Music played an important role in the cult of my youth (known as the Children of God or The Family). It was very effectively used for recruitment, it was a mainstay of fundraising (since members weren't allowed to get regular jobs), and it was a source of shared culture. But on the inside, they banned… Continue reading Persecution Music of the Children of God: The Songs of the Gaslighters & the Counter-Resistance 🖕🏻
"Is she the flavor of the week?" The question caught me off guard. I was 17 and I'd just shared Vanessa Carlton's song A Thousand Miles with a musician dude who was a few years older than me and who was visiting the sort-of halfway home for ex-cult young adults I lived in at the… Continue reading 20 Years Later, Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” is a Personal Anthem of… Defiance? ✊🏻
I recently applied for Serbian citizenship. If you have Serbian heritage and are considering doing the same, here's everything I learned in the process.
While staying in Belgrade over the summer, my friend Dragan introduced me to his former computer science professor from SAE Institute Belgrade. SAE is an international private college that, at least in Belgrade, focuses primarily on audio engineering, filmmaking, and VFX animation, but their Belgrade campus also includes a smaller group of programming and web… Continue reading Lecture at SAE Belgrade: Lessons from Facebook 🏫
Recently, I listened to the audiobook Why You Are Who You Are by Mark Leary with my girlfriend. It’s a lecture series about the roots of human personality, covering things like personality differences between people, where the differences come from (spoiler: it’s the usual mix of nature and nurture), and how they alter our lives.… Continue reading Happiness Is a Personality 😊
The story of how people born into the Children of God / Family International cult reclaimed a term used to literally demonize them.
It turns out that most people's thoughts and memories work at least a little differently. By comparing to the mental imagery extremes of aphantasia and hyperphantasia, you might just understand your own abilities better.
A look back at my career to date through the lens of the managers I worked with along the way.
I’ve written measurable resolutions (with metrics!) for the last two years. Here's my results for 2019 and quantifiable goals for 2020.