Writing

Powerlifting, Three Years In

Powerlifting started for me as a way to deal with stress and high blood pressure during a very challenging period of my life. It's become a sport I find joy in. I love the feeling of competence, seeing progression, and the ways it makes me engage with my body. For the first time in my life, I feel like an actual athlete.

The Annotated Planner

How I've been annotating my Avec Cousin planner to informally log things about my life. It's not an aesthetic tracker or something I have to remember or keep track of, so it's not something I can forget about and let slide. It's just giving myself permission and even encouragement to make small annotations about the day and how I've found them helpful.

Re-approaching Peer Review in the Age of LLMs

A rethinking of how we approach the peer review process in an era where some authors cut corners by using LLMs to generate all or part of their papers. How can we preserve our time and capacity to engage with authors who put in a good faith effort? And how should publications respond?

The Bitter Taste of the Land Grant

There's a common misunderstanding that the land that was granted is the land that the university is on. But the land grant involved far more land and the displacement of far more people than just the land occupied by the university. Penn State's endowment, for example, was created through the sale of three quarters of a million acres of the lands of more than 100 other nations, tribes, and bands to our west.

Making Statements: a Reflection

A reflection on the power, purpose, and utility of official statements in times like these.

Apple Health's Weird Workout Assumptions

I connected my Strong app for powerlifting to Apple Health and learned all kinds of weird things about Apple Health's design and assumptions.

Choosing Anabaptism: an Anabaptism at 500 Reflection

In light of the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement, I wanted to share my own story and how I came to join an Anabaptist (Mennonite) church as a young adult.

Editorializing

Reflections on the occasion of a Code4Lib Journal article which deals with non-deidentified patron data. I consider my own time as an editor, why I stepped back, and what might be useful in the future.

How My Father Taught Me the Power of Automation

A reflection on what I learned from my father about automation. His early programs taught me what was possible and gave me confidence to do what I do today.

Repository Ouroboros

If you are somewhere on the repository ouroboros, you are not alone, you are not broken, and you are not hopelessly behind.