About

I’ve slowly started blogging again, mostly because I have a lot of thoughts and I find it helpful to write those thoughts down. I’m making it public because I’ve received enough feedback to convince me that some people my ideas helpful.

By day I am a full time computer programmer specialized in data processing, and machine learning infrastructure. On the side I provide technical support for a number of digital humanities projects. A mostly complete list can be found here.

Note: This blog is available on Mastodon or any platform implementing ActivityPub at @ryan.


  • Chapter 5: Orbiting Jupiter
    Why does the pursuit of technological progress so frequently lead to disaster? Here we explore the concepts around optimization in order understand better why technological utopias can’t last.
  • Chapter 4: A Eulogy for Evangelicals
    What started as an attempt to answer the question, “What exactly do I believe?” turned into an in depth examination of what actually caused me to leave evangelicalism.
  • Chapter 3: Second Truth
    The difficulty with discussing truth is that there are two things we could be referring to. Here I talk about magicians, tables, human souls, and their relationship truth.
  • The Flames of Rebirth: War in Fire Emblem Three Houses
    Few games ever get my brain working as hard as this has. I’d like to share what i’ve come up with.
  • Playing to Win: TicTacToe
    So let’s talk about how to win at tic tac toe. It seems like a simple game, but it isn’t. I have strong opinions about this game, sue me.