Jamie Brandon

I'm an independent researcher.

I've built database engines, query planners, compilers, developer tools and interfaces for Materialize, RelationalAI, LogicBlox and Eve, as well as for various consulting and personal projects.

My work is currently funded by sharing thoughts and work in progress with people who sponsor me on github.

Active projects:

• Studying streaming systems
  • An opinionated map of incremental and streaming systems
  • Internal consistency*
  • Thoughts on benchmarking*
• imp - a relational language to replace SQL
  • Intro
  • Core language
  • Denotational semantics
  • Types
  • Simple interpreter
  • Decorrelation
  • Solving functions
  • Boxes
  • Iteration
• focus - a low-latency text editor built from scratch, already in daily use
  • Intro*
  • Rendering*
  • Text*

Inactive projects:

• reltron - an app for exploring relational databases, in collaboration with Kevin Lynagh
• blobs - a library for zero-copy deserialization in Julia
• imp-ui v0 - writing GUI code in a relational language
• imp-lang v0 - a practical relational query compiler in 500 lines of code
• unnamed - building pinephone apps from scratch
• unnamed - experimenting with VR game mechanics on the HTC Vive
• monolog - monolog is to logging as spreadsheets are to accounting?
• strucjure - combining pattern matching, parsing and visitors
• unnamed - parallelizing the core.logic solver
• texsearch - a search index for the >8m LaTeX equations in the Springer corpus
• msc thesis - tweaking the timing model of a gossip algorithm to collapse the size of the state space and allow model checking important fairness properties

Talks:

• Julia as a platform for language development

Distillation:

• How Materialize and other databases optimize SQL subqueries
• Quick and dirty review of Psychology of Programming Interest Group 1989-2015
• Contrast codes are an implementation detail
• Causal ordering

Thoughts:

• Memory-mapped IO registers in zig*
• Why isn't differential dataflow more popular?
• Canada's Express Entry program
• Looking for debugger
• Looking for more debugger
• Assorted thoughts on zig (and rust)
• Small tech
• Open multiple dispatch in zig
• SELECT wat FROM sql
• Frugality is non-linear
• Psychology vs the graphics pipeline
• Staged interpreters in Rust
• Decision points and utility
• Complexity budgets
• Three months of Rust
• Scaling down
• Imperative thinking and the making of sandwiches
• Pain we forgot
• Local state is harmful
• Examining scampy

Personal:

• 2020 spending
• 2019 spending

Notes:

• A Small Matter of Programming
• The Mature Optimization Handbook
• Digital Minimalism
• Working in Public

Older notes for which I have lost the source but still have the old html:

• Espresso Lessons: From The Rock Warrior's Way
• Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
• The Robot
• Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging
• The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
• The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money
• Data Analysis: A Model Comparison Approach To Regression, ANOVA, and Beyond
• Building the Intentional University: Minerva and the Future of Higher Education
• The Rock Climber
• The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
• Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life
• Inadequate Equilibria
• A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
• PSYCGR01: Statistics
• PSYCGD02: Principles of Cognition
• Infinite Distraction
• How to Become a Straight-A Student
• Designing with the Mind in Mind
• You Are Not a Gadget
• Reality Is Broken
• Nonviolent Communication
• The Mind Illuminated
• Breakdown of Will
• The Self-Coached Climber
• Training for Climbing
• Statistical Rethinking
• The Rock Warrior
• Bonds That Make Us Free
• The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology: A Manifesto for Reforming the Culture of Scientific Practice
• The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World
• Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
• The Rationality Quotient: Toward a Test of Rational Thinking
• Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
• The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
• Intelligence: All That Matters
• Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society
• The Universal Pastime: Sleep and Rest Explained
• Everything is fucked
• The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
• The Logic Of Failure: Recognizing And Avoiding Error In Complex Situations
• The Future of Decision Making: How Revolutionary Software Can Improve the Ability to Decide
• Strangers to Ourselves
• Peak
• The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction
• Flow
• So Good They Can't Ignore You
• How Not To Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
• Drive
• How To Read a Book
• A Small Matter of Programming: Perspectives on End User Computing
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
• Stumbling on Happiness
• Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence
• Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count
• The Curse of the Self: Self-Awareness, Egotism, and the Quality of Human Life
• The Mind is Flat
• Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
• Calm Technology: Principles and Patterns for Non-Intrusive Design
• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
• Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
• Waking Up: A Guide To Spirituality Without Religion
• What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought
• Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science
• The Man Who Lied To His Laptop
• Your Brain at Work
• The Signal and the Noise
• The Checklist Manifesto
• Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction
• Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health
• Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking

Contact:

• email - jamie@scattered-thoughts.net
• matrix - @jamii:scattered-thoughts.net
• atom feed - scattered-thoughts.net/atom.xml
• github - jamii
• sourcehut - jamii
• goodreads - scattered-thoughts