#economics

1 min read

    Economics is where I spent my actual undergraduate career, and I worked as a fintech data analyst and engineer in the early years of my career. While I work professionally as a more general software engineer at this point, I still like to keep up with more econometrics and policy-focused topics.

    When I was studying economics, most of my academic focus was in market design and non-monetary systems like:

    • Efficient task delegation, which — very helpfully — carries over to efficiencies in distributed computing and project management;
    • Matchmaking algorithms; and
    • Incentive structures in markets where monetary compensation is a secondary concern, such as the open-source software (OSS) ecosystem.

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    Recent Posts

    • Agentic Programming as Theory Building

      — Do humans have a role in software development anymore? Absolutely — but we need to rethink what it means to program. An modern review of Peter Naur's 1985 essay "Programming as Theory Building"

    • APL: Pattern 5; Lace of Country Streets

      — How dense is too dense? How sparse is too sparse? Annotations for A Pattern Language's proposals for the density of metro-adjacent country streets for agriculture, recreation, and preservation. (3 min read)

    • APL: Pattern 1; Independent Regions

      — Home isn't where the heart is — it's a single node on a very, very large graph. Annotations for the "Independent Regions" pattern of *A Pattern Language*. (10 min read)

    • APL: Pattern 2; The Distribution of Towns

      — How close is too close? How far is too far? *A Pattern Language* annotations related to the statistical, economic, and ecologic concerns in balancing how dense human habitats ought to be. (5 min read)

    • APL: Pattern 3; City Country Fingers

      — City, with natural stripes — or nature, with city stripes? Annotations for A Pattern Language, and tracking public opinion of where Americans want to live over the past 50 years. (4 min read)

    Show 14 more posts

    • APL: Pattern 0; Introduction

      — Can graphs be libertarian? Authoritarian? Annotations for the introductory portion of the 1977 book A Pattern Language. (9 min read)

    • A Pattern Language, and a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

      — The beginning of a topological review of the 1977 urban design and architecture reference book A Pattern Language, and a journey to understand Earth's greatest graph: the Earth, itself. (12 min read)

    • Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow

      — Annotations for Greiner's 1972 paper "Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow", about the structural composition of organizations at different sizes and requirements.

    • Work Resume

      — The PDF copy of my day-to-day resume. (1 min read)

    • Chaotic Good Computing

      — Articles for the data and engineering consulting practice Chaotic Good Computing, as well as personal notes by Spencer Elkington.

    • The Simple Economics of Open Source

      — Why do we do what we do? "Egoboo." Exploring economic models of OSS contributions beyond altruism and ego.

    • College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage

      — A dive into the hottest algorithm of the 1960s: Gale-Shapley matchmaking. Who knew that the mysteries of the heart could be solved with a matrix?

    • Quantitative Analysis of Markets & Organizations

      — My time at the University of Utah was longer than I'd planned, cut shorter than expected by COVID-19. I was very lucky to have mentorship to push me across the finish line. (1 min read)

    • Don't Double Down: Structured Streaming to Wrangle Data

      — Stop reprocessing your entire dataset every time new data arrives. A practical guide to Spark Structured Streaming with code examples and cost logic. (9 min read)

    • Littlefield Simulator: The Art of Laziness

      — Efficiency: spending six hours building a web scraper to avoid five minutes of daily work. Automating a business simulation because checking in is for chumps. (8 min read)

    • Entries to SOME 1

      — Stable matching, optimal stopping, and Bachelor analysis - visualized with some care. (1 min read)

    • Utah Office Consult

      — People problems are the hardest engineering problems. A consult on thinking out-of-the-box to explain morale problems in small companies.

    • College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage

      — My college presentation on the Gale-Shapley paper, recorded on an iPad, like a true professional. Non-market environments, matchmaking lattices, and gratitude for good professors. (1 min read)

    • What *are* Supply Chains, Anyway?

      — A first foray into network visualization: messy graphs, abject terror. Early data viz experiments searching for supply loops. Bad graphs; interesting questions. (2 min read)

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