One of the better productivity ideas I’ve seen over the years is using some app as a landing pad for all the random ideas, recommendations, and notes I come across in the moment. I’ve been using Things for this lately, and its surprisingly effective while remaining stress free. Here's what my Inbox/landing pad looks like … Continue reading Things makes a nice landing pad →

I generally think function should have a strong influence on form, if not determine the form outright. I like to use cars an example of this, but I’m having trouble reconciling the past of “function over form” with the future. Back in the days of peak car culture (1960s), the Jaguar E-Type was (and currently … Continue reading Automotive function determines form →

Austin Kleon recommends skipping the news/social media/blinky lights in the morning. I’ve found this works great for me, and sometimes not! I’m a morning person, so I’ve got that going for me. If I’m already in a groove, have ideas about what to write or code on, and jump in first thing, this advice works … Continue reading Social media in the morning? Whichever. →

The thing which makes blogging difficult is not engagement, analytics, finding just the right theme, curating to a newsletter, managing comments, finding reach after the demise of Google reader, etc. The hardest part is showing up, every day, writing. The hardest part is writing! The second hardest thing is hitting the publish button on a … Continue reading Blogging, like writing, is challenging →

I'm currently intrigued by, and not entirely sure what to do with, the ideas of Toby Shorin. Particularly, Jobs To Be Done and The Desire for Full Automation. The thread of design thinking, the "needs" of technology, capitalism, and social systems runs throughout. Milkshakes are perfect for commutes, jobs are as varied as chores, biological … Continue reading Currently intriguing: Toby Shorin →

The hardest part for me is knowing when to use this. It creates a lot of friction for a small application, but all applications start small. Moving to an event-sourced architecture when your application (and team) is no longer small feels like a big undertaking that could be hard to justify.Dave Copeland, Event Sourcing in … Continue reading The paradox of event sourcing →

There was a time when the hacker mindset was about something nice. They’ve adopted a hacking mindset. They translate this clever, ethical, enjoyable, excellence-seeking behaviour to their everyday lives. See? Hacking is a mindset, not a skillset. When you seek, in your everyday life, to deliberately find opportunities to be clever, ethical, to enjoy what … Continue reading Reclaim the hacker mindset →

My favorite thing about software development is the breadth and depth of the profession. On the one hand, there’s a ton to learn about computer science, programming languages, operating systems, databases, user interface, networking, and so on. On the other hand, there’s even more to learn about math, payments, sociology, team dynamics, finance, commerce, linguistics, … Continue reading No topic is off-limits →

We could be problem-solving technologists. We could avoid getting wrapped up in programmer elitism and tribal competition. We might solve more problems that way! We can still find joy in certain technologies. We can still ply our trade in solving meta-problems with those technologies while solving increasingly interesting problems with the technology. We might have … Continue reading Problem solvers →

Greater Los Angeles - Geoff Manaugh. Remember when an iPhone had trouble with cellular reception if you put your fingers in the wrong place and a response that was overblown and taken out of context was “you’re holding it wrong”? Los Angeles is a city which you cannot hold wrong. It is so vast and … Continue reading Postmodernism rules everything around me →