Personal musings of Ovid

Understanding the history of the Treaty of Tripoli shows that America's Founding Fathers didn't Intend for the US to be a Christian Nation.

I accidentally went down the rabbit hole of torturing Google Gemini 2.5 while looking for a seahorse.

Over the millennia, we have argued back and forth about whether math is discovered or invented.

A Formal Refutation of "Flat Earth" Claims through the Lens of Negative-Curvature Geodesy

Long-time Perl legend and gadfly Matt Trout has passed.

Thirty Bob a Week is one of the greatest poems ever written.

The US is turning its back on Ukraine.

Many people don't realize this, but getting a job in another country is not that hard ... if you're a skilled worker.

When Luigi Mangione murdered Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, it was a form of terrorism the US rarely sees.

It's sad that we don't read the news any more, and it's because of what advertising has done to the news structure.

I've been asked to give the opening keynote at the 25th anniversary of The Perl Conference/YAPC.

Should we settle Mars?

By now, if you pay attention to tech, you may have seen Marc Andreessen's The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.

If you're a highly skilled professional, moving abroad is easier.

Want to learn the basics of how rockets work?

The title seems like clickbait, but it's real.

The "Amazing Grace" documentary of Aretha Franklin creating the best-selling gospel R&B album of all time took 46 years to release.

Having lived in, and visited, multiple countries, I have loved my adventures.

SpaceX is one of the most valuable private companies in the US, but it may be stumbling

I have participated in 21 weddings.

I am often asked how I got into technology.

I recently wrote about life being a continuum, not an either/or.

We might find extraterrestrial life in our solar system.

Our house, to my surprise, is now a wasp sanctuary.

Years ago I wrote a small AI life simulator.

Many people fantasize about living abroad.

I made a long, disciplined effort on Facebook to reach out and openly communicate with those whose views I do not share.

A short story I wrote a few years ago, playing around with first-person, non-linear storytelling.

A flash fiction story I wrote as part of a writing prompt.

I write.

An excerpt from a fantasy novel I'm writing for my daughter.

Years ago I lived in London in a hotel with a few dozen of my closest colleagues.

The nature of the nascent space industry is changing rapidly.

Many developers today have no idea what programming was like in the 80s.

Teenagers are stupid.

The depth of problems that plague Blue Origin are astonishing.

Designing the Corinna OO system for Perl has been as much a political exercise as a technical one.

I've put this off for too long, but I'm resigning from The Perl Foundation.

Many stereotypically black hairstyles are worn by white people.

Scientists are excited about the discovery of phosphine on Venus.

Defunding the police is a hot, misunderstood, controversial topic.

Many people have strong opinions about socialism, which is curious since it's hard to define it.

The horrific video of the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police might just kick off a new civil rights movement.

There is a lot of nonsense being peddled about the coronavirus.

The mathematician Po-Shen Loh has created a much easier way to solve quadratic equations.

For Perl developers, I explain some of the problems with Moo's "has" function.

Wherein I explain Babylonian numbers to my eight year old daughter and now explain them to you.

If every hour has a 10% change of rain, what are the odds it will rain tomorrow?

A quick explanation of why the factorial of zero is one, not zero.

Apparently I may have one of two siblings raised in the former Soviet Union.