Currently provoking my thought

The worst NFL announcers, by the numbers (via Kottke). Obviously, this is my jam. To my surprise, Phil Simms didn’t come in last. Simms is a real conundrum; I think he’s great on Inside the NFL, but on live TV he shows frequent ignorance of how NFL games work. Apparently a lot of people don’t like Aikman as an announcer; I think he’s tolerable. I’m surprised Daryl Johnston’s FOX team didn’t show well; I guess Siragusa brings them down something awful.

Mapping Place Pins. The extended story of how the city guide feature on Pinterest came to be. Having worked on the edges of stuff like this in my Gowalla days, this was an intriguing read. Even if you haven’t worked on a location product, stick around and read it for the behind-the-scenes details and the loving treatment of how an idea becomes a product.

Architecture and Agility: Married, Divorced, or Just Good Friends? It starts here…

Does agile development need architecture? Does architecture need agile development? Is it possible to even answer these questions without a polarizing debate typified more by caricature and entrenched cultural views than by clear definitions and open reasoning—a debate more closely resembling two monologues streaming past each other than a dialogue?

…and ends with thinking about the intersection of making things, designing things, and working with people in a different way: holistically. People don’t write great code on schedule because of architecture and process. Architecture and process are what help people learn and create faster. Once a team is learning quickly and creating effectively, then they can write great code and ship it predictably.

Stop me if you've heard this one

Lately, I find myself stopping to make sure I haven’t previously written the thing I’m currently writing. For starters, I have a horrible method for moving things out of my “I should finish this idea” folder into the “I wrote about this idea!” folder. It doesn’t help that I often draft articles in my head while I run, shower, or do chores and then forget that I had the thought. It’s kind of a mess in here.

Assuming that I slip up and write the idea down twice, hopefully it’s in a way that doesn’t look like I’m plagiarizing myself. Is it weird to write about the same thing multiple times, if it’s nearly the same idea?

I hate repeating myself, telling the same stories over and over. “Have I told you this one before?” is a frequent prologue to great stories. But is it necessary? Hearing a mediocre story twice is slightly painful, but hearing a great story twice is no chore at all.

If I keep writing an idea, coming back to it, maybe there’s something important there? Perhaps it’s still bouncing around in my brain for a reason. I haven’t fully wrapped my head around it, or articulated the idea in a way I find satisfying and essential.

This is a personal website; the line between “just play the hits” and “stop trying to make fetch happen” doesn’t have to be so strong here as it would on, say, the New York Times. So, stop me if I write about an idea so much I run it into the ground. It’s just that I’m trying to get it out of my head in the right way.