Birds are still very much my hobby

The proudest achievement of my life at that time was that software. Wonderfully organized, extensible, and efficient: the culmination of everything I’d learned about programming in ten years. After a successful relaunch and Christmas rush, I was looking at my plan for 2008 and beyond. All my plans needed a huge effort for little reward, but were required for future growth. I had broken it into about 20 projects, each taking 2 to 12 weeks. But I wasn’t excited about any of them.

Beyond that, editing an anthology gives me a chance to find a few new readers for my colleagues’ excellent work.

I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate.  I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate—two to one.  It came out of a complicated equation!  Then I thought, “Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?”

I had help in the form of my friend and former editor Carrie Frye

the natural tendency to solidify a narrative that makes you look good

Carrie helped me keep to a strict rhythm, but all the essays took shape in very idiosyncratic ways.

I’m always afraid of false certainty about things

I feel some sort of chemistry with the subject.…The bar for me is when it’s interesting enough that I would talk about it on my own time.

I think it’s so good to abandon projects. I never feel sad about not trying to publish that novel.