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John Lear and the Alien Cover-Up
John Lear’s ideas about alien visitors, government agreements, human origins, and why he came to oppose disclosure.
Production & film
Action Movies Are Floor Plans Under Stress
Action scenes work when the audience understands the location, the available routes, and the consequences of each move.
Production & film
Netflix Lighting Is a Failure to Choose
Better cameras and lights can preserve more shooting options. Flat images can result when productions postpone decisions about contrast, shadow, and attention.
Technology
Friction Is About to Become a Luxury
Faster tools make review easier to skip. Keep the steps that protect quality, rights, safety, and accountability.
Technology
Build on Your Own Land
Use platforms for reach. Keep the original work, archive, URLs, and exportable contact lists under your control.
Technology
Pace Regulators
When AI makes every idea feel urgent, records, films, and books help me slow down.
Production & film
The VFX Industry: Part 3
At Sony Imageworks, long hours on Spider-Man 3 and a reversed staffing decision changed what I was willing to accept at work.
Photography
Photography Workflow 2026
My 2026 setup uses DxO PhotoLab 9, RAW files with edit sidecars, S3 Glacier backups, and a photo site I control.
Photography / Culture
How Around the Fur Found Its Cover
How Rick Kosick’s party photograph became the Deftones cover, why the art director kept its imperfections, and what Lisa Hughes remembers.
Production & film
James Cameron Sold The Terminator for $1
Cameron’s $1 rights deal secured his role as director. Gale Anne Hurd’s producing role was equally important to getting The Terminator made.
Culture
The Ghost of Bourdain's Lists
Anthony Bourdain’s recovered li.st posts record his tastes in bars, spy novels, sandwiches, sunglasses, and unusual objects.
Technology
Before AI, It Was Just Graphics
NVIDIA’s work on graphics hardware, CUDA, and developer tools helped make its GPUs useful for simulation, production, and AI.
Production & film
What Jobs Learned Making Toy Story
Toy Story required more than new animation tools: story development, repeated revision, production discipline, and a way to reach an audience.
Production & film / Technology
When Game Engines Meet Hollywood
Real-time engines let teams test sets, camera moves, and lighting earlier, provided production, budget, and asset requirements are part of the review.
Technology
When Several Systems Change at Once
Peter Leyden’s account of historical change helps me consider how simultaneous changes in AI, media, software, and work affect production.
Production & film / Technology
What AI Is Actually Doing on Set
A PGA panel discussed AI for production planning, search, references, and paperwork, with human review and clear responsibility for the results.
Technology
Turning a Childhood Comic Collection Into an Open Source App
Why I built an open source comic tracker with faster data entry, collection details, and an automated update from Google Sheets.
Technology
What Geoffrey Hinton Is Actually Warning About
Hinton distinguishes human misuse of AI from the risk of losing control of more capable systems. Both raise questions about incentives and accountability.
Production & film
What Phil Tippett Brought to CG Animation
Phil Tippett’s creature-performance experience remained useful when Jurassic Park shifted to CG. What that example suggests about learning new tools.
Technology
The Bot Was the Least Interesting Part
Kirshbot tested whether measurable speech patterns could help evaluate generated dialogue for consistency, while keeping permission and human review separate.
Culture
How Liquid Death Makes Water Distinctive
How Liquid Death uses distinctive packaging, a consistent comic tone, merchandise, and retail distribution to sell a familiar product.
Photography
Photography Workflow 2025
Moving from Lightroom to Photomator meant backing up about 1TB, reducing a 90,000-photo library, and reconsidering more than 6,000 edits.
Technology
Why MiniDisc Still Feels Like the Future
Reusing my MiniDisc players led me to modern transfer tools, printable labels, and a music collection I enjoy preparing and carrying.
Photography
Photography Workflow 2022
By 2022, my photo workflow was about reducing platform sprawl: fewer services, better backups, and a library I could maintain.
Technology
Making the iPhone Boring on Purpose
I reduced my iPhone home screen to four apps because the problem was not app count. It was turning the phone back into a tool instead of a place to linger.
Technology
Owning My Location History With Where/When
After a decade of Foursquare check-ins, I built a private, local iOS app that attaches location memories to my own calendar.
Technology
Tracking Planes From My Window With PiAware
A Raspberry Pi Zero W, an ADS-B receiver, and a window antenna turned the airspace over Los Angeles into a live local data feed I could actually see.
Culture
Influences: Julia Child
Watching Julia Child taught me to enjoy cooking for other people and recover when something went wrong.
Production & film
The VFX Industry: Part 2
Imageworks, thousands of reels, Spider-Man 2, and the gap between wanting a VFX job and being ready for production.
Culture
Lessons Learned From Dunkin' Donuts
Five years at a Dunkin' Donuts in Quincy taught me about regulars, free coffee, bad managers, addiction, local cops, and service work.
Photography
Photography Workflow 2020
In 2020, the biggest improvement to my photo workflow was treating culling as part of the archive instead of cleanup after the fact.
Culture
Letterboxd Is the Best Social Network
How I use Letterboxd to record what I watch, find films I have missed, and track where I can watch the movies I own.
Culture
Influences: Anthony Bourdain
Watching Anthony Bourdain changed how I approached travel, chose places to eat, and listened to people I met.
Production & film
The VFX Industry: Part 1
Centropolis FX, The Scorpion King, and a first look at how much invisible labor keeps production moving.
Culture
An Obsession with Formula 1
How I started following Formula 1 in 2020, from learning tyre strategy to watching Gasly win at Monza and Albon reach the podium at Mugello.
Technology
How I Infuse
Why Infuse became the front end for my personal media library: owned files, clean metadata, cloud access, local playback, and a better interface.
Photography
Photography Workflow 2018
In 2018, my photo workflow was built around backup anxiety, cloud access, Lightroom CC, and reconsidering my old rule: delete nothing, keep everything.
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