Friday, October 06, 2023

Friday Links 23-27

Large scale model of person with bicycle, with a picture of a city square in the background, all made from LEGO.
The podcasts I enjoyed especially this week are the Lego Overboard and Open source at a crossroad episodes.

I also liked the WFH vs RTO blog post.

Leadership

Managing cost efficiency at scale-ups [Podcast] - nothing surprising, but still good

S5, Ep. 20: What's Up With Performance Improvement Plans? [Podcast] - interesting that they can be weaponised and figuring this out is nearly impossible. 

Wisdom for Work #17 - The Power of Retrospectives: Learning From the Past To Shape the Future [Podcast] - if you do anything "agile", start with retrospectives. 

Unlocking Peak Performance: The ROI of Investing in DEI (with Dr. Vijay Pendakur, Organizational Development Strategist)  [Podcast] - "DEI is not about shrinking one person's slice of pie, but rather expanding the pie for everyone."

Garry Ridge: The stunning business impact of WD40’s Culture First strategy [Podcast] - I don't agree with all of it, but it is a good listen. 

How to Apologize - it will come up again.

Solving the Engineering Strategy crisis. - speaking notes, from a talk.

Engineering

RoboCop 3 - Dongle Anti-Piracy that Failed | MVG [YouTube] - that didn't go well, even with all the effort.

Software Design by Example - I haven't seen this before, it's neat.

Open source is at a crossroads [Podcast] - insights into licences and how they affect the community. 

Postgres: a Better Message Queue than Kafka? - keep it boring, if you can.

Work

Why Meetings Suck and How to Fix Them - I think everybody agrees on this. 

RTO vs WFH: my default recommendations for remote vs colocated teams - fascinating way of classifying types of work and good overview of how the RTO/WFH arguments are often over the top.

The Seven Meetings You Hate - 100%

workspaces.xyz - another pretty workspaces site / newsletter.

Environment

‘Gobsmackingly bananas’: scientists stunned by planet’s record September heat 

Wetlands win reprieve after deal over Andalucian natural space - some win at least. 

World’s dogs going vegan ‘would save more emissions than UK produces’ - I guess I have to look into this now too. 

Rishi Sunak’s net zero U-turn [Podcast] - UK still going bonkers.

Europe’s olive oil supply running out after drought – and the odd hailstorm - will this wake people up? No.

Summer night temperatures as high as ever, while sea 1.8C warmer than average - time to move?

Five siblings jailed for illegally extracting water feeding Spanish nature reserve - #waterwars

Urbanism

Africa's urban future: Ghana [Podcast] - so many possibilities to do things right, or repeat previous mistakes.

Germany: Jail for fare-dodging [Podcast] - yes, Germany, not the US (see also The German group buying ticket dodgers out of prison)

Neue Autos kosten in Singapur jetzt 106.000 Dollar (plus Kaufpreis) [German] - buying a car in Singapore now needs a licence for 106k. 

Portugal to scrap ‘unjust’ tax breaks for foreign residents - good!

The bicibús: how Barcelona got kids cycling safely to school – and loving it! - I am so in love with bike-busses. 

As Downtowns Struggle, Businesses Learn to Love Bike Lanes - sadly businesses only realise this after the fact.

"Far more pleasant for walkers and cyclists": 20mph speed limit analysis hailed "astonishing", with drivers' journeys just 45 seconds longer - surprise!

Urban Planning Opinion Progression [Comic] - xkcd joined urbanism.

Car Enthusiasts Should Hate Car Dependency. Here’s Why. [YouTube] - you can love cars and hate car use.

Random Lego

Lego Overboard [Podcast] - lovely story. 

What are the best cycling climbs in Spain? Simon Warren’s six must-ride ascents [Podcast] - someone did a checklist for me. 

Mastodo - Annual Report 2022 - looks reasonable healthy

Everyone at this gig looks just like you! – the Stephen Collins cartoon - does apply to other situations too!

Are you having fun? [Podcast] - "Memorise it: fun is playful connected flow". I like that definition.

Maxell would like you to know that they still make audio cassette tapes - just Type I.

Steel vs. Carbon: Exploring Clementina’s touring dominance against Trek’s carbon speed - someone spent too much time on this. 

The vast majority of NFTs are now worthless, new report shows - surprise!

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.

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