/my perspectiveThu, 17 Jul 2025 10:34:25 -0400/2025/07/15/band-saw-rehab/<p>I recently decided to act on my long-festering bandsaw itch. I’ve always thought it would be nice to have one, although I’ve gotten along OK without it, cutting curves with a jigsaw or scroll saw, or coping saw. But now I have more space, and a bunch of …</p>Michael SokolovTue, 15 Jul 2025 22:18:22 -0400tag:None,2025-07-15:/2025/07/15/band-saw-rehab/Uncategorized/2022/10/11/apachecon-2022/<p>I don’t have much to say at the moment; it was lovely to meet folks I know only remotely and new folks I hadn’t known at all. Talks were a combination of inspiring and informative. Here are the slides from mine.</p> <div class="wp-block-file"><object aria-label="Embed of apachecon2022." class="wp-block-file__embed" data="/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/apachecon2022.pdf" style="width:100%;height:600px" type="application/pdf"></object><a href="/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/apachecon2022.pdf" id="wp-block-file--media-4a8d4da6-df5a-4a6a-a45e-c0a06526211e">apachecon2022</a><a aria-describedby="wp-block-file--media-4a8d4da6-df5a-4a6a-a45e-c0a06526211e" class="wp-block-file__button" download="" href="/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/apachecon2022.pdf">Download</a></div>Michael SokolovTue, 11 Oct 2022 10:24:45 -0400tag:None,2022-10-11:/2022/10/11/apachecon-2022/Uncategorizedapacheconknn/2021/04/24/kayak-launch-day/<p>It took me a couple of weeks to get the finish done. Coating the canvas with butyrate dope was pretty easy, although I learned that the ventilation in the converted garage room was not all that great, and ran around opening all the windows in the house to flush out …</p>Michael SokolovSat, 24 Apr 2021 14:33:09 -0400tag:None,2021-04-24:/2021/04/24/kayak-launch-day/Uncategorized/2021/04/13/ski-on-frame-kayak-part-2/<p>Steam-bending is a voodoo woodworking art. If you heat up wood, and it has enough moisture in it, the fibers will loosen enough that a previously stiff board can be bent into a new shape, which it will retain after cooling. At least some wood will. How well this works …</p>Michael SokolovTue, 13 Apr 2021 21:44:59 -0400tag:None,2021-04-13:/2021/04/13/ski-on-frame-kayak-part-2/Uncategorized/2021/04/13/skin-on-frame-kayak-part-1/<p>Before buying wood, I needed to figure out roughly how big a boat I wanted to make. The Greenland kayak design seems to be quite long and narrow – about three times your height, and barely wide enough to squeeze into, so for me that would have ended up around 17 …</p>Michael SokolovTue, 13 Apr 2021 21:44:04 -0400tag:None,2021-04-13:/2021/04/13/skin-on-frame-kayak-part-1/All/2021/03/07/skin-on-frame-kayak-prelude/<p>I’m reviving this blog years because I feel like sharing a project I’ve been working on: building a skin-on-frame kayak. I don’t propose to teach how to build a kayak; I’m just learning! Nor is this a history of The Kayak. This is a personal journey …</p>Michael SokolovSun, 07 Mar 2021 16:50:04 -0500tag:None,2021-03-07:/2021/03/07/skin-on-frame-kayak-prelude/kayak/2018/08/15/hello-world/<p>OK it’s 2018 and it is officially time to stop hosting blogs in your basement. I’m moving this blog and various other stuff out of my laundry room server and into the cloud.</p> <p>The move promises to replace the nagging fear of attack by bitcoin miners, death by …</p>Michael SokolovWed, 15 Aug 2018 10:44:16 -0400tag:None,2018-08-15:/2018/08/15/hello-world/Uncategorized/2016/07/30/insecure-cat/<p><script> x = Math.random(); if(x < .1) { console.log(x); document.write('[caption id=attachment_372 align=alignnone width=512]<a href=/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IMG_9279.cat_.jpg><img src=/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IMG_9279.cat_.jpg alt="Ghost Cat" width=512 class=size-full wp-image-372 /></a> Ghost Cat[/caption]'); } </script><br/> Do you …</p>Mike SokolovSat, 30 Jul 2016 14:00:04 -0400tag:None,2016-07-30:/2016/07/30/insecure-cat/All/2014/07/27/my-long-trail/<p>I began to realize how excited I was only a couple of days before I left. I could hardly sleep for thinking about my upcoming trip. Meal plans and other logistical details kept spinning through my brain; the last I checked the clock was 3:55 AM. This is actually …</p>Mike SokolovSun, 27 Jul 2014 13:26:29 -0400tag:None,2014-07-27:/2014/07/27/my-long-trail/All/2014/04/06/the-two-most-common-solr-performance-blunders-and-a-rant-about-the-dumbification-of-computer-programming/<p>Recently I’ve seen friends at work fall into a couple of well-worn traps, and I wondered – why do these same simple but devastating problems keep turning up again and again? The answer lies in deceptive software API’s, and the solution I think may come from video games. But …</p>Mike SokolovSun, 06 Apr 2014 18:31:46 -0400tag:None,2014-04-06:/2014/04/06/the-two-most-common-solr-performance-blunders-and-a-rant-about-the-dumbification-of-computer-programming/All