Good long reads this week: Camille Fournier on the manager’s path in the age of AI and how AI affects building things by Paulo André.
Leadership
If your team is happy, are you doing a good job? - it’s a business and happy means different things to different people.
TBM 443: The Standard Setter - “confusing pressure with motivation”
The Manager’s Path in the Age of AI - “a lot of what we call “management” is in fact a risk management function”
Engineering
Margaret Hamilton, trailblazer whose software powered Apollo 11 moon landing, dies at 90 - RIP
The people holding up the internet - I love the individual stories. Now I am worried about some of these people leaving their projects behind.
LittleFedi - another fedi server from scratch (I imagine with the help of LLMs).
AI
Quick to Build, Slow to Know - The building part has always been one of the smaller parts of creating a product.
Guidelines for Respectful Use of AI - “Don’t ask someone to read/review what you haven’t read or reviewed yourself.”
Building Git infrastructure for agent-scale development - they are definitely struggling at the moment.
Urbanism
Designing the In-Between: From Tactical Interventions to Urban Policy in Barcelona - Barcelona is still doing great things.
Xoc entre l’Ajuntament de Barcelona i la DGT per l’eliminació dels semàfors intermitents [Catalan] - I agree that the blinking lights for cars increase the danger for pedestrians.
Überraschung unter dem Zürcher HB: Wer Velos will, kriegt auch Velos [German] - Zurich underestimated the popularity of their bike parking.
How Amsterdam Is Building The World’s Greenest City [YouTube] - Amsterdam is so nice. This gives some of the history of the parks.
Riding Stuttgart’s Incredible Zacke Rack Railway | Germany’s Unique Line 10 [YouTube] - Trainspotting.
Random Windows
WTF Microsoft [YouTube] - the 90s were brilliant.
35 Jahre House & Techno in Jena Set [German] - Classic techno.
What are you doing right now? - “There is no medal.”
Vladimir Putin’s Forkiverse [Podcast] - They didn’t understand it and threw away the toy after a few weeks.
Other Links
- John Freeborn: Weekly Design Links – 10/06/26
- Jason Yip: What I’ve been reading (and watching) week ending 4 October 2026