Friday Links

I am an Eurobox kind of guy

Strong on urbanism again this week, but also some interesting random tidbits. It looks like the remote working section will stay with us for a long time. I am so curious about seeing how it will look beginning of next year.

Technology

Rails Concerns: To Concern Or Not To Concern - the example from Basecamp and responds by DHH should really tell you everything about what to do

The Unsuspecting Beauty & Complexity of Web Forms - more than you ever wanted to know about (mostly feedback) web forms

CPC 472 - I found this through a tweet. Great wiki about the Amstrad/Schneider CPC computers from the 80s. The 472 was especially weird 

The reason Amstrad released a special version for the spanish market was a import tax on computers with 64K or less RAM. So Amstrad soldered in an extra 8KB which was not, however, usable by the machine since it was not connected to anything else.

Oh The Messes We Will Make - Kent Beck about why we make a mess when creating systems and when to clean it up

Too tidy? I don't think so. - an answer to Kent Beck

OpenPGP in Rust: the Sequoia project [LWN] - I hate rewrites, but I love Rust, tricky

Production testing with dark canaries - Linkedin testing code before people notice. 

Urbanism

Year-on-year congestion levels in London soar outside city centre as schools go back - all back to normal and even worse

15 Minute Cities! Exploring Transferability and the Life-Sized City [YouTube] - Mikael looking at the 15 Minute Cities idea and comparing it to his neighbourhood  

'We Heard Birds.' Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on How Lockdown Offered a Glimpse at a Greener City - all you need for change is a politican who dares to make decisions, somehow people first need to see change before they can accept it

Cities: where climate action can have the most impact - Google climate efforts especially for cities (more general information about this below)

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, Car Use, and Active Travel: Evidence from the People and Places Survey of Outer London Active Travel Interventions - research on how introduction of low traffic zones affects car use and active travel

Converting parking to people space on 75th helps reenergize Black-owned restaurant strip - space for people instead of cars improves lives

Sein Traum von einer autofreien Stadt [German] - great article about the efforts to make Hannover's centre car free by 2030, with the usual response from local businesses 

Ökonomen empfehlen City-Maut für München [German] - economists recommend city toll for cars for Munich

Remote 

Lemonade from Lemons: Tiny Desk Conference - what Spotify learned from doing virtual internal conferences

Going async — a case study - part of Xing going async and what they learned about doing it

Facebook buys an unused headquarters even as more employees work remotely - when REI sold their offices all the remote fan-boys went \o/ - then Facebook bought it and they went :-(

Remote-first at Brex - good post about going remote-first, even includes the all hands meeting video. I personally don't believe in going all remote forever, but see the advantages of enabling remote employees and async communication 

People are using Red Dead Redemption 2 to hold conference calls - I wonder if this works with Stream on Linux 

Have we just stumbled on the biggest productivity increase of the century? - no

'My company has gone fully remote and I'm despairing': who wins in the new world of working from home? - there is a chance to make it better, but it is going to be hard  

 

Management

5,000 knowledge workers told me why they left their jobs - team, purpose and autonomity 

What if Your Company Had No Rules? [Podcast] - Netflix apparently has no rules, but they fire you for random reasons any time  

 

Random Baskets

How to choose a basket for your bike - some beautiful inspiration for this important choice 

'If it has an ingredient in the name, avoid it': Adam Liaw on the kitchen appliances you'll actually use - I confess I have some seldom used kitchen gadgets. My rule is: the bigger they are the more often you have to use them   

Supporting a greener future in Europe - good to see Google moving on this, and even a bit faster than governments are 

 

Our third decade of climate action: Realizing a carbon-free future - more on this from the Google CEO

Interactive: What COVID-19 conspiracy theories mean for vaccine delivery - very annoying the amount of resources you need to work against the anti-vaxxers and other weirdos

 

Why Goodreads is bad for books  - it really isn't

 

What No Fan Has Seen Before: Remastering Deep Space Nine to Maximum Quality  - I am pretty critical of upscaling, but this looks amazing 

Burnout - understanding the other epidemic [Podcast] - I never really tried to understand burnout. I suffererd it myself before and this podcasts brings back so many memories.

Rapid Response: Nothing matters but this. w/Eric Schmidt (frmr Google CEO) [Podcast] - I prefer the Rapid Response episodes, this one is especially good.  

#92 Lisa Feldman Barrett: Balancing the Brain Budget [Podcast] - emotions in neuroscience 

The trouble with Dutch cows [Podcast] - a couple of troubles, but also interesting how strong the government reacted to reduce the problem. I can't see this happening in many other countries

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 kind 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.