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Monday Links
Feeling like a victim is a perfectly disastrous way to go through life. Choice quote from Viktor Frankl (who survived the Holocaust): When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves. Systems vs. Goals. This one has taken me some…More
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Things I like right now
It’s a gray and chilly Saturday night so you get to read about some of my recent favorite things. Books I’m reading, or have recently finished: Eon by Greg Bear – I found this on BookBub and I’m loving it so far. It’s a great science fiction book about a mysterious asteroid that arrives in…More
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The emergent human organism
I think about this video a lot. In summary: life on earth is really the history of exponential change. There were a few distinct periods in the history of life on earth where exponential change happened: The initial evolution of single cell organisms The evolution of multicellular life What we’re experiencing now in our society…More
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Instant Gratification
In our age of emotional safeguarding – where we are protecting the people closest to us from feeling uncomfortable, individuals can’t become adults. Age is not the problem. The issue is the thinking part. We grow up believing that everything should be easy and everyone should respect us but when reality strikes, and then things…More
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Hunting Tech Debt via Org Charts
So many problems can be understood very clearly by looking at the org chart as context. This article is about tech debt, but notice that the root causes are incentives. I find this type of perspective extremely illuminating. I had too many highlights to quote them all here. I highly suggest giving this a read:…More
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How did grep get its name?
Worth a watch!More
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Agility != Speed
This is one of the best articles I’ve ever read on software estimation and engineering project management. My favorite paragraph: The intent of story points is to focus on relative sizing independently of other expectations of time. The problem is that, in being numeric, story points become a currency susceptible to arithmetic, especially once they’ve…More
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Wednesday Assorted Links
We are no longer a serious people. Choice quote: In short, an unserious country mired in the most masturbatory hysterics over bullshit dramas waged war against an insurgency of religious zealots fired by a 7th-century morality, and utterly and totally lost. How many pets (projects) do you have? What to do with them? California’s dry…More
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The Real Story of “The Central Park Karen”
This is well worth a read. Read it. To tell this story is to address a different set of problems. Among them: our collective intoxication with public shaming. Our willingness to dispense with due process when we think we “know” the truth in the absence of evidence. The media’s complicity in perpetuating public judgments, even…More
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Wednesday Links
How many American children have cut contact with their parents? Neither common sense nor science seem to be guiding our travel restrictions American Spaceman, Body and Soul. Absolutely, positively recommended. My new favorite website (Rest of World) on how tech companies should plan for Hong Kong’s precarious future As always, SMBC delivers hilarity. This time…More
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Monday morning links
Why is China smashing it’s tech industry? TL;DR: The government wants to shift the country’s momentum to “hard tech”, away from consumer-facing tech Jazz musician lettering. My personal favorite is Freddie Hubbard. David Sacks on the “correct” org charts for startups at different stages Delegate outcomes, not methods: “Delegation is in part a learning opportunity,…More
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Saturday links
Everything you wanted to know about the Delta variant of Covid 6 Simple ways to be less divisive at work A local newspaper is thriving after shifting their business model Boz on the problem with proximate cause A prediction that this year’s fire season will be worse than last year Brad Feld’s thoughts on the…More
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Thursday Links
Something I have always struggled with: embracing meditation and also embracing ambition This one hits way too close to home: Why Outdoorsy types suck at money Starting in the 2030s, the moon will cause coastal flooding. This is very soon. I find these two (conflicting) opinions both to be true. It means we’re not asking…More
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Interactors
Talking to a Rails CTO last night about loosely coupling business logic in Rails. My way of doing this is using interactors. https://github.com/collectiveidea/interactor Interactors are a ruby implementation of the command pattern. I like them for a couple reasons. They’re vanilla ruby classes that wrap unhandled exceptions in a great abstraction You always get a…More
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Saturday Links
The tools don’t matter (I like to say it’s the musician, not the gear) A cool chart showing the generational breakdowns since 1920 “Shields down” is BS (I agree) There’s, uh, a bunch of stuff happening w/ UAPs. I’m paying attention! Nuclear reactions are smoldering at Chernobyl And lastly:More
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Wednesday Links
80/20 is the new half-ass (I don’t know if I agree with this) Excellent suggestions on ending 1-on-1s Boz on managing up Letters found in an attic reveal eerie similarities between Adolf Hitler and his father Handling the emotional weight of 1-on-1sMore
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Monday links
Slouching towards post-journalism (I have no fewer than 9 highlights from this) They thought they were free (The Germans, 1933-1945) Boz on Transparent Process Len Sassaman and Satoshi: a Cypherpunk History You can be a different person after the pandemic The true meaning of technical debtMore
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Saturday Links
Death to covert contracts (just ask for what you want) An excellent essay about being a perfectionist Pull requests as learning instead of reviewing In Slack, nobody can hear you scream Tyler Cowen on capital gains tax and American values Poor leadership at Basecamp Project Kiwi, or a lifelike Groot robotMore
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Woke culture and antisemitism
Jews, who have never been seen as white by those for whom being white is a moral good, are now seen as white by those for whom whiteness is an unmitigated evil. This reflects the nature of antisemitism: No matter the grievance or the identity of the aggrieved, Jews are held responsible. Critical race theory…More
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Why don’t Computer Science degrees teach Software Engineering?
That’s why I’m so excited about normalization of bootcamps. I spent four years at a university and the amount of useful job knowledge I got could have easily been covered in a single month at a bootcamp for 1/100th of the price. From Mike Crittenden Obviously I agree.More
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Poolside FM
I started following this..company? Team? Group? earlier in 2020 and it’s an amazing, sometimes hilariously retro styled music player. Check their website just for the inspired login chime. They have a native macOS app that I use due to its outstanding playlists and UI that reminds me of classic Winamp: Today they announced, in true…More
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Yamauchi No. 10 Family Office
Definitely the most interesting corporate website I’ve seen in awhile. I like the mission and vision statements. The website.More
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You can be a different person
After all, the person who emerges from quarantine doesn’t have to be the same old you. Scientists say that people can change their personalities well into adulthood. And what better time for transformation than now, when no one has seen you for a year, and might have forgotten what you were like in the first…More
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Navalny, Putin, and Stalin
Demonstrations Saturday in support of detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny were the biggest protests to go ahead without an official permit for many years. An estimated 20,000 to 40,000 people turned out in Moscow, and overall up to 100,000 were on the streets in about 100 cities. Over 3,000 people were arrested — another record…More
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TOUGH LOVE FOR MANAGERS WHO NEED TO GIVE FEEDBACK
It’s your responsibility to clearly (and kindly) articulate what’s expected of them in their role, and what the gaps are. If you avoid being direct—even if it sucks to do so, on top of everything else happening in the world!—you’re setting them up for failure. From Tough love for managers who need to give feedbackMore