I'm an overenthusiastic data herder who spends a shedload of time worrying and writing about, among other things, ergodic fiction and millionaires standing around outside in their pajamas.
I am a shameless dilettante, and I am an indiscriminate connoisseur of pub trivia.
When I'm not being productive, I enjoy photoshopping my friends and loved ones into pictures of places they've never been, sending those files to a print lab to be rendered and tastefully framed, and then covertly droplifting those lies onto a wall, desk, or mantle in their homes.
Some have hung unnoticed for years.
In my free time enjoy collecting hobbies, giving up on personal projects, and frisbeeing my dog into the Shadow Realm.
Also I run a boutique environmental engineering consultancy.
I find and write about interesting, albiet often broadly inconsequential data1 or anomalies. In this doomscrolly world we live in, I try to spend energy on making, curating, and foregrounding miniature meaninfullnesses and positive debris.
If there existed a single screengrab that comprised the intersection of my journalistic interests, intellectual passions, irreverential jollifications, and penchant to celebrate the irremarkable — it might look something like this:
I'm interested in Normative Decision Theory as can be applied to the irrational:
Let's say that I could fling a basketball backward, over my head, and drain it from anywhere on the court:
Full court, diving out of bounds?
Nothing but net.
Free throw for the Game 7 dagger before a hostile crowd?
Watch me yawn.
Shaq and Kareem double-team in the corner?
How 'bout I bank it off the top of the glass.
So if I could make that shot 100% of the time — pure 100%, no rounding — would you stick me on an NBA bench, knowing full well that I'd about as useful as a toddler when it came time to play defense?
I mean, maybe.
Hell, maybe even probably.
Okay, so what about 99% of the time?
98%?
95%...?
There comes a point where I'm not worth the roster slot. But what is that point?2
These are the difficult questions that deserve solid answers. These are the sorts of places I like to play.
I come from a literature background. I spent a minute in the basement of the Ivory Tower researching grumpy, dead poets who would have been absolutely wild on Twitter.
After that, I wrote a novel that garnered ones and ones of rave reviews.
Since then, I've edited some textbooks and lent a hand with some articles.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Footnotes
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This isn't my work. But I wish it was. (credit: Mike Beneschan) ↩
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It still might be 100%. ↩