Friday, August 26, 2022

Friday Links 22-28

AI generated art of modern, but run down office building

Quiet week. The team assessment repository has a lot in it and I just started looking through it.

Interesting papers about urbanism, but maybe I just say that because it confirms my bias.

Leadership

Multi-team Software Delivery Assessment - nice collection of useful team assessments, everything from team health, to delivery and security 

Imposter Syndrome [Comic] – it's me

Benefits of Pulse Surveys for Remote and Distributed Teams - a bit spammy. I used to be highly sceptical, but now I am a convert. If done right and with the right communication, these can be super helpful for all teams.

Engineering

Building a Feature Education Coordination Platform at Strava - moving this from client to centralised 

Technology

Lucid Emacs was released 30 years ago - happy birthday

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/08/xscreensaver-was-released-30-years-ago/  - jwz was apparently really bored back then

Unix legend, who owes us nothing, keeps fixing foundational AWK code - I never got into awk!

Work

Remote Workers Are Wasting More Than an Hour a Day on Productivity Theater, New Report Finds  - mostly the fault of managers apparently

Urbanism

Adults’ self-reported barriers and enablers to riding a bike for transport: a systematic review [Paper] – turns out everyone is mostly scared of cars 

Barcelona by bike - a perfect city for cycling? - yes (all cities are)

How Does Urban Sprawl Affect Public Health? Evidence from Panel Survey Data in Urbanizing China [Paper] - and it isn't great.

Photo stream of urban design that's deliberately hostile to unhoused people - people are shite.

New variable speed limits to improve cyclist safety following fatal hit and run - a bit late, isn't it?

Random Art

Michael Heizer’s City, a vast art project in the Nevada desert 50 years in the making, will finally open to the public - I am conflicted about this. I guess this makes it art.

EuroVelo Routes Finally Available as GPX Files - this is lovely, make me want to go on a longer ride. Or just use parts of these.

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, August 19, 2022

Friday Links 22-27

three bottles of non-alcoholic cava
non-alcoholic cava

This week I enjoyed the podcasts about Culture AMP's data and the one with Daniel Pink about regret.

I am still browsing the Gallup State of Workplace survey, it is a lot of data.

Leadership

Build Week at Buffer: What It Is and How We’re Approaching It - we used to call that just hack week. Build week is definitely more inclusive. 

Diving into Culture Amp's data lake - How we uncover insights from 34 million employee experience data points. [Podcast] - interesting data points that all companies should use ... but probably don't 

True Time Management is About Deciding What Not To Do - management in general is deciding what to do 

Learning From Regret - with Daniel Pink & Jerry Colonna [Podcast]  - regret as a data point

Technology

Tornado Cash and collateral damage [LWN] - I am on the fence. Since the developers profited they should go to jail, but maybe we keep the code around?

News for the tz database - oh yes! with nuggets like "Rename Europe/Kiev to Europe/Kyiv." or "Iran no longer observes DST after 2022.

 wisp: Whitespace to Lisp - in case Lisp isn't weird enough 

Making accessible DocuSign forms - not great

Work

‘I had a very welcome lie-in on Friday’: the joys and challenges of switching to a four-day week - I'll accept a salary cut!

Why quiet quitting is more than leaving a job - this is more interesting than the title suggests

State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report - "Stress among the world's workers reached an all-time high -- again." (full report)

Environment 

Slow Travel - Tim on the idea of avoiding planes as much as possible

Cigarette butts: how the no 1 most littered objects are choking our coasts - if you want to know how egoistic smoking is, look no further

Spain wildfires: up to 20 injured after passengers break out of train engulfed by flames  - this is fine 

Is it time to end cats’ right to roam?  - I hope not, but they are a pest

Urbanism

Can Public Transit Beat Uber? [YouTube] - probably not. I think we have something like this on trial in Barcelona.

When Cars Kill, It’s Not an “Accident”: A Conversation With Jessie Singer - and cars don't kill, people do

Random Drinks

The Rise of the Non-Alcoholic Pairing Menu - I want to experience one of these 

The 100% Solar Powered Sun Ship That NEVER Needs Charging! [YouTube] - now I want a boat. Not for that price though. 

Gmail gets approval to move forward with plan to ruin its spam filter - definitely going evil

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, August 12, 2022

Friday Links 22-26

Two weeks worth of links. This time with a comics extra instead of leadership links. 

Lots of good environment and urbanism articles.

And the most surprising podcast about how rescuing people from cars is changing

Engineering 

A Deep Dive into Memory Leaks in Ruby  - part 2

CPAN - This Day In History [Podcast] - when I switched from Perl to PHP, CPAN was what I was missing the most 

Backblaze Drive Stats for Q2 2022 - also available as raw data!

All You Need to Know about EdgeDB - first time I hear about this one

The Best-Selling PC of All Time: Commodore 64 Turns 40 - I never had one, but all my friends did

Work

Malcolm Gladwell slams working from home: ‘What have you reduced your life to?’ - great hair, weird opinions. I am not a WFH zealot, but this piece seems to be wrong in so many ways. Especially if you check how he works.

Environment

Rhine close to running dry in German energy nightmare - this is fine 

Source of River Thames dries out ‘for first time’ during drought  - also fine

Bitcoin mining operation Riot Blockchain earns more money in July by - look at that thing! 

Sostenibilidad del Consumo en EspaƱa [Spanish, PDF] - impact is moving outside of Spain, food & mobility have the biggest impact 

A fine or a nudge? Charging for plastic bags works and is an interesting behavioural case study - "The average shopper in a UK major supermarket now uses just three plastic bags per year, compared to 140 back in 2014."

No more glaciers in Catalonia as climate change melts Iberian Peninsula's last ones away   - I didn't even realise there was one, and now it will be gone in 20 years 

Spain puts limits on air conditioning and heating to save energy - this also makes life in the city nicer

Spain warns heatwave threatens olive oil production - we have olive trees and only the ones in the shade of the house have olives this year

Urbanism

Ten futuristic cities set to be built around the world - none of these will ever be built

Brussels breaks up with the car - "If you look at the numbers, only 20 to 25 percent of the people who live or come to work here use cars,"

La revoluciĆ³n peatonal de Valencia [Spanish] - I haven't seen these plazas open yet, but this looks great. Valencia is brilliant anyway.

Paris halves street parking and asks residents what they want to do with the space - “We can no longer use 50% of the capital for cars when they represent only 13% of people’s journeys,”

The Car-Replacement Bicycle (the bakfiets) [YouTube] - definitely more useful in cities, but I love my cargo bike  

The political economy of car dependence: A systems of provision approach [Paper] - " Through uncovering the constituents, processes and characteristics of car-dependent transport systems, we show that moving past the automobile age will require an overt and historically aware political program of research and action."

SF traffic cops issue just 10 citations a day - this sounds like every city 

Fare deal: Ireland joins Europe-wide efforts to coax people out of cars - cheaper public transport will help, but you have to be patient 

Bicycle Theft Barcelona 2021 - one of the big problems for cyclist in Barcelona 

UK heatwave: Weather forecasters report unprecedented trolling - lets just pretend it doesn't exist 

How far can you go by train in 5h? - pretty far if you are in Paris or Switzerland, the network in Spain has lots of big holes 

The city that pioneered Europe’s car-free future - Pontevedra still doing fine "Instead of driving out to malls on the periphery, people shop in the city center: The city is our mall."

Comics

xkcd-excuse.com  - make your own excuses 

How to Enjoy Your Own Geekiness - not me! 

Inflation - ouch

Sprints - this sounds familiar

Random Spreadsheets

Excel Esports: ALL-STAR BATTLE [YouTube] - Yes, the spreadsheet 

Is it time for a complete overhaul of car wreck rescue techniques? [Podcast] - apparently we never stop learning. This is amazing and not obvious at all. 

"Men have no friends and women bear the burden” [Podcast] - I have trouble with making friends. Time to join some local clubs.

Opinion Why does the IRS need $80 billion? Just look at its cafeteria. - this is beautiful and makes me feel better about all weird processes

The End of Manual Transmission - can't come early enough.  If you like it so much, then also go back to rotary phones. Your steering, throttle and brakes are probably already by wire. I wonder if "sport"-car companies will add fake stick shifts to future cars just for these weirdos who like to feel "to be in control".

People are blowing cinnamon on their front doors – wellness experts explain why - what?

Stray review – cats get the cream in slinky, post-apocalyptic fantasy - five stars 

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.