Christof Damian: Friday Links 25-14

These are too many links. I was on holiday … twice.

I could stagger these, but there will be more next week.

There are still many good things here.

Too many.

I am sorry.

Leadership

How We Plan Retreats, After Hosting 14 over 12+ Years (+ Get Our Retreat Planning Playbook!) - important for fully remote companies, and I didn't often see this done right

Middle managers fade as AI rises - Six people doesn't seem too bad.

Failure to communicate - nice way of putting levels on failures.

Why workplaces should be doubling down on DEI - everybody knows that. We shouldn't listen to the trolls.

Moving from an orchestration-heavy to leadership-heavy management role. - different companies, different types of approaches.

Rands Cheat Sheet, #1 - 1:1s

AOE Technology Radar - A static site generator for AOE Technology Radar

Cofounder & CTO of Geordie AI on the paradox of giving control with Benji Weber - you can't give control to people, you have to create the environment where they can take it.

Engineering

I still care about the code - working with LLMs

de-pixelate_gaV-O6NPWrI - removing pixelation from videos.

State of Developer Experience Report 2025 - "The widening disconnect between leadership expectations and developers' actual experiences"

Using Radicle CI for Development - interesting distributed CI

Cursor makes developers less effective? - apparently you spend more time checking the results.

The JavaScript Date Quiz - this was fun

Shifting Left on Security - The DevOps Handbook [Podcast] - maybe I have to read it after all. (there are more podcasts in that series)

Amazon, Google and Vibe Coding with Steve Yegge [Podcast] - some insights into the companies and why he is back to "coding"

Inside the 3rd largest Rails monolith in the world with Cisco Tech Lead Ed Gibbs [Podcast] - being an outlier is nothing to be proud of.

Environment

A change in the Southern Ocean structure can have climate implications - "we’re seeing that the Southern Ocean is drastically changing, as sea ice coverage declines and the upper ocean is becoming saltier. This could have unprecedented global climate impacts."

M25 protester sorry for delays but has no regrets - It's unfortunate to see where the UK is going.

Afghan taxi drivers beat the heat with handmade air coolers - as all ACs, probably worse for the environment.

First electric flight lands at Gatwick Airport - currently mostly useful for training.

Dams around the world hold so much water they've shifted Earth's poles, new research shows - they also affect sea levels.

The Scale of China's Solar-Power Projects - the future - it's not in the west.

Atommüll bleibt finanziell eine Ewigkeitslast [German] - nuclear waste is a financial burden forever. Germany spends 1.7 billion Euro of their 2.7 billion Euro environmental budget on nuclear waste management.

Primer mapa global de la contaminació lumínica a Catalunya desenvolupat mitjançant modelització avançada [Catalan] - light pollution map of Catalonia

Motherfucking Wind Farms - "like a middle finger to CO2"

Urbanism

Die Stadt der Viertelstunde [German, Paper] - 15 minute city. Many German areas are already 15 minute cities, or can easily reach this goal.

Percentage of Airbnb's in Barcelona - interactive map. It is pretty centralised.

Barcelona moves to limit cruise tourism by reducing terminals from 7 to 5 - are they just going to build bigger ships?

Some nice drone videos from redesigned public spaces in Barcelona

Recorre la nova via Laietana amb dron [YouTube] - the missing bike lane going down is a mistake. There will be accidents with cyclists.
Sobrevola l’avinguda Diagonal, de Glòries a Verdaguer [YouTube] - So nice from above, I haven't used that tram yet.
La ronda de Sant Antoni, a vista d’ocell [YouTube] - the one most tourists are probably not going to see

Between two trees: Vancouver man maps more than 2,600 places to hang a hammock - brilliant idea.

The world's most liveable cities for 2025 - and what it's really like to live there - it's pleasant.

Bicing bike sharing reaches 100m trips since 2019 - The previous one started in 2007.

FEATURE: The pros and cons of the UK’s Low Traffic Neighborhoods - not that many cons?

NYC’s Congestion Pricing Is Paying Off As Motor Traffic Drops Through July - surprise!

Helsinki goes a full year without a traffic death - nice.