Seedlings

Reaching for the sun

Thunderclouds over the ocean

Horse Herder | The 2027 Kia Telluride X-Pro​ YouTube video by Kia America

TTC (time to crying) about five seconds in this brilliant ad: www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3-H...

Adventures in 3D Design: FreeCAD 3D printing is key to an abundant world. We use a lot of stuff. And until now, the most efficient way for the most people to have the most stuff has been to specialize — big, centralized fact…

I've become convinced that 3D design skills are going to be as valuable in the next fifty years as coding skills have been in the last fifty. I have virtually no experience with this stuff, so come along as I build an actually useful "thing" with FreeCAD. shutdownhook.com/2026/02/06/a...

so blue

Not Good at That Folks often seem surprised to hear I didn’t get a Computer Science degree. Back in the late 80s, CS was still considered (at least at my school) mostly a math discipline and, despite apparent expec…

A few weeks ago I got to catch up with an old friend, a master of everything puzzle-related. I loved catching up, but it resurfaced my annoyance at just how bad I am at these things. Learning anything is wonderful; hope you enjoy a few thoughts on Sudoku December! shutdownhook.com/2026/01/17/n...

This is the time of year for duck gangs on Puget Sound as well ... Mergansers, Goldeneyes, Puffins, oh my!

Thank you! On my list, had never heard about camp x!

selection of books from my 2025 list

Finished up a great year of books: shutdownhook.com/books-2025/ ... I hope you find something you love on the list, and would love to hear your own favorites for myself. 📚💙 or #booksky

Turtles all the way down image credit Wikipedia Every business is a process shop — a tangled mess of human and automated activities that work together to produce something folks are willing to pay for. And even as AI…

The (usually) quiet week between Christmas and the New Year is a great time to take care of housekeeping chores. Today I'm talking about Backstop, a "last line of defense" monitoring strategy I've used for years that helps keep complex systems humming. shutdownhook.com/2025/12/29/t...

I Want This Future Stellar is a bonkers book, full of crazy word salad arrow-filled diagrams that make very little sense. At the same time, it makes a credible argument for an amazing future — an optimistic, be…

Stellar is a bonkers book, full of crazy word salad arrow-filled diagrams. But it also makes a credible argument for an amazing future. At a minimum, it's the kind of perspective-warping challenge that needs to be part of our global conversation. shutdownhook.com/2025/12/03/i...

Bobcat

Excuse me have you seen a bunny on this stoop?

Puget sound Jellyfish

Salish Sea jellyfish; this guy is huge!

110 Posts and Counting I realized today that I’ve written 109 (well I guess 110 now) long-form posts on shutdownhook.com since February 2021, the month I quit my job at Adaptive Biotechnologies and updated my LinkedIn bi…

4+ years of retirement, 110 posts, and time for a bit of positive and negative introspection. Fair warning: navel-gazing ahead! shutdownhook.com/2025/08/31/1...

Developing An Intuition for AI AI is changing the world. Yes we are in a bubble and current claims are overblown and countless stupid companies are being started and a ton of investment capital is being thrown away. But don’t le…

Conversations about AI in the popular press are so predictably over-simplified and ideological. Don't let yourself be a pawn; try it yourself, and develop your own intuition for where it shines and where it fails. These few anecdotes from my life might help. shutdownhook.com/2025/08/21/d...

bowl and driftwood it was made from

wooden bowl

wooden bowl

Check out what I found hidden inside this sandy, ripped up, cobwebby piece of beach driftwood!

AI Models: 50 First Dates Back in 1987, Dartmouth required each incoming freshman to have a Macintosh computer. This was unheard of at the time — the whole campus (including dorm rooms) had network taps, there was a h…

Today's AI models are a lot like Lucy from 50 First Dates: largely frozen in time. Fixing this is one of the most active areas of development in the AI world, but it's early. Let's look at the state of the art, with some real interactions and even a little code! shutdownhook.com/2025/08/12/a...

Garter snake

Little friend on the lawn today. Everybody loves a sunny day!

Twister book by Jack Bickham

Latest read; Twister by Jack Bickham. Classic 70s disaster pulp, quick and fun!💙📚 #booksky shutdownhook.com/books/#:~:te...

Rivian v Tesla (I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC) Note: I plan to update this post after we get back to Washington and have the car in for service; it seems likely that there is an issue with the cooling system that caused some of the issues I tal…

First Rivian drive from Bellevue to Ventura in the books! The car is awesome in many/most ways, but choked bad in one that I'm hoping is transitory. shutdownhook.com/2025/07/10/r...

sunset sky with clouds and palm trees

Ventura Skyway

Mt Shasta

Mount Shasta always delivers

Under the Sea! Summer brings some pretty low daytime tides to Witter Beach. On the most extreme days, our beach stretches out more than two hundred yards from the bulkhead — pretty amazing and endless explo…

Under the sea! A fun project making jewelry from beach finds, native Red Alder and UV resin. A bunch of new techniques in this one: shutdownhook.com/2025/07/01/u...

Interaction at the Edges There’s a rule of multithreaded programming that says that if something can happen, it will. Package delivered at the same time the kitchen catches on fire and ALF is on live TV? For sure. I’ve bee…

An entertaining experience trading in my Tesla and "watching" it go through the process of resale. It reminded me that designing for edge cases is hard and important, and even solid human engineers often miss the mark. shutdownhook.com/2025/06/23/i...

Keekwulee Falls through the drizzle today ... Brilliant!

Bee on flower

Putting in the work, heavy pollen load!

Dog digging on beach

Something is definitely in this hole, Dad!

Blackberries

Blackberries anyone?

robin nest

robin nest

robin nest

#robinfest2025 End of an Era? After the babies disappeared a few weeks ago, we saw a crow checking out the empty nest; clearly the robins' hidden spot has been discovered. Happily, mom and dad were smart enough to get out of Dodge; hopefully they're making new babies! Such amazing construction.

dog at the beach

Doginson Crusoe