so proud of my awesome wife!

My friend +Edmond Lau just published his first book, The Effective Engineer. Check it out!

I had the pleasure of previewing a few chapters.  I'd always thought that good engineers were born of long, hard experience, so I didn't think a book could teach me how to be more effective.  But in fact, Edmond managed to distill his decade of engineering experience into crystal-clear best practices.  The specific recommendations are clear and insightful, but perhaps even more important is Edmond's process.  It's easy for us to get buried in the daily slog of pushing projects forward.  Edmond reminds us that every so often, we need to take a step back to think about what we've done and how we can do better.

Homemade duck confit with pommes sarladaises.  And broccoli.

Duck cured overnight in salt and spices (mostly coriander), then sous vide at 175 for 10 hours.

Potatoes fried in duck fat rendered from making stock out of the rest of the duck carcass.

Every time I fill Evelyn's bathtub, I feel like this aluminum foil hack is staggeringly and unreasonably effective.

Reminds me of that time in elementary school when +Hsin Peng and I distilled water using a condensation column made out of aluminum foil  for a science fair project...

Back to the future!

This is pretty hilarious.

Halloween Howl at Carl Schurz Park.  Dog costume contest.  Very silly.  October 19th, 2014.

Breaking Bad... on ice?!  Ridiculous but... awesome.

Whew.  A new bike rack.  I feel like I can breathe again.

Please let me know if you think it's likely to fall down. :)

A 2x4, eight feet long, held to the concrete popcorn ceiling by five ¼" x 2¾" Tapcon concrete screws.  I tried the 3¼" tapcons but I couldn't get them to go in all the way.  I ended up taking out the 3¼" tapcons and putting in 2¾" tapcons.  Supposedly taking these out and putting them back in reduces the holding values... but I only have about 60 pounds on there.  They're embedded in about an inch of concrete, since the 2x4 is about 1.5" and I've got the washer and some popcorn in there as well.  (Maybe they're slightly shy of an inch?  Supposed to be an inch in... but I couldn't get the longer ones in.)

Tapcons are pretty interesting things; I wouldn't have thought you could put threads into concrete.  I imagined concrete to be really gritty and would disintegrate if you tried to put fine threads in it.  But I guess not?  I also considered "wedge anchors" but tapcons seemed a little easier to use.  Drilling into concrete ceilings is miserable enough...

I bought the bike hooks from Home Depot, which are specced for 25 pounds, which is pretty much what each bike weighs.  http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-25-lb-Screw-In-Bicycle-Hook-18048/202305571

A fake Afghan battlefield in California.  

This site is actually kind of neat.

Water rights in the American west: http://v-e-n-u-e.com/Arid-Lands-An-Interview-with-Ross-de-Lipkau

Design of the new SimCity: http://v-e-n-u-e.com/Sim-City-An-Interview-with-Stone-Librande