New Gig

Three and a half weeks ago I started in a new position at Amazon. Our team is building a really cool and rather ambitious system for a supply chain/logistics management problem - I can't disclose any more information than that, but suffice to say I'm excited. So far I've done our high-level system architecture, nearly completed our initial data model, and started getting my head around our mathematical problems. It's been great to hit the ground running - I don't think I've ever come out of the gate quite like this before.

On the other hand, my personal interests have been slipping. In particular, I've been spending very little time with my guitar, which needs to change soon. I _am_ starting to get back into cycling, and need to take this pretty seriously as I've entered the lottery for RAMROD this year.

While I'm writing, I should mention that I read a fascinating book recently. It's "Notes on the Synthesis of Form", by Christopher Alexander - the book is about designing forms to fit complex requirements, and it's absolutely brilliant. It's timeless and quite universal as well - what Alexander wrote forty years ago is extremely true of software design today, and for that matter even applies to musical composition. It's also a quick read, so stop reading my crap and pick it up.