Gizmo Warehouse
The Gizmo Warehouse is more of a workshop than a showroom. The thinking behind these gizmos is proudly in progress. The analyses follow the data, but there's a lot of interpretation between the numbers and the ground, and surely we're missing context somewhere. The warehouse is built this way on purpose, because it's fun to discover the answers in public. If a gizmo here sparks something, reach out.
The Price of Insuring Yourself
I read the audited statements of 135 New York governments, and the ones that insure themselves have bills that swing nearly twice as much from year to year and may cost about a fifth more.
2026-10
Introducing Daf Yomi Dot Dev
I built a Daf Yomi Machine with Claude. I hope it causes me to read a little more Talmud. I explain how I made it. I hope you use it if you're interested!
2026-09
The Only Way to Start Is by Starting
A short paper on how a state or local agency can get real value from AI in ninety days with one accountable owner, a handful of paid licenses, and one well-chosen piece of real work.
2026-09
Music Theory with LLMs
Using Claude Code to write gospel reharmonizations for the fake book, and why next-chord prediction is a natural LLM task.
2026-08
Pricing the Fear of Data Centers
A town that says no to a data center gives up tax revenue, not jobs, and how much depends on the local tax regime. Opposition is not partisan, legislatures are choosing conditions over bans, and blocked projects go quiet more than they resurface. A national map of restrictions and conditions, a calculator for what one campus pays a town, and the terms to demand if the answer is yes.
2026-08
The New Math on NYC's Public Grocery Stores
Mayor Mamdani's stores will sell a core basket 30% below market, and nobody has priced that promise. This update does: about $167M over ten years, reaching roughly 12,000 households when the same money could reach six to fifteen times as many.
2026-08
High Floor, Low Ceiling: How Public-Sector Wage Compression Erodes Public Service
Public pay is compressed: a high floor and a low ceiling. Government holds its own at the bottom of the labor market but falls far behind at the top, exactly where elite private pay has soared — software, law, finance, engineering. A data piece tracing the public-sector pay gap by skill, by domain, by level of government, and over time, built from ACS PUMS microdata, BLS/BEA/Census series, and city and state payroll files.
2026-06
These 5 Million People Are About to Lose Their Medicaid — But They Don't Have To
Starting in 2027, the new federal Medicaid work requirement will end coverage for 5–10 million people. Most of that loss is a state operations problem, not a policy outcome. A nationwide bottom-up model of who's at risk, where they live, and what each state's verification capability looks like. Built for state Medicaid directors with seven months to get the operational pre-work done.
2026-05
How to Save the Government from Microsoft Copilot
Why state and local government keeps defaulting to Microsoft 365 Copilot when the private sector won't, what the head-to-head numbers actually say, and a one-page procurement checklist for getting your agency onto AI tools that work.
2026-05
NYC Property Tax: Who Pays, Who Doesn't
An interactive parcel-level map of New York City's effective property-tax rates — plus the long answer to why two identical brownstones across the street from each other can pay wildly different bills.
2026-04
The Math on NYC's Public Grocery Plan
A per-store 10-year P&L for Mayor Mamdani's five city-owned grocery stores, a check on what nutrition a $40k income buys you in the Bronx, and a ranked comparison to what the same $70M would buy if the goal were to feed more people.
2026-04
Reducing Violent Crime Without New Budget, New Staff, or More Arrests
A pragmatic guide for city leaders on using environmental interventions and cross-department coordination to reduce violence, with Dallas's 2024–2025 implementation as a case study.
2026-03
Jazz Fakebook Maker
A Python tool that converts plain-text chord charts into a searchable, bookmarked PDF fake book — built for reading on a laptop on a piano stand.
2026-02