large majority of the success of my career can be attributed to the relationships and networking that has been possible because of twitter. but, it’s not the twitter we knew and loved - and it hasn’t been for a long time.

• unsuckifying my ender 3 v2
  

  for christmas 2021 my wife bought me my first 3d printer, an ender 3 v2. she chose that model because it was my first printer and i always live by the tried and true method of buying a meh tool first (a 3d printer is a tool in my opinion), then buying a good one when you wear it out. for instance, if i’m buying a new tool for a project that i don’t see time over time usage for, i’ll often go to harbor freight and get a cheap one first. if i use the tool enough that it’s quality drives me nuts, or i break the tool, then i go and buy a higher quality model. so it didn’t surprise me that i’ve had nothing but frustrations with my ender 3 v2.

• well done framework
  

  after running a lenovo t480s as my personal daily driver for a number of years, it was time to replace it. i had inherited the lenovo from a previous employer who didn’t want it back (it was used when they assigned it to me). so i’m not exactly sure how many years of use and abuse it had been through, but what i do know is two weeks ago it decided it was done booting. re-installing the machine didn’t help. so i pulled the trigger on the laptop i had been eyeing, a frame.work 12th gen diy.

• on elon musk
  

  i’m going to start out this post by saying, i don’t believe billionaires should exist. i believe you should be taxed into oblivion the close you get to that third comma. i firmly believe that most billionaires do the world far more harm than good.

• on being a technical product strategist
  

  i’m finding myself at a place in my career where i need to grow into what’s next, for me, that’s growing into a title i’ve given myself - technical product strategist. product strategy could be easily defined to include product roadmap, go-to-market assessment, marketing plans, etc. often in product marketing you’ll find that product managers are often paired with technical product managers or technical marketing engineers. i’ve seen both scenarios. even with technical pms or tmes, i think there’s a broader role that is needed to cross the boundaries between product, product marketing, and customer success that is involved with working with customers to find what technical improvements they need in a product and then influence the product roadmap, executive decision making, and the way a company brings a product to market.

• just say no, to big box stores
  

  tl;dr; don’t use a big box store, especially lowe’s, for something as important as your kitchen appliances - they will not fulfill their warranty guarantees and will waste hours of your time in order to drive you to take matters into your own hands.

• don't let the industry pass you by
  

  the tech industry moves fast. if you don’t pop your head up every now and then you’ll miss what’s happening. when you’re heads down for a long time inside of a single company, focusing on your job, your tasks, you might miss giant shifts in the industry. this isn’t solely limited to the employees either, often companies hyper-focus on one problem for so long that they lose sight on what’s going on outside of their niche, and before long, they can fall behind or even become obselete. the problems they’re trying to solve can be eliminated by simple progression of technology.

• pour one out for your homie
  

  cw: miscarriage, abortion, blood

• how to manage an engineer
  

  i’ve been an engineer for a long time and in multiple capacities.

• 100 days of code - day 12
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• 100 days of code - day 11
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• 100 days of code - day 10
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• 100 days of code - day 9
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• 100 days of code - day 8
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• 100 days of code - vacation
  

  i didn’t bail out of 100 days of code, i’m just on vacation :d

• 100 days of code - day 7
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• 100 days of code - day 6
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• 100 days of code - day 5
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• 100 days of code - day 4
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• 100 days of code - day 3
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• 100 days of code - day 2
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• plex media server setup
  

  i recently went through the process of wiping my qnap of the awful qnap os and install ubuntu server 22.04. it was shockingly simple, although there was a small catch since my nas didn’t have a hdmi port built in, i’ll get to that in a moment. but first some of the basics:

• 100 days of code - day 1
  

  i’ve done a few rounds of 100 days of code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - i don’t like to computer on the weekend since i computer very hard during the week.

• ssh notes
  

  below you’ll find my ssh tips and tricks. these are mostly as a note to myself, but you might find them interesting.

• too many projects
  

  i believe that having personal projects is extremely important and use them as a way to satisfy my curiosity in a subject without needing to completely dedicate all my energy and time to that curiosity. i have tons of side projects, 99% will never see the light of day. for instance, several years ago i started building an electric go-kart. it’s still in the basement in pieces. primarily because i don’t know how to weld and i need a bracket built to support the motor. i know at some point i will either throw out the project or actually go have someone weld it together, but for today that’s not on the books.

• i believe
  

  i believe that every single person deserves a fighting chance in life.

• burnout
  

  burnout is a common discussion point in the tech community, for some it never happens, for others it happens once or twice in a career, for some of us though - it happens often. i’m one of those that falls in the often camp. i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what could cause this, when from the outside i’ve had a very fortunate and interesting career. while thinking about my issue of burnout i realized that it often comes for me because i’m not working on things that i believe matter.

• moving countries - a thought exercise 2022 edition
  

  since i wrote moving countries a thought exercise several things have changed: i no longer work for druva, our home equipment has simplified a bit further, and probably a few other things i don’t remember at the moment.

• my nixos setup w/ an encrypted amnesia-tic zfs filesystem
  

  i have had a personal lenovo t480s running around the house for quite a while. traditionally i’ve run ubuntu on it, but it’s also run nixos, fedora, and a few other various setups over the years. i’ve decided after spending quite a bit of time using my work machine (16” mbp m1 pro) for personal and work that i would revive the lenovo and set back up a nixos w/ i3 configuration. the primary driver behind this? the keyboard is so much better to type on.

• i'm very tired.
  

  i’m very tired.

• sometimes you just need to do the work
  

  we spend so much of our days talking about the work that we’re going or need to do. we attend endless waves of meetings where we seem to talk about the same things over and over. it feels as if we talk about the same things over and over, because that’s exactly what we do. we’ve over-scheduled ourselves to the point of not being able to get any work done.

• saying i don't know is okay
  

  after years of working, many people have been conditioned to think that you always need to know the answers - that conditioning is wrong. one of the things i quickly learned when i was a sales engineer was that there would never be a day that i had all of the answers, and if i tried to fake my way through it, customers could see right through me.

• on having multiple careers
  

  humans are an amazing, multi-faceted group of organisms with interests that span from watchmaking to dungeons and dragons, gardening to medieval architecture. you could spend your entire life working in one industry, continuing to move up the ladder (or not), but as you move up, it brings more stress.

• writing daily
  

  there’s a lot of value in publishing often. i have a lot of thoughts on what to write about but often struggle to put things out. i want to write 300+ words each day to be published. this could be about any topic i’m interested in:

• what is your life's work?
  

  at nvidia there is a saying, “nvidia is where you can do your life’s work,” which i think is a very valuable thing to think about. rarely do we step back and think about the items that we do each and every day and what they actually add up to. i mean really, when did you assess what you’re going to do today in the context of all the work you’re going to complete in your life? i have maybe done this once or twice, ending up saddened each time.

• stoicism of the day | 25-apr-2022
  

  “if anyone can prove and show to me that i think and act in error, i will gladly change it – for i seek the truth, by which no one has ever been harmed. the one who is harmed is the one who abides in deceit and ignorance.” - marcus aurelius, mediations

• stoicism of the day | 20-apr-2022
  

  “here’s a way to think about what the masses regard as being ‘good’ things. if you would first start by setting your mind upon things that are unquestionably good – wisdom, self-control, justice, courage – with this preconception you’ll no longer be able to listen to the popular refrain that there are too many good things to experience in a lifetime.” - marcus aurelius, mediations

• on being disconnected
  

  a little over a week ago i posted this tweet:

• signal vs noise
  

  in the last few years i’ve worked for three companies, all with varying cultures regarding communication. in the first company, i found that the signal vs noise ratio was pretty well balanced, although i could go into a meeting for an hour and come out with dozens of slack messages, but i didn’t have an inbox filled with distribution list non-sense.

• the power of visualization
  

  a few weeks ago when antoni and i were talking, he asked me to visualize what a day in the life would look like once i had started $company and we had been at it for a few years, it was a powerful exercise. i felt warmth and happiness when i was thinking about the type of impact we could possibly have on people’s lives, on our employee’s lives, and on the community around them.

• just do good work
  

  employers have very high expectations of their employees and will rarely stop to ask how you’re doing with your workload. i’ve been fortunate to have some really great managers who care deeply about their employees, but i’ve also had employers that are only concerned with output (quantity). whenever i’ve been in a role where i’ve been successful, it’s always been where i’ve been given the opportunity to work at my own pace.

• on developing a company vision statement
  

  a company vision statement differs from a mission statement slightly, because it focuses on the boots on the ground details, the actions. i found that working on developing a company vision statement was a little bit easier than the mission statement, but i still struggled with it because it’s my nature to riff on the details rather than high level goals and possibilities. there are a number of good references to use when writing statements like this, including the one i used from asana - 7 steps to writing the perfect vision statement.

• choosing a mission statement
  

  one of my first tasks for building out my new indoor air quality consultancy was to put together a mission statement. this seemed easy enough, innocuous… it was hard, really hard. i would have much preferred to name the company first, but it makes more sense to focus on what we’re going to do rather than coming up with a fancy name and wasting more money on another domain name right away.

• starting over
  

  i’ve always believed that there are many things more important than tech and always viewed tech as an enabler for other things in life. that doesn’t mean that i never had a passion for technology, because i certainly did, at one point in my career. in the first five years of my career, tech was new to me, interesting, and making the world a better place. but now, from where i sit, we’re just building dopamine machines to feed capitalism.

• moving countries - a thought exercise
  

  a few days ago i wrote looming change where i described how my wife and i have this feeling that we might eventually move countries - most likely europe. this got my brain thinking about how much home infrastructure we have and how i would need to shrink it down in order to make it fit in the most likely smaller living space. then my brain moved to just getting some of this stuff over there.

• looming change
  

  my wife and i have been talking about a feeling we both have been having on and off for the greater part of the last year, there is a huge change in our near future. yes, having charlie was a huge change, but this is something else which we haven’t completely identified yet. this feeling is exciting and terrifying.

• saving an i3 workspace layout
  

  in my office i have a small portrait display off to the side that i like to keep a few of our security cameras up on during the day. two are exterior cameras watching the front door and the driveway, the other is my son’s nursery camera so i know how quiet or loud i can be since my office is right next to his nursery.

• i miss the weird internet
  

  when i started working in it in 2010 or so, i created this awesome list of blogs that were written by individuals who had something smart, funny, or weird to say. i learned a lot from those blogs, i read them religiously thanks to google feeds, rip. now, i get lucky to run across something cool by scrolling hacker news or tripping over it through a duckduckgo search. i don’t have a rss feeds list anymore and i’m not sure why.

• managing syncthing in nixos
  

  as a continuation of my posts on nixos, i thought i’d write about how i use and declare syncthing to manage data syncronization and replication across my machines.

• managing wireless networks in nixos
  

  i like to manage everything i can in an explicit fashion on my nixos machines, meaning even on my laptop i make sure to declare the wireless networks that i can connect to. this is not as expedient as using user space networkmanager, but it works well for me.

• on nutanix
  

  looking for a desktop support engineer in columbus. start part time moving to full. message me for details #jobs

  — joshobrien77 (@joshobrien77) august 2, 2012

• you're not just your career
  

  i hate the question, “what do you do?” even though i’m sure i’ve asked the same question hundreds of times in my life. in the united states, we’ve aligned our identities with our occupations. if i meet a random person outside of work, should i care more about their personality and who they are or what they do for a living? maybe we should be asking, “what are you passionate about?”

• 2020, a review
  

  a lot of bad happened in 2020, and a lot of 2020 review blog posts will talk about those bad things. i’m not going to focus on the bad in this post. i’m trying to focus on my mental health and happiness, which means i will be trying to find the good in things. i’ll let someone else focus on the bad.