Language is always changing as we all look for the best ways to express our thoughts. I have two new words to share today and also one that I'm looking to for suggestions on a replacement. These are "radish holes", "friends-in-law", and an alternative for "roller coaster".

I miss writing. I stopped updating this site at the start of December 2025 for two reasons: extremely low viewer counts and a newborn child. But then I found myself looking back and using what I'd written.

The US Navy just canceled the Constellation guided-missile frigate program , truncating it to two ships (from a planned 6+). The intent is to jettison a troubled program and replace it with a clean-sheet "new small surface combatant" that would be cheaper and faster to build. That's a false hope.

A few years ago, solar seemed like a small slice of future electricity generation: it was expensive, took up a lot of space, and was intermittent. Recently, the plummeting cost and increasing efficiency of solar panels has combined with a similar revolution in lithium-ion batteries has transformed solar into a huge part of the future mix. What's particularly wild about it is the potential for decentralization where individuals and isolated areas can push the changes forward themselves.

Scary statistics: US firms have announced 50% more job cuts than at this point last year; the hiring rate has fallen to its lowest non-pandemic level in a decade; more than a quarter of the unemployed have been without a job for at least six months ( The Economist 11/6/2025) . In that environment, I've gotten a lot of "help" on my resume, and I'm not sure how helpful it was.

I've never bought myself a new computer. Through a combination of stubbornness and luck, I've replaced my computer several times, but never bought new.

Flying low-observable "stealth" aircraft means near-perfection in maintenance, or the aircraft aren't low-observable anymore. This has implications for a "big-boy war".

In 2024, I read Nikhil Suresh's " I Will F'ing Dropkick You If You Use that Spreadsheet " and I'm probably due for a drop-kicking. I've taught myself some other languages and methods, but the spreadsheet is just so versatile!

Secretary of Defense Rock wrote recently on the "myth of Allied technological inferiority" in World War II. He was rebutting an idea that the Allies (mostly the US) developed equipment that was less sophisticated but built it in far greater numbers, thus winning the war. As I read the article I began to fear that this takedown included me. I've written a few times about industrialization in World War II and lamented our situation today: an I one of the baddies?

Twelve people have walked on the moon, and the most recent was over 50 years ago . Now we are looking at a return to crewed missions to the moon using a space station called the Lunar Gateway. Gary Johnson just did some calculations that show that surprisingly the lunar Gateway would require a larger craft to land in the same sites as just launching directly from earth on a single rocket Apollo style.

I've always been a big reader, and I fall into a few patterns of what I read. The main ones are "reading new books" and "comfort reading"; I do the same in other media as well. Sometimes, I'll happily re-read a book for the umpteenth time because that's what I'm in the mood for.

With the Sukkot holiday including Wednesday this year, I'm going to put in a couple of quick reflections and schedule the post to go up automatically.

In modern life, we're used to little things failing: a computer program crashes, a phone battery doesn't charge as much, a wire frays, power goes out in a storm. People who have studied or lived through disasters have learned that these little failures can have massive unforeseen consequences. The TV show The Expanse has a wonderfully clear explanation of these "simple-complex systems".

During my job search, I've seen job postings go up, stay up for weeks or months, and then get re-posted.  So at risk of generalizing my experience, if candidates can't find jobs and companies can't find candidates, is the job market working for anyone?

I've had the rare privilege of managing an aircraft development program from early drawings on napkins through first-flight approval. During that time I had the most effective of feedback loops: living with the consequences of my choices earlier in the process. Due to the holiday on Wednesday, today is my only post this week.

I've written about wartime industrialization before , but a recent podcast and blog post made me more optimistic about the US' ability to ramp up production...as long as we start planning better.

It's fashionable to ask if the aircraft carrier is obsolete: small uncrewed aircraft can operate from smaller ships or extremely-far land bases, long-ranged anti-ship missiles put them at risk, and they're extremely expensive to build and operate. My opinion is that the carrier is still valuable as long as it can re-focus the carrier strike group for range and endurance.

I'm weird in how I use the internet. I avoid most algorithmic feeds, and instead have curated a system of bookmarks, RSS feeds, and "this isn't a feed but I want it to be" kludges to keep up with my various sources. So let's get weird.

The Economist has run a few articles recently about "involution" in the Chinese economy, which is a concern that companies in some key markets (e.g. electric vehicles) are competing too hard. I disagree!

In June 2021, I came back from a camping trip and while performing post-trip chores with my one-year-old, I was struck by a missing entry to the children's alphabet-book market. In a sleep-deprived haze, I started "L is for Laundry".