Like most people, my initial feelings on AI were pretty negative. The pro-AI people reminded me of the Crypto people circa ~2021, but 10x more annoying (the Venn diagram of those two groups of people is probably a circle). I found their general vibe to be annoying, and I found Sam Altman et al. to be very irresponsible people with all of their "AI is going to replace jobs and completely change the world and global economy" talk. I understand AI company CEOs are in it for the money and thus they have to market their products, but something about the ways they've always tried to push the tides (human beings will be replaced) felt notably more dangerous and gross to me than past tech fads.

As a professional software developer I feel like I had a front row seat to watching AI and its effects for the past few years, especially since one of the earliest use cases of AI was to make it easier/faster to write code. LLM models continued to get better, AI companies continued to talk their shit about how entire job functions would be eradicated, and tech companies eventually started to mandate employee AI usage. The mandates were pretty wild to me because it felt like I woke up one day and out of the blue everyone was being heavily "encouraged" to use AI all the time or else, even non-tech white collar workers. At my former (I'll get to that in a bit) company we were given seemingly unlimited and unfettered access to any LLM we wanted, encouraged to ship things faster, and AI usage even became a performance metric for reviews and promotions. All of this happened within the span of 8-12 months.

I had started experimenting with AI for software development at work before the mandates started. My first use case was more for linting and code readability purposes – sometimes I'd write a method in Kotlin by hand but feel like there was a way I could use syntactic sugar to accomplish an operation in less lines of code. I'd copy my code block into the ChatGPT desktop app (lol), ask it to make my code cleaner, and then copy the result into my IDE if I felt like the result worked and made sense. I still found the pro-AI people to be annoying, but I was interested in giving a new technology a try and found it okay at handling my narrow professional needs at the moment.

As time went on I started to feel dread about AI and its effect on my industry and professional prospects. AI companies continued to push their rhetoric about LLMs being capable of writing code faster and better than human engineers. We started to see tech companies pause hiring because they wanted to experiment with using AI to write code instead of hiring humans. This eventually led to companies outright starting to lay off engineers because they felt LLMs were now capable enough to write code faster than them, at a cost that was cheaper than hiring humans. The layoffs scared me because I enjoyed my field and getting to write code for a living, but it started to feel like my days were numbered. During this, it was also pretty obvious to anyone with a functional brain that AI can't actually replace software engineers as there's more to building products than just writing a shit ton of code – AI doesn't always write working code, it isn't great at system design, it doesn't understand company org structures – but it felt like C-suite execs had drank too much of the kool-aid and now normal people who don't make seven figures were going to suffer. The layoffs continued across tech until eventually my company laid me off along with four thousand other people via an email on a random Thursday. I wasn't surprised to get laid off.

My initial thought after getting laid off because of AI was okay, I might be cooked. Even though on a personal level I didn't think AI could replace engineers, I figured the tech industry might be completely fucked for who knew how long and I even briefly considered the thought of trying to find a non-tech job. Ultimately it turned out companies with rational leadership weren't buying into the AI hype and I was able to find a sweet new job within a month, at a place that doesn't have AI usage mandates. It also turned out the tech CEOs who have been orchestrating AI mass layoffs immediately proceeded to eat shit and look incredibly stupid – AI productivity gains only appear to be 10% and not the 10x these shitheads had been claiming during board meetings. Lots of tech companies that did major AI layoffs have also been hiring back employees, and lots of companies are even mandating employee AI usage caps because they can't afford to pay for it. Capitalism is really awesome.

Even through all of this, my feelings on AI have gotten more positive over the past few years and my usage of it has evolved. I now use AI pretty regularly for my software development purposes, in careful and intentional ways. I find Claude to be a pretty helpful pair programmer I can toss questions at while I'm working on things. I like not having to expend a lot of energy Googling or searching StackOverflow for answers to niche issues I encounter. I find LLMs especially helpful for debugging – when I'm trying to decode logs and figure out why my service is throwing an exception I can toss the stacktrace at AI and have it help me pinpoint the root cause faster, which is very helpful during stressful moments where an issue is affecting real production users. I'm really looking forward to local LLMs and open models getting better and easier to run, because I think Anthropic and OpenAI are annoying companies I'd like to see implode.

I'm very careful with my AI usage though. I never vibecode (I hate that term and practice so much) because I always want to understand the code I'm writing and don't want to completely outsource it, especially because AI is frequently wrong and makes dumb decisions! I always make sure I understand the code being generated before accepting/committing it. I think using AI for things like writing papers on my behalf or art generation is intellectually lazy and evil, and I would never do that. Using AI responsibly is important to me because I think it can easily become a slippery slope if used wrong or overrelied on. For example, my first year of undergrad was extremely difficult for me as someone in a Computer Science program who had never written code before college. My first semester Intro to Java class (iirc I scraped by with a B-) kicked my ass and I spent a lot of late nights trying to fix array indexing issues for my assignments. I'm so grateful AI as it currently exists wasn't around during that time, as I surely would have been tempted to overrely on it like a lot of academic students seem to be doing these days. It feels good to know I earned my undergraduate and graduate degrees in Computer Science through the power of my intellect! Even today when I think about the Tokenmaxxers (another term I hate) I've encountered over the past several years, I never found their ideas or what they were working on to be particularly interesting or helpful – they're basically just spending thousands in tokens just to feel smart and get a high score on a company leaderboard.

Lately I've been finding the people on the polar opposite of the AI culture issue to almost be as annoying to me as the ultra pro-AI people. I (unfortunately) use social media quite a bit and over the last year or so it feels like I constantly see "any AI usage whatsoever is evil and unforgivable" sentiments from people on there. Some of the reasoning is based on reality (ex. energy usage is a valid concern) but most of the arguments seem based on misinformation and vibes. I saw a good example this past week with Hank Green, where he was (incorrectly) accused of using AI to write his video scripts but faced backlash by admitting he uses AI as research tool for locating sources he could then read himself. I think there were likely valid things to be concerned about in this situation, but the people who were specifically upset Hank used AI even as a research tool really pissed me off. How is that any different than someone using Google to search for an article? Everyone is so annoying.

What sucks is I can't even be truly annoyed with the ultra anti-AI people, because they've been negatively polarized by the pro-AI people screaming for the last several years about AI being the second coming of Christ and replacing everyone and everything. It's extremely difficult to watch a video of Sam Altman talking about AI for five minutes and not think this country should probably shut down every collegiate Computer Science program until we can figure out what the hell is even going on in tech anymore.

At the end of the day and like everything on earth, I think AI is nuanced. There's a lot of good and bad to it, but this doesn't fundamentally make it a good or a bad thing. I really wish people had the ability to conceptualize this. There are good and bad things about cars (they transport us but people also use them to kill thousands of pedestrians and fellow drivers every year), with coffee (it tastes good but can also stain your teeth), and with Whole Foods (the hot bar is incredible but everything is expensive and it's owned by Amazon), but everyone seems to agree that these things aren't all purely good or bad. There are ways to responsibly drive cars, drink coffee, and shop at Whole Foods. At the end of the day none of this really matters that much though, and maybe this is yet another reminder that I should consider using social media less. I'm glad to have a job again.

Paramore is one of my top five favorite bands of all time. I first started listening to them a bit later than most people I know, during my sophomore year of undergrad when their self-titled album came out. I was instantly hooked. I remember spending that entire summer with Brand New Eyes (one of my top five favorite albums of all time) on repeat. During that time, whenever I played the drum set at home I’d warm up to Fast in My Car because I loved the disco-ish beat the drums did. Even though Paramore doesn’t completely line up with the type of music I personally write and play, they’ve had an outsized influence on my musical style.

Before I get into the album, I have to take a moment to really appreciate Paramore as a band. First, Paramore has been around for almost 20 years at this point — their first album All We Know Is Falling came out in 2004, which is wild. The members of Paramore were fucking kids when they started — Hayley Williams was 16 when their first album came out. They’re essentially veterans at this point and they’re all only in their early 30s. They’ve gone through many lineup changes over the years, but I think their current iteration as a trio is their best one. 

My favorite thing about Paramore though is that they’re not afraid to jump between genres. After Laughter (2017) was an insane album because it fucking caught everyone off guard. Up until that point, Paramore had consistently been an alternative rock band. It was their bread and butter. There were always three things that were guaranteed whenever they put out a new album:

1. There would be heavy bangers on it

2. Hayley would be singing like her life depended on it

3. Zac would be beating the shit out of the drums

And then After Laughter came out and it had the last two guarantees but not the first. It was very much an indie pop/rock album! And it fucking ruled. Most bands aren’t brave enough to jump genres like that, and it doesn’t always sound well when they do. Not only did Paramore do it well, but people loved it. After Laughter is considered to be one of their best albums, and I think they gained a lot of new fans in that era too.

I love This Is Why. I think it’s a phenomenal album, to the point where I forced myself to stop constantly listening to it because I didn’t want to get tired of it. About a year ago when I first heard Paramore was working on a new album, I wasn’t sure what to expect. After Laughter was a very different sound for them, and I didn’t know if This Is Why would also be different. In the end, I think This Is Why is a new sound for Paramore, but there are still moments where the old Paramore shines out. Songs like The News and C’est Comme Ca have aspects of the old, alternative Paramore where the energy is up and Hayley is screaming a little. There are a few poppy songs too, like Running Out Of Time and You First that remind me a bit of After Laughter.

One of my favorite things about This Is Why is the rhythm section. In a typical modern band, the drums drive the rhythm section and the bass follows the drums and complement it. I like to think of the drums and the bass as being in a marriage because of how closely tied they are. On This Is Why, there’s a really interesting dynamic where the drums still drive the rhythm section and the bass complements it, but the rhythm guitar takes an outsized role in helping to complement the drums and drive the songs as well. Taylor York is a really rhythmic guitar player and he really shines on this album. You can hear an example of this during the chorus of This Is Why (the song) where the rhythm guitar and drum parts are sync up, to the point where the bass is even taking a backseat. I think this is a recurring theme on this album — the bass parts are really great, and they get straight to the point. There’s not a lot of flair or dancing around the neck that can be typically heard on previous Paramore albums. It’s almost like the drums and rhythm guitar are in a marriage, and the bass is their supportive mutual friend. I think part of this dynamic is due to Taylor and Zac being the only full time members of Paramore who play in the rhythm section. Brian Robert Jones is a fantastic multiinstrumentalist who is Paramore’s touring rhythm guitarist and he played bass on this album, which I thought was lovely.

I’d be remiss if I also didn’t talk about Zac’s drumming on this album. Zac is a phenomenal pocket drummer who’s really good at managing song dynamics. This has probably always been the case, but I don’t think it was easy to tell until After Laughter when Paramore’s sound and dynamics evolved. On all accounts, This Is Why is a very dynamic album. Songs like Thick Skull go from energetic highs to emotional lows, and Zac is really good at supporting all of that. On Thick Skull specifically, I love the energy in the chorus and the triplet hits he does. I find Zac to be very talented in general. In general I think a lot of people believe that in bands, the goal of the drummer is to be loud as shit the entire time and hit stuff really hard. And while that can be true and valid in a lot of bands and scenarios, great drummers (in my opinion) are ones who can manage the dynamic and lead the rest of the band. I think this really shines on this album.

One other random thing I love about This Is Why would be Hayley. She’s insanely talented, her vocals are superb as usual, and the lyrics are emotional. Hayley has always been the main songwriter of Paramore and I feel like the roles she plays became even more obvious on This Is Why, because some of the songs remind me of her solo music of 2020 and 2021. Crave and Thick Skull remind me a bit of the sound of her album Petals For Armor. 

My favorite songs on the album are This Is Why, Running Out Of Time, Figure 8, and Thick Skull. I love the bass line in the chorus of Running Out Of Time and how simple yet impactful it is. I love how jazzy the drums sound in This Is Why. I love Hayley’s vocal dynamics on Figure 8. I can feel the emotion when she sings “spinning in an endless figure 8.” I love the weird guitar shit Taylor does all over this album, it sounds like he’s genuinely just having a good time.

Okay, literally no one asked for this but I’ve decided to share my thoughts on Interpol’s new album The Other Side of Make-Believe. I think it’s great.

First things first, I’ve actually been wanting to write my thoughts on the music I listen to for a while now. Music is a huge part of my life and I love both making music and listening to it. However, one thing that pisses me off about music journalism and reviews is when writers make negative comments or bash the music they’re writing about. Music is subjective — something I hate may be what someone else likes and appreciates, and vice versa. So I’m only going to talk about the things I appreciated and not do any bashing.

Anyways, Interpol is one of my favorite bands of all time. Their music fits into the post-punk revival and alternative genres. Their first album Turn On The Bright Lights (2002)  is one of my favorite albums of all time. I stumbled upon Interpol in 2016 because Everything Is Wrong from my second favorite album of theirs El Pintor (2014) happened to be on my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist that week. I was really excited about this new album, especially because I really loved their previous record Marauder (2018). Interpol’s music tends to be very heavy - it features complex bass and drum parts that fit very well together, with energetic lead guitar lines and distant sounding rhythm guitar parts. Paul Banks (the lead singer) usually plays rhythm guitar while Daniel Kessler plays lead guitar. However sometimes Paul and Daniel will both play lead lines, which can lead to songs that sound a bit frantic in nature (listen to Interpol’s song Barricade for an example of this), which I love.

I really like The Other Side of Make-Believe. I bought a vinyl of it twice. It’s a bit different from Interpol’s previous work. I heard someone describe it as sounding a bit like The National, and I think I agree. The songs aren’t as rock-y per se — many of them are stripped down to only the bass-guitar-drums essentials. However, the sound is still heavy. The lyrics are a bit haunting and introspective. Interpol wrote this album during the pandemic, which could be one reason for the sound. Again, I love it.

One of my favorite things about Interpol are the bass and drum parts in their songs. Carlos Dengler is the founding bass player of the band, and he’s famous for his work. The guy was simply insane, played in Drop D (and took full advantage of those two extra notes), and wrote complex bass lines that needed to be heard and understood. Interpol’s early records treated the bass almost like another lead guitar — it’s placed high in the mix so you can clearly hear all of the insane shit being played on it. Sam Fogarino is Interpol’s drummer and plays with a style that has a bit of flair and is almost jazzy in nature. With Carlos the bass and drum parts complement each other well, but both parts also take the time to add some flair and do their own thing before coming back and unifying again. Fast forward a few years and Carlos leaves the band. Paul takes over bass duties and writes and records all of the bass lines in addition to rhythm guitar. The bass lines in Interpol’s work transitions from the frantic and flair nature of Carlos’ playing, to a powerful and heavy sound from Paul that’s placed lower in the mix. The bass has less flair and gets to the point more, and I feel like this is represented well in The Other Side of Make-Believe. The bass and drums sound like a healthy marriage - both parts complement and support each other well. I personally think both instruments shine the best when they operate in this fashion. In an interview before the album was released, Paul said that Sam did some of his best work on the record and I couldn’t agree more.

I also love the guitar lines on Interpol’s past work and on this album. I love Daniel’s lead guitar lines because he approaches them with a true understanding of sound dynamics. Many lead guitarists in rock bands love to show off and make their guitar front and center (I’m guilty of this in the music I write). Daniel isn’t like that. He can show off when he wants, but he can also relax his playing as well. In several of the songs on The Other Side of Make-Believe, the lead guitar lines are in the background holding everything down, sometimes even taking a back seat to the bass and drums. You can observe this a bit in Mr. Credit and Renegade Hearts — the lead guitar is sort of in the background along with rhythm guitar and almost sounds like another rhythm guitar part.

My favorite song on the record is Mr. Credit. As I said earlier, I think the bass and drums sound the best when they complement each other. I feel like this concept is demonstrated well in Mr. Credit. It’s a heavy song with the bass doing a lot of slide notes and chilling on the lower strings, and the drums doing “resets” where Sam hits the crash cymbals and closes the measures out on beat 3, chills for a beat, and then comes back in on beat 1 like nothing happened. The bass and drums do a really cool thing in the last chorus where they’re essentially playing with the same energy they’ve been doing the entire song. Suddenly and unexpectedly the drums transition from driving with an open hi-hat to driving with the ride cymbal, and the bass stops doing slide notes and drives with full on eighth notes.

Anyways, I think this is a good record and I can’t wait to hear these songs live when Interpol comes to Atlanta later this year.

Before the pandemic began, I wasn’t much of a bicyclist. I had never really biked until my adult life, when I got a cheap road bike in college and used it to get around for a year before selling it (I was poor and needed to pay rent). In late 2018, I started to get the bicycle itch. At the time I lived in the suburbs across the street from a multi-use trail, and I bought a Trek FX 2 so I could get out and ride on it. However I never biked off of that trail, and my car was still my primary mode of transportation.

Then the pandemic happened. At this point I was living in the urban core of Cincinnati, and on most weekends I would tie my bike up to my car and drive 30 minutes to a park near my old apartment in the suburbs and ride on the trail. I had never ridden in the street in the city because Cincinnati has absolutely horrendous bike infrastructure, and I never felt safe enough to try biking in traffic. However, there were barely any cars on the roads in April 2020, and I decided to take advantage of it. I lived close to one of Cincinnati’s only bike lanes, so I started biking on it most mornings for a few miles. It was fun! I started to discover a love for bicycling. I even experienced some road rage early on and while it shook me for a bit, it didn’t keep me from getting out.

At this point, I was really getting into bicycling. I was riding only in streets that had bike lanes. I averaged around ~20 miles a week. My car was still my primary mode of transportation. I thought about trying to decrease my car usage and use my bike more, but I decided against it. I was too nervous to ride in streets that didn’t have bike lanes, and most of Cincinnati’s streets did have any. Cincinnati is also a pretty hilly city, so I knew I’d be drenched in sweat if I tried regularly biking to destinations like work. Eventually, I ended up learning about Ebikes, getting my hands on one, and going from depending on my car as my main mode of transportation to using Ebikes to get around in the span of six months.

What is an Ebike?

An Ebike is a bicycle with a small electric motor that helps you pedal, referred to as pedal assist (PAS). Usually how it works is an Ebike has several levels of pedal assist, which corresponds to the amount of power the motor is providing. For instance, the RadRunner Plus from Rad Power Bikes has five levels of pedal assist. PAS 1 means the motor is providing a very minimal amount of power, and PAS 5 means the motor is providing maximum pedal assist power. Ebikes fall into three different types of classes that refer to how fast they can go:

• Class 1 - PAS only, maximum speed of 20 MPH

• Class 2 - PAS and throttle, maximum speed of 20 MPH. The throttle is similar to a motorcycle throttle. You can set the PAS to a level and have the motor give you a certain amount of power, but you can also use the throttle to override the power setting and give you maximum power. Having a throttle can be helpful for getting the bike up to speed if you’re coming from a complete stop

• Class 3 - PAS only, maximum speed of 28 MPH

The classes aren’t strictly rigid, and some Ebikes borrow features from multiple classes. For instance, the ScorpionX from Juiced Bikes is a Class 3 Ebike with PAS up to 28 MPH, but it also includes a throttle that provides power up to 20 MPH.

Ebikes have actually been around for decades, but weren’t really popular in America until recently. Historically they have also been pretty expensive, with an average one setting you back several thousand dollars. Over the last few years, direct to consumer Ebiker makers like Rad Power Bikes and Vanmoof have spun up and started mass producing more affordable and accessible Ebikes. Nowadays, you can get a dependable and good quality Ebike for around $1000.

How did I get into Ebikes?

In July 2020 I was still riding my non-electric Trek FX 2 on most days for leisure, and relying on my car to get around. One day, I was browsing a tech news website I frequent called The Verge and came across an article they had published about Ebikes and their rising popularity during the pandemic. I had never heard of Ebikes before, but as someone who was starting to get into bicycling I found it intriguing. The entire premise of the article is that more and more people were buying Ebikes because it allowed them to get out and about and also avoid public transportation (which felt unsafe to use at the time), among other reasons. People were also replacing car trips with Ebikes, which is what really caught my attention.

Many of my friends know this about me, but I fucking hate driving. I abhor it. I hate the entire experience of it, being stuck in traffic, dealing with dipshits who tailgate me because I’m not going the speed they want me to go, etc. I dreamed of being in a place in my life where I could use my car less. Around this time I was getting ready to move from Cincinnati to Atlanta, and one of the biggest reasons I had decided to do this was because Atlanta had a robust public transportation system and more bike infrastructure. After reading The Verge’s article I spent the next month learning about Ebikes. I was amazed at how they seemed to solve a lot of problems I had with regular bicycles, while enabling you to do more with them. Ebikes allowed you to bike places without getting terribly tired and sweaty, because they gave you control over how much the motor assisted you. This meant you could travel further on an Ebike than you would on a regular bike, because you can conserve your energy. Ebikes can help you get up hills easier than a regular bike. I even learned there were cargo Ebikes, which were Ebikes with extra space that allowed you to carry a lot of things on it (like groceries). The more I learned about Ebikes, the cooler they sounded and the more it seemed they could help me reduce my car use.

I decided to take a risk. Without ever riding an Ebike, I ordered a RadRunner Plus in August, scheduled to ship in October. I chose the RadRunner Plus because I had heard nothing but good things about Rad Power Bikes, and it seemed like a bike that would be a good commuter but also something I could take on rough terrain if I ever wanted to have fun with it. Also, I’m a Big Guy™, and the RadRunner Plus and its motor seemed like it could support my weight well. When I ordered this bike, my intentions were to use it to get to work and do some leisure riding on weekends, but still use my car for things like groceries, hauling large objects, and errands I wouldn’t be able to use a bike for.

While I spent the next few months waiting for the RadRunner Plus to arrive, I was browsing the RadPowerBikes subreddit sometime in September and saw a post from someone in Atlanta selling a 2019 RadWagon (a cargo Ebike) for an insanely good price. I spent the entire day thinking about the bike and if it would make sense for me to buy it. Having a cargo ebike would allow me to replace all of my car trips to the grocery store with it. Also, if I ever needed to haul something large, I could use the bike instead of my car. Even though I already had an Ebike on the way, I decided to buy the RadWagon because it would allow me to replace even more of my car trips.

What happened and what have I learned?

I took a risk on buying an Ebike without having ever ridden one before, and it paid off. The used RadWagon I bought in September 2020 was the first Ebike I had ever used. Before that point, I was still using my car fairly regularly and as my main mode of transportation. By April 2021, Ebikes had taken over as my primary mode of transportation. I use Ebikes to get to work, to get to appointments, to get groceries, to run errands, to get dinner, really for everything. I use my car maybe once a week now and drive only a few miles when I do, usually for date nights with my girlfriend.

When I first started using an Ebike, it was more for leisure. I’d ride around my neighborhood on weekends and occasionally bike to a nearby Starbucks for coffee. The more I kept riding my Ebike, the more fun I had biking and the more I wanted to keep using it to get places. One Saturday in October, I decided to use my RadWagon to pick up groceries from Kroger instead of driving like I usually did. I had such a fun time doing it that I decided to keep doing it every week instead of driving. I kept looking at the ways I used my car and slowly started replacing car trips with Ebike trips. Living in Atlanta and having more bike infrastructure also helped me want to bike more, as I felt safer with being able to use bike lanes to get around. However the more I biked around the more comfortable I became with biking in traffic too, which enabled me to bike to even more places that aren’t directly connected to my home via bike lanes. A lot of car drivers tend to be impatient babies who lose their shit whenever they see someone riding on two wheels in traffic. Having an Ebike made me feel more comfortable being around cars though, because I could get up to speed from a complete stop faster without having a car impatiently on my ass. Eventually I got to a point one day in April where I realized my car was having issues and took it to a shop for a few days, and realized I wasn’t even inconvenienced because I barely used it anymore - Ebikes had become my primary mode of transportation and I hadn’t really noticed. I also ended up buying a third Ebike in April, the RadMission.

I’ve always hated when people say things like “X changed my life” or “my life will never be the same because of Y,” because it sounds overly superfluous. However, Ebikes really did do that for me. Ebikes are a transportation alternative that freed me from my car and gave me a healthier and more enjoyable way to get around.

Here are some things that I’ve learned over the last year:

How are Ebikes on hills?

Ebikes are pretty great on hills. You still have to put in work to get up them by pedaling, but you definitely get up hills easier than you would on a non-electric bike.

Are Ebikes cheating?

Absolutely not. I still get a workout using an Ebike. The cool thing is that you’re just in more control of your energy. Want to sweat and get a workout? Turn your PAS down. Are you in traffic and just want to get to your destination quickly? Turn the PAS up and let the Ebike assist you more.

How do you secure your Ebike outside when you’re shopping or something?

I try to take several measures to keep my Ebikes secure and prevent theft when I lock them up. First, whenever I bike somewhere I try to lock up in a public place that has a lot of people around (by store entrances, near people sitting around outside, etc.). I also try to limit the amount of time I’m away from my Ebike. When I lock my Ebike up I use either a ulock or a Kryptonite New York Cinch Ring Security Chain to secure it, and I always make sure to lock it to the Ebike frame and around a wheel. If I’m parking somewhere where I’ll be gone a bit longer, I’ll use both the ulock and chain. I also have an Apple AirTag hidden in each of my Ebikes, which in the event of theft may be able to help me track it down and get it back. This website has some locking tips as well!

What if you don’t have a garage or a good place to secure an Ebike outside your home?

If you don’t have a garage or a safe place on ground level to secure an Ebike, you’ll probably want to bring it inside your home. Something to keep in mind about Ebikes is that they tend to be heavier than non-electric bikes, due to having a battery and motor and other electronic components - two of my Ebikes are ~70 pounds. If you live in an apartment or something you’ll probably want to bring your bike inside, and you’ll definitely want to get an Ebike that isn’t heavy as shit. For instance, the RadMission from Rad Power Bikes is 49 pounds, and is a bit more bearable to carry up stairs.

What are good features to look for when shopping for an Ebike?

Some important features to keep in mind when shopping for an Ebike:

• Range - How many miles can you get on a single battery charge? Keep in mind that range will depend on several different factors like your weight and PAS level. The range estimates manufacturers provide are a good starting point, but your actual range could slightly differ.

• Bike weight - Really important to keep in mind if you’ll be regularly carrying your Ebike up stairs.

• Gears - Do you live in a hilly place? You may want an Ebike with gears, so you can downshift to climb easier. Gears can also be helpful in the case where your battery dies, because Ebikes can be heavy and downshifting will make it easier to bike home without power.

• Customer support - If your Ebike’s battery starts to get wonky after 1000 miles or you have an issue with an electric component, a regular bike shop may not be able to help you. You’ll want to buy an Ebike from a company with good support that can help you if you ever run into issues.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there are two main ways to use an Ebike:

• Essentially treating it like a regular bike - you’re pedaling all the time

• Using it like a moped - rarely pedaling, primarily using the throttle to move

If you’re planning to use an Ebike like a moped, you're going to want to get an Ebike with a more powerful motor that can fully support you without any pedaling.

How do you deal with maintenance?

The cool thing about Ebikes is that they’re literally just regular bikes, but with a motor and battery. If you know how to maintain regular bikes, you’ll be able to maintain Ebikes. Even if you don’t have maintenance experienced, YouTube is a great resource for bike help. You can also just take your Ebike to a bike shop if you ever have any issues and need a professional’s help. I personally like to be independent and handsy, so I’ve been maintaining my own Ebikes. After a year of owning Ebikes, I haven’t had any maintenance issues apart from the usual bike stuff (adjusting brakes, lubricating the chain, etc.).

Do you still use your non-electric bikes?

Yes! I still use an Ebike 90% of the time to get around and run errands and such, but I’ll use my regular bike if I want to get more of a workout in on a lighter bike or something. Lots of people I know who own Ebikes also own non-electric bikes and switch back and forth depending on their needs.

What are some good affordable Ebike brands?

There are so many different Ebike brands at this point that it’s a bit hard to keep track of them all. However, some good ones that I’m aware of are Rad Power Bikes (I’m biased because I own three of their Ebikes), Aventon Bikes, Juiced, Super73, and Tern.

Finally, a consideration

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention climate change. On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report detailing that humanity as a whole has dropped the ball on climate change so badly the earth is going to heat up by 1.1 degrees - whether we immediately get our collective shit together and cut back on emissions, or not. It’s damning news, but the good thing is we can stop the earth from heating up even more if we all start doing our part to fight climate change.

You may be wondering what you, one person out of seven billion people on earth, can do to fight climate change. Reducing car use is a proven way to cut back on emissions. Even replacing one car trip you take per week with walking, bicycling, or taking the bus makes a difference. Getting an Ebike helped me severely reduce my car usage, and not even in a painful way where I felt like I was making a major sacrifice! I have more fun using my Ebike to get around than I do driving. Regardless of if you decide to get an Ebike or not, let’s all do our part to make sure future generations can still call Earth home.

One day in early April of this year I woke up and randomly decided I no longer wanted to live in Cincinnati (or really Ohio) and needed to move as soon as possible. At that point I had lived in Ohio for 12 years, and I think I always knew deep down I did not want to spend the rest of my life here. However 2020 really forced me to confront the future and what I really wanted in life, and I decided I needed to leave sooner than expected. My job in Cincinnati was fine, but I was bored with it. I started bicycling a lot more this year and it pissed me off that Cincinnati didn’t have any bike infrastructure. When I started doing research into why that was, it basically amounted to political pettiness among local leaders, and I realized I didn’t want to live in a city that couldn’t even be bothered to install something as basic as bike lanes. I was really getting tired of Cincinnati’s insulated “small-town” culture and how unwelcoming people there can be to outsiders. I decided that I wanted to move to either Chicago or Atlanta, two cities that I honestly didn’t know much about but thought they were cool, and I spent six weeks applying to jobs only in those two cities. I was extremely fortunate enough to find an awesome new job during the pandemic and general craziness of 2020, and I moved to Atlanta a few days ago. It was absolutely insane of me to move to a city I had only visited twice prior, yet I’m already loving my new city and know this was the right choice for me.

The reason why the “leaving cities” discourse bugs me is because I think a lot of it can come from a place of ignorance and expecting people to stop complaining and just suck up bad situations. San Francisco is personally one of my favorite cities to hate because it is an unaffordable hellscape full of rich tech workers that sold its soul to wealthy homeowners decades ago. It is absolutely valid to leave San Francisco because you can’t afford housing! It’s perfectly valid to leave New York City because the quality of public transit has degraded to people fainting at sweltering train stations during the peak of rush hour. After four years in Cincinnati and 12 years in Ohio, I became extremely tired of sucking the bad things up that were probably never going to change or improve, and I realized I didn’t have to do that anymore. You don’t either!

There’s an argument to be made about fighting to improve the place you live in instead of leaving at the first sign of trouble. I know there are aspects of Atlanta that are going to piss me off, and I plan on working to address those things and making this city a better place to live for me and my neighbors. However, there’s nothing wrong with putting in work to improve your home and realizing that you may still need something different. By all means, please work to improve your community and where you live. But don’t view it as a prison - you’re free to do what you want.

Don’t let some asshole make you feel bad for wanting to move. Life is too short and there are too many cool places to experience.

For those who aren’t familiar with the West End neighborhood of Cincinnati, it was the site of a huge urban renewal project that started in 1958 called Kenyon-Barr. The Kenyon-Barr project displaced almost 30,000 people, most of whom were black. The intention of the project was to build I-75 and a new industrial neighborhood called Queensgate. I recently wrote about the project. My initial assumption was that Lincoln Park was caught in the collateral damage of the Kenyon-Barr project, and the site of the park was claimed by I-75. I went to Google Maps to try and locate where the park used to be.

The Kenyon-Barr project resulted in many streets in the West End either being destroyed or renamed, so comparing locations in the neighborhood before urban renewal to present-day can sometimes be disorienting. Fortunately, several of the streets that bordered Lincoln Park (Hopkins Street, Dalton Avenue, and Kenner Street) still exist today and I was able to locate where Lincoln Park used to be. Imagine my surprise when the location turned out to be the parking lots of Union Terminal! Union Terminal was built 25 years before the Kenyon-Barr project started, so I knew I-75 had nothing to do with the disappearance of Lincoln Park. Now I needed to figure out why Union Terminal was built on top of such a beautiful park!

In the early 20th century, Cincinnati was a huge train hub for the country. It had several train stations along the Ohio River, but they were prone to flooding. Eventually the city of Cincinnati realized flooding and train stations the economy depended on didn’t mix well, so it was decided to try and build a new train hub. This new train hub would be big enough to consolidate all of the existing train stations, and far enough from the river so that it wouldn’t be affected by flooding. This new train hub was Union Terminal. The location chosen for Union Terminal was ideal because it was far enough away from the Ohio River, and there were rail lines already running through the area. Unfortunately the location wasn’t ideal for Lincoln Park, because Union Terminal would be located just west of it. Additionally, city leaders expected Union Terminal to see a large volume of automobile traffic, and would need big enough roads leading up to the station to handle said traffic. This essentially signaled the demise of Lincoln Park and resulted in a lot of fighting among city leaders, because Lincoln Park was a popular attraction and many wanted it saved. This newspaper excerpt from 1929 shows then Chairman of Cincinnati’s Park Board essentially delivering an eulogy for Lincoln Park, because in one way or another Union Terminal would change it forever:

Cincinnati Enquirer, October 1929

So it seems like Lincoln Park was a cool park that had the misfortune of standing in the path of one of the most important train stations of the 20th century, and that is why it no longer exists. That’s essentially what happened. When Union Terminal was originally built the city tried to preserve as much of Lincoln Park as it could and used what was left as a greenspace for the station’s entrance, but over the years it eventually faded away into a parking lot. However, here’s where things get even more interesting - in the newspaper clipping, Chairman Krohn mentions purchasing “other ground.” Was another park created to replace Lincoln Park? Yes! It turns out Laurel Park (a few blocks east of Union Terminal), was built as a replacement for Lincoln Park. The best part is that Laurel Park still exists today!

So we finally know what happened to Lincoln Park. It was a beautiful park with a lake and island that was eventually reduced to nothing more than parking lots and a road. What would Cincinnati look like if Lincoln Park still existed in 2020? Laurel Park was intended to be Lincoln Park’s replacement, but it lacks most of the amenities Lincoln Park had (for example: it doesn’t have a lake with a cool island). Washington Park is one of the most popular parks in the city, and something interesting I found in my research is that Lincoln Park (18 acres) was actually a lot bigger than present-day Washington Park (6 acres). I can’t help but wonder if Lincoln Park would have exceeded present-day Washington Park’s popularity if it still existed. Would present-day West End be as vibrant as present-day OTR if it had a gathering place like OTR does Washington Park?

I was born and spent the first 11 years of my life in New York City. Being born in one of the most popular and busiest cities in the world has always been a point of pride for me. By the time I was eight years old, I had the entire NYC subway system map memorized and I used to give directions to lost tourists on the train. My entire extended family still calls NYC home. I was even in Manhattan on 9/11. My mom, however, eventually got tired of the craziness of New York and we moved to Connecticut for a few years before moving to Ohio in 2008.

I was born in New York City, but I consider Ohio to be the place where I was raised. I went to high school in Gahanna, a suburb of Columbus. I received my bachelors degree from Ohio State. After college, I took a job in Cincinnati, where I currently live. I consider the years I’ve spent in Ohio to be my most formative. Ohio is the place where I’ve experienced the highest points of my life so far, and the lowest points of my life so far. When I first moved to Ohio in 2008, I was a scared, sheltered kid. Today I’m an adult, who admittedly still has some growing up to do. I’ve had so many formative experiences in Ohio that I wouldn’t dare say I’ve been raised anywhere else.

Being an Ohio transplant is a blessing. It has given me a unique viewpoint to Ohio a lot of people here don’t have, because Ohio is still very much a place where people born here have a good chance of never leaving. Being a transplant allows me to appreciate the things Ohio does better than the other places I’ve lived. For one, Ohio (and the midwest in general) is vastly cheaper to live in than New York City. Most people in New York can only dream of someday owning a house, yet in Ohio homeownership is attainable to most. In Cincinnati, I pay just over $1000 a month to live in a historic three bedroom apartment 10 minutes from downtown. I don’t dare estimate how much my rent would cost for a comparable apartment in NYC. Ohio has the perfect mix of rural and urban living, with large cities and plenty of beautiful rural areas. There’s so much to do here and I never find myself bored.

Being an Ohio transplant is a curse. Because I’ve lived in different places, I’ve experienced better things and ways of living Ohio can’t offer. The politics at the state and local levels here are utterly depressing. The way we fund schools is broken and was even ruled unconstitutional at one point. Our cities and metro regions are incredibly segregated, and municipalities refuse to work together to improve the quality of the lives of its citizens. Because of the segregation here, there are many places in Ohio and neighborhoods in my own city where I don’t feel fully welcome in due to the color of my skin. Ohio is incredibly car-dependent, and I hate having to drive everywhere. I find myself in a constant state of trying my best to appreciate Ohio for what it is, while in my heart knowing there are so many better places to live.

I like Ohio a lot. I’m also starting to dislike it a lot. I find myself becoming more and more discouraged by the things here that are broken. Most people who have spent their entire lives in Ohio are used to this brokenness and accept it as how things should be. Cincinnati’s bus system has been chronically underfunded for decades. Most people don’t seem to be bothered by it because everyone is used to Cincinnati being a city where owning a car is essential. The Better Bus Coalition is a local organization run by volunteers who have spent years trying to improve bus service in Cincinnati. Because of their efforts, there’s a ballot initiative this year in Hamilton County to improve the funding model of the bus system, which is a huge win for the region. However, it has been incredibly depressing to watch them toil for years trying to change the public perception of public transportation and beg politicians to take this issue seriously. It feels like in order to improve something in Ohio it requires a huge sacrifice just to hope in the end that you’ve somehow pushed the needle, and I don’t think things should be that way. Another example of this would be Cincinnati’s streetcar - a simple 3.6 mile loop downtown that has caused the city years of agony because no one in power here can come to an agreement on how to run the system. It has always felt like Ohio lacks the ability to dream big. The things that would take places like New York a year to take action on would take Ohio several decades. As I’ve increasingly become discouraged by things like this here, it has caused me to wonder why I would want to continue living in such a broken place. Why should I spend years of my life trying to fix things here when there are places more open to change? Places which have many of these issues already solved?

What frightens me most about Ohio is that many people who are born here never leave. You could easily spin this as a positive, but I’m not sure it is one. Ohio and the Midwest has always felt like quicksand - once you’re here, you’re stuck and it’s nearly impossible to leave. I love Ohio dearly, but I don’t think I want to spend the rest of my life here.

I want to move. Lately, I’ve been looking at Chicago and Atlanta as places I think I would be the most happy in. Both cities have what I value the most in a place to live: good public transit, a moderately low cost of living for a big city, lots of jobs in my industry, more diversity, more progressive policies, and lots of things to do. From time to time I think about moving back to New York City, but I don’t think I would enjoy it. The city today is vastly different and more broken than the city I left 15 years ago - the subway system is falling apart, the gulf between the rich and poor has grown exponentially, and it doesn’t have the same charm it used to. The thing about places like Ohio and the Midwest and NYC and even Chicago and Atlanta is that none of them are utopias. Every city and state and region and country has its own share of brokenness. However, I would still rather live in a slightly less broken and less dysfunctional place like Chicago than continue living in Ohio.

There’s a popular adage that says people should fight for what they love. I would generally agree with that. I’m just not sure I want to continue fighting for Ohio. I don’t feel any shame in saying that. I love Ohio, but I think at some point it’s okay to throw in the towel and strive for better things.

It has been 15 years since my mom and I moved out of New York City. Embarrassingly enough, over those years I’ve still considered myself to be a “native New Yorker.” My chest has always swelled when people ask me where I’m from and I get the opportunity to tell them. 2020 is an interesting year for me, because as of August I will have lived in Ohio longer than I lived in New York City. Do I start telling people I’m from Ohio now? It has always been a source of pride for me to live in Ohio, but to have had experiences elsewhere.

The Kenyon-Barr project sort of had good intentions. In a post-WW2 society many people were leaving cities and moving to new subdivisions in the suburbs, which led to a loss of tax revenue for cities. If cities weren’t able to stem the loss of revenue it could lead to a lot of bad things, like not being able to afford essential services. The federal government was deep in the effort of building a nationwide network of highways and it was planning to build several throughout the Cincinnati region, including the Mill Creek Expressway (I-75). The city of Cincinnati had the idea to attract industrial companies to move inside the city limits by creating a new neighborhood located right by one of the new highways, which would allow companies located there to easily transport goods and services. By creating Queensgate and having new industrial companies, there would be an increase of jobs within the city limits and an increased tax revenue. Having I-75 run through the city would in theory allow people to drive to their destinations faster and decrease congestion on city roads.

Unfortunately, these plans hinged on the destruction of the heart of Cincinnati’s black community. The West End at the time was a dense, thriving, and vibrant community that was slowly destroyed so Queensgate and I-75 could be built. The people who lived in the West End did not have the ability to fight back against the urban renewal project like other whiter and wealthier neighborhoods in the city might have been able to. Impacted West End residents were also promised better housing and amenities if they supported the project. Over six years, the Kenyon-Barr project demolished most of the West End to create Queensgate and make way for I-75. As of 2010 only 6,627 people live in the West End and 142 people live in Queensgate, as most of Queensgate is now home to industrial business and warehouses. The city photographed many of the buildings located in the West End before they were destroyed by the project, and some of those photos are located below.

Cincinnati Museum Center History Library and Archives

I’ve lived in the West End since October 2018, before which I lived in Mariemont (an affluent Cincinnati suburb) and before which I lived in Hyde Park (an affluent Cincinnati neighborhood). I love the West End because it’s beautiful and unique. My apartment building was built in the late 19th century and judging from historical photos I’ve been able to find, my apartment unit used to be a barbershop. Streetcar tracks used to be on my street and there used to be a Car Barn down the road, where streetcars were housed and serviced. The West End is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Cincinnati, but it has a better sense of community and nicer people than the more “well-off” places I’ve lived in Cincinnati. I learned about the Kenyon-Barr project before I moved to the West End, and it broke my heart to learn about something that caused so much heartache and pain for the people who lived in this neighborhood before me, just so I could have the luxury to sit in I-75 traffic every day.

One of the hardest things about living in the West End is knowing what used to be here before urban renewal and years of disinvestment from the city. Whenever I look at old pictures of the West End from the 40’s and 50’s, I see a thriving, beautiful, and dense neighborhood. One of the reasons the West End was destroyed was because even though it was a thriving neighborhood, the people who lived here at the time were deemed not important enough. American urban renewal projects during this time were rooted in racism and classism. Most Interstate highways that snake through cities were routed through neighborhoods that used to house non-white people because it was cheaper to acquire their homes and neighborhoods than white and wealthier ones. 

Another hard part for me about living in the West End is knowing what the people who were displaced from here faced when they had to leave. Redlining was still legal during the time the Kenyon-Barr project occurred, which meant black Cincinnatians had an extremely limited supply of neighborhoods in the city they were able to find homes in (page 73). To address displacement caused by the project, the city planned to build new public housing to house the former West End residents. Unfortunately, the public housing that was eventually built was nowhere near enough to house everyone who was displaced, and some of the limited housing built was segregated - meaning almost all of the people displaced from the West End were excluded from living there. Some people were able to move into already integrated neighborhoods like Avondale and Mount Auburn, but many families had to leave the city of Cincinnati entirely because they couldn’t find new homes in the city. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to lose your home and have to leave all of your friends and everything familiar to you simply because of your skin color.

Another hard part about living in the West End is knowing that 60 years later, the Kenyon-Barr project was a complete failure. Queensgate is an extremely undesirable place to be in. Apart from Union Terminal, the rest of the neighborhood is full of unfriendly warehouses, wide roads, and giant nondescript buildings. To be fair, this was probably exactly what the city wanted Queensgate to become when the Kenyon-Barr project was born, but I still consider it to be a failure to have a giant neighborhood in the urban core no one wants to be in. I also consider I-75 to be a failure. The people who envisioned the American interstate system wanted it to be an efficient system to get people from Point A to Point B and relieve congestion from city streets. 60 years later, we’ve seen that highways have encouraged more and more people to drive, and have increased congestion. In my opinion, all of the positives Queensgate and I-75 may have brought to Cincinnati will never be enough to justify the human cost of displacing over 25,000 people.

Unfortunately this piece doesn’t have a happy ending. I can see I-75 from my bedroom window, and it serves as a constant reminder to me of the Kenyon-Barr project. I can’t help but imagine what the West End could have been had the project never happened. In 2020, apart from the main thoroughfares like Linn Street and Liberty Avenue, most of the neighborhood is usually dead. After decades of disinvestment and lack of attention from the city and general public, the West End started to receive awareness again when FC Cincinnati announced they wanted to build a new soccer stadium here. Money was finally going to start pouring into the neighborhood again, and surely people would have a reason to visit! Unfortunately that attention has come with a lot of worry, as many West End residents are concerned the new stadium and the plans FC Cincinnati have for the area will result in gentrification and displacement - in fact some residents have already been displaced due to living near the stadium footprint.

My hope is that more people will learn about the places where they live and apply those learnings to the future.

Kanye is an incredibly polarizing person, no doubt about it. Over the span of his career, he’s done some pretty wild stuff. He has talked about how he views himself almost as a god. He’s written horribly misogynistic songs. He donned a MAGA hat a year ago and hung out in the Oval Office. He even more recently went on TV and recited gross, prejudiced rhetoric. Frankly, it can be exhausting trying to keep up with Kanye West. However, over the past year as Kanye has made headlines about his faith, I’ve been really disheartened by the responses of Christians. Maybe we’re all tired of Kanye at this point, or think The Life Of Pablo didn’t live up to the hype. However, it has felt like many, if not most Christians have heard about Kanye's recent antics and flippantly dismissed it as “Kanye being Kanye again.” It seems like many, if not most Christians don’t think Kanye’s new-found faith could possibly be genuine, and many people think this is another attention seeking scheme of his because at the end of the day, "Kanye will be Kanye". Instead of giving Kanye or the faith in God he claims to have a chance, many Christians have dismissed him entirely.

Here’s the thing: the bible is full of utterly, broken people whose hearts were touched by God. People who made claims bolder than Kanye ever has, and did things crazier than Kanye ever will. David had an affair with a guy's wife, got her pregnant, and then proceeded to have the husband killed just to cover it up. Zacchaeus was a tax collector who took advantage of the most vulnerable members of society to make himself rich. Paul was a guy whose professional job was to go door to door and murder believers of Jesus. Yet, each of these stories are bold examples of God’s redemptive grace and ability to touch the hearts and lives of broken people. David wasn’t defined by his horrific mistake and was still able to have a meaningful, impactful life. Zacchaeus had an encounter with Jesus and his heart changed. He then made it his mission to pay back every single person he had wronged, even if it meant he would now be the one living in poverty. Paul went from murdering Christians to becoming one of the most influential leaders of the early Christian church, eventually losing his life because of his belief in Jesus. None of us are too broken to encounter God.

Over the past few years, my faith has evolved from one where everything always seemed very black and white to me, to one where I see the grey areas and embrace them instead of running away or rejecting them. I don’t think faith or belief in God is supposed to be a cut-and-dry, yes or no type deal. To me, Kanye West and his faith is a grey area. In writing this, my intent is not to defend Kanye and make a case to prove he’s changed. My intent is to make a case for the power of God’s grace. It is entirely possible in a week from now, Kanye will log onto twitter and tweet this was all just a giant joke. But is it not also possible that Kanye could be genuine? That he could actually have faith and truly be trying to follow God to the best of his ability? Is God not in the business of touching hearts and changing lives? As I reflect over my life, if I had a dollar for every negative thing I've done I would be a billionaire. I’ve said terrible things and I’ve done terrible things. We all have. However, God met me where I was and changed my life for the better. No one is too broken or too off the rails for God to be able to do that, and he can do it with Kanye too. Of course, there is reality to this: when Paul had his moment of truth and believed in God, everyone in the early church took him with a grain of salt, and rightfully so! They worried it was a ploy to get inside their circles and kill them later on! However, there’s a difference between taking Kanye’s recent actions with a grain of salt and utterly dismissing his actions as being genuine in any way because of his past. In my opinion the latter is dangerous, because what we’re really saying is that Kanye West exists outside of the grace and mercy of God. We can actually see the "grain of salt" dynamic play out in Acts 9 with how people in the early church embraced and took care of Paul even though they weren't sure if he was truly being genuine.

Embrace the grey areas. Take things with a grain of salt, but don't doubt the power of God's redemptive grace.

I don’t really have much to say except that 79 people listened to over 2,000 minutes of my music this year and I’m in shock. I feel so thankful. Thank you to everyone who took time this year to listen to songs I wrote and recorded in my apartment about having crushes and getting tattoos!

Split, Croatia

The tipping point of my frustration was the 2016 Presidential Election, where 80% of White Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. Over the course of 2016, I watched many Christians voice their support for Trump. Meanwhile, Trump ran his entire campaign on hate. He promised to "build a wall," to ban Muslims from entering the US, to force US Muslim citizens to join a registry, and to bring back Stop-And-Frisk (a method ruled as unconstitutional because it solely targets minorities). These are only an incredibly small fraction of the things he has planned to do. He mocked a disabled reporter, was found to have sexually assaulted women multiple times, and doesn't believe in reproductive rights. Mike Pence is equally horrifying, as he supports Conversion Therapy and helped to create an HIV spike in Indiana by slashing public health spending.

I don't understand how a majority of Christians could vote for someone like this. Someone who promised to make the lives of those he opposed a living hell. 2016 was a frightening year for many of my friends and I because most of Trump's proposed plans directly impacted us, and watching them become more and more accepted was horrifying to experience. I'll never forget hearing about the hate crimes over the past year being done in Trump's name. I'll never forget the night of November 8th, as I sat with a few friends and watched state after state go red. I remember waking up the next morning, hearing the news, and being sick to my stomach. I remember hearing on social media that many people I personally knew were being targeted by hate crimes at my school. I remember being so distressed that I seriously contemplated calling the suicide hotline. I remember going on Facebook later that week and expecting to see my Christian friends denouncing Trump and the hate, but almost every post I saw was normalizing his presidency and simply promising to "pray for him."

I refuse to believe that the God I know would support the terrible things occurring in the world right now. Just this past week, Trump signed an Executive Order banning citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the US. This is horrific on just about every level, but no one seems to be talking about it. Nothing was said at church. Most of my Christian friends are completely silent. How can you profess to follow Christ but support someone like Trump, who has who promised to do all of these terrible things? How can you be silent when refugees are being persecuted for their religious beliefs and their country of origin? I've been sickened as I've watched people I used to respect, people who I would have considered to be "champions of the faith" support Trump. Every Sunday as I sit in church, I can't help but wonder how many of the people around me voted for Trump.

My Mom has reminded me this at least two million times while I was growing up, but my faith isn't supposed to be based on what others do, say, or think. However, it is incredibly frustrating to see professed followers of Jesus supporting someone who represents the exact opposite of everything Jesus stood for. In fact, it's disgusting and shakes me to the core. I refuse to normalize Trump's presidency and the current events that are unfolding. I'm far from perfect and far from having my faith figured out, but instead of ignoring current events and blindly devoting myself to praying that a heart as egregious as Trump's would change, I'm going to focus on living by and doing what Jesus considered to be the greatest commandment:

Alton Sterling was killed by police officers early Tuesday morning. I briefly read tweets on Twitter throughout Tuesday saying "another black man killed by police" but I've become so desensitized to this happening on a regular basis that I didn't pay any attention until the next day. By Wednesday, I also learned that Philando Castile was pulled over for a broken taillight and then killed by a police officer, and Delrawn Small was killed by an off-duty police officer on Monday. The next day, I learned that an unidentified black man had been found hanging from a tree in Atlanta. By Friday morning, I had learned that a shooter opened fire on police officers after a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas had concluded, killing five officers (It's worth mentioning that this shooter was not part of the protest, but chose to promote a violent agenda after a peaceful one). I'm afraid to wake up tomorrow.

I've felt nothing but anger, frustration, and hopelessness this entire week. I've cried a lot. Social media is an absolute mess right now. Seems like a lot of people suddenly received law degrees from Harvard. A lot of people are tweeting/instagramming/snapchatting support, but a lot of people are also saying terrible things. I've seen tons of justifications for why Alton/Philando/Dallas police officers deserved to die. The worst part too is that today is Friday, which means the weekend has arrived. Everyone's going to forget about this week too, just like they've forgotten about Orlando/Sandy Hook/Freddie Gray/Sandra Bland/etc..

I feel the crushing weight of being a person of color. I tremble at the sight of police, because I just never know what could happen. I feel it when my white friends share experiences birthed from a place of privilege such as getting pulled over for speeding and always getting off with warnings, and I see it in events such as someone walking into a church and opening fire on a bible study and not being killed by police (Dylann Roof), while someone with a concealed carry permit is pulled over by police, informs the officer he is in legal possession of a gun, reaches for his identification, and is killed (Philando Castile). When I go to class at Ohio State and see that there is no one else who looks like me, that my school only enrolled 119 black men for the fall 2015 first year class, that my student government barely represents me, I am told that black lives aren't important. When I'm told by my white friends that hooking up with a black person is on their "bucket list", I am told that black lives aren't important. When non-POC (people of color) who call themselves "allies" are silent during times like this when they are most needed, I am told that black lives aren't important. When the videos of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile's brutal deaths make the rounds across social media and become a spectacle for people to watch, I am told that black lives aren't important. When the shooting that killed five police officers is pinned on a black man who was quickly determined to be innocent, but his picture and description is left up for hours which resulted in him and his family receiving thousands of death threats and no apologies are issued, I am told that black lives aren't important. When I've finally come to the understanding and acceptance that there's a very real chance that one day I might now make it home, that I could end up another victim of police brutality, and this doesn't shock or scare me anymore? I see that black lives aren't important.

Do black lives matter?

This sums up rape culture in America.

Our society is absolutely terrible when it comes to addressing sexual assault. There is so much miseducation, ignorance, and general laziness surrounding this huge issue affecting scores of men and women. It is assumed by many that sexual assault isn't as big of a problem as it is made out to be. However, 23% of female college students experience unwanted sexual contact. Society places the problem of sexual assault solely on women. Current Ohio Governor and former Presidential candidate John Kasich had the audacity to suggest that women can avoid sexual assault by simply not going to parties where alcohol is involved, as if it's only the woman's job to avoid being assaulted, and as if parties are the only places where sexual assault can take place. The truth is, half of sexual assaults occur within 1 mile of the victim's home. I find it horrifying whenever someone is misinformed on something like this, especially someone in such a high seat of power as John Kasich, who makes decisions everyday that affects 11.59 million Ohioans. With his logic, maybe women shouldn't even live at home?

People don't see the point in getting serious about addressing sexual assault. This Op ed suggests that harsh sentences for sexual assault perpetrators isn't necessary because it won't make a difference in getting more women to report assault, and harsh sentences end up damaging yet another person in the process (the perpetrator). What this letter completely misses is that the reason why many women (and men) don't report assault is because most of the time there is no incentive. In the rare case where a victim comes forward to report assault (only 32% of sexual assaults are reported to the police), they can face backlash such as retaliation and disbelief. Most of the time, the perpetrator receives a slap on the wrist and faces little to no punishment (98% of rapists will never spend a day in jail/prison), continuing the cycle in which victims don't come forward. Cracking down on assault and holding people accountable will make a difference, and the reason why we don't see this difference right now is because as a society America is not serious about addressing sexual assault.

Universities are failing to protect victims and punish perpetrators. Examples of this emerge time and time again, with the most recent being Baylor University covering up allegations of sexual violence by football players, and even retaliating against someone who reported assault. As of May 1, 2014, there were 55 Universities being investigated for Title IX violations.

We don't support women. For example, women at Ohio State have been lobbying for a Women's Center for years. Having a Women's Center is important because in 2016 women are still dealing with huge issues such as gender discrimination, sexual assault and equal pay on a daily basis. Having a place where women can receive resources and support is vital. However, administrators continue to drag their feet and offer excuses for not having one, such as funding. Meanwhile, Ohio State has the money to spend $42 million on renovations for Ohio Stadium, $700,000 on renovations for Browning Amphitheatre, $200 million on a new arts district, and continues to support a culture of big bonuses for administrators.

The thing about sexual assault is that it's everyone's problem. Every 107 seconds, someone is sexually assaulted in America. This means by the time I've finished writing this blog post, there will have been 364 people assaulted today. It takes each of us to get serious about assault, from no longer laughing at rape jokes to believing and supporting a friend or relative who comes to you and confides that they have experienced sexual assault. Unfortunately, unless we educate ourselves and start addressing this huge problem, nothing will change and we will continue to hear more and more stories like Brock Turner's. It's up to everyone to do something about it.

For those who aren't familiar with Markov Chaining, it's a random process that uses probability and states to decide where to go next. One important property of a Markov Chain is that past transitions don't affect future transitions. In the sense of @CailinBot, Markov Chaining is used to decide the next phrase/word to use in a tweet, after choosing the current word/phrase to use.

For example, here is a simple Markov Chain with two states:

Yesterday, I was itching to finally tackle this, so I sat down and wrote @CailinBot, using a really cool Ruby gem called twitter_ebooks. This gem fetched the past 4000 tweets from my personal Twitter account, saved popular words and phrases as a text model, and used Markov Chaining to create @CailinBot tweets. Once I finished setting up the bot and assigning actions (how to respond to private messages, when to reply to someone when someone mentions it, etc.), I set it up on my Raspberry Pi and let it go to work.

I quickly realized I had created a monster.

It immediately started being snarky:

It doesn't like USG very much:

It's obsessed with fungus:

It pays attention to national politics:

It can be mean at times:

It also has emotions:

Oh, and apparently it thinks it is a human being?

Very odd.