Between the 1950s and the 1990s, the United States Geological Survey undertook the massive task of surveying the entire United States, producing over 55,000 topographic maps. These maps attempted to provide a comprehensive record of United States land, and as a small part of this effort, they attempted to reproduce the locations of mines, mine […]
Author: risky
Does Every Dollar Count?
We’ve probably all heard it before: “Every dollar counts”. And so every dollar does count. But does every cent count, too? How far does this way of thinking really go? If you are one of the ultra-rich, earning a million dollars a year, does every dollar still count to you? In a way, dollars only […]
The Tyranny of Outdoor Gear
Back in college, I had a friend who asked for some help moving heavier objects at his parents’ house, so I volunteered. It was a very spacious house, very nice, and I believe I made a comment about it and how well everything seemed to fit into place. My friend’s parents were a little sheepish […]
Are Performance Air Filters Worth It?
For both my previous car and my current car, I’ve purchased K&N reusable performance air filters. What makes them “performance” is that they apparently let more air in, which gives more power to the engine, in theory. In general, I have found my cars more responsive using these air filters, but I can’t say with […]
Thoughts on Higher Education
A lot of people are beginning to question the value of higher education. Much of this questioning is important, in my opinion, but it’s easy to read about these issues and crushing student loan debt elsewhere. Here, I really wanted to reflect on some of the more personal elements. Last night, out of sheer curiosity, […]
Does Your Job Make a Difference? – Part 2
The economic value we bring to the world is heavily stressed from a young age. When we’re in first grade we’re already being asked what we want to do when we grow up, though we hardly have any idea what this even means. It’s not necessarily wrong to ask these questions, since you will be […]
Does Your Job Make a Difference?
Several weeks ago, I went metal detecting on my grandmother’s farm. I finally took the plunge on buying a detector because I didn’t want to miss that opportunity, and I knew that if only I could decode the legal rules around the hobby, it’s something I would love. Also, Uncle Sam basically paid for it, […]
Books Suck
I used to read a lot. I saw it as a sort of educational salvation, a path to enlightenment or greatness. It was also very much an addiction, and probably the greatest distraction in my life. My journals have been absolutely littered with references of wanting to escape books. One time at church we went […]
Other People’s Problems
When I was younger, in my late teens and early 20s, it was popular to have passion for a cause, and one way to stand out from your peers was to latch onto one cause or another and really sink your teeth in. “Oh, I’m just SO passionate about [XYZ]!” I’ve probably been on different […]
Life Engineering
How you write a program can have a dramatic impact on its performance. I once wrote a query against geospatial data that took several hours to complete. After searching extensively online for ways to speed it up, I discovered an optimizer hint, one tiny piece of code, that effectively reduced the time to complete from […]