Exploring Ideas: A Blog on Technology, Startups, Food, and More
Welcome to my blog where I share thoughts and insights on technology, startups, and life in Atlanta. Browse through the articles below or explore by topic.
Getting Things Done: High-Stakes Decisions Need Clear Minds
May 7, 2025
Picture this: You’re a senior analyst about to make a multi-million dollar investment recommendation, a corporate lawyer finalizing a critical merger agreement. In these high-stakes scenarios, the quality of your decisions can make or break careers, companies, and systems. Meanwhile, your mind is drowning in a flood of inputs: hundreds of unread emails, constant Slack notifications, endless meetin...
Coordinating Financial Advisors: Streamlining for Better Outcomes
May 6, 2025
One of the most powerful aspects of a family office is how it coordinates various financial professionals to work as an integrated team rather than in silos. This coordination eliminates dangerous blind spots and creates significantly better outcomes. The good news? You don’t need a full-fledged family office to implement this approach. With some simple strategies, you can get your existing adviso...
The ECF Rating System: The British Approach to Chess Ratings
May 5, 2025
We’ve covered some heavy hitters in our rating systems series so far: Elo, and the Glicko family. Now let’s explore something a bit more niche but fascinating in its own right: the ECF (English Chess Federation) rating system. While not as widely used outside of British chess circles, the ECF system offers some interesting design choices that make it worth studying. The Origin Story: A Very Britis...
Writing Tools MCP: A Toolkit for Better Writing
May 5, 2025
I just released a new tool that I’m pretty excited about: Writing Tools MCP, a Model Context Protocol server that provides text analysis capabilities to help improve your writing. What the heck is MCP? If you’ve been following AI development, you’ve probably heard of “tools” or “function calling” that let AI assistants like Claude or GPT interact with external systems. The Model Context Protocol (...
Loonshots: Nurturing Crazy Ideas That Transform Industries
May 4, 2025
Loonshots: Where Crazy Ideas Go to Grow Up Look, I’ll be honest - when I first picked up Safi Bahcall’s Loonshots, I was skeptical. Another innovation book? Really? But about 20 pages in, I realized this wasn’t your typical “innovation is important” business book. Instead, it’s a surprisingly fresh take on why some wild ideas survive and others die, told through the lens of physics (yes, physics!)...
Lavender Crème Brûlée: A Floral Twist on a Classic
May 3, 2025
Crème brûlée is a classic dessert that’s surprisingly simple to make at home. This version adds a subtle floral note by infusing the cream with culinary lavender, creating an elegant twist on the traditional vanilla version. The key is letting the lavender steep in the hot cream mixture to extract its delicate flavor without becoming overwhelming. The Recipe This recipe makes 4 servings in standar...
Exploring Dad Lore: Stories That Shape Generations
May 2, 2025
Growing up, my childhood was filled with tales, non sequiturs, and mysteries that baffle and amaze me to this day. My father and grandfathers were the master storytellers in their own unique ways. My grandfathers weaved narratives that were as grand and mythical as the tales in “Big Fish.” As many times as you were sure they were made up some evidence to the contrary would appear to set you straig...
Build-Measure-Learn: Faster Decisions, Smarter Products
May 1, 2025
Remember the traditional product development playbook? Months of market research, detailed requirement documents, lengthy development cycles, a big launch, and then… hope. Hope that customers actually wanted what you meticulously built. Hope that your initial assumptions were correct. Too often, this approach leads to wasted resources, missed market windows, and products nobody uses. The Lean Star...
Glicko-2: Adding Volatility to the Rating Equation
April 30, 2025
In our previous posts, we explored Elo Rating System and Glicko-1 Rating System. Glicko-1 improved on Elo by tracking rating reliability, but it still missed something important: some players are just more consistent than others. Enter Glicko-2, which adds a third dimension to the rating equation: volatility. The Evolution Continues: From Reliability to Volatility Mark Glickman wasn’t done innovat...
The Glicko Rating System: When Confidence Matters
April 29, 2025
In our previous post, we explored the Elo rating system - the grandfather of competitive rankings. While Elo is elegant in its simplicity, it has some limitations. One of the biggest is that it treats all ratings as equally reliable, whether they’re based on thousands of games or just a handful. Enter the Glicko rating system, which addresses this limitation by tracking not just a player’s rating,...
Subscribe to the Newsletter
Get the latest posts and insights delivered straight to your inbox.