writings

[2026-02-01] The Ever-Increasing Importance of Simulation

In which I make the argument that writing effective simulations will become vitally important to shipping code safely and efficiently in a world ...

[2025-10-05] Safety Without Understanding: Lessons from Waymo

In which I describe Waymo’s safety strategy, and why I think it could be good news for alignment and safety in domains like LLMs and humanoid rob...

[2025-09-17] LLMs, Spiritual Bliss, and the Boeing 777

In which I draw lessons from classical control theory to argue that LLM attractor states are more dangerous, and less blissful, than they seem. ...

[2024-05-01] Internet Constellations are Still Not Understood.

It’s May 2024: Falcon 9 is roughly on-target for a mind-boggling 144 launches this year, Starship continues its march to full capability, and thank...

[2024-02-25] How TO Land an Orbital Rocket Booster: a gentle mathematical introduction

With terminal-phase Guidance Navigation and Control in the news lately with the (qualified) success of Intuitive Machines and JAXA’s lunar lander...

[2023-05-17] A perspective on the decoupling of spacecraft launch cost with mass and volume

This piece aims to clearly and concisely lay out the bull case for a post-Starship space industry. While I wasn’t breaking new ground with this ana...