Author: Mark

Welcome

Hello! However you found me, welcome. This is my personal blog where I cover a wide range of mostly technology-related topics related to my professional career, my writing, and my never-quite-complete side projects.

One of my favorite areas of interest is feedback loops. Specifically, I am consistently astounded by the emergence of complex behavior from simple inputs and outputs. Initially I learned about simple cellular automata like Conway’s Game of Life, and then more generalized descriptions like Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science. Then, I began to encounter it in the context of software engineering and DevOps. It’s in machine learning, biological systems — literally everywhere.

Virtu.is is a reference to the virtuous circle, namely the idea that crafting and shortening positive feedback loops leads to continuous self-improvement. This seems to apply equally to technology, organizational, and social endeavors. For me, it’s as simple as a single variable. If you start out at 100% and compound 1% for 71 years, you end at 203% — twice as good as you started. If you compound -1% for those same 71 years, you end up at 48% — less than half as good as you started.

One percent seems achievable, right?

Compounding +/- one percent