My Bio

Hi, my name is Andrew G. Watters. I am a radically honest, category-defying polymath based in Redwood City, California, USA. I am primarily a lawyer, with a law degree from U.C. College of Law San Francisco (formerly known as U.C. Hastings College of Law), a bachelor's degree from UCLA, and nineteen years of professional experience. I have had my own practice since 2012, and my own law firm since 2016. I offer legal services, including complex private investigations; and a custom software platform for attorneys called Slash. I am married to Mrs. Right, with whom I welcomed our daughter Jennifer in 2022. We started team-teaching an English program in 2023. My personal trademark is my carbon fiber briefcase from Tecknomonster, a combined aerospace/luggage company. For entertainment purposes, I recently resurrected a popular anonymous discussion board for lawyers called JD Underground, which has been a great diversion from the law firm for me. I also sometimes build custom guitars, which I find to be self-actualizing. I am originally from San Francisco, which I always enjoy telling people because Dirty Harry shares my hometown.

News

November 30, 2024: Hard to see, but these are the first known photos of my Blackstar tribute bass guitar being played in a show. The gold looks great under those stage lights-- I wasn't sure whether the matte finish would look shiny enough, but it seems to. The artist says it's wonderful and is set up perfectly, although she still has some feedback for the next one. As with the Purple Rain guitar, it's simply gratifying for me to have professional musicians use and appreciate my work. This is Vivienne Wilder playing in one of her bands.

It is definitely an interesting feeling. My first reaction was not to call it great, even though it is, because I feel conflicted about not being able to play these instruments at all. They say Leo Fender also couldn't play a note on his instruments, so I have inspiration-- and probably a similar feeling that Leo Fender would have had from people playing his early instruments that he couldn't play himself. I can tell you that it's a crazy-ironic gift to be able to build a world-class instrument but not play it at all. I'm not complaining, but it's a source of frustration because I would rather be a great guitar player than guitar builder. Proof that you can't often choose what you're good at, and that you should use your gifts so other people can use theirs.

November 23, 2024: Announcing DissoWare, a suite of family law software tools by yours truly.

Ventures

These are my current business ventures:

Attorney - general civil litigation and complex family law, with nineteen years of experience and thirty-seven trials (plus three JAMS arbitrations). Also available for complex private investigations, including missing persons/homicide and cyber/corporate espionage. Software platform Slash for licensing to fellow attorneys who want a non-Clio solution.

Rællic® - Advanced Information Systems and custom guitars.

The Polite Gunfighter® - legal program for CCW holders in California.

Tutorials and Articles

Here are my popular tutorials/articles/videos:

Linux tips and tricks - random tips learned the hard way. 🔥

Creative writing - I seem to have an unusual connection to the ether that gives me a limitless supply of material.

Run your own email server Howto - have you ever wanted to take full control of your email? Not for the faint of heart.

Privoxy on macOS Howto - have you ever wanted to block ads on the web on your Mac without having to install MacPorts? This is for you.

Lattice™ - next-gen user interface for slash.law, featuring a novel technique for focus detection and raising.

Andy's Dashboard - a free charting solution for server administrators.

Introduction to microexpressions - my guest lecture at Stanford.

Unboxing a new IBM Model M keyboard - travel back in time to 1988.

Andy's Hardware - market research on the concept of a Made in USA hardware store.

100G office network Howto - the fastest, most reliable office LAN that money can buy.

10 gigabit networking - a howto on my 10 gig office setup, which rocks.

The Forever War - my superfan-level tribute to the greatest science fiction novel of all time.

A fractal crystal lattice of Gaussian primes - research on the fractality of prime numbers in Mathematica.

My trademark concept art - I commissioned this piece from a vision in my head, and I decided to start using it as my background. It really fits me, I think.


Hall of Fame: services, products, and service providers that I use and strongly recommend.

Hall of Shame: if someone gets me to the point of posting a whole web page about them on here, you know they went way too far in whatever they were doing wrong.