Matt's Blog

When I was in grade school, music was easily the most boring subject there was. Music was about playing the recorder (a music instrument I’ve never heard of anyone using outside music class), and singing. I remember one time, for like five classes in a row, I ended up playing the triangle. The triangle. But [...]

Once upon a time, I played a little Orisinal game that would, for lack of a better term, temporarily rewire my brain. I’d play it for a while, but when I was done, I found that I couldn’t use a computer. I’d see a pattern on a webpage and try to circle it. I’d talk [...]

This is partly a throwaway post to keep the main page non-blank, but I figure I’ll actually convey some useful information… The main page is now serving static assets (stylesheets, JavaScript, and images that are part of the template) from Akamai, via Rackspace’s Cloud Files service. This should hopefully speed things up a bit, though [...]

I’ve been going out of my way to avoid politics lately, but I just watched Donald Trump on national television complaining that if you dare question Obama’s citizenship, people jump all over you. Here’s why people jump all over you: Occam’s Razor. (Also, common sense.) Scenario A: Obama was born in Hawaii as he claims, [...]

One of the more intriguing things about HF radio is the concept of numbers stations, which just pop up at certain times on certain frequencies and read a long string of numbers. The general belief is that they’re reading off data encrypted with a one-time pad, but the intended recipients are more unclear. People have [...]

I know a lot of people that dodge taxes. Sometimes it’s legally exploiting loopholes, sometimes it’s doing things that can’t possibly be legal. The business owner who “forgets” to ring in all-cash sales to skip out on taxes. The Massachusetts resident who drives to New Hampshire to buy expensive things so they don’t have to [...]