Lightyear Labs Blog

The Golden Age of Apple Software Ended with Snow Leopard

Unknown — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Apple once shipped a server a 12 year old could run. I rebuilt it in a VM to find out whether it still holds up in 2026, and what can be learned by examining the past.

Iron Rivers and Erratic Rocks

Unknown — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Climbing the ghost of a glacier in the Ogilvies, and coming back down faster than the mountain would like.

Little Moments (In the Rust and Rain)

Unknown — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A stolen glacier, a plum going soft, and a day in Dawson City that would not hold still.

42 Was Never the Hard Part

Unknown — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An answer to why I am here, why any of it matters, and why I intend to stick around, arrived at without the benefit of a supercomputer the size of a small planet.

On Managing Matthew Miller's Nanaimo City Council Campaign

Unknown — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Twelve weeks out from the vote, and the words on the masthead matter less than the person on the ballot.

The Right to Repair Your Own Air Force: F-35 vs Gripen in Canada

Unknown — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Trains, now planes, soon enough my blog may even write about automobiles.

The Cloud was the Rehearsal

Unknown — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Every argument against AI I hear today is one I heard against the cloud fifteen years ago, and the outcome of that earlier argument is not a hopeful precedent.

Silvery Blue Gossamer-Winged Butterfly

Unknown — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A poem for the gossamer-winged butterflies of northern BC, and what such a small thing has to offer such a hard country.

The Long Way to Bella Coola

Unknown — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A day on the Northern Sea Wolf, up the fjords to Bella Coola, reading the deep past in the rock.

The Sublime Cannot Be Stored Like Treasure

Unknown — Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, and what it teaches about beauty, possession, fidelity, and the cost of becoming real.

Mapping the Mountain Ranges of Vancouver Island

Unknown — Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There was no clean map of Vancouver Island’s mountain ranges, so I drew one.

The Kettle Valley's Lesson: Trails Don't Survive Without Rails Beneath Them

Unknown — Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Narwhal’s reporting on the Kettle Valley Rail Trail decommissioning is solid climate journalism. But it sidesteps the political-economy problem at the heart of every rails-to-trails project in this country.

The Top 50 Most Powerful People in Canada

Unknown — Sat, 09 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A ranked, opinionated, spreadsheet-haunted attempt to understand who holds power in Canada, and what kind of power they hold.

The Corridor We Already Own

Unknown — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Restoring Vancouver Island’s rail corridor is not a regional ask. It is a national infrastructure argument backed by twenty years of deferred political will.

The Quiet Cost of Cynicism

Unknown — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On why the sharpest, safest-seeming stance toward the world is also the one most likely to hollow it out.

Extraction

Unknown — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The island as a body, read for its contents.

How Can It Be

Unknown — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A bluff above a marsh in Nanaimo, and a question that is already a kind of taking.

Recycled

Unknown — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Not remembered. Recycled.

Two Bluffs

Unknown — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One bluff here above a marsh, one there in the Ogilvies. Carrying both in the same chest.

The Rule, and What Exceeds It

Unknown — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Whose bluff, whose marsh, whose watershed. A question set down for the length of an afternoon.

Hello, World

Unknown — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to Lightyear Labs.

Winter Crossing

Unknown — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Written somewhere between frozen landscapes, rocked to sleep by the rhythm of rails.

Seas of Stars

Unknown — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

For the dreamers and the wanderers.

A Land That I Call Home

Unknown — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Vancouver Island isn’t just where I live, it’s where I belong.

Lost Where I Belong

Unknown — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes the best way to find yourself is to get thoroughly lost.

The Absurd Wanderer

Unknown — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Inspired by Camus and countless kilometers of trail.