Friday Links 23-25

This time around I enjoyed the interviews with Simon Sinek and Olive Burkeman with Culture First.

Leadership

Are You Being the Bottleneck or Building the Bridge? Lessons on Cross-Functional Leadership [Podcast] - lots of good stuff about communication and DEI

Simon Sinek on the power of putting culture first [Podcast] - older interview 

Measuring developer productivity? A response to McKinsey - Gergely Orosz and Kent Beck responding to McKinsey's post. (there is also a second part now)

TBM 238: Spinning Plates - "The quest for efficiency and high utilization is the same thing that stifles creativity and innovation and paradoxically slows us down and makes us less efficient."

Use OKRs to Set Goals for Teams, Not Individuals - I generally prefer to focus on teams and then how to make individuals successful in pushing the team goals. 

The Engineering executive’s role in hiring. - very detailed summary of hiring from a higher level. 

Who has the credentials to deliver design feedback? - "Designers shouldn’t disqualify feedback based on the person delivering it. "

TBM 236: The Paper-Cut Tax - "like juggling fickle priorities and rework, working around dependencies, putting out fires, writing and rewriting proposals, and fiddling with fragile tools."

Work

‘The office is for socializing’: how work from home has revolutionized work

Oliver Burkeman on designing an employee experience for mortals [Podcast] - Good to hear him in an interview, but I prefer his book. 

Technology

30 years of Debian [Podcast] - with Red Hat currently misbehaving, I have been looking more seriously at a switch to Debian. 

Bugzilla Celebrates 25 Years With Special Announcements (Bugzilla blog) - we used Bugzilla as a project management tool in my misspent youth. It worked quite well for a while.

Explore FFmpeg From The Comfort Of Your Browser - just cool. 

Ditching Databases for Apache Kafka as System of Record - I wonder what you loose with this approach. 

HashiCorp, Terraform, and OpenTF - I really hope OpenTF works out. 

PineTime: a smartwatch for open-source software - this is amazingly cheap.

Environment 

Burning Man attendees roadblocked by climate activists: ‘They have a privileged mindset’ - when pseudo fashion hippies meet real hippies. Also: defund the Rangers. 

Where will the tourists go? Europe’s winning and losing destinations due to the climate crisis - this seems conservative. I am pretty sure people will stop coming to Spain sooner. 

France to spend €200m on destroying excess wine as demand falls - do farm subsidies really make sense? 

Barcelona gives hats to homeless people as heatwave sweeps southern Europe - hats … that will fix it. 

G20 poured more than $1tn into fossil fuel subsidies despite Cop26 pledges – report - good job everyone.

Urbanism

Even Small Towns are Great Here (5 Years in the Netherlands) [YouTube] - every town seems to be brilliant there.

Random Cycling

Cycling in Catalonia – Riding hotspot Girona and La Vuelta kicks off from Barcelona [Podcast] - overview of the local cycling scene 

Grid movie posters - I discovered this posters, but I love all of his art.

Other Links

• Weekly Design Links – 08/22/23
• Reading list 308  

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 Links 23-22

All the leadership articles are great this week and not too long.
If you want mostly downers, have a look at the environment articles.

Leadership

Finding a buddy when you’re a team of one - if you can't avoid them.

Gelling your Engineering leadership team. - I think this should be read by a lot of C-level teams, but it also applies to most teams. 

Imposter Syndrome - I love Angela's writing.

Technology

Big Tech can transfer Europeans’ data to US in win for Facebook and Google - "US to monitor compliance"

AlmaLinux to diverge (slightly) from RHEL - and so it begins. 

SUSE to create a fork of RHEL - apparently they already had one? "SUSE Liberty Linux"

Environment

Europe’s Heatwave Death Toll [Podcast] - this is just the beginning after all. (also: Heatwave last summer killed 61,000 people in Europe, research finds)

The world just broke a stunning slew of heat records. Why right now?

Tuvalu – how do you save a disappearing country? [Podcast] - spoiler: you can't. 

UK poised to drop plans to replace home gas boilers with hydrogen alternatives - someone should tell Germany.

How to protect your heat pump from theft - I heard this is a problem in Germany too. Does this happen with air conditioning too?

Nuclear power too expensive and slow to be part of Australia’s plans to reach net zero, study finds - if you don't have nuclear power already, don't bother starting now. 

Pet problems: tropical fish are terrible for the environment – and dogs are a disaster - I am worried about the amount of food our pets consume. 

The orca uprising: whales are ramming boats – but are they inspired by revenge, grief or memory?

Urbanism

548. Why Is the U.S. So Good at Killing Pedestrians? [Podcast] - Freedom! Or maybe they are perfecting the issues other countries have. 

Cycles Outnumber Cars In City Of London

Slow cycling isn’t just for fun – it’s essential for many city workers - "By paying attention to slow cyclists, we can begin to plan our cities in ways that recognise and enhance the environmental and economic benefits they deliver."

‘They’re sticking the finger up at cars’: Amsterdam split by low-traffic roads - yes, yes we do. 

Starting to hate cars — even if you drive one? There's an online community for you.

Random Bicycles

10 tech trends to copy off the Tour de France pros — wide tyres, chain catchers and tubeless are in, slammed stems and narrow cassettes are out - I agree with most of this. 

Disruptive protest helps rather than hinders activists’ cause, experts say - “These sorts of tactics are uncomfortable for everyone concerned, but sadly this is how social change works.”

Study shows 87 percent of classic video games are unavailable to play right now - annoying! This will also get worse.

Devil's Advocate [Comic] - so true

The Pulse: VanMoof files for bankruptcy protection - they were not really my type of bike, but they are nice, and many people love them. See also:

• Hunting Down a Bike Thief [YouTube]
• Cowboy rides to the rescue of VanMoof owners with app to unlock threatened bikes 
• VanMoof stores closed as “the most funded e-bike company in the world” files for protection from creditors 
  

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 Links 23-18

I am skipping every second week currently, with the result that today is a bit long.

I loved the podcast about the U-Cycle initiative in Ukraine and one about the climate-grandmas in Switzerland.

Leadership

Measuring Success & Performance of Managers - A Deep Dive [Podcast] - measuring individual contributors is already hard, measuring managers even more so.

Admiral Linda Fagan on servant leadership [Podcast] -  I usually skip military leadership lessons, this is great, though.

An alternative to NPS for dev tools - NPS is questionable, this is another approach. 

TBM 223: Why Aren't They Saying Anything? - there are many reasons, it's the leader's job to figure it out and avoid the obvious ones. 

Continuous Code Reviews using Non-Blocking Reviews - a case study

Work 

Should you optimize for all-cash compensation, if possible? - it depends.

Story: Quitting (And Then Rejoining) Stack Overflow [Podcast] - cool story about the site.

Work-Life Harmony: Karinna Briseno Shares Her Experience at Buffer  - hmmm.

Technology

Sci-fi writer Ted Chiang: ‘The machines we have now are not conscious’  - about "AI"

Apple Vision Pro Impressions! [YouTube] - this is a very reasonable review. It sounds like a nice toy, that is too expensive for me. 

Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice - not good news. 

Open-Source LLMs - I haven't tried any of these, but I love to see projects built around them.

WezTerm - you can never have enough terminals, right?

Environment 

The biggest climate case that ever was [Podcast] - older Swiss woman fighting to change climate laws. 

Germany’s forests under threat [Podcast] - I didn't realise that it was this bleak. 

BBC OS Conversations: Mount Everest [Podcast] - climbing this mountain is looking different as climate change happens. 

Testing New York Apartments: How Dirty Is That Gas Stove, Really? - pretty dirty. 

Drought-struck Barcelona quenches thirst with costly desalination - climate change is costing us already. 

Water war: Why drought in Spain is getting political - these are very peaceful wars at the moment.

Urbanism

Paved Paradise with Henry Grabar [Podcast] - parking again. 

Sadiq Khan [Podcast] - the Mayor of London about pollution in London and climate change. (also: Sadiq Khan Q&A [Podcast])

Stockholmer Radpolitik, ukrainischer Widerstand & Shimano CUES  [Podcast, mostly German] - both, the interview with the minister for traffic of Stockholm (in German) and the interview with U-Cycle in Ukraine (in English) are great. 

Car-Free Cities Are the Future, Biometrics Reveal - "sifting through these data we see that people do not like looking at cars"

Finnish businessman hit with €121,000 speeding fine - can we use this system worldwide, please? 

Sex Work Bollards: Not Actually Bollards - better than nothing! 

“Very conservative and unresponsive attitude towards bikes”: United Nations' delegates slam policy of allowing cars in HQ but not bikes - always the same.

Five easy ways to reduce bike theft in your community [YouTube] - easy if they let you do this.

Nick Offerman [Podcast] - just a pleasant chat.

Post-Colau Barcelona: Implications, ‘bikelash’ and opportunities - I am worried. 

Minnesota Legislature passes $1.3B transportation deal with gas tax hike, sending it to Walz - take from the cars and give to everybody else.

Random Birds

The Seagulls [Podcast] - turns out being homosexual is completely natural … who knew?

Why California is dismantling its death row [Podcast] - It is remarkable that this is even going on.

#167 Dr. Gina Poe: The Science of Better Sleep [Podcast] - this is all fine, if you have control over your environment. 

Concert for the 50th anniversary of the album 'Tubular Bells' by Mike Oldfield. 4K  [YouTube] - 50 years!?

‘Only 12 other people have completed it’: cycling the 7,600km European Divide - that looks beautiful. 

‘Deeply personal and very authentic’: how podcasts took over the world in 20 years - 20 years!?

histography.io - a clickable timeline since the beginning of time. You can easily waste a few hours on this. 

Getxophoto festival – in pictures - they are all lovely.

Living and working from an all-electric VW ID Buzz - nice. 

Ditching a Phone Case Is the Latest Symbol of Stealth Wealth - it's a sign of rich or careful people.

Other Links

• Ben Crowder: Links #73

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 Links 22-36

Since Twitter has been going downhill for a while and I am mostly leaving Facebook and Instagram, I have been searching for an alternative. 

Mastodon is the obvious candidate. I had created an account a while ago, and it offers an ad and algorithm free alternative. You can also take control by having your personal server.  

Below are some of the links I found helpful. 

And too many other links. 

Mastodon

Mastodon gained 70,000 users after Musk’s Twitter takeover. I joined them  - I think it is a lot more now.

Martin Fowler: Exploring Mastodon - notes on his journey.

BirdsiteLIVE a Twitter bridge, to keep on following your favourite accounts on Twitter. I haven't tried this yet. 

Masto.host  - a service to host your instance with minimum effort and OK prices. I already started one up. 

fedifinder.glitch.me - find your Twitter people

twitodon - also find your Twitter people 

An Increasingly Less-Brief Guide to Mastodon - a guide

A futuristic Mastodon introduction for 2021 - an intro 

Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse - another guide

Leadership

Why Feedback Hurts -  "Taking feedback personally is a choice. Make good choices." - true, but easier said than done.

Architect(ure) as Enabler of Organization’s Sustainable Flow of Change  [slides] - that looks like a good talk about integrating architecture in different teams and team sizes. 

Advice for Engineering Managers Who Want to Climb the Ladder - in case you would like to become a director … I am uncertain if I can recommend this.  

Shit umbrella is the destroyer of trust - I was a part-time shit umbrella once. It isn't helping anyone.

Better, Faster, and More - what should you want from your new job?

Engineering

I Told You it Was Private - Ruby gem with the nuclear option in case you are using private methods. 

Personal Heatmaps - insight into Strava's heatmap implementation strategy

Technology

How GitHub converts previously encrypted and unencrypted columns to ActiveRecord encrypted columns

OpenSSL vulnerability 

This has been mostly patched now and it delayed the newest Fedora release.

• LWN: OpenSSL 3.0.7 released
• CVE-2022-3786 and CVE-2022-3602: X.509 Email Address Buffer Overflows 
• Schneier: Critical Vulnerability in Open SSL
• OpenSSL warns of critical security vulnerability with upcoming patch  
  

Environment

El miracle que necessita Barcelona perquè aquest 2022 no rebenti el rècord històric de temperatura [Catalan] - Barcelona is continuing to hit temperature records.

Europe’s climate warming at twice rate of global average, says report - possibly up to 3C around Barcelona.

Urbanism

Elon Musk’s first Hyperloop tunnel in California is gone - replaced by parking … that says it all. 

Why car companies should fear the golf cart - "people driving golf carts in her community frequently stopped to chat with neighbors mowing their lawn. “You’re never going to do that if you’re in a car,” she said."

Can Groceries Be Delivered TOO Quickly?! [YouTube] - in cities where it works, most people won't need it.  

New York City Is a Lot Safer Than Small-Town America - nice, but also "Even the safest areas in the US remain killing fields compared with most of Western Europe."

Wie die Mobilitätswende aussehen könnte [German, Video] -  Are cities without cars possible … of course. 

Children take to the barricades to save School Street - children shouldn't have to do this.

Random Compasses 

Magnetic north, true north and grid north align over Great Britain for the first time in history - I just found this interesting somehow. 

Channel 4 News’ first ever transmission from 1982  [YouTube] - A long time ago, but the news seems so familiar. 

When will the EU end seasonal clock changes? Only time will tell. Access to the comments - can we get on with it, please? 

NDAs, Obsessive Buyers, and $400 for Sublime: Inside the Baffling Revival of the Cassette Tape - yes, I am still on that topic. 

How To Communicate Better on Slack - simple tricks to avoid some back and forth

Other Links

• Ben Crowder: Links #50
  
• Ben Crowder: Links #51
• Weekly Design Links – 11/01/22
• Bruce Lawson: Reading List 296 
  

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 Links 22-34

A few articles about writing stuff down this week. 

I love the long read about NTP and the podcast about 1984.

Leadership

Putting Amazon’s PR/FAQ to Practice - I am not good at writing long documents, but I like the idea and even one-pagers would be already an improvement to most processes 

Three main reasons I write stuff down - if you can explain it to paper you can explain it better to others and yourself 

The Friday Update: On journaling to get things done - I am currently doing a morning journal, maybe I extend this a bit

Friction Between Product and Engineering; Lack of trust and collaboration slowing down product growth - another interesting part of this series. And another focus on the "First Team" as a solution.

The Three Tech Projects You Meet in Hell - weird, but entertaining take

Technology 

Pocket Casts Mobile Apps Are Now Open Source - this is nice. My favourite podcast player. This could lead to some delightful user contributed features or fixes. 

The Thorny Problem of Keeping the Internet’s Time - I love NTP, it is basically magic 

Environment

Greta Thunberg: “Our politicians will not come to the rescue of planet Earth” - Greta started her protest with 15, she is now 19.

Low Earth Orbit Visualization - so much stuff in space

Random Dystopias

Nineteen Eighty-Four [Podcast] - Maybe it is time to read that book again, the last time was probably around 1984

Your Brain Absolutely Can't Handle More Than 5 Projects at Once, New Science Shows - I might have a bit more currently, but some of them are on suspend mode

What JK Rowling and John Cleese get wrong about cancel culture - "A belief in accountability does not involve condoning threats or violence – and freedom of expression does not mean freedom from consequence."

Chemical attraction: some people really are ‘mosquito magnets’, study finds - sorry everyone else 

Study shows e-bike riders exercise less than conventional bike users – but there’s more to it than that - I am not surprised

Other Links 

• Tim Bray: Long 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 Links 22-32

The second part of the interview with Meri Williams is interesting. 

I have been playing more with Emacs and got a bit depressed after watching what Toronto has done to the city.

Leadership

Ep - 13 - Why does feedback matter? feat. Meri Williams (ex-CTO Monzo, MOO, Healx) [Podcast] - second part of this great interview 

new little song: "The Re-Org Rag (I'm My Own VP)" [Tweet, Video] - hits a bit close to home

How Uber is Measuring Engineering Productivity - interesting, maybe open source this?

Engineering

Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think - I really prefer having local environments, but the setup is just getting too complicated. Especially since people insist on running OS X. Remote desktops are a step too far, though. 

Why haven’t PWAs killed native apps yet? - still missing some features, discovery, and installation is clunky.

Technology 

NVIDIA and nouveau [LWN] - I am so happy that I got rid of my NVIDIA card. But equally glad that people are still working on improving the situation.  

Emacs Tips - How to Give Presentations with Org Mode - since I am back on Emacs thanks to org-roam, I obviously try to do everything in Emacs now.

Work

What Does an Office Mean? Two Architects Discuss - remember offices?

Urbanism

Eight years of works to revamp La Rambla begin - I am excited for this. I am not certain, if they will be able to get rid of tourists. 

How Toronto Got Addicted to Cars [YouTube] - this is depressing and in parts unbelievable

The tunnel where cycling was mandatory [YouTube] - what happens if you think about cyclists too

Edinburgh 20mph speed limits: Deaths, crashes, and casualties reduced by 20mph limit, researchers say - surprise! 

Business Grew After Controversial Bike Lane Installed, Data Show - more surprises!

Random Cyclists 

‘Dreams can come true’: Uganda’s first female pro cyclist aims for the Tour de France - Nice to see more diversity. I am expecting great things from African cyclists in the future.

All the Docks: How it Went - people make up the weirdest challenges 

Die wir verloren haben [German] - 150k corona deaths is Germany

Opinion Thousands were released from prison during covid. The results are shocking. - 0.15% re-offenders 

Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need - "Finland is the only country in Europe where homelessness is in decline"

Other Links

• Bruce Lawson: Reading List 295

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 Links 22-31

Podcast edition!

I love the Björk: Sonic Symbolism podcast. It brings back so many memories from my time in London. 

The Happiness Lab (in random) and leadership podcasts are also great.

Leadership

Ep - 12 - How do I grow a culture of empowerment? feat. Meri Williams (ex-CTO Monzo, MOO, Healx) [Podcast] - first part of the interview which I really liked.

The Habits of Purposeful Leaders: How to Build Systems of Productivity & Improvement (with Mike Murchison, CEO of Ada) [Podcast] - balance between sync and async, what kind of leadership meetings make sense, what a leadership team is and what not  

The myth of tech excellence in tech leadership - it depends 

The Coach and the Fixer - another good one from Rands 

The people who hire me ask me to help their teams make changes. Most of the time, my first step is to see how I can slash those teams' load. [Twitter Thread] - if you want to move, you need space 

Technology

monomorph - pack shell code into a file with always the same MD5 checksum 

Bash 5.2 released - new command substitution code with better errors 

Getty bans AI-generated art due to copyright concerns - I am worried about this too.

Work 

GOOGLE Safari Themed Environment - I know we don't do offices any more, but I would like a Land Rover in my office please or any of the offices designed by Muse & Co 

'Wednesday plus one' & the 4-day week [Podcast] - two experiences with hybrid and four-day weeks.

Environment

Catalan health department plans law to ban smoking outside schools and on terraces - thank you!

Urbanism

Hawaii’s Suburban Experiment [Podcast] - how Hawaii got infected by suburban sprawl

Can the Best US Bike Cities Compete with Europe? [YouTube] - no

parkulator - display area taken up by parking in cities (Barcelona is pretty good, Andorra la Vella not so much)

Menos coches. Menos edificios modernistas. Más ciudades para la gente [Spanish] - interview with Jan Gehl architect / urbanist.

Random Friends

The Secret to Making Friends as an Adult [Podcast] - you have to invest a lot of time and be lucky

The future of hip-hop: New York [Podcast] - this is a great series exploring the influence of women and queer artists in hip-hop

Move to Your Happy Place [Podcast] - that's what I did

Björk: Sonic Symbolism [Podcast] - series of podcasts with Björk looking into her back catalogue. I enjoy this travel into the past. 

A message about Stadia and our long term streaming strategy - Stadia is going away and Google is refunding all money 

Spain plans ‘digital nomad’ visa scheme to attract remote workers - I hate these schemes and digital nomads 

Stichflamme Dormagen – Tape only  [German] - cassette revival, the German perspective 

The best cassette players for home listening - for some reason, they never include Sonys.

Ill-fated Spanish village poised to be destroyed a third time - my initial reaction was: just leave them be, but they are building in protect areas, which is illegal.  There are enough empty villages around where this is not the case.

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 Links 22-30

Many topics this week. I love the hack of a stolen laptop, the post of cascading goals made me think, good climate news cheered me up and check out random for some fun and funny stuff.

Leadership

Setting your engineers up for success: how Skyscanner created greater clarity in our competencies and pathways to progression - interesting approach, kind of similar to my favourite one from Etsy

TBM 41/51: Why Goal Cascades are Harmful (and What to Do Instead) - interesting. I always thought top down, cascading goals were a good thing. I have to think about this more. 

Dealing with Top-Down Projects - tricky, but good suggestions 

What do you need to know to be a manager? - "Can a lack of subject-matter expertise even be an asset for a leader?"

Seven things you need to know about retaining engineering talent - good summary of the usual reasons why people leave or stay

Engineering

How we merged our main repositories into a single monorepo - I love monorepos! 

From Stolen Laptop to Inside the Company Network - that is quite a hack

Technology

An X11 Apologist Tries Wayland - nice, someone, please convince the Cinnamon people

The SSD Edition: 2022 Drive Stats Mid-year Review - "At this point we can reasonably claim that SSDs are more reliable than HDDs"

Work

Hacker Stations - more workspace porn 

I Tried A ‘Body Doubling’ App To Help With Focus – It’s Weird But It Works - it's like pair programming for random tasks

Environment 

Rain in Catalonia will be more frequent, violent and unpredictable in future - lovely 

Barcelona bat el rècord històric de nits tropicals: 114 nits sense baixar de 20 ºC [Catalan] - new record of number of nights above 20C in Barcelona: 114 this year

Been Angry [Comic] - me too  

Earth is now our only shareholder. - Patagonia changing its business ownership to a trust, with the money made being invested in fighting the climate crisis 

Reasons for (cautious) optimism: the good news on the climate crisis [Opinion] - that cheered me up a bit 

Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution - "Smoking remains the biggest cause of lung cancer, but outdoor air pollution causes about one in 10 cases in the UK"

Urbanism

Crossing the Street Shouldn't Be Deadly (but it is) [YouTube] - I get so annoyed by short pedestrian light phases

Renovation works to 'detouristify' Barcelona's La Rambla to begin on October 3 - I am curious about how successful this will be 

Uphill battle: How Spain’s Pamplona helped cyclists overcome steep slopes - elevators for bikes 

How Japan Won its ‘Traffic War’ - public transport, less parking and smaller cars 

Why Empty Offices Are Becoming Apartments in Texas’s Big Cities - this is great, we need housing, people want to live in cities and cities need people 

France’s answer to Banksy: the anonymous street artist filling potholes with colourful mosaics - this is brilliant

Small prefab backyard home feels more livable than McMansions [YouTube] - more housing, even if it is for the rich

Random Trombones 

There is no song that cannot be improved by Trombone Champ - I am not convinced, I even want to play it, but the videos are great.

Gratitude [Comic] - me looking at some mindful tips

Bikes4Ukraine - The Story So Far [YouTube] - still lacking donations 

Longest single-volume book in the world goes on sale – and is impossible to read - it's a (stolen) comic

‘Gifs are cringe’: how Giphy’s multimillion-dollar business fell out of fashion - I always hated GIFs, it isn't just the kids 

Cats on Synthesizers in Space - exactly what it says on the tin

Air Force Releases List Of What’s In Its Famous ‘Petting Zoo’ Threat Training Facility - I never thought about this, but it clearly makes sense to have this. 

Dismantling Schengen – half a year at a time - oh, bugger

Other Links

• Links — Prints 2.9 from Ben Crowder

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 Links 22-28

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 Links 22-27

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

• Ben Crowder: Links — Prints 2.7
  

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 Links 22-25

Some good long reads today: The classic "Give Away Your Legos", how to slowly kill your org, Why Spotify Squads are a Failure and Bicycle Graveyards.

A few podcasts, the one about agile is definitely worth it.
 

Leadership

‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups - classic article 

190 Brilliant Examples of Company Values - so many values, so similar. The ones from Build-A-Bear a fun.

The manager’s guide to slowly killing your org - helpful!

How a Leader Made the Interview Process More Collaborative - setting expectations for all interviews upfront is key 

Team Topologies Distilled - Elite performing teams are long lived [YouTube] - small long-lived autonomous teams with a shared purpose  

Jonathan Frakes Asks You Things [YouTube] - 1:1 starter questions :-) stolen from somewhere  

Why Spotify Squads Are a Popular Failure for Product Teams - don't copy them, but take the good parts and adapt to your environment 

Screw SCRUM: Guide to Building a Truly Agile Organization [Podcast] - going back to the principles and thinking bigger than just the teams 

Engineering

How to Track Down Memory Leaks in Ruby - painfully, you do it painfully 

Locking Engineering Principles - about kernel locks, but applies more widely: "Make it dumb; make it correct; make it fast"

Programming languages endorsed for server-side use at Meta - look at this the next time you want to add something to your stack, then think of the size of Facebook and don't do it

Technology

New integrated email marketing tools for Gmail - Google gets into the spam sending business

It’s time to leave the leap second in the past - they want to remove all the fun of time keeping!

Environment 

Why tech workers are quitting great jobs at companies like Google to fight climate change - because someone needs to

Plant based promises, rise of the plant based burger [Podcast] - at the start of pandemic we switched to mostly plant based. The variety of plant based replacement products definitely helped with this. 

Wildfires continue to burn across France and Spain - we had the first rain for a while yesterday, so this will improve a bit 

Barcelona school and residents create solar energy community - nice solution for cities

Urbanism

Bicycle graveyards: why do so many bikes end up underwater? - because we can't have nice things

Three new Maps updates to help plan your next adventure - new bicycle routing! Suggesting bike lanes and quieter roads 

The deadliest road in America  - I complain about European roads, but the US has completely lost it

Random Cars

R5 Turbo - Renault has a website dedicated to their classic cars!

We bought the most boring electric car - alright, that is from me

Steff goes home and needs help Let's help rebuild Ukrainian homes destroyed by russian army. - Steff is riding for a good cause

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 Links 22-21

YOONIVISION -- Flatground Series

Two weeks of links. Sorry. 

I have been thinking and catching up with my leadership reading, especially around the first team concept. 

The flatground skateboard video is worth a watch, and the Ziggy Stardust podcast is great too. 

Leadership

First Team Mindset - The concept from the book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" I have been looking into this again over the recent weeks, here is a collection of resources. I have a better idea about what this means as a director compared to a CTO now.

• Building a First Team Mindset
• First-team mindset 
• First Team Mindset 101: Why You’re Prioritizing the Wrong People
• What is your primary team?
• 5 Steps You Can Use To Build a “First Team” Mindset  

The Top 5 Mistakes European Startups Make in US Expansion - maybe this applies to all new markets?

Scaling product teams, and other leadership lessons with Megan Murphy, VP of Product at Hotjar [Podcast] - some good ideas in this one, especially around decision-making

TBM 27b/52: Why Most Strategies Lack Clarity  - "The unlock, I think, is realizing that you can confidently communicate a coherent strategy that also acknowledges uncertainty."

Supporting Your Team When the News Is Terrible - this is helpful since news always seems to be terrible

TBM 27/52: When Is Change More Likely? - "in most corporate settings there is a lot of change theater that is highly disruptive, but ultimately doesn’t really have a good shot of meaningfully changing behavior"

How to avoid the growing pains of communicating at scale - "The success of any company, large or small, relies on effective communication." - if you get communication right, you are nearly there

Stop Overcomplicating It: The Simple Guidebook to Upping Your Management Game - nothing new, just a good summary the key is "simple works"

STAR method for interview questions. - stuff I learned while looking for a job

DORA Metrics: the Right Answer to measuring engineering team performance - you just have to remember that these only measure one side of the team, usually focused on the technical delivery

Engineering 

Learnings from 5 years of tech startup code audits - mostly security insights, but also some general tips.

Remote Development at Slack - this seems to be reinvented in every company 

Plurals at Etsy - it would be a lot easier if everybody spoke English (I am looking at you Poland!) or if we just ignore plurals 

Cloudflare outage on June 21, 2022 - BGP strikes again 

Transparent memory offloading: more memory at a fraction of the cost and power - Facebook doing it at bigger scale

Technology

On the Dangers of Cryptocurrencies and the Uselessness of Blockchain - Schneier knows

AppSignal’s Next Level Of Front-end Error Tracking - I miss AppSignal 

Shadowy Strava users spy on Israeli military with fake routes in bases - clever

Environment 

US supreme court rules against EPA and hobbles government power to limit harmful emissions  - SCOTUS has been misbehaving for a while. What even is the point of the government now? 

EU’s 3 billion trees by 2030 goal: where we stand - not going well

Urbanism

What I Mean When I Say 'Ban Cars' - the view of one of the War On Cars people. I agree mostly. 

Street pedestrianization in urban districts: Economic impacts in Spanish cities [paper] - "We find that pedestrianization increases retail stores' sales volumes." ... which everybody already knows and then ignores

Rome to impose new rules to curb ‘wild west’ e-scooter incidents - I am all for e-scooters behaving themselves. Why are we not doing this for cars? 

Barcelona by bike - a perfect city for cycling? - yes

People Hate the Idea of Car-Free Cities—Until They Live in One - change first, ask later 

More flowers, fewer cars: the rewilders turning parking spaces into parks - parklets are one simple way of tactical urbanism 

America Always Gets This Wrong (when building transit) [YouTube] - the pictures from China are quite telling: build it, and they will come

AP-7 highway: no trucks at certain times and additional lanes over summer weekends - removing tolls is still going wrong

Random Flatground

One Hour Of Slow-Motion Flatground Skateboarding  [YouTube] - mesmerising 

Ziggy Stardust at 50 [Podcast] - I was never a big Bowie fan, as I never owned an album. I like how he reinvented himself all the time. Too many bands turn into their own cover bands.

Congress definitively endorses medicinal use of cannabis in Spain - I am for legalisation of cannabis, even if I am not a fan of the recreational use.

redactle - another Wordle inspired game. I am not good at this.

Spanish airline to launch zeppelin trip between Barcelona and Mallorca - 2026!

A Box of NOTHING from McIntosh: The LB200 - in case you want to make your "cheap" hifi look expensive 

UK firm can electrify original Land Rover Defender for £24,000 - very slowly moving into my price range 

Microscopic mites that have sex on our faces at night could face evolutionary oblivion, say scientists - did I want to know this? Maybe not. But now you do too. 

GTD in 15 minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done - refresher

Other Links

• Bruce Lawson Reading List 292 
• Ben Crowder - Links — Prints 2.3 
  

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 Links 22-20

For some reason I have no urbanism topics or podcasts! 

Dave Kellogg brings an interesting perspective on leadership levels. It is an old article but still valid. He seems to be going against the stream in general. Worth a follow! 

Leadership

Career Development: What It Really Means to be a Manager, Director, or VP - interesting perspective I agree on 

What we learned in studying the most effective founders - mostly as expected, but this is interesting: "While most people would expect self-confidence to grow with time, our data suggests the most effective founders are not nearly as confident as the least effective founders are." 

Stop Interviewing With Leet Code - everybody hates them, all of FAANG loves them

Agile

Your Roadmap Isn’t Really a Road Map - everybody knows this, right? 

Product Backlog Building Canvas - good user stories are hard, here are some helpful frameworks

“Measure Twice, Cut Once” isn’t very Agile. - do experiments, not perfect planning

Technology 

End of an era: Microsoft retires Internet Explorer - about bloody time, but now we have Chrome as the new IE

How we think about browsers - from GitHub

Work

The title Chief Notion Officer is popping up more and more — here's what it looks like - I posted about CNO before, but this is how it could look in practice 

Research Concludes: We Waste Our Time At Work - less meetings are good, especially if you are an IC

Random Acid

No card, no entry: documenting the world’s biggest collection of membership cards from the infamous acid house era - iirc I only had one or two club cards

‘It changed lives and opened minds’: a visual record of the birth of acid house - I was a little bit late to the party 

Heatwave in Spain to drive temperature above 40C in parts of country - I know!

Other Links 

• Weekly Design Links – 06/14/22 - don't post them every week, but they are good every week
  

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.