I skipped a week again. Some good podcasts this week, have a listen to the ones about The Pragmatic Programmer and the one about performance. For some fun, play Snek and watch the relaxing visualisation of train movements.
Leadership
Headed for the Exit: the Great Engineering Leader Career Break - I can definitely relate. I would say that this doesn’t affect only leaders.
The Pulse: Meta’s self-inflicted resignation-wave - I was thinking that this was on purpose, but them trying to revert some of it points the other way.
TBM 437: Tokens, Hours, Points, and Other Curious Proxies - I like the framing that we are only thinking about the I of ROI.
Don’t Follow Your Passion - So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport [Podcast] - I liked this one.
Pay the compliment - I forget sometimes, or I am too embarrassed in public situations with strangers.
Engineering
I’m Not on the DRY Train - The Pragmatic Programmer by David Thomas and Andy Hunt [Podcast] - I liked the book, and I think that DRY can be misunderstood often. And I have misused it too.
Why performant code matters (but gets widely ignored), with Casey Muratori [Podcast] - Another one going the artisanal code way. If you are into performance, everything looks like a performance problem.
Your alt text passes automated checks. That doesn’t mean it’s any good. - I would say that alt texts are not GitHub’s current problem.
Blazingly Fast or Blazingly Hyped? A Reality Check on Rewriting in Rust - rewrites are usually not worth it, unless you have a really good reason.
I accidentally logged hundreds of thousands of phone calls to military bases - That’s quite a funny story. I didn’t know about e164-arpa either.
Everything I own, owned - pretty amazing how rubbish our devices are, but good for open source support.
AI
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors [Podcast] - I like Charity, but she might be too much on the AI train for my taste.
Text Watermarking - that is a much more positive take. I don’t know how much this watermarking will survive copy & paste into other texts.
AI-generated books are flooding Amazon and tanking sales for human authors - AI is making Amazon useless too.
Urbanism
We’re done kicking the can down the road. We’re fixing the BQE. [YouTube] - Maybe get rid of it?
The Newest Vegas Loop Stations Will Blow Your Mind [YouTube] - that’s so funny, the Boring company is not only boring, but also a bit rubbish.
One Day on Rails - lovely train traffic visualisation for a few countries and regions. They just added Spain!
Environment
Ulez led to better lung size and function among London children, study finds - Future us will look at us with disgust.
In Germany, record heat meets climate action fatigue - Germany is still happily living in the 90s.
Random Walkmen
FiiO’s Ultra-Thin CP11 Puts Hi-Fi Cassette Playback in Your Pocket - this looks pretty great. I can’t wait for the Techmoan review.
Who Owns Commodore? The Retro PC Brand Still Exists, But A Lot Has Changed - It really looks like they are doing good work.
Puzzle Game: Snek! - very relaxing.
Barcelona unveils permanent memorial to victims of femicide - nice.
Sheepdog competition gathers 1,400 to see eleven shepherds work with their animals - I would have loved to be there.
The Cult | Mitchell and Webb [YouTube] - hotels are weird.
Ordinary Abundance - we are living in the future.
Other Links
- John Freeborn: Weekly Design Links – 08/18/26
- Jason Yip: What I’ve been reading (and watching) week ending 16 August