Hi, My name is Greg Grothaus and I look like →

I make software at Google and for myself. I like to adventure into the backcountry when I have spare time.

You have found my blog, Gregable.com.


Recent Posts

  1. My vacuum waits by the trashcan to be emptied

    How I automated my vacuum to head to the trashcan after cleaning.

  2. GPU Prices leading up to the Ethereum Merge

    A chart of the price drops of GPUs on eBay. Also a bonus chart of price per hashrate.

  3. My Home Automations.

    Some of the home automations I've come up with so far. Maybe inspiration for others tinkering with these things.

  4. Home Automation with Home Assistant

    What I learned so far trying out Home Assistant

  5. Lighting my roof with WS2815 LEDs

    I just finished installing some LED lights along the roofline of my house as a permanent installation for various holidays. This post outlines some of the things I learned along the way which may be useful to others embarking to do something similar.

  6. Hiking Quieter Trails

    A few California Northern Bay Area day trails that I've been exploring lately during Covid. These are some good options with the cool weather and goals of avoiding the crowds.

  7. SVG Airport Diagrams

    Afternoon coding project to generate airport diagrams using web components.

  8. AMP Email

    My thoughts on the recent AMP Email announcement and why it matters.

  9. Building an igloo

    Or at least trying to. Trip report backpacking and constructing an igloo in the Tahoe mountains.

  10. Indexed Annuities

    Anatomy of a financial scam.

  11. Sierra Jewels

    Trip report from hike along the PCT and JMT starting at Agnew Meadows trailhead near Mammoth.

  12. Mt Kosciuszko

    Trip report from summiting Mt Kosciuszko, the tallest peak in Australia.

  13. Social Security Tools

    I spent some of my holidays building a website to help folks understand their United States Social Security benefits.

  14. Yukon River Canoeing

    8 day canoe trip report from the mighty Yukon river in Canada. Abandoned steamboats, grizzly tracks, northern lights, fly fishing, lake storms, and lots of fun.

  15. Gregable.com Blog Redesign

    Writeup of decisions made while redesigning the gregable.com site to be a fast, responsive, AMP website.

  16. Regular Expression Crossword Puzzle

    A crossword puzzle designed for geeks, every single clue is a regular expression.

  17. Elkhorn Slough Kayaking

    Elkhorn Slough in Northern CA is the best place to check out otters on a kayaking trip.

  18. Green River Canoeing

    Five day canoe trip down the Green River to meet up with the mighty Colorado.

  19. Mission Peak residents block hikers

    The wealthy homeowners who built homes at the base of this urban, public-access peak are fighting to restrict access.

  20. Mt Rainier

    Six day mountaineering and summit of Mt Rainier.

  21. Degrees Gregable

    My proposal for an improved temperature scale, clearly superior to both Celsius and Fahrenheit.

  22. One year of solar

    It has been roughly one year since installing solar panels on my home, and now I can compare some real data to my theoretical estimates.

  23. Mt Olympia hike

    Trip report from a day hike up to Mt Olympia, a lesser-known and tranquil mountain in Mt Diablo park.

  24. Majority Voting Algorithm

    Imagine that you have a non-sorted list of values. You want to know if there is a value that is present in the list for more than half of the elements in that list. You want to accomplish this as efficiently as possible.

  25. Residential Solar Financials

    In 2013 I researched and installed a set of solar panels. This is an in-depth guide to how the economics work out.

  26. Yosemite High Sierras

    6 day trip report hiking between Yosemite's High Sierra camps.

  27. Canyon Creek, Trinity Alps

    My first trip to the Trinity Alps takes us up Canyon Creek to a pair of lovely lakes.

  28. Social Circles

    An early look at my personal 'social graph'. This includes an actual image mapping out all of my online social connections in Facebook.

  29. The Nap Pod Awakens

    Sweet dreams in a modified Google Nap Pod.

  30. Why you should know just a little Awk

    An Awk tutorial by example. Learn practical Awk incantations in just a few minutes.

  31. Mt. Kilimanjaro Summit

    Trip report from my attempt to summit the continent of Africa's highest peak, Mt. Kilimanjaro, which stands at 19,341 ft (5,895 m).

  32. Lassen Cinder Cone and Snag Lake

    Trip report from my first backpacking trip with Cristin. An epic and mellow backpacking route through some of the volcanic terrain of Mt. Lassen National Park.

  33. Blacksmithing in Oakland

    Cristin and I have been taking a once-a-week journey to Oakland for 5 weeks to take a blacksmithing class.

  34. Future Car

    Test Driving the Aptera.

  35. PQ Tree Algorithm

    An algorithm for solving the consecutive ones problem.

  36. Reservoir Sampling

    An algorithm for evenly sampling elements from a stream of elements, without first knowing the length of the stream.


I can be found in a few other places too: