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| ZX81 and Michael K Williams |
Of course you also get the my usual link dump, again from the last two weeks.
Environment news are frustrating as always and I don't think COP26 is going to cheer me up.
Management
Engineering Progression Framework v2 - another engineering career path, this time from Monzo
Enough With Must-Have Features - "must haves" or "table stakes" are the opposite of lean
Bias For Action - do instead of planning, then learn and do more
Ok. So, You Can’t Decide. - sometimes you just have to make any decision
Decision Making at Netflix - spoiler: it is A/B testing
The Five Meetings Every CEO Should Lead - good advice for every manager. I am pretty bad at the "celebrating wins" bit
Stay Curious For a Bit Longer: How to Get to the Root of Issues and Set Goals That Inspire Bold Action with Dave Bailey (Coach & Mentor to Scale-up CEOs) [Podcast] - lots of good advice in there.
Wohin mit den Ideen, wenn nicht ins Product Backlog? [Podcast, German] - where should ideas go, if not into the backlog. I really would like to have a separate too, but just having a Kanban project is also a good idea.
How to build silos and decrease collaboration (on purpose) - the most expensive thing employees can do is communicate, you have to make it count.
Engineering
Accessible Palette: Stop using HSL for color systems - I am colour-blind, but this is pretty cool anyway
CPU Steal Time: A Crucial Metric for Cloud Servers and VMs - shared servers and CPUs are tricky
Ship / Show / Ask - I don't know. Maybe to hard to make the decision on which part to take?
Increasing developer happiness with GitHub code scanning - using custom CodeQL to find common code problems
Technology
What’s the Diff: SSD vs. NVMe vs. M.2 Drives - well, that cleared that up
The most inspiring Apple Event announcement - I didn't realise browser were so bad on iPhones
Google Supports Open Source Technology Improvement Fund - $100 million! (in total)
ProtonMail Now Keeps IP Logs - stuff is secure until it isn't
Amazon Elasticsearch Service Is Now Amazon OpenSearch Service and Supports OpenSearch 1.0 - my hope is that this creates a real alternative to ElasticSearch with is bumpy upgrade paths. But it is more likely that the Amazon fork will stagnate.
Launching Public Status Pages for Uptime Monitoring on AppSignal - did I mention I like AppSignal? This is another nice feature.
Best email forwarding service for 2021 (free and premium) - I am trying to get rid of my own EC2 server, this is part of the solution. Currently testing Pobox
Remote Work
Microsoft indefinitely postpones return to U.S. offices as Covid cases surge - "postponed", but it will happen with 30 days notice, so don't move too far away
Just say hybrid because nobody knows - yes, but we still go hybrid
‘My Boss Doesn’t Want Me to Go Back to the Office’ - this sounds made up, but there are the weirdest bosses around
Environment
Outcry over killing of almost 1,500 dolphins on Faroe Islands - in 2021! Traditions are a killer.
Most plans for new coal plants scrapped since Paris agreement - emphasis on "most" and "new"
Netherlands proposes radical plans to cut livestock numbers by almost a third - now the question is why this is happening only in the Netherlands
World’s biggest machine capturing carbon from air turned on in Iceland - the equivalent of scrapping 870 cars a year, which might be cheaper.
Piaggio, KTM, Honda and Yamaha set up swappable batteries consortium - this could be interesting, unless they expect me to swap them at petrol stations
air / aria /aire - pretty visualisation of pollution in Barcelona
Long term exposure to low level air pollution and mortality in eight European cohorts within the ELAPSE project: pooled analysis [Paper] - "Our study contributes to the evidence that outdoor air pollution is associated with mortality even at low pollution levels below the current European and North American standards and WHO guideline values. These findings are therefore an important contribution to the debate about revision of air quality limits, guidelines, and standards, and future assessments by the Global Burden of Disease."
Urbanism
Murderbots - autonomous cars ... not the solution
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo to run for French presidency - good news for France, bad news for Paris?
London's Oyster card: Are its days numbered? - £553 million left on cards! I think Barcelona is skipping the cards and going mobile directly?
Transport noise linked to increased risk of dementia, study finds - transport is killing people (annoyingly this includes rail)
Forget Low Traffic Neighborhoods, Planet Needs No Traffic Neighborhoods - hear hear
The Wrong Way to Set Speed Limits [ST06] [YouTube] - the US way is as weird as the German way "allow speed limits when too many people get injured"
A Conversation with Anni Sinnemäki - Deputy Mayor of Helsinki - Ep15 [Podcast] - there seems to be something about female city mayors. I put Helsinki on my list of urbanism envy
Random Home Computers
Home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair dies aged 81 - I never had a Sinclair, but a few people in my home computer gang had them. And the story of the C5 is also great.
Commodore 64 ads from the 1980s still make me want a C64 in 2021 - I have still some old Byte magazines. Computer ads used to be fun.
5 things I learned from Google’s productivity expert - annoyingly you have to give your details to get the report, but this is a summary
NEW: lots of news recently on waning immunity against infection, but a study has now landed from Public Health England on how vaccines are faring against *severe disease & death* - I link to the thread, because the FT source is pay-walled. Great data and good to know that Biontech shots are probably going to be good for a bit longer.
Police catch close-pass drivers by joining group ride, and upload to Strava - nice initiative. I wish they would do stuff like this in Spain and Germany.
biorower - the indoor rower I want, but can't afford
The disastrous voyage of Satoshi, the world’s first cryptocurrency cruise ship - this cheered me up more than it should have
Michael K Williams, star of The Wire, dies aged 54 - RIP
‘I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase’ – how The Wire’s Omar changed TV - the best character in the best TV show
Top street artists paint decks in aid of rural skatepark - if it wasn't in the UK I might bid, some pretty stuff there. "Happy Feelings" is lovely (currently at £450)
Fit in my 40s: phew, a group bike ride that stops often enough for me to catch up - "They’ll stop if they see an unseasonably large toad" ... that's me
