Dynamic Chatbot Logic
I am working on a chatbot platform built on the idea that a working bot can be defined in a single line of text. It handles everything needed for a full-featured chatbot and can deploy bots on (almos…
Writing
Archives
Everything in reverse chronological order.
Bots I Have Built
I have been building chatbots for a few years and thought I would document some of them and their evolution over time. TYMS (Track Your Mental State) TYMS v1 - Built with bottle.py, saved to CSV file…
Sudden Passion
I seem to be reaching a stage of life where I have real passion. Always, I have cared about my work and poured myself into it. I built things I was proud of and could feel good about. But I may be di…
Secure Configuration of Google Tag Manager
If you have to host a Google Tag Manager Container owned or managed by someone else, you need to take precautions. Tag Manager has powerful analytics orchestration capabilities and is a great way to …
JSON conversion as a bottleneck in a Python API
A new acquaintance discussed with me a scaling problem his dev team is trying to solve. In their Django/Python app they have an API reading a table with long rows but otherwise simple structure. The …
Bedroom Bench
Refinishing furniture has become a sort of meditation for me. After finishing the art deco blanket chest and piano tables I repainted a small bench I made some years ago. I made this out of garage sc…
Human Augmentation
Human Augmentation is a broad term for the idea of enhancing the human body. It branches into numerous areas where professional and amateurs work. My particular interest is in adding new senses to th…
Where to focus on human improvements
Semi-organized notes on a decision-making process for deciding which areas of human augmentation are a useful focus for the different capabilities of the amateur and professional augmentation communi…
Piano Tables
My wife and I refinished 2 end tables into pianos! Full gallery and explanation of steps in our Piano Tables gallery on Google Photos.
Art Deco Blanket Box
Inspired by a set design of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017, I finished a wood chest into a 1920s Art Deco theme of green marble and gold inlays. The full album a…
The Death of PullString Author
I'm disappointed by the ending of PullString Author as a product. It was a unique program in the chatbot landscape. Author was usable by non-programers and testable without installing anything additi…
Examples of Ambient Healthcare
Ambient healthcare is a strategy of triggering healthcare events much earlier than it would otherwise occur. It works by using the wealth of sensors around us and machine-learning algorithms us to de…
Thoughts about Ambient Healthcare
TLDR - Ambient Healthcare is my proposed concept of using existing technology to create a "notice, nudge, act" to create healthcare that is cheaper, better, and more personal. The meaning of healthca…
Remember the Patient
In Healthcare IT we are often focused on the internal aspects of running large Healthcare System. We focus on the operations at a clinic level. We focus on the EMR interface for providers and staff. …
Optimizing a Dockerfile to reduce layers and size
While converting the primary application I work on to Docker I went through a series of steps to reduce layers and final image size. Here is the process and results: Get the Dockerfile working Use Do…
Docker disk space usage
Something to watch out for: Docker may be using lots of your computer's disk space. All data is written to a grow-only file. On my mac it was at 27 GB from pretty light Docker experimentation. There …
The Stages of Being an Engineer
Part of the `Notes to a New Engineer
Don't Get Everything Done
This blog post is directed at you if you work extra hours and are always stressed because you can't everything done. This advice is to help people in that position get control. Part of the Notes to a…
Your MVP is too big
MVP should be less than you think, and then, having evaluated it, should be even less. While building the MVP for ArtsFuse we actually built an MVP plus 12 months of feature development, which we tho…
Large Company Rules
Observed laws within large companies: this applies to all large well-established bureaucracies Over time, all processes are adjusted to create 100% predictable cash flow accounting A process and poli…
Propylon SmartVote
I built the initial prototype for Propylon's SmartVote system. SmartVote is a voting system for legislative bodies (think a State House of Representatives). Legislators use desk-mounted Android table…
HealtheLife
HealtheLife is the flagship product of Cerner's Consumer Engagement group. HealtheLife and sister projects are the "front door of healthcare" for thousands of healthcare organizations around the worl…
ArtsFuse
ArtsFuse is a company dedicated to using technology to bring art into people's everyday lives. It was founded in 2014 by myself, Rachel Kibler, and Steve Wynne. We serve home users via streaming but …
There is no magic
Part of theNotes to a New Engineerseries Lesson: An experienced engineer makes better guesses and checks them faster than a new engineer, letting them find a problem faster. There is no magic or spec…
Notes to a New Engineer - Kickoff
Part of theNotes to a New Engineerseries I am starting a series of posts based on the mentoring I do for new engineers. When mentoring engineers it is important to teach both specific skills, problem…