Here are the final two pieces I published on Medium this month:
8 simple ways to get the most out of today. A guide to living well in the pandemic. (Hint: I don't take self-help pieces seriously.)
Your 401(k) hates you. The way we all save for retirement in America needs serious ...
January 30, 2021
As I mentioned, I've been experimenting with writing on Medium instead of my personal space for the second half of January. Here are some pieces you might have missed:
Where I want to work: what are the characteristics of a healthy workplace? Which values matter?
Do no harm: what does it mean to ...
January 25, 2021
If you're saving for retirement in the United States - or you want to be - I'd love about 30 seconds of your time.
Here's a very short survey form. Heads up that it does ask for your contact details - but if you're squeamish about that, feel free to write ...
January 19, 2021
I'm not quite an indieweb zealot - you can find me on Twitter and other social networks over the web - but I've been writing on my own site since 1998 (albeit not one consistent, continuous site - I change it up every decade or so), and it's become a ...
January 16, 2021
One of my favorite pieces of software is Apple photo search. If you've got an iPhone, try it: great searches to try are "animal selfie", "bird", "ice cream", or "cake".
What's particularly amazing about these searches is that the machine learning is performed on-device. In fact, Apple provides developer tools for ...
January 15, 2021
I'm nearing the end of my first week on the Whole30 diet. I'm still not what sure I think about it: which foods are allowed and which aren't feels a bit arbitrary, and the very fact that the diet has a logo and a trademark is off-putting. On the other ...
January 15, 2021
It's really easy to assume that the world around us is fixed and absolute. The way we do things is the way things are done. The internet works the way it does. The market is the market. People behave how people behave.
One of my superpowers has traditionally been that I'm ...
January 14, 2021
I have a longstanding bet that we're moving to an ambient computing world: one where the computer is all around us, interacting with us in whatever way is convenient to us at the time. Smart speakers, high-spec smartphones, natural language intelligent assistants, augmented reality glasses, wearables with haptic feedback, and ...
January 13, 2021
I'm hiring for two roles. I'm looking for product leaders with hands-on mission-driven startup experience, and for back-end engineers who have both written in Ruby on Rails and scripted headless browsers in a production environment as part of their work. In both cases, I'm looking for people who have experience ...
January 11, 2021
The power of free and open source software comes down to how it is shared. Users can pick up and modify the source code, usually at no cost, as long as they adhere to the terms of its licenses, which range from permissive (do what you like) to more restrictive ...
January 10, 2021
In her book Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown eloquently describes a model for decentralized leadership in a world of ever-changing emergent patterns. Heavily influenced by the philosophy laid out in Octavia Butler's Earthseed novels - God is change - it describes how the way we show up in the face ...
January 9, 2021
I'm still processing the events of this week: the obvious buffoonery of the Q mob contrasts starkly with reports of an intention to hang the Vice President, cable ties brought into the Capitol to detain hostages, and the obvious white supremacist flags that were flown both inside and out. One ...
January 8, 2021
It's my birthday. I was originally going to write one of those reflective pieces along the lines of "here's 42 things I've learned" or "version 42.0" or some Douglas Adams reference, but given everything that's been going on in the world, and my mother's decline in the next room, I ...
January 7, 2021
Hey, where was this insurrection organized?
Where? On a social network, you say? Which one?
Oh wow. I bet the CEO is hurrying to ensure its platform doesn’t undermine democracy!
What’s that? Oh. Oh.
So I bet their employees must be walking out in droves!
What’s that?
I see, I see.
So I bet its users are ...
January 6, 2021
I've got less than zero sympathy for companies like Facebook which argue they will be hurt by greater user privacy provisions. If your business model depends on building surveillance infrastructure and aggregating as much information as possible about peoples' private lives, your business does not deserve to survive. Apple's greater ...
January 6, 2021
Yesterday, as part of a kick-off presentation for the year, I reminded my team: coding is less than half of an engineer's job.
An engineer's role is to engineer solutions. Writing code is certainly a part of that, but as a means to an end rather than a purpose in itself. ...
January 5, 2021
Back when I was running Elgg, I'd meet someone every few weeks who wanted to build a competitor to Facebook. Inevitably, they would propose to do this by copying all of Facebook's features verbatim, but (for example) without an ad ecosystem or with a different algorithm for surfacing content. All ...
January 4, 2021
I'd love to see more of you blog.
A friend of mine recently asked me how I write so much: to him, writing was a daunting task involving staring at a blank screen while he overcame his fear of revealing his inner thoughts. I guess, for me, what it comes down ...
January 3, 2021
A couple of years ago, I realized I wasn't reading books anymore. I was reading a ton - mostly stuff on the web - but I hadn't managed to physically open a book and read it cover to cover. I was ashamed, and immediately made a resolution: that year, I ...
January 2, 2021
This is my monthly roundup of the tech and media I consumed and found interesting. Here's my list for the final month of the hell-year.
Books
Intimations, by Zadie Smith. Six personal, revealing essays about living in the pandemic. Real; insightful; human.
The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury. A classic, of course, but ...
January 1, 2021