Look ma!
I’m on the internet
Working efficiently and building shit to optimize my time on this planet
Why Testing Your Product is Just As Important as the Product Itself
In the 1997 movie, Contact, starring Jodie Foster, there is a line in the movie that I always think about when it comes to manufacturing a product; [Spoiler Alert] “First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?” It’s meant as a jab at frivolous government spending but I believe the government was right to buy themselves some redundancy. I’m sure the fictional government in this movie weighed the risks of spending twice the amount of money to build a second alien space-time travel machine. The point is, redundancy, failsafes, backups, testing, and double-checking are critical when manufacturing hundreds, thousands, or millions of a product that you’ve put some much time into to get a quality, working product in your customer’s hands.
The Consistency Struggle
This is the 10th article I’ve written in 9 weeks. I force myself to do it every week because I struggle with consistency across everything I do. Writing seemed to be the lowest barrier to entry and I could just word vomit on the page. I have this cognitive dissonance where I know I want to build an audience but my brain is so sporadic that I have to force myself to focus on staying consistent enough to build that audience. How do you build a relationship with people on the internet when I’m not even that good at building relationship in real life. My introversion is showing.
Beyond the Tinkering: You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
I have a tattoo on my inner left forearm of the bottom layer of a circuit design that was part of a product I brought to market. I got it because it reminds me of everything it took to be able to get a hardware product to market and it’s something I’m proud to have as a permanent reminder.
Unf:)ck Your Digital File System
In 2018, I was on a 30 hour flight from Florida to Viet Nam and I had exhausted all the movie options in the first third of the trip. With 20 hours left to go, I needed something to occupy my mind, something that I normally wouldn’t put as high priority. I started thinking about organization. Not tidying up my workspace or redoing a closet at home, but organizing my digital file system.