29 Mar 2023
From Two to Three
In 2020, I founded a company called OpenRegulatory. At that time - the height of the
pandemic, with low interest rates and near-unlimited funding - most startups were rocket ships - VC-funded,
growth-oriented and, most notably, not profitable. I wanted OpenRegulatory to be different - bootstrapped by
me, small, profitable - more like a tuk-tuk. Now, while you’re chuckling, I assure you, this metaphor holds
better than you might think. Imagine a rocket ship trying to find its way through the back alleys of a major
city like Bangkok. Not possible! It’s way too big and sluggish. The tuk-tuk, on the other hand, is small and
agile and has no problem cruising through the maze of sois.
10 Jun 2022
From Clojure to Ruby
Back in 2017, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I got my first coding job, I was super excited about
Clojure. And what’s there not to be excited about? It’s super fast, it’s concise, and it’s a lisp. But now I’m
coding in Ruby. Why?
01 Apr 2022
From One to Two
In his book Zero to One, Peter Thiel writes:
It’s easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world
from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0
to 1. The act of creation is singular, as is the moment of creation, and the result is something fresh and
strange.
26 Jan 2021
Why I'm Publishing My Consulting Templates For Free (and Launching My Startup)
In the beginning of 2020, I left my job at Vara, where I worked as a Software Engineer, Soccer
Mom and Regulatory Affairs Person. I didn’t really know what to do next. While I enjoyed
the Coding and Soccer Mom Duties, one thing was for sure: No more regulatory work, ever.
27 Aug 2020
Regulation Is Killing Medical Software Innovation
I’m back from cryosleep. After leaving Merantix Healthcare 7 months ago I haven’t
been writing much. I took the summer off to finish my pilot’s license and to try out a few things on the
side.
31 Jan 2020
Pioneers vs. Process People
Today is my last day at Merantix Healthcare.
16 Nov 2019
Become a Full-Stack Person
Let’s look at how most software is developed. I’m not talking about
those shiny SaaS products like Slack. Those were built for developers,
by other developers. No, I’m talking about the large underwater
iceberg of boring software running enterprises, governments,
hospitals and nuclear reactors. Real-world software. Software outside
the Silicon Valley tech bubble.
10 Nov 2019
The (Un-)Natural Progression of Machine Learning
Machine Learning is everywhere. Unfortunately. Most industries aren’t
ready for it.
17 Oct 2019
I Wanted a CO2 Sensor, I Got a Fart Detector
In the everlasting quest of optimizing my sleep, I recently started
measuring air quality in my bedroom. I hope to write up the setup at a
later time; here, I’ll focus on some surprising results.
14 Oct 2019
The Rush of Shipping
Recently, one of my posts made Hacker News #1. That brought back
childhood memories.
09 Oct 2019
Don't Be an Engineer, Be a Producer
I’m currently reading Range by David Epstein [1].
01 Oct 2019
Businesspeople Are Useless
Interacting with businesspeople never ceases to amaze me. They presume
that they’re qualified to run companies. Why? Because they are
businesspeople.
22 Sep 2019
Abstracting Light Switches: How to Solve Real Problems
Zigbee-enabled light bulbs. Wifi-connected air purifiers. Autonomous
thermostats. The smart home. Great technology. And just like with
machine learning and blockchain, we humans don’t quite know yet what
to do with it yet.
05 Jun 2019
We need more Hackers
The Hacker’s First Project
24 Apr 2019
Making My Own Glasses
It’s a long weekend, I’m standing in my flat, 10 lenses scattered
across the desk in front of me. I’m wearing weird glasses consisting
of an empty plastic frame and some lenses stuck into it. I squint out
of the window, trying to read number plates of cars parked in the
street.
22 Jan 2019
Thread-safe queues in Clojure
Imagine the following: You have a pool of workers. Each worker should
get an item from a queue and process it.
31 Dec 2018
React less
Push vs. Pull notifications
29 Sep 2018
The Correlation Project
As a coder, concentration and mental focus become very
important. Writing code is a very brain-intense activity which makes
daily fluctuations of mental focus very obvious.
19 Sep 2018
Two Years of Sleep Optimization
As a kid, I became obsessed with my sleep. When I couldn’t fall
asleep, I panicked - oh no, I’m not getting enough sleep for school
tomorrow! As a good Asian kid, that thought was very scary.
21 May 2018
Asking Stupid Questions
After graduating from Medical School, I started working at a startup
as a software engineer. While I did learn a lot of things in this
time, one thing which sticks out particularly is asking stupid
questions.
13 Jul 2017
Writing a HTTP API Client in Elixir for the Noun Project
Doing some HTTP requests is usually one of the first things I do when
I’m learning a new language (apart from comparing its performance in
highly artificial benchmarks and checking whether it scales).
10 Jul 2017
Dockerizing Django, uWSGI and Postgres the serious way
So you want to get in on the hot new stuff and decided it’s time to
learn Docker. Good on you! Docker is the new kid on the block which
allows you to containerize stuff. Well, not really - it’s not that new
at all. I tend to miss these pieces of software which emerge from the
darkness of the interwebs, silently creeping around behind me until
they suddenly establish themselves as some sort of standard and
everybody except me uses them.
03 Jan 2017
Open-Sourcing breast_segment
Fully automated Breast Segmentation on Mammographies
21 Feb 2016
Framework Overflow
Sometimes I miss the old days in which you could simply yank out a bad PHP script interspersed with some HTML and - bezonga - you had a website. Since then, things have become somewhat more complicated.
08 Feb 2016
Bangkok Travel Advice for Non-Bozos
After living in Bangkok for 4 months and having worked as an intern in Siriraj Hospital, here’s my take on “how to get around Bangkok and enjoy the attractions without being a bozo tourist”.
25 Nov 2015
Parse.com Cloud Code Hell
I would really, really love to be able to like Cloud Code. The idea of
simplifying any backend into one unified platform with push-capabilities and
node.js-style extendability sounds awesome.
23 Oct 2015
Hello World
Oh wow, now this is really neat.