Certain topics seem off-limits in Zen, like: What’s the goal of meditation? How do I get better at it? What is everyone else experiencing when they sit? I spoke at the New Paltz Zen Center about getting stuck at a plateau in meditation skill, and about Zen communities’ reluctance to discuss peak experiences, progress, and goals. Here’s the video and a written version of the talk. --- There’s a lot we don’t talk about in Zen. In my experience, we hardly ever talk about what our daily...| A. Jesse Jiryu Davis
A profound 1990 paper about epistomology in distributed systems.| emptysqua.re
Well, a SAT solver can optimize the retreat schedule. A meditation retreat as a whole is a living creature, beyond any individual’s control. But I can provide a schedule that functions smoothly and reduces distractions. I used Python and integer programming, a technique for mathematical optimization. The problem The Village Zendo holds two weeklong Zen meditation retreats every summer, and one every winter. An essential part of Zen retreats is interviews (“dokusan” or “daisan”) betw...| A. Jesse Jiryu Davis
Kelsey Roman performing with aerial silks suspended from the Nectar Vector climb on Millbrook, a cliff in the Gunks.| emptysqua.re
In memory of Sojourner Truth Armstrong Davis, a singular and solitary hamster.| emptysqua.re
Since I joined MongoDB’s Distributed Systems Research Group a few years ago, I’ve relied on Google Scholar alerts to tell me when an author in my specialty publishes a new paper, or (much more often) when a new paper cites an author I’m interested in. Google Scholar can send me email alerts, but their frequency isn’t configurable: daily only. And if the same new paper is included in multiple alerts (e.g., it cites several authors I follow), Google Scholar won’t deduplicate it. It’...| A. Jesse Jiryu Davis
Climbing in the Gunks on June 21 and 22, 2025.| emptysqua.re
How I wound up on MongoDB's research team.| emptysqua.re
June 2025. A climbing retreat in the Gunks for women with cancer led by Anyssa Lucena of Genuine Climbing. Most of the women had never climbed outside, or never climbed at all. Their awe of the rock reminded me of when I fell in love with climbing, years ago. Eric Bates and a small crew were shooting a documentary of the retreat. He made Five Dot Fun, one of my favorites; I was excited to meet him and watch him work. --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Shot on a mix of...| A. Jesse Jiryu Davis
A sculpture park in Saugerties, New York, hand-built by Harvey Fite over 37 years from local bluestone.| emptysqua.re
Distributed systems people are suspicious of timers. Whenever we discuss an algorithm that requires two servers to measure the same duration, the first question is always, “Can we rely on timers?” I think the answer is “yes”, as long as you add a safety margin a little over 1/500th. Table Of Contents Example: Leader Leases Rely on Timers Leader-based consensus protocols like Raft try to elect one leader at a time, but it’s possible to have multiple leaders for a short period. (In th...| A. Jesse Jiryu Davis
Five years ago we tried to test conformance, and only half-succeeded. Here's what happened, and the view from 2025.| emptysqua.re
In 2016 and 2017, I photographed, reported, and wrote a two-part series on MongoDB’s sponsorship of computer science education in NYC public schools. Those articles were eventually deleted from MongoDB’s engineering blog, so I’m reposting them here, eight years later. Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is below. Investing in CS4All: One Year Later When a couple of New York City high school teachers partnered with MongoDB to teach computer science, did they succeed? Their curriculum was untested...| A. Jesse Jiryu Davis
In 2016 and 2017, MongoDB invested in NYC public school computer science. I photographed and reported two articles about the teachers we mentored.| emptysqua.re
Gunks climber Liza Mills on the routes Lisa and The Sting with her husband Jordan and their cat Dwayne.| emptysqua.re
A 2025 conference on autonomous testing and software correctness.| emptysqua.re