Let's start with a short Q&A that might surprise you! Q1: You write a nifty program and share it with someone on the Internet. Is it possible for the government to show up at your door and charge you with the felony of sharing classified information? A1: Nope!…
Malcom Gladwell's book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is a really interesting study in decision making and how the availability of information impacts the accuracy of those decisions. Over the last couple of years, I've occasionally mulled over how this could be applied to technical hiring. From my…
The DARPA Bay Area Hackfest is coming up in a couple of weeks, and I'm excited to spend the week at NASA Ames talking about great ideas and hacking on cool technology. This is the second DARPA Hackfest, a series organized by DARPA/MTO Program Manager, and my predecessor in…
I tried to post a shorter version of this as a review for the Vortex Race 3 Mechanical Keyboard on Amazon, but they rejected it because I linked to external (non-Amazon) sites. Anyway, if you're considering getting a Race 3, or already have one, here's what you need to know:…
This post is about how to find open-source projects that could benefit from your time and expertise, and then make meaningful contributions to them - even if you're starting from a blank slate. A blank slate might mean that you have no meaningful relationship with the project, or it might…
Like everyone else, I have a list of favorite quotes that have influenced me or that I have found especially compelling. In the technical world, these sometimes become mantras, guidance, or even best practices. Briefly, here are some of my favorites. A prototype is worth a thousand meetings. This one…
I recently decided to put some of my most critically secure data in the cloud. I spent time over several weeks researching how best to do this, and got advice from some of my colleagues with the thickest tinfoil hats. The purpose of this post is to document my approach,…
In early 2015, we decided to revamp the Ettus Research R&D hiring process. We had a lot of candidates coming through the pipeline, all the way through an on-site interview, that we would ultimately decide weren't a good fit. Additionally, it wasn't uncommon for interviewers to finish interviews…
I've recently found myself discussing what it means to be an experienced or senior engineer with a number of different groups. What's interesting about those two terms is that I don't think they connote what the speaker usually intends. Being experienced is neither necessary nor sufficient to be good, or…
When I started Powerlevel9k on the evening of December 4th in 2014, my goal wasn't to create a large project, but really just to create a highly customized ZSH prompt with some features I couldn't find elsewhere. Looking back on it, this commit message is now pretty comical: A few…
Over the last week I've received daily links from colleagues excited about the recent GPL news, so I figured I would share my thoughts here. Of course, before we continue, I'm obliged to say I am not a lawyer, and my comments on software license law are purely from my…
I recently stumbled across a declassified field manual first published by the Office of Strategic Services (the precursor to the CIA) in 1944. The manual describes simple methods that everyday citizens can use to sabotage and demoralize the enemy's war effort. It's a relatively short field manual, and you can…
I like the folks over at Bluffworks - they make excellent performance & travel wear that looks good enough for professional environements; i.e., they wouldn't be caught dead making zip-off travel pants. They just kicked off a new KickStarter campaign for a performance dress shirt, and sent one over…
Last Fall, Bluffworks successfully led a Kickstarter campaign for a travel blazer that beat their fundraising goal by ~1711%. The Bluffworks Travel Pants that I reviewed a couple of years ago are still one of my favorite articles of clothing, so when they reached out and asked if I would…
So you've read the loads of articles about why Open Source Software (OSS) is good for business. Perhaps you've also read Tom Preston-Werner's superb article about why your company should open source as much software as possible (but probably not everything). Maybe you've even read The Software Paradox, which has…
