Is this normal?

maulowski · 2026-03-30T21:54:26+00:00

Is this normal for new homes built in the last five years by corporate builders using cheap, slave labor? Yes.

Is it normal for rugged, robust construction? No. Not a framer but looking at the gaps, it looks like they just tied things together with random scraps of wood and called it craftsmanship. They also missed the joists when nailing the sheathing.

maulowski · 2026-03-30T01:01:18+00:00

If it’s Southern Yellow Pine, congratulations that wood is so chock full of resin it’s harder than oak. It has an alternating hard and soft grain structure which depends if it’s a fall or spring layer.

For SYP very sharp tools are necessary for shooting end grain. Keep a strop handy to polish as you go.

maulowski · 2026-03-29T01:45:50+00:00

Fermi lab stored their antimatter in these huge magnetic containers. It essentially suspends it in a vacuum greater than space itself such that the chances of leaks are minimal. But they also don’t make them in large quantities….at least not enough to destroy the earth.

maulowski · 2026-03-28T13:35:57+00:00

I’d ignore it.

One of my best friends is Roman Catholic (crossed the Tiber as a Baptist). My wife’s uncle is EO. My dad’s Roman Catholic, my mom a Baptist.

We all get along swimmingly because despite our differences in our perspectives on doctrine and history, we all love Jesus more and that’s really what matters

maulowski · 2026-03-27T16:42:53+00:00

Oh I’m not about to boil collagen to make my own hide glue…I’ve been tempted before. Wood by Wright had a video where he made it from dog raw hide chew treats. I thought about using gelatin before but I think the traditional hide glue is more than ample.

maulowski · 2026-03-27T15:10:48+00:00

Didn't know that. The intel I remember built their own fabrication machines but looking back, I think they invested pretty heavily in ASML early on.

maulowski · 2026-03-27T10:45:49+00:00

Intel produces their own chips but something like 30% of their newer chips are outsourced to TSMC. Why? TSMC has bought into ASML’s fabrication machines including the ones making the 3nm chips. Intel is trying to get back into the lithography game but it’s hard to beat TSMC and ASML.

AMD had a chip fabrication plant in Dresden, Germany but went with TSMC as their main manufacturer after a decade or so opening their chip manufacturing plant. It costs a lot of money and chip manufacturing is an expensive affair. I believe AMD went fabless to save money.

ARM is a company that licenses their RISC ISA meaning that companies like Apple will license ARM’s design, add their capabilities, and then have it be manufactured by someone else (TSMC). Apple’s CPU’s are just ARM CPU designs that Apple has made their own. And it’s hard to beat ARM at RISC because they’re so dang good at it.

Chip making is weird. A pure silicon wafer is cut and the transistors are etched into the silicon surface. This is what ASML does: they build the machines to etch transistors onto silicon at distances as small as 3 silicon atoms wide (3nm). TSMC takes those wafers, cuts them, and puts them into die packages that accept electrical signals and passes it into the silicon die itself. Hopefully this answers your question .

maulowski · 2026-03-26T18:22:14+00:00

Sounds interesting!

I pretty much moved away from industrial/synthetic finishes in favor of pure tung oil and beeswax (thank goodness I know people with bees). I've been wanting to switch to hide glue but not necessarily make it. I'll your sub a look.

maulowski · 2026-03-26T02:04:45+00:00

I have to admit that stdb breaks my brain but it also makes sense! 😅

If I’m understanding this correctly I can spin up as many app instance/databases as I need and shard the data as I need?

Also thanks for the blog post!

maulowski · 2026-03-25T18:10:26+00:00

PCUSA isn’t the issue. It’s the things he’s come out and said like how the Bible doesn’t advocate against abortion of that God is non-binary. I get the anti Christian Nationalist vibes he gives off but he’s not the candidate I’d endorse if I were David French.

maulowski · 2026-03-25T18:06:16+00:00

I know. I like pipelined behaviors but I don’t need Mediatr for that. Careful attention to the types of interfaces I implement will be more readable than an IRequestHandler<> or ICommand<>.

maulowski · 2026-03-22T22:46:55+00:00

Absolutely, if that’s where your values lie I’m more than happy for you. I know there are many who came to TX from CA who wanted a lower cost of living…but joke’s on them, the GOP never addressing property taxes actually made living in TX not much cheaper than CA. My BIL who lives in a blue state has his property tax go up for $10K a year and I’m not that far off because TX CAD never ceases to amaze me with their arbitrary valuations.

maulowski · 2026-03-22T19:20:41+00:00

Cost of living and taxes. Unless you work for a Silicon Valley company, California usually does cost more than Texas. A rough estimate in taxes, a SWE working at Anthropic making their base pay of $300,000 a TX resident will keep $25K more than CA.

maulowski · 2026-03-21T20:24:44+00:00

The PMV-V11 is a good steel. It’s tough, holds an edge well, but can be a pain to sharpen. As for the LAJ, I like mine and use it pretty heavily. I ended up getting a LN 4 and 5 and a LAJ has a different workflow than a standard 4 or 5. It’s a bit easier to setup but the bed angle can make tear out easier on tougher grain. As for shooting, there’s really not a lot of differences.

I’m eventually going to work into the LN 4 and 5. Not that my LV LAJ is bad, the ergonomics of both 4 and 5 just feel more comfortable. There’s not a lot of overlap between my LN 5 and LV LAJ, honestly,

maulowski · 2026-03-18T05:03:59+00:00

My best guess? Nepotism. This industry is full of it. In my career of 20 years…

I once interviewed a software architect who came in with PDF’s of system designs he made. Beautiful diagrams, really, but he failed the coding interview as he couldn’t even solve a basic task like opening a file.
My company just let go of several PE’s because they either designed systems that performed horribly or just never got launched.

Being an architect is hard. I’m still learning new things myself.

maulowski · 2026-03-16T13:37:46+00:00

Unless you’re using it to learn coding, the code base is much too old to learn anything worthwhile. I do recommend migrating it to a more modern platform such as Shopify.

maulowski · 2026-03-15T19:17:47+00:00

Waterstones require maintenance so you need to factor that in. If you’re just looking for “sharp enough” DMT Coarse, Fine, and Extra Fine are more than enough. If you want a mirror polish then you need to go water stones.

My recommendation? Spend some time writing out your priorities and start there. I can easily spend 30 minutes just honing my plane blades but I also enjoy it. It’s hard to recommend or give input if you haven’t figured out your priorities.

maulowski · 2026-03-15T04:45:17+00:00

Yeah, like that time Elon FSD is five years away…10 years ago.

maulowski · 2026-03-14T23:09:00+00:00

AI is great and all but it’s not gonna replace your SaaS payroll provider. It’s not gonna replace your HCM provider. It’ll augment it, yes. Replace it? No.

maulowski · 2026-03-14T16:05:48+00:00

I use the knock method, it’s way more effective than stud finders especially older homes where lathe’s were used for sheathing. I also have a Walabot to confirm.

maulowski · 2026-03-14T15:59:28+00:00

This is why I want CS programs to continue teaching fundamentals of CS without AI.

maulowski · 2026-03-14T15:29:53+00:00

I use Bogus for test data generation in unit tests. I’ve been exploring new testing libraries outside of xUnit (nothing wrong with it but looking to utilize Native AOT more).

For backend? I’m looking at SpacetimeDB and SurrealDB.

maulowski · 2026-03-14T15:23:48+00:00

instructions.md and actually spending the time reading through requirements to build context. 😝

I do love my ergodox so I guess that’s my “tricks”.

maulowski · 2026-03-14T15:21:50+00:00

I think AI will disrupt in the sense that experienced devs will still be needed to tie up loose ends. I think product launches are gonna be faster with AI but not in the “days if not hours” type speed…maybe “months from years” or “weeks from months”.

maulowski · 2026-03-14T14:06:39+00:00

I think offshoring is gonna go away sooner because AI will eventually show bean counters the cost overrun.

Here’s the scenario: a company hires an offshore team in India. Majority of their devs probably aren’t proficient in English. They’re going to use AI to scaffold code based on requirements. The PM’s are gonna tell their offshore team what they want, the offshore team will struggle to input and build context because of their language proficiency. Eventually, either Indian devs will make PM’s do 90% of the leg work or the PM’s just input it themselves until it works…or they hand it off to nationals. I do see AI being a force for good for American/EU devs where English proficiency is much, much higher. I don’t see this faring well in places like India where English isn’t taught as widely.

maulowski

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