this space is where i think out loud, chase half-formed ideas, and generally try to make sense of whatever i’m learning. it isn’t a traditional blog—nothing here is polished or final. some things are 🌱 seedlings, some are growing 🌳. there are plenty of TILs sprinkled in too.
none of this is precious! if you want a sense of what a “digital garden” is supposed to be, maggie appleton has a great explanation 🌼.
Building Tools for the Safety Net: My Year in Propel's AI Residency
After discovering I'm definitely not a "growth team" person and watching Glitch wind down, I'm back in civic tech where I belong – this time in an AI Residency at Propel. We're building tools to help states and SNAP beneficiaries navigate HR1's massive changes, including new penalties that charge states more money for higher error rates. During the recent shutdown, I built crawlers to get real-time benefit updates to folks and created the most comprehensive database of active food pantries using AI tools. It's not the sexy AI that gets TED talks – it's the kind that keeps benefits from being wrongly terminated because we finally taught a system that gig work counts as employment.
every few months someone proposes putting data centers in space. it sounds futuristic, the renderings look cool, and then you run the numbers. google just did it again with project suncatcher, so let's talk about why physics keeps winning.
How to use the new @scope at-rule for targeted, proximity-aware CSS styling
How to use the new HTML Sanitizer API for secure, library-free HTML injection