If you participate in street activism and attend actions, you probably understand the value of having a smartphone on you with an active data plan. The Signal secure messenger runs purely on data networks, and it can be useful to have a live mapping app in case you're unfamiliar with…
Two months ago, I picked up a basic little road bike and turned it into a fixie commuter. What's so great about a fixie? They're simple Fixed-gear bikes are way simpler than geared bikes. Reducing the number of moving parts on your bike means you have less stuff to maintain.…
My first job gave me the confidence to learn more on my own, but also taught me to learn in a way that I’m still trying to recover from. Here's how I’m learning how to learn in a way that will make me a better engineer and leader.…
Here's my strategy to getting the used stuff I want at insane prices. I've used this to buy bicycles, motorcycles, home furniture, and kitchen equipment. If the thing you're looking for isn't one-of-a-kind, I think you'll have luck with this approach. As a brief introduction, here's a story about something…
I'm writing this article for someone who works in tech and is looking for a new job, but wants to be somewhat selective and build stuff they believe in. If that describes you, read on! On June 3, I left my job at Punch Through, a hardware consulting firm in…
Working title: You got Markdown in my LaTeX! I hate writing documents in Microsoft Word and Apple Pages. I spend way too much time fiddling with formatting, page layout, and typesetting before everything looks the way I want it. And writing math equations, even with Word's GUI equation editor, is…
One of the frameworks we're building at Punch Through Design links to Dropbox to help users access their files from both iOS and their computer. Dropbox provides a very useful Sync SDK for iOS that makes it easy to access Dropbox accounts. Installing the Dropbox SDK can be complicated, so…
Last week, I built a command-line tool, csvtomd, to help me write documentation for my personal and work projects. Building Markdown tables by hand can be tedious and often involves lots of manual spacing tweaks to make the source code look just as good as the rendered table. With csvtomd,…