Forward Bias

Disentangling Career from Creativity

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 16:00:00 -0700

My first job in high school was as an intern at a local college radio station (RIP KBTC). It was about what you’d expect of an internship, until they realized I knew how to use Cakewalk. That’s when I became the “bumper guy”. If you’re not a terrestrial radio die-hard, bumpers are the short transitions between segments or coming in or out of commercials. Often the ones you’ll recognize the most are the mandatory “station IDs” that remind you what station you’re listening to. I recorded many variants of “You’re listening to KBTC 91.7FM, Tacoma’s home for Classical Rock” (don’t get me started on the term “classical rock”; I had to live with it, so can you). I would cut up clips from my favorite songs and movies, avoiding talking all morning so I could record with my gruffest (for a 16-year-old) morning voice. Was it art? Probably not, but it was absolutely creatively rewarding.

On Writing an Album in a Month (kinda)

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0700

I’ve read Jeff Tweedy’s How to Write One Song at least half a dozen times over the last couple of years. It’s a quick read, super practical, and I love the way he fights against the mysticism of creative practice. He argues that waiting for inspiration to strike is folly, that instead you can invite inspiration through intentional routines. You can choose to be creative through purposeful practice. I love the message, and I really thought that I understood the lesson, but it took the nonstop grind of February Album Writing Month (FAWM) for me to really internalize it. By forcing myself to work at a songwriting cadence more aggressive than I’d ever tried, I had no choice but to actually make the creative output happen, and once I broke through that barrier the songs just started flooding out.

The Era of Personal Micro-Software

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 18:00:00 -0700

Reject the Vibe

When I first heard the term “vibe coding” I immediately hated it, and it took me a minute to reflect on why. Is it just because I’m a grumpy geriatric millennial refusing to ride the vibes? Maybe, but I think it has more to do with how it implies a lazy sort of magical thinking. Vibes are nuanced. Reading vibes is a deeply human activity, and it implies an unspoken (and often high-bandwidth) understanding that just doesn’t reflect what I see when using AI-assisted programming tools. Computers can’t read the vibe in the room, and they can’t read your mind. If anything, we should be calling AI-assisted programming Therapy-level-detailed-communication-coding, but that’s a mouthful, so I guess we’re stuck with “vibe coding” for now.

About

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0700

I’m a recovering Middle School teacher, always trying to hold onto the messiness and joy of the students I used to teach. I’ve led the curriculum team at a non-profit, trained thousands of teachers to pick up CS, written two books on the topic, and am currently making my way through the impact of Generative AI on all of these things.

I believe that technology can be be beautiful, tactile, and expressive. I remember an internet that felt more like this, where every corner had it’s own personality, and anyone could make and share something they cared about without gatekeepers to get the way. This site is my small effort to bring some of that back. It’s an ongoing experiment in making things for the sake of making them, and sharing them with whoever cares to look.

Contact

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Feel free to reach out for collaborations, questions, cool ideas, or anything else.

Post 3

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 11:00:00 -0700

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Post 2

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 10:00:00 -0700

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Post 1

Sun, 15 Jan 2023 09:00:00 -0700

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