Friday, November 26, 2021

Friday Links 21-37

Model of Jacques-Yves Cousteau's Calypso
Jacques-Yves Cousteau's Calypso

I am a bit disillusioned with our response to the climate crisis and the pandemic.
So I am focusing on other things like management, nostalgia and urbanism!

Management

Agility ≠ Speed - common misunderstanding well explained

My experience with Re-organising a team - some good tips to keep in mind for the next time

Please dogfood your software interview homework - this are some awful examples. Who would work on a test for a whole day? 

Flickr Engineering Team Vision & Guiding Principles - So many good ideas came and are still coming out of Flickr. I think this is a vision most engineering departments could adapt. 

What’s the Best Meeting Cadence for Different Types of 1:1 Meetings - pretty much common sense 

Don't soften feedback. - work in progress for me

Managing Humans: Michael Lopp in conversation [YouTube] - he is just so reasonable! 

Engineering

CRISP: Critical Path Analysis for Microservice Architectures - if this doesn't turn you off microservices, I don't know what will 

Why I Hate Password Rules - because they are stupid

Environment

The forgotten oil ads that told us climate change was nothing - people are still believing this now

Blah, Blah, Blah, Boom - I am very close to muting "COP26" on twitter

Urbanism

Parking Has Eaten American Cities - especially bad in the US, but also a problem in Europe

Paris to make motorcyclists pay for parking from 2022 - Barcelona should take note, motorcycles on the pavement are a pain and they are not policed at all

Why the Netherlands is the Best Country for Drivers [YouTube] - because driving is not like in the ads 

LA tests Dutch/Japanese pocket communities. Skeptics like it [YouTube] - these are brilliant!  

Half of journeys in Barcelona by car, up 23 points since before pandemic, study says - depressing "6,000 cars per square kilometer in the Catalan capital, twice as many as in Madrid or Paris."

The political economy of car dependence: A systems of provision approach 

Perfecting the New York Street An achievable, replicable plan for a city that’s embracing public space as never before - nice before/after mock-ups. Who could be against this? But clearly people are

Random Models

scalemates: Jacques-Yves Cousteau's Calypso - discovered one of my favourite models on this site, which is quite a treasure for model nostalgics

Sales of eco-friendly pet food soar as owners become aware of impact - "Globally, pets consume about 20% of the world’s meat and fish" with two flexitarians and six animals in the house I am very aware of this problem. Maybe they all should get used to more fish.

Conspiracy Chart - so funny and though so sad

TV tonight: David O’Doherty talks nonsense in new series – and it is bliss - Richard Ayoade on a bike? In the Kent countryside? Sold!

Barcelona Welcome Desk - in case you plan to move here

An instant Amiga or Atari ST in your browser - this is brilliant, no need to unpack my old Amiga

Mask-wearing linked to 53% cut in Covid incidence, global study finds - more surprises! 

Do online social media cut through the constraints that limit the size of offline social networks? - not really

Line length revisited: following the research - this is not about code, but texts

Other Links

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.

Friday, November 12, 2021

Friday Links 21-36

Cassette tapes cases with saw cuts
Dakou Tapes

The Great Resignation has definitely arrived in mainstream media. 

Lots of good podcasts this time, about career paths, engineering organisations, learning and weird Chinese cassette tape culture. 

Management

Managing Platform Teams: How to Build and Structure Platform Engineering? [Podcast] - interview with Camille Fournier going into details of platform teams

Why all new managers want to quit - I feel you

Why you need an emotional-support network at work - it isn't easy, but identifying peers as support and creating community of practice groups is a start 

Tech Sector Job Interviews Assess Anxiety, Not Software Skills - I think we are doing better at this, but interviews in general are assessing anxiety and you always have to take this into account

Measuring software development productivity - going away from individual productivity to higher level measurements. Very good overview of different areas to measure. 

No-compensation Ratings - ratings are tricky, so is compensation 

The Importance of Writing in Software Engineering [Podcast] - I would argue writing is important in most jobs

Intercom’s Jane Honey on perfecting career paths for product management [Podcast] - I usually just see engineering career paths, so this is a different perspective for other roles

Engineering

How a couple of characters brought down our site - I would argue a couple of characters can bring down any site 

Etsy’s Journey to TypeScript - this is probably in our future and I am already worried

Deleting Data in a Microservices Architecture - microservices, creating jobs of the future 

How Two Interns Are Helping Secure Millions of Lines of Code - the disadvantage of choosing new languages: all the tools have to be created again 

Test Desiderata - properties for good tests according to Kent Beck

Backroom/Frontroom to Smooth Releases - decouple code deployments from feature deployments, through feature flags for example

Work

Why remote working in Spain is once again a thing of the future - good intentions going wrong 

Mindful employees are more likely to experience self-control depletion as a result of “surface acting” at work - mindfulness at work is on my list of things that I am highly sceptical about. Good to see studies about this. 

Kim Scott (Author of Radical Candor) on How to Get Sh*t Done Fast and Fair in the Workplace [Podcast] - feedback and inclusion

This insane tech hiring market [Podcast] - I am still suspicious about this being true for all companies, but still a good episode 

The Great Resignation

Technology

Putting on my hacker hoodie to View Source - Google & Apple are currently fighting about who will inherit the evil empire crown from Microsoft 

Make your monorepo feel small with Git’s sparse index - nice, this was a problem in a previous job

From the Top: Building Zwift [Podcast] - cool insight in building and growing Zwift

Urbanism

Few willing to change lifestyle to save the planet, climate survey finds - surprise!

So wird das nichts mit der Verkehrswende [German] - Germany still being a bit rubbish at everything that isn't a car

45 Min Vorfahrt fürs Fahrrad? | Themenwoche 2021 [Video, German] - this is quite scary at times

The hidden climate costs of America’s free parking spaces - less parking = more space for people and fewer cars

It started with 5 families. Now hundreds are biking to school together in Barcelona - this Spanish initiative is spreading through the media at the moment. Seeing kids cycling always make me happy and hopeful for cities.

The Top Ten Bikes in Amsterdam in 2021 - what you expect, but with pretty pictures

Mobility protests in the Netherlands of the 1970s: Activism, innovation, and transitions - study about the effects of the protests

The bikelash paradox: how cycle lanes enrage some but win votes - people love the change once it happens, but never before

Random Tapes

Mixtape: Dakou [Podcast] - one of my favourite podcasts is making a series about cassette tapes, this one is especially good. I never heard about Dakou.

#123 William Irvine: How To Live a Stoic Life [Podcast] - This is the first podcast about stoicism that I liked. 

Paella, ‘icon of the Mediterranean diet’, given protected status - probably the best one-pan dishes 

Beating the To Do List [Podcast] - I am a "productivity enthusiast", but definitely with low expectations of change

How to stop languishing and start finding flow | TED Talks Daily [Podcast]

Slow, Life-sized Travel - a conversation with Carl Honoré Ep 19 [Podcast] - life-sized travel: we are flying halfway around the globe to spend a couple of days in a coffee shop or bar

Have a chill time moving house in Unpacking, out now - tidying without getting up ... brilliant 

Google News to return to Spain - finally! Until then just use news.google.co.uk 

#122 Robert Cialdini - The Principles of Persuasion [Podcast] - influence not manipulation

Backblaze Drive Stats for Q3 2021 - so I keep posting them because I am fascinated by drive failures, not because I care

Ti TMS0119 - single-chip calculator (1971) : weekend die-shot - another weird blog I follow, but now I discovered http://www.datamath.org/ through this, which is lovely

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.