Seth Black

Professional Nerd

When asked
what I do for a living
my family has come up with probably
the best description of me:
"He's a professional nerd."

What does that mean, though?
I love to nerd-out on lots of things, and I get to do that for a living!
Specifically, I like to focus on Machine Learning, Computer Science, my comic, and startups.

Articles & Essays

A Third AI Future

The horrifying - yet eerily familiar - dystopia full of murder-bots and all-knowing robot overlords; and the oh-so-close utopia featuring flying cars and droid servants darting around: these futures have been part of our collective imagination for over a century now. As much as I love Sci-Fi, I am compelled to promote a less intense and much more practical future. Read On »

How to Conduct Consistent Engineering Interviews

After more than two decades as an engineer and over a decade as a hiring manager I’ve experienced my fair share of terrible engineering interviews. From quizzes to whiteboarding, take-home tests to awkward real-time coding exercises; I feel as though every startup I’ve worked at has had the exact same growing pains. Read On »

Why is Python So Popular Despite Being Slow?

Let me reframe this question using different technology. Why are Toyota Corollas so popular despite being so slow? They're obviously much slower than rocket powered aircraft! Things just got crazy, right? Let's do some math to prove our point about how slow Toyota Corollas really are when compared to rockets. Read On »

Seth's Programming Books List

I love consuming new information. The first big breakthrough in my reading journey was Amazon's book delivery service. It was no longer necessary for me to coerce one of my parents into driving to B. Dalton and watch as I aimlessly wandered... Read On »

Security

Strong Password Generator
Code & Security

As cool as my Unicode Password Generator is, I feel it's not practical for daily use. This is my standard password generator. It uses a JavaScript implementation of PCG32 by Melissa E. O'Neill, and is 100% client-side. For added security generate multiple passwords and use chunks from each generated password.

Unicode Password Generator
Code & Security

I felt inspired after reading Jeff Atwood's post "Password Rules Are Bullshit". The concept is fairly simple: use Unicode characters in passwords. If you're using HMAC + bcrypt (and you should be) everything should work perfectly fine...

Random Passphrase Generator
Code & Security

Sometimes I find it very difficult to generate my own passphrases for demo systems and such, therefore I decided to build this handy-dandy passphrase generator to ease the pain. Feel free to use it, and share it with your friends and family.

Projects

fiscus
fiscus

I've been investing in real estate since the 2010s and realized that my property investment modeling system could be used by others, so I built it!

Python
Flask
MariaDB
ReactJS
NextJS
AWS
Vercel

Running in Production
Podcasts

I chatted with Nick Janetakis from Running in Production about the software and hardware stack that has been running the taleas website for the last decade...more.

Photography
seth.black

I <3 photography, this is my personal showcase.

Canon EOS 6D
Benro Tripod & Head
Photoshop

The Bluetooth Candle
The Bluetooth Candle

C
Objective-C
Java
Rhino3d
3d Printing
Elbow Grease

Seth & Adriana
Seth & Adriana

Adriana and I got married, so why would I not personally design, draw, develop and code our wedding website?

Python
Django
Nginx
Sqlite
Photoshop
Illustrator

FindMeNoms
FindMeNoms

FindMeNoms is an easy way to "find tasty food around you wherever you are". This is a side project that was born out of my need for an app/website that would remember all of the tasty places that I have eaten at, or would recommend to someone, or have been recommended to me. Basically, Yelp wasn't cutting it, as I'd find myself falling down the rabbit hole of reading one-star reviews and laughing at how crazy people can be instead of actually finding food.

Python
Django
PostgreSQL
Redis
Memcached
Objective-C
Java
JQuery
Javascript
Ionic
Photoshop
Illustrator

taleas
taleas

In 2008 I took up drawing as an easy way to vent my artistic frustrations (it was either that, poetry or expressive dance). After a while I had a solid little following and decided to publish my work on the internet as a full-fledged webcomic. Taleas is that comic.

Python
Django
Sqlite
Memcached
Photoshop
Illustrator
Lots of India Ink

Virtual Sales
Virtual Sales

This was a short-lived startup idea. The basic premise was, well, just watch the explainer video.

Python
Pyramid
MySQL
Memcached
RabbitMQ
Twilio
Javascript
JQuery

ADAM.WEB
ADAM.WEB

Document management for schools, doctor's offices, and pretty much anyone else who would give us money. Unfortunately it didn't work out too well. I did get a really cool logo out of it, though.

PHP
Nginx
PostgreSQL
JQuery
Javascript

WebWorx
WebWorx

My very first startup: web development, web hosting and an ISP. This is the very first time I got to work with my friend Darrel. He designed our sites, logos, business cards and even mousepads! No joke.

PHP
Nginx
MySQL
JQuery
Javascript