# mileszs — Miles Z. Sterrett

> The blahg/ramblings of MilesZS — Miles Z. Sterrett on software, engineering leadership, books, tabletop games, and whatever else has his attention.

Personal blog of Miles Z. Sterrett, written and maintained since 2008.
Miles is an engineering leader in Indianapolis, Indiana. He founded IndyHackers,
a 501(c)(3) supporting the Indiana tech community, and organized the
Indianapolis Ruby Brigade for about a decade. See the About page for what he is
doing now — it is kept current, this summary is not the authority.

The archive spans roughly two decades and clusters into a few subjects:

- **Software engineering** — Ruby, Rails, DataMapper, Emacs, Vim, Git, and the
  day-to-day mechanics of writing code. Densest in the 2008–2011 posts.
- **Engineering leadership** — management reading, growing engineers, and
  running teams. Mostly 2019 onward.
- **Books** — yearly reading recaps and recommendations.
- **Tabletop games and conventions** — Gen Con recaps, RPG design, running
  games.
- **Personal essays** — for example [My Racism](https://mileszs.com/my-racism),
  on unexamined racism in everyday behavior.

Note on dates: posts are historical and are not revised after publication.
A 2010 post about Rails describes Rails as it was in 2010.

## Start here

- [About Miles Z. Sterrett](https://mileszs.com/about): Biography, hobbies, community work, and how to get in touch.
- [Complete post archive](https://mileszs.com/archive/): Every post on the site, grouped by year. The most reliable index.
- [Atom feed](https://mileszs.com/feed.xml): Full-text feed of all posts.
- [Sitemap](https://mileszs.com/sitemap.xml): Machine-readable list of every URL.

## Recent writing

- [Management Books I Reread](https://mileszs.com/management-books-i-reread) (2021-01-24): Roughly every year I reread (or relisten to) some of my favorite management books. Bradley Schaefer (aka Soulcutter) asked me if I had that list published somewhere. I lazily re...
- [A Handful of Books](https://mileszs.com/handful-of-books) (2020-06-24): A few sentences I want you to know about a handful of books I read recently:
- [My Racism](https://mileszs.com/my-racism) (2020-06-24): This story is about the racism of not seeing color, of not listening, or of listening but not hearing. My racism. Well, one of my known racist behaviors that I hope to correct—h...
- [Recommendation: Impossible Times Series](https://mileszs.com/recommendation-impossible-times-series) (2019-11-29): When browsing /r/fantasy earlier this year, I saw a deal on a book by Mark Lawrence, known for his ‘grimdark’ fantasy writing. This wasn’t one of those, though. It was a sci-fi ...
- [Back to Blogging](https://mileszs.com/back-to-blogging) (2019-11-27): I typically don’t write a blog post unless it’s a longer affair, contemplated over at least a few days if not weeks. In general, I tend to write higher effort posts. (That is to...
- [GenCon 2017 Recap](https://mileszs.com/gencon-2017-recap) (2017-08-28): You can see my previous recaps here: 2015, 2016. Also, I’m sorry—this got long!
- [2016 and 2017 By the Books](https://mileszs.com/2016-and-2017-by-the-books) (2017-02-04): Bother New Year’s resolutions. I have reading goals, and I leave it at that. Here’s a quick note about them:
- [Gencon 2016 Recap](https://mileszs.com/gencon-2016-recap) (2016-09-23): The crowds don’t phase me. Neither does the guy in half a shirt, displaying his beer gut in front and his raccoon tail in back. The lines, the events, the venue–old hat, now. Co...
- [What I Look for in a Comic](https://mileszs.com/what-i-look-for-in-a-comic) (2016-07-14): My friend Dave Jones introduced me to comics a mere couple years ago. It’s not that I didn’t know about comics, or had never read a comic, but Dave introduced me to comics that ...
- [Goals Recap for 2015](https://mileszs.com/goals-recap-for-2015) (2016-01-02): I must say, 2015 was quite a year. There were many triumphs, and I am fairly proud of it when looked down upon from on high, as a king surveying his kingdom from his tallest tow...
- [Always Bring a Guitar](https://mileszs.com/always-bring-a-guitar) (2015-09-19): It was time to go, but I stood still, eyes glued to my travel guitar. I was frozen by indecision.
- [The Gold Rush Dungeon](https://mileszs.com/opening-the-gold-rush-dungeon) (2015-09-02): 
- [GenCon 2015 Recap](https://mileszs.com/gencon-2015-recap) (2015-08-24): Last year, I wandered around my first GenCon with wide eyes, slack jaw, and a fluttering stomach. I hadn’t made any plans, I didn’t even have any concrete ideas. I had a vague i...
- [Quest of The Weird Uncle](https://mileszs.com/quest-of-the-weird-uncle) (2015-08-10): I am changing, growing, transforming into The Weird Uncle, who introduces you to weird nerdery, likes Dungeons & Dragons and fiction post-Tolkien. Hear my roar! See my d20 r...
- [Holiday Social 2014 Recap](https://mileszs.com/holiday-social-2014-recap) (2015-01-23): The Holiday Social was a big success this year. What is “success” for this event? Good turnout, good conversation, good fun. Mostly difficult-to-measure, feel-good stuff. The po...

## Reference documentation

Practical guides Miles maintains for the volunteer sound crew at Northview
Theater. Self-contained and useful to anyone running sound for community or
school theater.

- [Sound Crew Hub](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/): Index of all sound crew documentation.
- [Mic Pack Battery & Labeling Guidelines](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/batteries-and-labeling/)
- [Setting Up a Laptop for Music Cues](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/laptop-music-setup/)
- [Live Show Protocol for Sound Crew](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/live-show-protocol/)
- [Mic Placement & Wrangling Guidelines](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/mic-placement/)
- [Mic Wrangler Guide](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/mic-wrangler/)
- [Music Operator Guide](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/music-operator/)
- [Sound Board Basics](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/sound-board-basics/)
- [Sound Board Operator Guide](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/sound-board-operator/)
- [Sound Check Process (Theater Style)](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/sound-check-process/)
- [Sound System Troubleshooting Guide](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/troubleshooting/)
- [Wireless Frequency Management](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/wireless-frequencies/)
- [Setting Up a Wireless Mic Channel for a Vocalist](https://mileszs.com/northview-theater/wireless-mic-channel-setup/)

## Other pages

- [Gift Guidance](https://mileszs.com/gifts): What to get Miles, and what not to.

## Optional

Complete chronological index. Skip this section if you only need an overview —
the same list is available at [/archive](https://mileszs.com/archive/).

- [Management Books I Reread](https://mileszs.com/management-books-i-reread) (2021-01-24)
- [A Handful of Books](https://mileszs.com/handful-of-books) (2020-06-24)
- [My Racism](https://mileszs.com/my-racism) (2020-06-24)
- [Recommendation: Impossible Times Series](https://mileszs.com/recommendation-impossible-times-series) (2019-11-29)
- [Back to Blogging](https://mileszs.com/back-to-blogging) (2019-11-27)
- [GenCon 2017 Recap](https://mileszs.com/gencon-2017-recap) (2017-08-28)
- [2016 and 2017 By the Books](https://mileszs.com/2016-and-2017-by-the-books) (2017-02-04)
- [Gencon 2016 Recap](https://mileszs.com/gencon-2016-recap) (2016-09-23)
- [What I Look for in a Comic](https://mileszs.com/what-i-look-for-in-a-comic) (2016-07-14)
- [Goals Recap for 2015](https://mileszs.com/goals-recap-for-2015) (2016-01-02)
- [Always Bring a Guitar](https://mileszs.com/always-bring-a-guitar) (2015-09-19)
- [The Gold Rush Dungeon](https://mileszs.com/opening-the-gold-rush-dungeon) (2015-09-02)
- [GenCon 2015 Recap](https://mileszs.com/gencon-2015-recap) (2015-08-24)
- [Quest of The Weird Uncle](https://mileszs.com/quest-of-the-weird-uncle) (2015-08-10)
- [Holiday Social 2014 Recap](https://mileszs.com/holiday-social-2014-recap) (2015-01-23)
- [Goals for 2015](https://mileszs.com/goals-for-2015) (2015-01-06)
- [Final Update of My 2014 Goals](https://mileszs.com/final-update-of-my-2014-goals) (2014-12-28)
- [Someday Comes and Goes Suddenly](https://mileszs.com/someday-comes-and-goes-suddenly) (2014-04-19)
- [Update of My 2014 Goals](https://mileszs.com/update-on-my-goals-for-2014) (2014-03-21)
- [Goals for 2014](https://mileszs.com/goals-for-2014) (2014-01-02)
- [Remember Why You Are Here](https://mileszs.com/remember-why-you-are-here) (2013-01-26)
- [Stop Working Late at Night](https://mileszs.com/stop-working-late-at-night) (2013-01-22)
- [Belated Emacs Update](https://mileszs.com/belated-emacs-update) (2013-01-01)
- [Recapping 29 Days with Emacs](https://mileszs.com/recapping-29-days-with-emacs) (2012-03-10)
- [Force Feeding Myself Emacs](https://mileszs.com/force_feeding_myself_emacs) (2012-01-12)
- [Y U No Like Verge?](https://mileszs.com/y-u-no-like-verge) (2012-01-12)
- [Combining FactoryGirl's Generated Files Into One](https://mileszs.com/combining-factorygirls-generated-files-into-one) (2011-12-04)
- [Using Zsh to Rename in Rails](https://mileszs.com/using-zsh-to-rename-in-rails) (2011-12-03)
- [Deprecation Warnings for proxy_owner in Rails 3.1](https://mileszs.com/deprecation-warnings-for-proxyoner-in-rails-3-1) (2011-07-21)
- [Learned or Re-Learned in My First 60ish days as a Freelancer](https://mileszs.com/learned-or-relearned-in-my-first-60ish-days-as-a-freelancer) (2011-07-08)
- [Datamapper for Multiple Databases in Rails 3](https://mileszs.com/datamapper-rails3-multiple-databases) (2011-05-12)
- [7 and a Half Reasons to Use DataMapper](https://mileszs.com/7-and-a-half-reasons-to-use-datamapper) (2011-02-02)
- [Checking All Checkboxes with Capybara](https://mileszs.com/checking-all-checkboxes-with-capybara) (2010-08-19)
- [PPL30 Recap](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-recap) (2010-07-17)
- [PPL30 Day 30: Scheme](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-30-scheme) (2010-07-13)
- [PPL30 Day 29: MacRuby](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-29-macruby) (2010-07-13)
- [PPL30 Day 28: DRb](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-28-drb) (2010-07-11)
- [PPL30 Day 27: Emacs](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-27-emacs) (2010-07-10)
- [PPL30 Day 26: Objective-C](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-26-objective-c) (2010-07-09)
- [PPL30 Day 25: C](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-25-c) (2010-07-08)
- [PPL30 Day 24: SproutCore](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-24-sproutcore) (2010-07-07)
- [PPL30 Day 23: Varnish](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-23-varnish) (2010-07-06)
- [PPL30 Day 22: ZSH](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-22-zsh) (2010-07-05)
- [PPL30 Day 21: Low Pro](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-21-low-pro) (2010-07-04)
- [PPL30 Day 20: MooTools](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-20-mootools) (2010-07-03)
- [PPL30 Day 19: Unicorn](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-19-unicorn) (2010-07-02)
- [PPL30 Day 18: Nginx](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-18-nginx) (2010-07-01)
- [PPL30 Day 17: Node.js](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-17-node-dot-js) (2010-06-30)
- [PPL30 Day 16: Django](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-16-django) (2010-06-29)
- [PPL30 Day 15: Python](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-15-python) (2010-06-28)
- [PPL30 Day 14: HTML5](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-14-html5) (2010-06-27)
- [PPL30 Day 13: DataMapper](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-13-datamapper) (2010-06-26)
- [PPL30 Day 12: Factor](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-12-factor) (2010-06-25)
- [PPL30 Day 11: Haskell](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-11-haskell) (2010-06-24)
- [PPL30 Day 10: Erlang](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-10-erlang) (2010-06-23)
- [PPL30 Day 9: Groovy](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-9-groovy) (2010-06-22)
- [PPL30 Day 8: Clojure](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-8-clojure) (2010-06-21)
- [PPL30 Day 7: Ruby 1.9.2](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-7-ruby-1-dot-9-dot-2) (2010-06-20)
- [PPL 30 Day 6: JRuby](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-6-jruby) (2010-06-19)
- [PPL 30 Day 5: Scala](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-5-scala) (2010-06-18)
- [PPL 30 Day 4: MongoDB](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-4-mongodb) (2010-06-17)
- [PPL 30 Day 3: Cassandra](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-3-cassandra) (2010-06-16)
- [PPL 30 Day 2: Riak](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-2-riak) (2010-06-15)
- [PPL 30 Day 1: Redis](https://mileszs.com/ppl30-day-1-redis) (2010-06-14)
- [PPL 30 Day 1: Redis](https://mileszs.com/ppl-30-day-1-redis) (2010-06-14)
- [A Good Time To Learn](https://mileszs.com/a-good-time-to-learn) (2010-06-13)
- [New IndyHackers Job Board](https://mileszs.com/new-indyhackers-job-board) (2010-03-29)
- [Wicked PDF Plugin](https://mileszs.com/wicked-pdf-plugin) (2009-06-17)
- [Vim, Screen, and The Awesomest IDE Ever](https://mileszs.com/vim-screen-and-the-awesomest-ide-ever) (2009-06-05)
- [A Git Hook to Push to Integrity](https://mileszs.com/git-hook-to-integrity) (2009-03-03)
- [My New Home](https://mileszs.com/my-new-home) (2009-02-07)
- [Shoulda Macros for Common Plugins](https://mileszs.com/shoulda-macros-for-common-plugins) (2008-09-21)
- [From class_eval to Modules](https://mileszs.com/from-class-eval-to-modules) (2008-09-14)
- [Re-Thinking Hack-Svn && Ship-Svn](https://mileszs.com/re-thinking-hack-svn-andand-ship-svn) (2008-09-09)
- [Hack-Svn && Ship-Svn](https://mileszs.com/hack-svn-andand-ship-svn) (2008-08-28)
- [Rails 2.1 Time Zone Trouble](https://mileszs.com/rails-2-dot-1-time-zone-trouble) (2008-08-10)
- [Too Many Choices](https://mileszs.com/too-many-choices) (2008-07-09)
- [Thor, Sake, and Rails Log Stats](https://mileszs.com/thor-sake-and-rails-log-stats) (2008-06-10)
- [Rake Rails Log Stats](https://mileszs.com/rake-rails-log-stats) (2008-06-09)
- [My Favorite Rails Tips](https://mileszs.com/my-favorite-rails-tips) (2008-06-07)
- [More Neato Tools](https://mileszs.com/more-neato-tools) (2008-05-28)
- [Vim + rails.vim Seg-Faults in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)](https://mileszs.com/vim-rails-dot-vim-seg-faults-in-ubuntu-8-dot-04-hardy-heron) (2008-04-29)
- [History](https://mileszs.com/history) (2008-04-15)
- [Tweeting From the Command Line](https://mileszs.com/tweeting-from-the-command-line) (2008-03-29)
- [Browser Wars II](https://mileszs.com/browser-wars-ii) (2008-03-29)
- [Neato Tools](https://mileszs.com/neato-tools) (2008-03-24)
- [Storing Passwords the Un-Giles-Like Way](https://mileszs.com/storing-passwords-the-un-giles-like-way) (2008-02-15)
- [Disabling Timestamps by Model in Rails 1.2](https://mileszs.com/disabling-timestamps-by-model-in-rails-1-dot-2-dot-x) (2008-02-06)
- [Simple Sparklines in Merb](https://mileszs.com/simple-sparklines-in-merb) (2008-02-04)
- [LinkFest - Thin](https://mileszs.com/linkfest-thin) (2008-01-23)
- [Uninitialized Constant MERB_ROOT Error](https://mileszs.com/uninitialized-constant-merb-root-error) (2008-01-20)
- [LinkFest - Merb](https://mileszs.com/linkfest-merb) (2008-01-18)
- [Uninitialized Constant Gem::GemRunner Error](https://mileszs.com/uninitialized-constant-gem-gemrunner-error) (2008-01-14)
- [Torrent Available for Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 2 VMWare Image](https://mileszs.com/torrent-available-ubuntu-8-dot-04-alpha-2-vmware-image) (2008-01-09)
- [Please, Just Stop It](https://mileszs.com/please-just-stop-it) (2008-01-08)
- [Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha VMWare Image](https://mileszs.com/ubuntu-8-dot-04-alpha-vmware-image) (2008-01-07)
- [Setting Up a New Slice of Ubuntu 7](https://mileszs.com/setting-up-a-new-slice-of-ubuntu-7-dot-10) (2008-01-06)
- [StripeGenerator.com: Good Tool for a Non-Designer](https://mileszs.com/stripegenerator-dot-com-good-tool-for-a-non-designer) (2008-01-02)
- [BikesOfIndy.com Launched](https://mileszs.com/bikesofindy-dot-com-launched) (2008-01-02)