I’ve noticed that when I successfully create something simple, I want to make more things as opposed to failing at something complicated.
I’ve noticed that when I successfully create something simple, I want to make more things as opposed to failing at something complicated.
I often have people newer to the tech industry ask me for secrets to success. There aren’t many, really, but this secret — being willing to do something so terrifically tedious that it appears to be magic — works in tech too.
This app will show you what Indigenous land you’re on
[…] the kind of mapping we undertake is an important exercise, insofar as it brings an awareness of the real lived history of Indigenous peoples and nations in a long era of colonialism.
Excitement is a fleeting moment, not a steady state
Truth is, every day work is rarely exciting. Most work is pretty mundane. Even work on meaningful things. The most profound stuff is built one mostly boring brick at a time.
Why All My Servers Have an 8GB Empty File
This is really smart. I employ a similar technique when it comes to my calendar and making sure I always have a little margin.
None of my distant relatives will get into arguments on The Face Website about whether or not the stuck boat is making a nuisance for lots of people. I like that.
My blog is a digital garden, not a blog
Just like plants in the garden I’ve got posts that are in various stages of growth and nurturing. Some might wither and die, and others (like this one you are reading) will flourish and provide a source of continued for the gardener and folks in community that visit.
QB64 is a modern extended BASIC programming language that retains QBasic/QuickBASIC 4.5 compatibility and compiles native binaries for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
So this site is meant to showcase how a more personal web could look like, and hopefully give you some inspiration to make your own corner of the web a bit weirder.
What if school, in fact, isn’t the best place for your kids to learn? What if you didn’t try to replicate school at home? What if you had the opportunity, now, to try something else? What if we saw this time as a radical opportunity to let our kids learn and explore their interests unfettered by the demands of the classroom? What would happen if you stopped worrying about teaching them and gave your kids the time, space, and materials to lead their own learning? What would happen if you let them in on your working life, let them see you working, involved them more deeply in the work of keeping up a house and a home life?
We’re only three (almost four!) weeks into raising The Kid, but I find myself thinking about this stuff a lot.
When you hit “Leave Meeting” and the stereo white noise from other people’s bedrooms cuts out, the quiet hits quick.
You’re still in the same seat you’ve been in for weeks, breathing the same air, staring at the same wall. As much as you know that there’s a world out there—a world you were just seeing through the wizardry of high speed connection and built-in front facing cameras—the afterglow of that video context just doesn’t last.
A long, but very worthwhile read from Ankit Shah.
An Insanely Comprehensive List of 260 Pop-Culture Oral Histories
But even though the motif is a bit tired – and we’re doing our part in running the reporting technique into the ground – a well-crafted oral history is still hard to resist. But where to find them when you need them? To help you find the oral history that’s right for you, we’ve compiled this exhaustive list of 260 pop-culture oral histories we could find online.
I’m about to lose a lot of time to this list, I’m sure.
Writing Command Line Tools in Swift Using ArgumentParser
If you’d like to write command-line tools using Swift, Andy Ibanez has written a great series of posts about using ArgumentParser.
In this article, we will explore ArgumentParser, and how we can start building some command line tools with it, using the basic building blocks, which are three Property Wrappers called
Argument,Option, andFlag.
On Children: Poignant Parenting Advice from Kahlil Gibran
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
Hat tip to Derek for passing this along.
Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop
Powerful essay (allegedly) written by a former police officer with ten years of experience in “a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population”.
I really want to hammer this home: every cop in your neighborhood is damaged by their training, emboldened by their immunity, and they have a gun and the ability to take your life with near-impunity. This does not make you safer, even if you’re white.
One Twitter account is reposting everything Trump tweets. It was suspended within 3 days.
Twitter has repeatedly come under fire for its inconsistent policies surrounding abusive and harmful rhetoric on its platform. Though it recently began flagging and hiding some of Trump’s tweets that violate its terms of service, as well as one by Rep. Matt Gaetz, the company has continually stopped short of removing them or suspending his account.
Chris Rock - Tamborine (2018) - Bad Apples
Om Malik reminds all of us that being a part of Facebook’s empire is a choice. I “deactivated” my Facebook account years ago, but have continued to use Messenger and Instagram. I think it’s time for all of them to go — permanently. As Malik says, folks can come find me here.
I disagree with the company, and its leaders so much that I won’t spend any of my attention or energy on its platforms. My mother will have to actually call me on the phone. My friends will have to email me. And you will have to come to my homestead on the Internet to see my photos and visuals.
I have made my choice, and I encourage you to make yours.
If this is the America you wanted in 2016 — our Black community members demanding to be treated like humans, our hospitals fighting for the lives of everyday Americans, our doctors doing their jobs without the protective equipment they need to keep themselves safe — then I don’t know what to say to you.
Run the Jewels’ Killer Mike Delivers an Emotional Plea
I woke up wanting to see the world burn down yesterday, because I’m tired of seeing black men die. He casually put his knee on a human being’s neck for nine minutes as he died, like a zebra in the clutch of a lion’s jaw. And we watch like murder porn, over and over again.
When Police View Citizens as Enemies
Nor were the armed “Liberate” protesters who swarmed the Michigan statehouse earlier this month removed by force; instead, the legislature canceled its session. But perhaps it was inevitable that officials would turn to military language as demonstrations spread across the country this week. In cities large and small, police departments are now outfitted like military units. When you’re driving an armored vehicle down Main Street, civilians can begin to look like insurgents.
This essay, by Parimal Satyal, was a nice trip down memory lane. And a reminder of what makes the open web so great.
You could of course always just get a pre-made template or a theme and use that, but it’s a different exercise. It’s the difference between buying art and learning how to paint or sculpt.
This article, from The Atlantic, is a few years old and most certainly out of date. But it’s worth sharing for this line alone:
In a high-school science-fair experiment in 1964, a 17-year-old stayed awake for 11 days. Since then, standards for science-fair safety have changed.
Oh, it’s easy. I can tell you who didn’t make it out. It was the optimists. […] They were the ones who always said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ Christmas would come and it would go. And there would be another Christmas. And they died of a broken heart. This is what I learned from those years in the prison camp, where all those constraints just were oppressive. You must never ever ever confuse, on the one hand, the need for absolute, unwavering faith that you can prevail despite those constraints with, on the other hand, the need for the discipline to begin by confronting the brutal facts, whatever they are. We’re not getting out of here by Christmas.
With my wife and I expecting our first child in roughly four weeks, the latest episode of Science Vs, discussing the risks for pregnant women and newborns, felt timely and reassuring.
We are complicit in our employer’s deeds
A reminder from Drew DeVault:
[…] if you’re a programmer already working at $company and you’re looking for a change, you’re better off than 99% of your non-technical friends. In tech, hardly anyone is “trapped” at a bad job; or at least we don’t have a good excuse for not trying for something better.
Why we at $FAMOUS_COMPANY Switched to $HYPED_TECHNOLOGY
Ultimately, however, our decision to switch was driven by our difficulty in hiring new talent for $UNREMARKABLE_LANGUAGE, despite it being taught in dozens of universities across the United States. Our blog posts on $PRACTICAL_OPEN_SOURCE_FRAMEWORK seemed to get fewer upvotes when posted on Reddit as well, cementing our conviction that our technology stack was now legacy code.
This made me chuckle more than a few times. Spot on.
This is Nothing Like Mat Leave
8 weeks ago things here in Toronto started to shut down. And if they’d only shut down for a week or two, maybe we all could have gone back to what it was. But it’s been two months. You’re different than you were. We all are. We’re hearing from more and more people that they don’t want to go back to the old thing. It’s not who they are any more.
The best productivity hack is getting 8-9 hours of sleep every night. Second best is exercising 30-60 minutes each day. Both are obvious and overlooked, and yet make a more meaningful and immediate impact on the quality of your thinking than 99 percent of productivity tips.
The hobbyists (and one prominent pro — Seth Godin) profess that it’s the opposite that has the most positive impact on your life and mental health: short-form writing, and just getting your ideas out there. They’re correct.
Mind-blowing breakdown from Joelle Parenteau. We’ve tried to support some of our favourite local spots over the last seven weeks. It’s shocking how razor-thin the margins are.
I really enjoyed CGP Grey’s latest video talking about staying sane, healthy, and productive during lockdown. Great analogy.
How Banksy Authenticates His Work
Pretty ingenious.
That torn-in-half banknote though? Never mind signatures, embossing or wax seals. The Di Faced Tenner is doing all the authentication heavy lifting here.
Therefore, it has occurred to me that the problem is not the uncertainty. The problem is in working against the uncertainty. Of wishing and hoping and demanding that which is impossible to gain.
SmileBASIC 4 for Nintendo Switch
I started programming with QBasic back in elementary school, so I can appreciate this being available on the Nintendo Switch for today’s kids. Trying to write code directly on a handheld console sounds like a nightmare, though.
What Social Distance Looks Like Across the World
Filmmakers Jacob Jonas and Ivan Cash have created a short film, called A Social Distance, collecting clips from people in more than 30 countries.
In the self-submitted videos, people dance, play music, take us on a tour of their refrigerator, and introduce us to their pets. Edited together, these intimate moments create a synchronicity of humanity—a feeling of togetherness that’s difficult to conjure when you’re sequestered at home.
Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure
Dr. Aisha S. Ahmad, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, shares some advice for adapting to long-term crisis:
Understand that this is a marathon. If you sprint at the beginning, you will vomit on your shoes by the end of the month. Emotionally prepare for this crisis to continue for 12 to 18 months, followed by a slow recovery. If it ends sooner, be pleasantly surprised. Right now, work toward establishing your serenity, productivity, and wellness under sustained disaster conditions.
None of us knows how long this crisis will last. We all want our troops to be home before Christmas.
Almost three years ago, a group of us from TWG participated in management training offered by Jonathan & Melissa from the Raw Signal Group. Their lessons, insights, and values played a huge role in helping to shape who I am as a manager.
The latest edition of their newsletter hit on something I’ve been acutely feeling, this week.
That’s the challenge for all of us as we head into this next phase. The end of the hectic, new information everyday, everything swirling chaos phase. And into the middle part. The I’m bored, my family is bored, every day is Groundhog Day, and I am all out of ways to make chickpeas interesting phase.
Their appearance on BetaKit’s Black Swan podcast1, “Managers Are Not OK”, is also a really great listen. If you’re a manager and you’re struggling right now, I’d suggest checking it out.
After Social Distancing, a Strange Purgatory Awaits
Juliette Kayyem, former Department of Homeland Security official, collected thoughts from folks in a variety of fields and shares a vision of what the world may look like after COVID-19.
The simplistic idea of “opening up” fails to acknowledge that individual Americans’ risk-and-reward calculus may have shifted dramatically in the past few weeks. Yes, I’d like to go meet some girlfriends for drinks. But I am also a mother with responsibilities to three kids, so is a Moscow mule worth it? The answer will depend on so many factors between my home and sitting at the bar, and none of them will be weighed casually.
Explaining the Pandemic to my Past Self
This gave me a much-needed laugh this morning.
Your definition of ‘a pretty big deal’ is going to change for sure.
GitHub just went in for the kill, announcing free unlimited private repositories, unlimited collaborators, and reduced pricing for their (few) remaining paid features.
We’re happy to announce we’re making private repositories with unlimited collaborators available to all GitHub accounts. All of the core GitHub features are now free for everyone.
John Horton Conway: the world’s most charismatic mathematician
John Conway, inventor of the “Game of Life”, has died.
More than 24 years have passed since I first discovered Game of Life while pawing through book bins at the computer shop with my Dad. Farewell and thank you, sir.
This profile from The Guardian is a great read.
Miss working in the office with your team? This (beautiful) noise generator may be just the ticket. The creaky chairs are particularly fun.
Maciej Cegłowski makes a compelling argument for why we should all be wearing a mask. This is the post to send around to your friends & family.
But in this essay, I want to persuade you not just to wear a mask, but to go beyond the new CDC guidelines and help make mask wearing a social norm. That means always wearing a mask when you go out in public, and becoming a pest and nuisance to the people in your life until they do the same.
A Lego Justin Trudeau Talks to Children About the Covid-19 Pandemic
Tyler Walsh and his sons spent a week making a Lego stop-motion animation of Trudeau acknowledging the role of Canada’s children in this pandemic — their hardships and role in stopping the spread. Really heartwarming.
Paul Graham on COVID-19, credibility in the news media, and remembering who lied to us.
But epidemics are rare enough that these people clearly didn’t realize this was even a possibility. Instead they just continued to use their ordinary m.o., which, as the epidemic has made clear, is to talk confidently about things they don’t understand.
Zoom needs to clean up its privacy act
As Zoom explodes in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, Doc Searls has done a fantastic job of documenting Zoom’s many privacy concerns and publicly holding them accountable.
What I Learned When My Husband Got Sick With Coronavirus
A deeply impactful story from Jessica Lustig, whose husband fell ill with COVID-19. I was close to tears once or twice.
“You shouldn’t stay here,” he says, but he gets more frightened as night comes, dreading the long hours of fever and soaking sweats and shivering and terrible aches. “This thing grinds you like a mortar,” he says.
The Housekeeping of the Intangible
As we all struggle to adjust to, in some cases, a drastically new way of working, I deeply relate with Michael Lopp’s experience so far.
A full calendar stocked with interesting meetings, and curious people fills me with productive joy. In these non-normal times, I am thankful that the calendar is full, but my most significant learning from the first full week of distributed work is the immense accumulated value of short breaks.
[…]
But there are no breaks.