Difficulties

My name is Erik Hess, and I’m a designer, developer, and recovering fighter pilot living in Carson City, Nevada.

If this is your first visit, here are a few posts to get you started:

1 v 0 – What’s it like to take a Tomcat out for a spin?
Leave – If you follow my advice you won’t finish the article.

These are good places to go next:

Flying and Technology

Go Manual – An aviator’s thoughts on car autopilots.
Death by Powerpoint – Communicating at the speed of Navy.
Angle of Attack and UI – Unlike airspeed, less is more.

Flying and the Military

Multi-Singletasking – What goes through your mind when landing on an aircraft carrier?
Eight – If written today, this would be titled Nine.
2001-09-11 – It started as a normal day on the USS John F. Kennedy.

Life (and Flying and Technology Sometimes Too…)

Obstacles – The things we put in our way.
Heaven and Hell – Where can we find them?
Crux – Stars, DC-3s, and precession.
Noble Absence – You can’t be everywhere at once.
I am a Dalek – Appreciating simple things like feet.
Chance – Life surprises us when we least expect it.

If you’re like me and do better with pictures, they’re all here.

About the Author

I spent thirteen years on active duty in the US Navy, flying Tomcats and Super Hornets off aircraft carriers. The most rewarding part was teaching others to do it too as a Landing Signal Officer. For a short time after leaving active duty I flew Tigers in the Navy Reserve, after which I served at a lower altitude and speed until retiring.

Outside the Navy, I’m a defense analyst for a rapidly growing consulting firm. Previously I worked at high90 and collaborated with Gabe Weatherhead on a few cool projects like NerdQuery, CriticMarkup, and Generational, a podcast on the late, great 70 Decibels network. With the help of Potatowire, Gabe and I made Technical Difficulties. A little more recently, Potatowire and I recorded Seasons of Obsession.

I’m not very active on social media, but you can find me here.

About the Site

In late 2011 I built the first iteration of The Mindful Bit. It now has a different name that better reflects my struggle to understand the world. I’m still fascinated by the intersection of mindfulness, technology, and design. I’m still puzzled by the world’s impermanent, emergent, and unsatisfying nature. I’ll be working on mindfulness for the rest of my life. While I don’t have any good answers, in the meantime we can have enlightening conversations around the questions.

The site itself has been rebuilt six times, using Tumblr, WordPress, Squarespace, Ruhoh, Statamic, and now Jekyll hosted via Github Pages. It’s currently typeset in Georg Duffner’s elegant EB Garamond. I use the site to play around with new web technologies, so it changes a lot. I hope that doesn’t get too annoying for you.