Friday, March 15, 2024

Friday Links 24-08

Tablet with teapot, mug, biscuits, and milk

Quite a mix of topics. I recommend the podcast with Cal Newport and the article about learning to ride a bike ("Stumbling can be lovely")

Leadership

Joe Militello, Chief People Officer at Pagerduty: Why You Need to Rethink Your People Strategy [Podcast] - people strategy has to be part of every team.

Story: Leaving LinkedIn - Choosing Engineering Excellence Over Expediency [Podcast] - not really about leadership, but an interesting inside view about what makes someone leave.

How to be productive without burning out, with Cal Newport [Podcast] - speed vs sustainability. 

The “10x engineer:" 50 years ago and now - the "surgical team" idea always seemed a bit weird to me, even 20 years ago, when I read it.

Measuring Developer Productivity via Humans - about the benefits of qualitative metrics.

How I set expectations for skip levels - I am looking into skip levels at the moment.

Engineering

time_t is not GMT - it has no TZ.

Environment 

Air pollution levels have improved in Europe over 20 years, say researchers - not in most cities.

How did Norway become the electric car superpower? Oil money, civil disobedience – and Morten from a-ha - I always enjoy the a-ha part.

Olive oil becomes most wanted item for shoplifters in Spain - it is still cheaper than everywhere else.

Urbanism / Transit

OMFG DINOSAURS AND TRAINS!!!!! (with TierZoo) [YouTube] - it really isn't Germany's fault!

Health gains of low-traffic schemes up to 100 times greater than costs, study finds - surprise! 

Government tried to bury report which found that Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are effective and popular - no surprise!

Random Tea

Storm over a teacup [Podcast] - about Nepalese tea.

Berlin’s techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list - thanks for making me feel even older.

OldWeb.Today - use an obsolete browser, on an obsolete OS, to view dead web pages.

Dial Up Modem Sounds, from 300 bps to 56K [YouTube] - best subtitles ever?

Oh, that's what happened to Kickstarter - close web3 call!

My 5 Step Journey Towards Ergonomic And Fast Typing - I really should learn to type at some point!

‘We cranked up the madness’: Jack Davenport and Steven Moffat on making Coupling - still funny … even if a lot of it is outdated.

Learn your farm animals with AI! - "mock" "qlick"

2023 Garmin inReach® SOS Year in Review - busy west coast. 

Stumbling Can Be Lovely - "The hardest part is the launch, Hal says."

AI Prompt Engineering Is Dead Long live AI prompt engineering - let's just have the AIs doing the job of making the AIs doing our job.

Friday Links Disclaimer
Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kinds of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time, you might notice common themes, though.
More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.

Friday, March 08, 2024

Friday Links 24-07

Nerd emoji

 

Good urbanism videos today. 

If you got some time, I can also recommend the podcast about bonuses and the four part series about the bicycle industry bubble.

Leadership

Do bonuses actually make us work harder? [Podcast] - it is very tricky, and can go awfully wrong.

The Hagakure #76: Why Are You Not Hiring Junior Developers? - Your juniors will be faster seniors than you expect. But AI is working against them. 

How to Run an Async Retrospective? - I wonder how useful these really are.

Engineering

How GitHub uses merge queue to ship hundreds of changes every day - I like this, even on a smaller scale.

programmingfonts.org - because you can never have enough of them. 

Playing audio files in a Pi Pico without a DAC - I probably would use a DAC. 

List of 2024 Leap Day Bugs - thankfully this happens only every four years … since we are apparently not great at it. 

strudel - "a new live coding platform to write dynamic music pieces in the browser! It is free and open-source and made for beginners and experts alike."

Work

In-Depth: How Does Working From Home Influence Teamwork? - many studies, non-conclusive.

Workchat: workplace culture has never been more complicated [Podcast] - Let's see if "Chronoworking" becomes a thing. 

How to Handle a Retreat: 16 Tips from Bufferoos as We Head to Cancún  - Step 1: head to Cancún.

Urbanism

Why Is It So Hard To Cross The Street? (& What You Can Do To Help)  [YouTube] - the flag thing is still hilarious.

Drop Bar Girls and my homage to the road bike - cycling chic is back.

Should Cities be Circles? [YouTube] - yes, Circleville is a thing. 

How the Dutch SOLVED Street Design [YouTube] - this should be possible everywhere. 

What are the benefits of low traffic neighbourhoods on residents in London? [YouTube] - following the "culture war" around the LTNs is a weird look into the UK.

Random Emojis

On Families and Equality - this is a difficult problem to solve, none of the solutions are ideal. And yes, I now subscribe to a blog about emojis.

How did the bike industry get into such deep trouble? [Podcast] - if you are interested in industry bubbles, or bikes, this is a great four part series.

‘Hard Miles’: The Hollywood Movie That Could Boost Bicycling - new cycling film! 

Hairy Bikers chef Dave Myers dies at 66 - RIP

Content Nation Backlash Highlights Mastodon’s Toxicity - the Fediverse needs to chill a bit. 

Easy-to-make kimchi - Kimchi in general isn't that hard. This is a good way of making it. 

‘It makes me so sad’: church re-emerges from reservoir as Spain faces droughts - my drought update. 

Feeds all around - useful tool to find RSS feeds of your Mastodon network. 

Carve Her Name - "Every day women have, and are, making history. ​Find out what happened on this day, and carve her name with pride."

Other Links

Weekly Design Links – 03/05/24 - I love the Thai Tuan Dang's art and the N64 book.

Friday Links Disclaimer
Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kinds of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time, you might notice common themes, though.
More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.

Friday, March 01, 2024

Friday Links 24-06

Ukrainian flag on post at halfmast position
The flag of Ukraine at Kyiv City Hall

It has been two years since Russia's invasion and beginning of the unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.

There is fatigue and attention, and headlines are turning to the next topic.  

I'm not as down about it now as I was two years ago, as it really got under my skin. 

Now I stay mostly current with the news to not forget. I am impressed by The Guardian's continued reporting on this.

Ukraine

The Worst Morning Ever - a memory of the first 24 hours of the war.

Nastia @ Vernadsky Library in Kyiv 2024  [SoundCloud] - it is wonderful how some life continues as normal.

Two years of war in Ukraine – then and now - in pictures.

A train through Ukraine: a journey into the stories of two years of war

Engineering 

Story: Beautiful Code - Inside Greg Wilson's Vision for Software Design [Podcast] - interesting story about getting into code and teaching it.  

time_t Hard Mode - my favourite topic: time zone changes!

Today in "Daylight Savings Chaos Monkey" - every four years we learn about the mistakes we make.

Increase Test Fidelity By Avoiding Mocks - I quite like mocks! Not using them can also quickly get out of hands if you have many dependencies. 

Are Aurora Performance Claims True? - deep dive into the claims … it depends, but it appears to be true.

Work

Periodic Face-to-Face - I was lucky to meet some coworkers already in my first month, and I know many people are eager to do the same around conferences. 

RTO doesn’t improve company value, but does make employees miserable: Study - it is good to see some studies around this. Until now, it was just camps shouting at each other.

Four-day week made permanent for most UK firms in world’s biggest trial - 51% is technically most :-)

Environment

European parliament votes for watered-down law to restore nature - good, except for the watered-down part. 

Rise of fast-fashion Shein, Temu roils global air cargo industry - another thing we really don't need.

Urbanism

Europe Spends More on Roads than Rails (with Real Time History) [Podcast] - mostly about Germany because it is so depressing.

In the beginning (of generative AI) [Podcast] - it is astonishing how dead ML and data science is, after being on the hype train for the recent years. 

A hydrogen tram for Görlitz: about the worst idea I can imagine - the hydrogen hype continues.

The cities stripping out concrete for earth and plants - pretty. 

I Biked (Almost) Everywhere for a Month - "I had more mental energy for work and play and felt more intimately connected to the places and people in my city."

How to find space for bike lanes in clogged cities [YouTube] - Paris showing others how to do it. I really have to visit soon. 

Car harm: A global review of automobility's harm to people and the environment - "1 in 34 deaths are caused by cars and automobility"

Magnificent City Transformations: 6 Before & After Photos - I expect there was a lot of resistance to change, and now nobody wants to go back.

Random

BERLIN TYPE - I like the Berlin station lettering. This new font is nice too.

Analog Cassette Tape is Mounting a Comeback - the never-ending comeback.

Friday Links Disclaimer
Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kinds of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time, you might notice common themes, though.
More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.

Friday, February 16, 2024

Friday Links 24-05

DeLorean car from side with doors open
by Kevin Abato from Wikipedia

The two leadership podcasts are good this week, both about trust.

I also like the Vision Pro review.

Leadership

Trust and Inspire With Stephen M.R. Covey 6 | 5  [Podcast] - pretty good episode with a guest talking about trust. 

Jacob Morgan, 5x Best-Selling Author & Futurist [Podcast] - "Futurists" are always suspicious. His premise that being vulnerable without leading doesn't help. 

The PROBLEM With DORA Metrics [YouTube] - besides being just metrics, they also just measure a tiny part of the creation process.

Engineering 

(Almost) Every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret after 4 years running infrastructure at a startup - that is white an extensive list!

I worry our Copilot is leaving some passengers behind - "Why do we accept a product that not only misfires regularly, but sometimes catastrophically?"

Let Me Tell You A Secret - "Ask the Senior Engineers about problems … then tell Leadership about it"

Mastering Programming - Kent Beck's high-level approach. Many good tips in there.

Urbanism 

More Lanes are (Still) a Bad Thing [YouTube] - in case you don't know yet.

Seville's Cycling Revolution, 10 times more cycling in 4 years [YouTube] - if you build it, they will come. 

When cycling is 'normalized but marginalized' [YouTube] - true, in many places, and depressing

Train your brain - people don't die of the things you think they die off, and definitely not peanuts.

Random DeLorean

Driving sideways to move forward: Stanford engineers show how an autonomous, drifting DeLorean can improve driver safety - of course you use a DeLorean.

‘You can get home for the 10 o’clock news’: UK ravers fall in love with daytime clubbing - It's music for old people after all.

The Curious Mr. Feynman [Podcast] - profile of one of the Manhattan Project people. He seemed fun.

Tear Down Walls, and Build Bridges - the current Fediverse storm.

Cycling with Apple Vision Pro: The Future? [YouTube] - summary: indoors good, outdoors bad

soundalike - I thought I clean up my music collection again. This doesn't quite work. 

France halts €100-a-month electric car leasing scheme after huge demand - people do want electric cars for reasonable prices. 

RSS is still pretty great - yes! I wonder if anyone is following this blog via RSS/Atom.

The best Bookshops to visit in Amsterdam - I am going soon. 

All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision Pro - great review. I want something like this, but it has to be open, and not by Apple.

I went into a bit of a tea temperature rabbit hole. These are just part of it:

Other Links

Friday Links Disclaimer
Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kinds of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time, you might notice common themes, though.
More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.

Friday, February 09, 2024

Friday Links 24-04

Gummy bears sorted in cups by colours
I seem to have fewer links recently. 

Just check them all out. :-) 

Leadership

A lesson from Richard Feynman for Engineering Leaders - I like the concept of Type 1 and Type 2 collaboration. The article is a bit unstructured at first, but comes with some practical strategies at the end.

Front-end Versus Back-end - Kent Beck about why there is a different working style between them and how to bring them together.

Engineering

Gradually gradually typing Elixir [Podcast] - all dynamic languages seem to acquire types at some point. 

Environment 

Mutant wolves living in Chernobyl disaster are evolving ability to fight cancer - I haven't decided yet if this a good thing or not.

Urbanism

Parisians vote in favour of tripling parking costs for SUVs - Paris is still leading the way.

Random Colours

New AI paint colors - training AI to name colours. This is a fun website overall.

Live at the Liquid Room, Tokyo  - the Wizard at his peak.

Report: Arlington’s first guaranteed income pilot boosted quality of life for poorest residents - "Individuals who received the stipend reported increasing their monthly income by 36%, from $1,200 to $1,640, compared to the control group, whose income only rose 9%."

Today in Assassination Coordinates: Taylor Swift jumps on the Streisand train. 

Keeping todo items in org-roam - I am in that rabbit hole right now. I am currently using just org-agenda mixed with org-roam.

Other Links

Friday Links Disclaimer
Inclusion of links does not imply that I agree with the content of linked articles or podcasts. I am just interested in all kinds of perspectives. If you follow the link posts over time, you might notice common themes, though.
More about the links in a separate post: About Friday Links.