New Year’s Resolution: limit the number of links in these posts.
Catching up with everything since before Christmas.
So much good stuff from BBC podcasts and The Guardian this time around.
Leadership
The Kool-Aid Factory - super useful and pretty site with play books about building teams and companies
Embracing Change and Mimicking Chaos: Why Leaders Need to Cringe Fast and Early (with Hamza Kahn) [Podcast] - another great episode
The unFIX Model - I confess it took me a while to figure out if this is a joke or not. It is similar to Team Topologies, but weird.
Are You a Micromanager or a Coach? Why Leaders Should Avoid Giving Advice and What To Do Instead (with Dr. Julia Milner, Leadership Professor at EDHEC Business School) [Podcast] - coaching vs mentorship
Hunting Tech Debt via Org Charts - interesting approach to looking at organizational design
End of year manager checklist - I did maybe half of this
Inspection and the limits of trust. - you want to create trust, but not rely on trust
Product Thinking, Project Thinking, a thread - not a big fan of Twitter threads, but this is worth the effort
Engineering
Peter Stout (Netflix) [Podcast] - going from management to staff engineer and what he is focusing on
5 Books Every Software Developer NEEDS [YouTube] - the usual, but still a good list
Nine common microservices mistakes — and how to avoid them - good overview and explanations
Work
Implementing a 4-day workweek: insights from 4 companies that have done it - while I hope to have this at some point, I can’t imagine it with my current number of meetings
30 Comics I’ve Made To Show The Reality Of Working From Home - it’s me!
Workplace culture: being nice isn’t enough [Podcast] - talking about simplification, slack and other things to make companies better
Technology
My first impressions of web3 - interesting analysis of web3 & NFT by the Signal guy.
The Web3 Fraud - another critique
The Third Web - another one
The Future Is Not Only Useless, It’s Expensive - the NFT train wreck
Brian Eno is not a fan of NFTs - ditto
LWN’s unreliable predictions for 2022 - these are always fun to see fall apart over the year
LWN’s 2021 retrospective - for comparison the review of last year
A New Future for GnuPG - cool to see this great project finding the commercial success to support it
Updating The Single Most Influential Book of the BASIC Era - I never heard of this book, but I love the idea of reimplementing it in current easy languages
LG’s 16:18 ultra-tall monitor means less scrolling - the whole wide-screen monitor area was a mistake!
How Long Do Disk Drives Last? - quite long
A deep dive into an NSO zero-click iMessage exploit: Remote Code Execution - this is the best hack ever “PDF impersonating a GIF that contains an entire virtual machine built out of BITBLT NAND gates.” (via jwz)
Environment
Londoners told to reduce physical activity on Friday due to pollution - driving is fine obviously
Past seven years hottest on record - EU satellite data - maybe I should have moved to a cooler area
Are we putting too much faith into electric vehicles? [Podcast] - yes
Is science fiction holding back climate action? [Podcast] - I don’t think that is the problem. Some urbanism in there too.
Palma to limit cruise ships after environmental concerns - and Barcelona?
1 HOUR - Calming Global Warming Ambience [YouTube] - I love this channel
Urbanism
One-Way Streets Are Killers and We Should Get Rid of Them - interesting view. I guess it depends. In Barcelona some of the wide one-way streets are certainly killers
Full free fare public transport: Objectives and alternatives - paper in multiple languages. Free public transport sounds like a good idea until you think about the side effects.
Mit dem Fahrrad zur Schule: In Barcelona gibt es jeden Freitag eine Auto-freie Stunde [German] - BiciBus has arrived in German media
The pandemic kicked cars off some streets. 2022 could be the year they’re banned permanently - one can dream
How to (Quickly) Build a Cycling City - Paris [YouTube] - should I move to Paris? Maybe when it warms up a bit more?
“Commission’s strongest commitment to cycling to date”: Cycling organisations react to the “Efficient and Green Mobility” package - seems like the is some movement in the EU
Random Mountains
Full Circle - From Escapism to Reconnection. 10 Years, 10 Mountains & 10,000 metres of climbing. [YouTube] - this just make me want to get out and climb a mountain
Polar priest: the church in the world’s northernmost town – a photo essay - great photos, this could be some Nordic Noir setting
Complex systems & second-order effects [Podcast] - fun discussion about side effects and how to avoid them. With a bit of urbanism and war on cars thrown in
A man on a mission to preserve Barcelona’s decorative floor tiles - these tiles were one of my favourite bits in our Barcelona flat and office. Why would anyone throw them away?
Skateboarding in middle age: ‘It helps me switch off’ - I have to try it again at some point
“Work will never love you back” - life > work
The joy of missing out: how to manage your time in 2022 [Podcast] - someone really wants me to read this book
‘I felt powerless – so I started filming’: CyclingMikey on his one-man battle with dangerous drivers - I mostly gave up on filming. I found I got even more annoyed about the random dangerous driving situations. And the police doesn’t care anyway.
Do you know what you know? - fun test about how confident you are about your knowledge
100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying - fun, reminds me Black Books: “eat an orange”
Fritz Lang [Podcast] - lovely discussion about his work
Tascam Master Studio 424: Type II Cassettes are back in production!!?? [YouTube] - I liked tapes before they were cool!
800MIPS Amiga With Emu68 and PiStorm - on my to-do list for my A1000
MTV@40 [Podcast] - we never had MTV, but I sometimes had access at friends places
Mystik: New portable tape player by RTM (prototype) tested & compared [YouTube] - people are still building (bad) walkmen (also)