Friday Links 23-30

I liked the story about Backstage from Spotify.

The monaspace font is also lovely. 

Leadership

Adam Bryant on how to know if you're ready to become a leader. [Podcast] - lots of good stuff.

A Practical Handbook For Engineering Management- another guide. I have just browsed a bit for now.

Team Charters are a trap. - oh, I quite like them, but … "Empowering bottoms up mission-setting in an organization that practices top-down resource allocation is a trap."

Engineering 

The Query Strikes Again - Slack is still having fun with databases. 

monaspace - new pretty family of monospace fonts for coding & co. 

How Meta built Threads in 5 months [Podcast]

Fedora Linux 39 is officially here! - 20 years! 

Story: Platform Takes The Pain [Podcast] - history of Backstage at Spotify.

Work

Is toxic culture driving your team away?  [Podcast] - it has. 

Employees of the Month: How Pets Contribute To Remote Work-Life Balance - they can also drive you nuts!

It’s the Job of My Dreams, But I’d Have to Write a Cover Letter, So Never Mind - funny, but true. 

Why Resumes Are Dead & How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market - Indeed is so bad!

Buffer is Remote but not Async-First, Here's Why - interesting. I thought they would focus more on async. 

Fika, four-week holidays – and zero overtime: Sweden’s stunningly healthy work culture - Sweden does sound nice, it's a bit cold for me, though.

Environment 

EU agrees law to curb methane emissions from fossil fuel industry  - I'll expect someone to veto this. Germany? Poland? 

EU strikes landmark deal on law to restore and protect nature - also not adopted yet. 

Urbanism

The Amsterdam Metro ... Kinda Sucks, Actually (with RMTransit) [Podcast] - I haven't even used it yet, whenever I was in Amsterdam. 

Random Zoos

In the Studio: Kieran Stanley - Designing a Zoo [Podcast] - TIL: zoo designers exist. 

The in-flight audio player [YouTube] - it's annoying that it is hard to get working.

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 Links 23-29

If you want to watch something inspiring today, I recommend the video about Germany's Green City and Pedal to freedom. 

Overall, a lot of interesting stuff to think about this week.

Leadership

How Do I More Effectively Build Stakeholder Alignment? [Podcast] - excellent example of coaching, where the thinker is already aware of the answers.

Communicating Your Engineering Team’s Impact at Work - Tips for Leaders [Podcast] - obviously pushing LinearB a bit, but still good. 

A Friendly Reminder to Cost-Cutters: Keep the Company a Great Place to Work for Survivors - the list is helpful, I have seen all of these go wrong at some point. 

TBM 252: How to Troubleshoot Status Updates and Syncs - don't just do the meetings, make sure there is impact

Hire Better Managers: 35 Interview Questions for Assessing a Candidate - good if you are hiring or looking for your next opportunity (like me currently).

TBM 251: Scale vs. Efficiency - you can't have it all.

Developing leadership styles - I have been thinking about leadership styles a lot lately. "The key insight to remember is that you can use any leadership style badly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful when done well. "

Video of Solving the Eng Strategy crisis. - I think I had the slides in a previous week.  

Runbook vs. Playbook, SOP, User Guide: How Do They Compare? - it's all the same.

Engineering

Engineering platforms and golden paths: Building better developer experiences [Podcast] - treating the developers as customers is the key here (and the customer is not always right)

Developer Productivity Engineering at Netflix - I like the idea of having a proper support system for your platform teams. 

Bjarne Stroustrup’s Plan for Bringing Safety to C++ - C++ was my first OOP language, but it is a different beast nowadays. I am not sure if this is a good thing.

Protomaps is an open source map of the world, deployable as a single static file on cloud storage - pretty cool

Environment 

Bill Gates: How I stay positive on climate change [Podcast] - It is nice to see some optimism, even if I don't share it.

The Oatly Chronicles Part 1: The Big Dairy Problem [Podcast] - it's more than just about the environment, good background on the brand. 

Young Europeans more likely to quit driving and have fewer children to save planet - they will grow up, though. 

How green is your waterproof cycling jacket? Why some tech is being phased out in favour of more eco-friendly materials - I still have the old stuff, but I am looking forward to what they come up with.

Cycling

Unraveling the SRAM Experiment: Tubeless vs. Tubular Tires — Are the Claims Inflated? - more statistics on an aspect of bicycles.

The Real Reason You Should Get an E-bike - "It’ll cut your emissions. It’ll also make you happier." 

Pedal to Freedom - HOW CYCLING SAVED MY LIFE - with Owen Vermeulen [YouTube] - cycling for mental health is underrated.

Urbanism

Impacts of parking and accessibility on retail-oriented city centres - parking in front of shops is not good for retail (via Parkplätze vor der Ladentür sind schlecht fürs Geschäft [German])

Does Bicibús reflect and reproduce social injustices? - probably

Germany's "Green" City (with more bikes than cars!)  [YouTube] - there are good bits in Germany!

Random Animals

Mangrove forests: Steely gaze of young tigress wins photo award - brilliant photographs

Melvyn Bragg talks to Mishal Husain [Podcast] - a bit of meta talk about one of my favourite podcasts "In Our Time"

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 Links 23-28

I decided to stop posting depressing links and keep only the interesting and uplifting content. 

This makes the list smaller and me more happy.

Leadership

TBM 247: 15 Metaphors for Waste In Product Development  - excellent summary. I recognise all of them in past jobs.

Engineering

Open source advocacy: The benefits of open source software [Podcast] - another one of these, apparently necessary, since many people are moving in a more closed direction.

Automating product deprecation - most of this doesn't apply to smaller organisations, but I like the idea of a "deprecation playbook"

Remote execution in the GNOME tracker - interesting vulnerability, the comments are also pretty good.

Urbanism

Africa's urban future: Tanzania [Podcast] - they seem to be mostly investing in buses with dedicated lanes, which is a start. 

Why health and wellbeing should be at centre of urban planning - “Creating environments where every essential is within a 15-minute walk or bike ride fosters consistent physical activity. This diminishes risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle and elevates air quality,”

SPD will Straffreiheit für Schwarzfahrer  [German] - some plans to stop treating travel without a ticket as a criminal offence, which could lead to prison.  

Stockholm to ban petrol and diesel cars from centre from 2025 - I really wish more cities would dare this. 

Project Green Light’s work to reduce urban emissions using AI - no mention of pedestrians or cyclists.

Random Waves

Deborah Greaves [Podcast] - about harvesting energy from waves.

Sucking It Up  - Tim about being a "White Male TechBro Boomer". 

Pizza, plum cake and pickled red onion: how school lunches look across Europe - I vote for Sweden.

Other Links

• Ben Crowder - Links #89

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 Links 23-27

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.

Friday Links 23-26

Environment news seems especially depressing at the moment. There are some uplifting urbanism stories, the bike bus podcast did make me smile. 

Both long leadership posts are definitely worth a read.

Leadership

Performance & Compensation (for Eng Execs). - massive topic and, as usual, Will really presents it well.

TBM 240: The Ultimate Guide to Developer Counter-Productivity - this seems to be the topic of the day again.

Engineering

OpenTF for an open Terraform [Podcast] - it's called OpenTofu now. I hope they make it. 

You call it tech debt I call it malpractice [Podcast] - I like that framing. 

Story: Configuring Identity: Adam Jacob and the Search for Self in Software [Podcast] - Chef history.

Forty years of GNU and the free software movement  - happy birthday! 

Make time to address low-hanging technical debt - I wouldn't count the examples in the article as technical debt. I do like the criteria for the low-hanging part:

• Easy to verify
• Easy to remove
• Small improvement to some part of the development, deploy, or end-user experience

It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy - I am a bit surprised and worried. 

Threads: The inside story of Meta’s newest social app - must be nice to have that kind of infrastructure. Also: Django?

Environment

Swedish government faces backlash after slashing climate budget - My guess is that the UK and Sweden are just the beginning, everybody else will pretend that they reach the goals and then fail at it. 

‘A lifeline for dirty cars’: EU backs new air pollution limits, but not until 2035 - another step back. 

EU states must bridge ‘planning gap’ in order to hit climate targets, report warns - not going to happen. 

German parliament approves plan to replace fossil-fuel heating systems - the watered-down plan.

‘Major disruptor’: El Niño threatens the world’s rice supplies - maybe people start worrying if they can't get their rice? 

Heat denial: influencers question validity of high temperatures - Denying must be the hardest hobby.

Australia to acknowledge climate risk to government bonds after world-first court settlement - maybe people start worrying if it affects their money?

Urbanism & Transport

Back to School with the Bike Bus [Podcast] - Are bike buses the most effective way to get people on board of more liveable cities?

All aboard! Can Luxembourg’s free public transport help save the world? - "The loss of income from abolishing fares was small, Bausch explains: about €40m a year, when the overall cost of running the system is about €800m" 

European governments shrinking railways in favour of road-building, report finds - nobody is surprised. Germany leading the way. 

So will Hannover seine »nahezu autofreie« Innenstadt bauen  [German] - hard to believe that this is in the same country as Berlin. 

This Spanish city has been restricting cars for 24 years. Here’s what we can learn from it - the only surprise is that it happened. 

This train is your charger: Lessons from Madrid about transit as public space - I have to confess that I mostly walked or used the taxi.

The Legal Attack on Superblock Barcelona - when you think everything is going well, ...

Berlin clubbers and green protesters unite to fight motorway plans - this must be the silliest motorway currently in planning in the whole world. 

DIY Kyiv - The Rise of Temporary Urbanism in Ukraine - life seems too normal.

Random Pets

The case against pets: is it time to give up our cats and dogs? - I am worried about the meat consumption of our zoo.

B612 Font family - any suggestions on where I could use this? I notice there is already a Fedora package.

Raising the bar: Annemiek van Vleuten, one of cycling’s great revolutionaries, retires - she is a remarkable cyclist, not many like her around at the moment.

Do you really need to walk 10,000 steps a day? And 17 other fitness ‘rules’, tackled by the experts - there goes my age & metabolism excuse!

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.