Blog Info New Year, New Format Regular readers will have noticed that it looks different around here now. Read on for a few details. There was an update to the Ghost blogging platform that my previous theme wasn't compatible
General 2019 Year in Review An annual retrospective and convenient archive. I've had a good year. I started a new relationship, tackled a project on my house (with a lot of help from family!), took an introductory whitewater
Book 10 Books Before '20 At the start of September, a friend on Facebook issued a challenge to read 10 books before the end of the year. I decided to share the brief reviews I wrote here. The
Graphical Methods Nomography Nomography is the art/science (both are involved) of graphical calculators. Using a nomogram, you can quickly solve an equation (but only the one it was designed for) with the aid of nothing
Water Wilderness Water Treatment Workshop At a camping symposium this fall, I had the privilege of leading a workshop on wilderness water treatment. I figured it would also be of interest to share my notes here. Note: This
DIY Concrete-Top Side Table For this post, I wanted to share a recent piece of furniture I built. It is a small side table with a concrete top and an oak stand. Overall, the table is 22&
General Assorted Links (Fall 2019) A couple of times per year, I like to share some links I've collected—especially if they relate to topics I've blogged about. It seemed like a decent way to (try) getting back
Blog Info Hiatus Announcement There was a fair bit of a gap prior to my previous post; you should expect a longer one before the next one. I've decided to take a break from blogging for at
Book Polynesian Pacific Sorry about having such a long gap between posting. I've been on a couple of business trips, and when I've been home my social calendar and the hot weather haven't left many good
New Brunswick Sam Orr's Pond This past weekend, I went on my first camping trip of 2019. I started off the weekend in the town of St. Andrew's, walking around and looking in a few shops. Just outside
Economics Legibility and the Firm I recently took a sales course for my job. Some of the discussion there prompted some thoughts about ideas I've read/heard and how they relate to the modern business world. Legibility I
Economics Considerations on a Universal Basic Income Scenario A universal basic income is an idea that's getting some buzz. I decided to do some rough calculations to see what an implementation would look like. The Scenario A universal basic income (UBI)
History Irrigation, untitled Recently I read a few journal articles analyzing some historical instances of irrigation. My notes and some thoughts are shared below. The first article was "Rome and Agriculture in Africa Proconsularis: Land
Water Pitot This is a short post about a simple device I tried making for measuring the velocity of water. A pitot tube is a device for converting a fluid velocity to a pressure (which
3D Printing 3D-Printed Hydraulic AND Gate This post is a brief follow-up to the one I wrote earlier this year about trying to make a hydraulic computer. One of the key elements of the hydraulic computer I tried to
Book Centuries of Rice and Salt I usually only write reviews of non-fiction books that I read but a novel I read recently was different enough from typical fiction that I thought I'd make an exception. The Years of
Bible Onan vs. Boaz For the Easter weekend I have some thoughts to share about a passage in the Bible that doesn't get a ton of attention. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight
General Assorted Links (Spring 2019) It's a new season (even if it did snow here this week), which seems like a good time for another links post. (I'm quite busy with my job right now, so this will
Movies & TV Recently Watched: 3 Foreign-Language Films This post is just a few quick reviews of some movies I've watched recently. Incendies is a French-Canadian movie from 2010. It was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign-language film. It is
New Brunswick NB Budget 2019 - We've got the power? I've written an analysis of the New Brunswick provincial budget for the past four years now. As always, my goal is to focus on the facts more than on political commentary. Following the
Book Sand and Soil This post contains reviews of a couple of books I've read recently. They relate to a similar theme as the previous post—how people are reshaping the earth. About the Books Dirt: The
Art Images of the Anthropocene When I went to the AGO back in the fall I mentioned that there was an upcoming exhibit I wanted to see called "Anthropocene". I didn't make it back to the
New Brunswick Frostival Frostival is an annual winter festival in Fredericton. I've gone to some events in it the past several years, but I don't think I've written about it before. One of the events that
DIY Elementary Cellular Automata in a Hydraulic Computer Despite the same word appearing in both titles, this post is quite different from the previous one. The inspiration for making the project described in this post came partly from re-reading Anathem last
Water Open Channel Hydraulics for Paddlers This post combines two of my interests: engineering and paddling. During my undergrad studies (at the University of New Brunswick) I took a course called "Open Channel Hydraulics". Recently I decided