Quarantine in the 1600s
5 Sep 2020
It’s been a long six months that we’ve been under quarantine and other disease-limiting measures. It hasn’t been easy, but thanks to something I saw at Königsstein Fortress I’m not complaining. Here’s why:
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Personal Blog
Book Review: Technopoly
26 Aug 2020
In Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman argues that our infatuation with technology has insidiously eroded our culture. We gain much through technology, but it comes at a price; all too often we are blind to that price. This book seeks to call attention to the costs of a technology-focused society. I felt this poignantly because I, as a technology worker, know what that infatuation feels like.
...Book Review: Amusing Ourselves to Death
7 Jun 2020
Overview # The primary thrust of this book is that television has degraded our mode of public discourse. Our news, politics, education, and even religion are delivered to us primarily through television, where they were once delivered via the written word. This transformation of medium is not irrelevant: just as poetry doesn’t survive fully intact when translated from one language to another, likewise ideas do not survive translation of medium. ...
Masks
23 May 2020
Masks have become a hot issue. Here’s my 2¢. Summary # I think everyone should wear a mask, unless they have a compelling medical reason not to. Look at it this way: a mask will either help you and those around you, or it will do no harm—beyond a little social awkwardness. If we look at the trade-offs in a game-theory-style matrix, we get: | | Masks Help | Masks don’t help | |——————-+————+——————| | Wear a mask | +100 | 0 | | Don’t wear a mask | -100 | 0 | ...
Internships!
16 Jan 2019
If you’re a student at BYU, (or maybe even if you aren’t) BYU has a fantastic study-abroad program. I believe there are over 100 different programs. I might do an internship in Berlin some time but we’ll see if that pans out. :) Check out the list at kennedy.byu.edu.
DuckDuckGo
15 Jan 2019
DuckDuckGo is a search engine. Like Google Search, you just throw some keywords into a box and get a list of results. Lots of people use Google, but I don’t. DuckDuckGo works better for me, and this is why. The Duck ## Consistent Results Did you know that Google will give you different search results, based on who you are and what you have searched for in the past? This is called a filter bubble, and it’s annoying and dangerous. ...
Comments
6 Jan 2019
I got Disqus working! You’ll notice at the bottom of the page is now a place to leave comments. Disqus has their privacy policy here. They make money through advertising, which is unfortunate, because that means they’re selling some of your (and my) data to third parties. That’s pretty common these days. :-/ If you don’t want to be tracked, you can enable content blockers in Safari by going to Preferences (⌘-,) > Websites > Content Blockers and toggling the blocker: ...
Organization Theory
5 Jan 2019
Life is messy. We devote a lot of time and effort into managing that chaos. I thought of a little “theory”, if you will, that helps me. The Home Theory # Everything needs a home. The class of things that need homes is broad. It includes: School assignments Legal documents Pictures Recipies Ideas Projects Books Charging cables Tools etc. The home needs to suit the thing that goes there. I have found that getting this right is really tricky. ...
The Best Two Years
20 Nov 2018
September 30th marked two years since I arrived home from serving a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The mission is colloquially referred to as “the best two years”. (There is a movie about missionaries, which I have not seen, by this title.) My time on the mission did constitute the best two years of my life. I grew and learned so much in that time. ...
Leaving Facebook
23 Jun 2018
Deutsche Übersetzung folgt. I’ve left* Facebook. There’s an asterisk there. I’m not going to delete my account, but I’m no longer checking Facebook more than once or twice a month, if that. I’m not trying to be a recluse—below are a few ways to contact me that I do check far more often than Facebook. I want to be your friend, but I’d rather that friendship be through a real connection rather than some online “status”. ...