Friday Links 21-35

Scrabble tiles

Some long reads this week. The one about longtermism and "Great Attrition" are very interesting. 

Management

Ratings as Incentives - I once worked at a place doing the 1-5 ratings, with additional rules that acted as weird incentives. I liked the idea, but it failed in reality.

Experimenting with Focus Weeks and Mob Programming - I still haven't tried mob programming, but then I never got into pair programming either

You can be directive without being a jerk - lots of good tips from Lara Hogan as usual

Squad Health Check model – visualizing what to improve - I came across this and the next one for some reason, interesting approaches to assess teams

How to Create a Team-Health Assessment for Engineering Organizations  - another assessment strategy

The Art of Growing Up: Using the Challenges of Leadership to Attain Radical Self-Inquiry [Podcast] - interview with the coach guy from reboot

Why nobody hires junior developers and what happens next - it is a vicious cycle

Work

‘Great Attrition’ or ‘Great Attraction’? The choice is yours - tricky time for employers and even worse if you don't understand what employees want

Has England gone back to the office? [Podcast] - yes and no

Our work went fully remote - Ask Me Anything! [Podcast] - could we stop asking people who have a vested interested in this? 

Environment

Analysis: Fuel-duty freeze has increased UK CO2 emissions by up to 5% - UK freezing tax on driving and flying just around COP26

The $3.50 go-anywhere ticket to fight climate change - this is great, and better than free for all transit in my opinion

Urbanism

Data on Bike Parking in Barcelona - pretty amazing how many dare or have to leave their bike outside in Barcelona. 

A bordo del "bicibús": cientos de alumnos desafían a los coches para ir a clase pedaleando [Spanish] - article about the "bicibus" an bike to school initiative for kids in Barcelona

Busy yet Friendly? Explaining Barcelona’s Av. Diagonal [YouTube] - our office is on this road, the worst thing is that the type of bike-lane changes every few hundred meters

Inside the New Plan to Make Paris ‘100% Cyclable’ - Paris is the rising star of urbanism

Random Words

Word of the Day: procrastinate - one of my favourites 

Drive Failure Over Time: The Bathtub Curve Is Leaking - drives are improving, especially at the beginning of their lifetime 

Cycling notes: the pros and cons of braking with the heel – archive, 1896 - before the disc vs rim brake wars

Learning the ropes: why Germany is building risk into its playgrounds - I never thought about Germany as trying to encourage risc taking

Against longtermism - I hear a lot of positive stuff on longtermism, this puts it into perspective 

Anthony Fauci Could Use a Day Off [Podcast] - cool interview with Fauci

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.