Nathan Douglas
Hi, I'm Nate, or Nathan, Nug Doug, Nug Diddy, whatever.
I'm really interested in myself, so I've decided to create a website devoted to me. I'll read or program or whatever, and then I'll write about it on here. Look on my works, ye mighty, and close the tab.
I'm a very curious guy with strong interests in complexity science, the social sciences, organizational dynamics, system design, computability, artificial life, and... I guess the list goes on.
I'm currently working as a Senior DevOps Engineer (though in practice more of a combination software and infra engineer), but I'm a generalist and comfortable in a lot of different scenarios, areas, and niches.
The background stuff is an ant colony simulation. When I gaze into the abyss, I like to see something soft and subtle and alive.
Although I should know better, you can also find me on social media:
If you're interested in working with me, here's some professional information:
Recent Posts
- No Real Choice (EN)
- Slack (EN)
- Continuity (EN)
- Dumpster (EN)
- Ideas (EN)
Recent Reading
- Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Berlin Johnson: A study of the factors that seem to encourage innovation and novelty, whether at the physical, biological, or societal levels.
- The Tyranny of Metrics, Jerry Z Muller: A critical analysis of the overreliance on metrics and quantifiable goals in various fields, and how it can lead to unintended consequences and inefficiencies.
- A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science, Barbara Oakley: A guide to learning effectively in math and science.
- The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr: An exploration of how the internet and digital technologies are affecting our cognition, attention, and memory.
- The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli: The classic treatise on political power and statecraft.
- In Praise of Shadows, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki: An essay on Japanese aesthetics and the beauty of darkness and shadow.
- Why Don't We Learn From History?, B. H. Liddell Hart: An examination of why nations and leaders repeatedly fail to learn from past mistakes.
- The Book of Tea, Kakuzō Okakura: A meditation on the Japanese tea ceremony and its connection to art and philosophy.
Recent Ideas
- Event sourcing/event log-based infrastructure management; replace the declarative state structure of IaC with a declare-suggested-changes structure that is merged into an event log-based immutable record.
- Can we do machine learning with a neural network that has multiple depths? e.g. a 30-layer network that also has pathways that will skip multiple layers? Thinking about this as an analogue of focused vs. diffuse thinking.