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Apprentice comments on The Science of Cutting Peppers - Less Wrong
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My old method was to cut a circle into the core end around the core and then pull out the core - typically leaving lots of seeds inside the pepper. Those seeds would get more widely distributed as I proceeded to cut up the rest of the pepper.
The method my wife taught me is to start cutting on the other end and make multiple parallel cross sections until I get to the core. The pepper now resembles a cup with a core in the middle. At that point I alter the direction of slicing and cut off the sides of the cup, leaving only the core. The advantages of this method are that a) I can clearly see the core when I am cutting around it, so I don't accidentally cut into it and b) I don't have to pull the core through a hole that tends to be too small for it.
I'm sure there are multiple non-stupid ways to slice a pepper. I'm quite bad at what we could call 3D reality manipulation and have to be explicitly taught obvious things. My father (also an engineer) is the same way.
I've had good luck with cutting off both the top and bottom 0.5cm of the pepper, which leaves me with a capless pepper cylinder containing the core. I can then slice out the core. Then before doing anything else with the pepper, I run water through the now-empty cylinder to rinse out any clinging seeds.
My favorite method is to cut it in half vertically/meridianally without cutting the core nor the stem portion, crack the two sides away from the core and discard it, then flatten and slice up the sides. With care, the core is undisturbed and intact, and you can slice up the rest quickly--maybe 15-20 sec per pepper to julienned, another 15 to diced.
However, if you are looking for pretty rings, which I think are often far too large to be bite size, my* method doesn't produce them.
(* 'my method' meaning as a friend/chef taught me, and is partially illustrated in Rombauer's "Joy of Cooking")
Following the theme of the post, perhaps the lesson is for one to look for sources outside oneself for criticism and alternatives so you can identify opportunities and metrics for improvement
My preferred method.