I’ve been trying to think of ways to incentivize more people to highlight the works, individuals, and teams that inspire…
Bedtime CO2 during wildfires & air pollution
Late summer in California increasingly implies preparing for wildfire smoke. By “preparing” I mean focusing on indoor air quality, and…
Exploring Liu Cixin’s science fiction writing. OR: Bug-Bugs and the story of classical Chinese poetry
I’ve been trying to better understand Liu Cixin’s writing style in hopes of improving my own. (That is, his Chinese…
The power of focused attention
Last month I was lucky to spend several weeks luxuriating in complexity science. Hosted by the Santa Fe Institute, the…
Working Backwards: Separable, Single Threaded Teams and Herbert Simon
Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr describes in detail the inner workings of Amazon, including the development of…
Maintenance is palpable
We moved into an “old” house this month. Built over 80 years ago, you can sense the builder’s personality in…
An ode to cavernous spaces
Do not feel small when you enter a cavernous space. For you have just set foot into an enormous catchment…
Why we should direct more attention to embodied emissions and concrete / cement
Why focus on embodied emissions? When I surveyed the landscape of Embodied, Operational, and End-of-Life emissions in the built environment…
From Comfort to Constraint
We moved our bees this spring. From the grid of an urban environment close to the freeway to a meandering…
Willing to Learn
Earlier this 2021, Mary Catherine Bateson passed away while surrounded by her family. I never had the chance to meet…