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February, 2022

Build the smallest, simplest thing you can

Here’s how I think about software development: All code is an assumption until it meets its real-life context: its user, real-world data, the situation it’ll be used in. The goal in a startup should be to prove all your core assumptions as quickly as possible. Whereas in an agency setting, say, or ...
February 26, 2022

Fairness Friday: Equality Texas

I’m posting Fairness Fridays: a new community social justice organization each week. I donate to each featured organization. If you feel so inclined, please join me. This week I donated to Equality Texas. Based in Austin, Equality Texas “works to secure full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Texans ...
February 25, 2022

Ukraine

I’m not remotely qualified to talk about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in any level of competent detail, but I am qualified to discuss my feelings about it. These things seem to rarely be fought on real principles; instead, war puts ordinary peoples’ lives on the line in the name of political ...
February 24, 2022

Protecting trans kids in Texas

We must push back against noxious bigotry. ...
February 23, 2022

Missing my mother

They say grief ebbs and flows and sneaks up on you unexpectedly, and lately I’ve been missing my mother a lot. Today my phone showed me memories from this time last year. I was glad to see them, but they also made me cry. It’s been, what, eight months? Close to a ...
February 23, 2022

The web for peace

One of my firmest beliefs about the web as it emerged was that it could be a force for peace: learning happens, I argued, when contexts collide. People who didn’t know or understand each other would meet, talk, and connect. We would all have a deeper understanding, rooted in justice ...
February 21, 2022

Who gets to be a Metamate?

An interesting juxtaposition in my feedreader today: On one hand: For its final value, Zuckerberg added “Meta, Metamates, Me” to the list, pushing the company's metaverse rebrand one step further. He said this one relates to “the sense of responsibility we have for our collective success and to each other as teammates.” And ...
February 15, 2022

Rick Klau on OKRs

I’ve been really enjoying Rick Klau’s series on OKRs. Rick worked at Google on Product and then at GV as Partner, and is now California’s Chief Technology Innovation Officer. This week on OKRs as institutional memory: In the absence of OKRs, an organization’s mistakes made and lessons learned are locked in people’s ...
February 13, 2022

The career dojo

Every job I’ve had has been a kind of dojo. At every position, I’ve had the privilege of meeting and working with a bunch of smart, interesting people; I’ve got to work on disparate products with real-world applications; and I’ve learned a lot about new markets and industries. But they’ve also ...
February 13, 2022

Meaning and co-dependency

I wonder if finding meaning is like finding your keys: it’s not going to come to you when you’re looking for it, but maybe it’ll sneak up on you. I’m a little envious of people who have made religion a part of their lives: the cultural structures of organized belief seem ...
February 12, 2022

Werd Cloud

This is not really what it’s for, but I’ve been having fun building an interconnected personal website using Obsidian. These are personal notes that anyone can read. So, for example, you can read my thoughts on the software development process, and also religion and nationality. Yes, it’s super-idiosyncratic, and it won’t ...
February 11, 2022

Fairness Friday: Montgomery Pride United

I’m posting Fairness Fridays: a new community social justice organization each week. I donate to each featured organization. If you feel so inclined, please join me. This week I’m donating to Montgomery Pride United. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery Pride United hosts “support groups, supply emergency food, hygiene products, masks & ...
February 11, 2022

Questions to ask while evaluating a new project

Does your excitement outweigh your hesitations? ...
February 9, 2022

Great communication for software teams

Reading and writing are core skills. ...
February 8, 2022

My hiring status

I am not looking for a new Head of Engineering position right now. I’ve been approached both directly and by a number of executive recruiters, and I’m flattered, but I’m not considering opening a process with any new companies. If you’re looking for an advisor or board member on tech, product, ...
February 7, 2022

The web is a miracle

I don’t think the web could happen again. A public-minded developer, operating in a public service research institution, built an open knowledge-base with no eye on profit or even productizing it. Because of its openness and simplicity, it spread to other like-minded researchers, and then beyond. It wasn’t a product or ...
February 7, 2022

Shady Pines Radio is a beautiful, independent community

Communities like this are what makes the web special ...
February 5, 2022

Fairness Friday: HealthRIGHT 360

Donating to vital, free healthcare in California. ...
February 4, 2022

Tips on writing an engineering resume

Your resume is a story about you. ...
February 4, 2022

No, you don't need to live in San Francisco or Miami

Geographic centers are dead. Long live the internet ...
February 3, 2022

Blogging for teams

I’ve been trying to find an internal blogging solution for my team and have been coming up empty. Can there really be no good internal blogging product? For our intranet, we use Atlassian Confluence - it’s a bit clunky, but it’s more or less worked as a semi-wiki. But its blogging ...
February 1, 2022

Reading, watching, playing, using: January, 2022

My monthly roundup of the books, articles, and streaming media I found interesting. ...
February 1, 2022

Building an outboard brain

I’m a long-time Notion user: my linkblog is based on it (with new links posted to my site via Micropub), and I use it for everything from tasks to shopping lists. But so far, it hasn’t been quite right for me. It’s slow, and perhaps too structured both in form ...
February 1, 2022