Introduction

Lists of things people recommend have been floating around on blogs lately. The idea resonated with me—though not many of the recommendations—as I have a lot of Opinions about Stuff. This list is a loosely organized collection of products I like.

Most of these recommendations are targeted at the category of product rather than a specific manufacturer, but if I feel strongly about a particular manufacturer I will note it.

The post will be updated as I encounter new worthwhile stuff.

Read more

Introduction

I am an extreme outlier on food intolerances, so relying on food service while traveling is not an option for me. This makes travel a challenge as I need to either bring enough food to cover the entire trip or have access to tools to make food while I'm traveling. The strategies in this post reflect these constraints, which will only apply to an extremely small minority of people.

I've been traveling a lot over the past couple years, and it's offered an opportunity to improve how I approach this problem. I talked about some of the strategies I used to cope during my family trip to Disney in 2015, but I've learned a few new things since then.

Read more

Introduction

Macro photography (I dabble) requires a lot of available light or good artificial lighting. Small apertures for wide depth-of-field and close focusing distances limit the amount of light that gets to the sensor. Normal speedlites can work fine to augment or replace ambient light, but when you're shooting freehand it's difficult to handle a flash and the camera.

A flash like the Canon MT-24EX is a good solution for keeping all of the parts on the camera, but at close to \(1,000, it's difficult to justify on top of your existing flashes. [Wimberley's F-2 macro flash bracket](http://www.tripodhead.com/products/flash-bracket-macro-brackets.cfm) is an excellent compromise. With it, you can mount one or two regular speedlites to a tripod colar and position them using the balljoint arms. Problem is, they run\)169 per arm.

The Wimberley components are of very high quality, so the price is justified, but since they use slightly-customized RAM Mounts equipment for most of the flash arm, it's simple to construct a DIY solution slightly more cheaply.

Other people have documented this approach, but based on my difficulty finding the correct parts from their instructions, I'm not sure how many of them have actually assembled the bracket.

Read more

Introduction

Virtualization is cool. Last year, I set out to put together an all-in-one home server using ESXi and ZFS. I'm using this page to collect information about my experiences. Links to helpful resources I've found will also be provided.

Read more

Introduction

The headaches start with a twinge at the temples. It slowly grows stronger over the course of several hours until it feels like hot pokers are being forced in behind my eyes. The sensation of pain is accompanied by nausea, the combination of which often makes it difficult to remain still. Sometimes I vomit. It usually continues for most of a day. Often the pain will wake me from fitful sleep. Sometimes it's not even gone by morning.

These headaches were, varying in severity, a near-weekly occurrence for me at least as far back as middle school. Usually made worse by lying down—I've always been a side-sleeper—I'd often have to position myself sitting up to moderate the pain enough to sleep. Sometimes that wasn't sufficient, and standing up and walking around was the only way to tolerate the pain. Watching comedy is a good distraction. I've seen South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut a lot.

Pain and chronic illness go hand-in-hand. To live well with chronic illness requires learning how to listen to and understand pain. This is my experience with chronic pain.

Read more

Introduction

I am prone to becoming captivated with devices that are ahead of their time. The Apple Newton (although I arrived well after the start of that party), Nokia’s 770, and MetaWatch’s first smartwatch are some notable examples. They all pioneered a product space and struggled to achieve meaningful success.

MetaWatch caught my eye as a new entry into wearable tech that brought the smartwatch concept to reality with a fashionable, capable device. The hacking opportunities their open source device firmware offered made the device yet more interesting, especially as I am prone to using mobile device platforms that do not receive a lot of official support.

I’d like to discuss some of my experiences with MetaWatch and their devices, and the various missteps and issues that’ve ultimately led to my losing most of the interest I first had in their product line.

Read more

Introduction

I went Paleo in 2012 and hardcore Autoimmune Paleo (AIP) at the beginning of 2014. After chronic exposure to toxic mold, I find myself intolerant to a huge number of foods and very susceptible to cross-contamination. My compromised gut is complicit in my Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, IBS, and a wide range of food sensitivities that make it difficult for me to eat without access to quality ingredients (grass-fed beef, etc.) and my own cooking equipment. These issues only get worse with the stress and lack of sleep that go hand-in-hand with travel.

At the beginning of 2015, my family started planning a vacation to Disney World in Orlando, FL. My sister, my mother, and I all share Hashimoto's, compromised guts, and wide-ranging food sensitivities, so planning a trip like this takes a lot of time and care to ensure we can all feed ourselves. I am, by far, the worst of us. Usually eating out involves me watching everyone else eat while drinking water. Planning a 7-day vacation to a place not known for its culinary sophistication was going to be difficult.

Read more

Introduction

I worked in a large new and used family-owned bookstore for more than 10 years, starting in high school. During my time there we learned how to deal with crazy people and belligerent transients, and developed procedures for dealing with shoplifters that helped us reduce shrinkage and keep staff and customers safe. We did this organically over a period of years, primarily as a collaboration between myself and one of the store owners.

I learned a lot about loss prevention, handling difficult---and sometimes dangerous---people, and how you can make your store procedures and guidelines safer and more effective. This post contains a variety of observations I've gathered from my experiences.

Read more