greg.blog

Category: News

  • Work is a pain! Prototyping Reclining Workstations.

    This is a slightly modified version of an internal p2 post I did at work to try to gather ideas. I decided to publish it publicly to share with others and try to gather more ideas before I go and buy something. Background I had spinal surgery about 2.5 years ago now, I’ve been kinda muddling…

  • Seems like a milestone for this blog.

    BOOM! Apparently I started my trial project at Automattic ten years ago today. Ten year Automatticversary is on July 18th. Still a great place to work. Also this has happened in the meantime. You started on 2011-07-18. Of the 1,469 other a12s, 49 (3.3%) started before and 1,420 (96.7%) after you.

  • 2020 Rehab Review

    I guess for most folks 2020 has been a crazy year, though I think for me it was mostly more of the same. COVID complicated things a bit, but rehab is really what is hard. The year didn’t go how I expected, but there were still quite a few accomplishments. Mostly no knee braces! After…

  • First Hike in Over Two Years

    Very exciting day! I went with my wife and kids (5 and 2) for a hike near our house. It is a trail I had been on countless times in the past and had often also run on. I don’t think I’ve hiked it in at least three years. I had spinal surgery about two…

  • PT: Strengthening My Lungs

    My spinal cord getting slowly damaged from T5-T8 over the decades means that pretty much every muscle below my armpits are weakened in some way. Lungs rely on a lot of muscles and even getting aerobic exercise won’t necessarily strengthen those muscles. Starting in September of last year I began exercising them with this simple…

  • Ugh… Ongoing Spinal Cord Damage

    Welp, as of last Thursday I feel pretty certain that my spinal cord is still getting damaged. The spinal arteriovenous fistula that presumably caused the spinal cord damage was embolized (glued closed) in September 2017. From what I understand though, embolization is only about 75% successful, so I guess I am in the remaining 25%.…

  • Huh, Seven Years. Look at that…

    It turns out that seven years ago today I started my trial project with Automattic. I know this because that is when I signed up for user id 23314024 on WordPress.com My official Automatticversary – as we call the day you became a full time employee – is not until mid-July, but this notification inspired me…

  • WordPress and Democratizing Algorithms

    In discussing how the newly released Jetpack Search fits with Core WordPress search I veered off into discussing algorithms in general. That generated some healthy discussion on the WPTavern Podcast. I wanted to expand on what I was saying a bit about democratizing algorithms. This is very much related to what JJJ called “race car technology…

  • Senator Bennet, your email address doesn’t work.

    I emailed my Senator a few weeks ago to oppose Gorsuch being appointed to the Supreme Court. His response seems to indicate he thinks Trump nominees are still worthy of consideration. That’s an absurd stance since they have been found to be lying under oath during the confirmation process. Here is Senator Bennet’s response: Dear Gregory:…

  • Top Five Posts from 2016

    Most of this blog’s 40k visitors a year are looking at the epic Elasticsearch posts that I wrote years ago. For the most part they seem to still be relevant to people even if they are somewhat outdated. Here are my top posts with some commentary about each of them. 1: Elasticsearch: Five Things I was Doing…