Hello

I'm Alex, a technologist from Calgary, Canada. This is my blog.

For information about myself & my philosophy, see the About, Design, and Values pages.

Miniposts are bookmarks, snippets of thought, and syndicated content from elsewhere.

Longform articles are below, sorted by date.

You may also peruse the archive.

Projects llms-full.txt

AboutValuesWorkDesignThingsBlogroll

They Don't Make It like They Used To


Nostalgia for the past has supplanted our yearnings for the future, becoming the default marketing tool for corporations. Instead of asking ‘what’s new?’, they ask ‘what have we done before that you liked?’. This trend transcends marketing tactics, reflecting a...
Read more ⟶

The Incredible Power of Oil & Steel


There is Teflon in your bloodstream.1 Dupont knew about the toxicity of their chemicals since as far back as 1976, and to this day fight responsibility for their part in creating a ubiqitous chemical that does not naturally deteriorate. 2 The chemicals used in the production of Teflon (PFOAs and...
Read more ⟶

Three Dimensions - An Analysis


Marman & Borins “Three Dimensions” was a tri-installation pop-minimalist art exhibition open at Contemporary Calgary until March 17th, 2024, composed of three mini installations: Balancing Act, THX2020, and ABCD. We wanted the viewer to walk away with ideas that we didn’t even...
Read more ⟶

Changing Grocery Shopping Habits


It is easy to forget how recent the phenomenon of the modern grocery store actually is - it only dates back to 1916, when the first Piggly Wiggly was opened in Memphis, Tennessee. Before that, grocers operated as “over the counter”, as in you would walk up to the counter at the front of...
Read more ⟶

Skiff - Or: Why Venture Capital is Bad for You


Around a year ago, I decided to shutdown my self-hosted email service after running it for about ten years. My choice in doing such was simply cost related - for the scale of email I was processing, it was not viable to run my own servers to do as such, accounting for time in maintenance and...
Read more ⟶