Born Geek Latest Posts

The Problem with Capitalism

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 17:06:44 +0000

Destin from Smarter Every Day has knocked it out of the park again. In this update to the Smarter Scrubber project, he dives into the issues inherent in the way our current economy is set up. After watching this, I feel more motivated than ever to buy from American producers. Thinking long-term with the way we spend our money has never been more important.

AI and Stack Overflow

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:02:55 +0000

Kip Robinson recently posted a thoughtful look at the impending death of Stack Overflow; I highly recommend it. The diagram he posted in his article is remarkable (I'm reproducing it below for convenience).

Question and answer post rate at Stack Overflow

As the graph demonstrates, essentially no one posts questions or answers to Stack Overflow anymore. One reason for this, as Kip posits, is that AI agents don't punish you for asking bad questions. I think that's a really good insight: AI tools are welcoming environments (sometimes overly so), rather than discouraging environments like Stack Overflow was.

One other angle I can think of is that AI agents don't punish you for being too specific. In my past dealings with Stack Overflow, I've often been frustrated by having questions closed for not being generic enough. Spending time to boil my specific problem down to something generic in order to pass the necessary post qualifications was wasted effort. Adding to this frustration, receiving an answer occasionally took hours (or days).

With modern LLMs, the opposite is true in my experience: the more verbose and specific your question, the more likely you are to get a very helpful answer. In addition, the answer is virtually instantaneous!

Anecdotally, I haven't used Stack Overflow in years (either for questions or answers). With the advent of AI, I don't even visit it to read previously posted answers. I guess it was helpful in its day, but the world has apparently moved on. So have I.

The Origin of National Park Posters

Thu, 21 May 2026 12:45:15 +0000

Our family loves the national parks here in the United States, and we enjoy collecting the posters for parks we've visited. Adam Savage recently posted a video to YouTube showcasing the history behind these iconic posters. Some of the original designs from the 1930s and 1940s that he showcases are truly amazing. My favorite quote from one of them:

The adventures of today are the memories of tomorrow.

What cool words to live by. Check it out!

Iodine: The Easiest Way to Make the World Smarter

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 18:40:41 +0000

Here's a terrific video from Rabbit Hole. I'll likely only buy iodized salt from here on out.

Phil Edwards

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 01:14:35 +0000

My final YouTube channel recommendation for the year (this has been a fun series!) is Phil Edwards. His videos do some deep dives on really interesting topics, including:

I've embedded one of his videos below that covers the strange product that is frozen orange juice concentrate, a commodity that is actually traded on the futures market (who knew?). Check it out!

The Bible in a Year

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 20:39:08 +0000

Back at the beginning of this year, I set out to read the entire Bible in one year's time. Given that there are 1,189 chapters in the Protestant Bible, that works out to 3.25 chapters a day. I rounded up to four chapters to give me some padding for days that I missed, which turned out to be helpful. That said, four chapters a day is fairly aggressive.

My chapter rule was strict: four chapters per day, no more, no less. On days where a book finished with less than four chapters read, I would proceed to the next book on the schedule and read the remaining number of chapters.

In an effort to shake the reading up somewhat, I decided to set my schedule for two books of the Old Testament, followed by one book of the New Testament. So I started with Genesis and Exodus, then read Matthew; Leviticus and Numbers came next, followed by Mark (and so on). Bouncing back and forth like this was an interesting way to provide some variety. This worked fairly well in distributing the books, though at the end of the year I ended up with a number of New Testament books back to back.

I'm happy to say that I completed my read-through today! Here are some additional facts about this challenge:

I used the New Living Translation, which I find to be the most easily comprehensible modern translation.
In the end, I missed a total of 39 days during the year; not bad!
My longest consecutive streak without missing a day was 37 days, between March 27 and May 2.
The most number of unique books read in a day was four, on November 25. On this day I read 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and the first chapter of Revelation.

There were a few drawbacks to this scheme, however:

Reading through Psalms and Proverbs consecutively gets pretty repetitive, pretty quickly. In the future, I think it would be better to chunk out these books and add those chunks to the reading plan. Something like: two Old Testament books, one New Testament book, four Psalms, and two chapters of Proverbs (or whatever makes sense schedule-wise).
Forcing four chapters a day was interesting, but occasionally led to some odd chunking in the reading schedule. There were a number of times where I would read the final three chapters of a book and then the starting chapter of another, which broke the flow of the second book's narrative.
Reading the minor prophets in order is also fairly repetitive; many of these books essentially have the same exact message from God, just sent to a different people group.

All that said, this was a neat challenge to try. I plan to do it again, though I will chunk things out differently next time. I'll also cap the reading at four chapters a day (so, no more than four, but less is OK). I also plan to use a different translation the next go-round, to also shake things up some.

The Wildlife Homestead

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 03:28:31 +0000

The Wildlife Homestead is my YouTube channel pick for November. Although this channel is not new to me (I've been subscribed to it for quite a while now), it's definitely one that I want to advertise. The cinematography in these videos is breathtaking and rivals any nature documentary you've seen. Videos aren't posted often, but when they are you know that you're in for a treat.

Stefano Ianiro is the host, and he publishes videos about the wildlife he encounters at his homestead in Canada. He is specifically building the homestead to attract as much wildlife as possible, and he has seen some amazing things!

The most recent video, posted earlier today, is embedded below and covers some of the surprises that Stefano found after hanging 50 boxes for wildlife around his property. Be sure to check out the back catalog of videos after this one, as they cover all sorts of animals and topics.

Smart Adjacent

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 23:43:41 +0000

Smart Adjacent is my YouTube channel recommendation for October. The videos on this channel are pretty silly (I enjoy this guy's sense of humor), though the topics covered are all interesting. The one below discusses improving your sleep, and others discuss losing weight, phone addiction, and procrastination. Check it out.

First Clinchfield Revenue Train!

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 19:15:25 +0000

The video below documents the first revenue train since Helene to run down the Clinchfield subdivision in the North Carolina mountains. This route was completely destroyed by Helene, and just under a year later is now back open. Amazing work by all the crews involved!

Jeb Brooks

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 17:04:57 +0000

My wife and I enjoy watching travel shows (Rick Steves, for example), so we were pleased recently to stumble upon Jeb Brooks' channel, which is my channel recommendation for September. Jeb and his wife Suzanne post videos on all types of travel with a particular focus on trains, a mode of transport that we also enjoy.

The video I have linked below covers a multi-day trip they took across Canada in a first class train cabin. I've been impressed with their attention to detail in their videos, as well as the videography. Both Jeb and Suzanne are a little goofy, which makes for some truly enjoyable content. They are also fellow North Carolinians, which is cool (they live in Greensboro). Be sure to check them out!