I’ve been working on the Quirk-E project, in particular, tuning parameters so that it produces numerical results that resemble reality. [link to blog] I plan to share it on Github soon, but until then, I wanted to bring up some important points about models. I may have made these points... [Read More]

I wrote a new post over at the SSDS blog about the value of engineering research on technologies that may not yet be feasible. Basically, this is how technological tipping points happen - once we figure out that a technology is possible, it lies dormant until developments in other fields make it feasible, at... [Read More]

Saturday Stories! Welcome to...Jurassic Park Welcome to...Jurassic Park – Ocean Edition I don’t normally post nutrition/fitness stuff, but this article does a good job of illustrating why I recoil whenever someone categorizes a food or activity as ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy.’  'Sensing and loop closing' is a lot less sexy than... [Read More]

“It’s all about the people.” This little but significant truth turns up in many different domains, and Ditch Day is no exception.  It’s an oft-forgotten secret of Ditch Day that as much effort as the seniors put into a stack, at the end of the day it’s the group dynamics... [Read More]

Whenever I spend a lot of time in lab, I inevitably run into some bizarre equipment-related challenge, and can’t help but think of how Hayek’s knowledge problem manifests itself in engineering land. The knowledge problem isn’t unique to engineering – there is distributed, circumstantial knowledge that can’t be easily transferred... [Read More]