Adam Keys is Thinking

About a year ago, I added a curiously pretentious object to my repertoire of productivity hacks. Analog is a) a paper productivity notation not unlike Bullet Journaling b) printed on pleasantly thick index cards and c) a bit of desk furniture to prop up the cards and store the last couple dozen of them.

The idea is you write your tasks down for today/later/someday. Those tasks sit right in front of you, taunting you. You cross them off as you get stuff done. Now you’ve done a productivity!

Reductionist jokes aside, it’s a fine system. The cards are printed with “Today”, “Next”, or “Someday” at the top and lines to encourage writing down several, but not too many, tasks. It’s a good way to think about organizing what you need/want to get done. As productivity systems go, it’s clear and non-invasive¹.

Dave Rupert uses/tried Analog too and has a good take on it.

Tactility is Analog’s leg up. It’s nice to start the day writing out some tasks, looking over the previous day’s cards, shuffling the cards from previous days. Even Things, the best task software, can’t provide the tactile “ahhhh”-moment of crossing an item off your list. Tasteful animation, design, and haptics get close, but touching glass isn’t as good as pen and paper.

That said, I’m not tempted to discard Things. It’s literally one of the best applications I’ve used, ever. That said, it’s charming to have a redundant, back-up scheme for reminding myself of the most important things to accomplish today. Analog is like having a (very handsome) back-up alarm clock to the alarm clock one intends to wake up to. It’s always pleasant to look at, and every so often it is the difference between an energetic day and a day played catching up.

Spooky dad rock - Trent Reznor

Sad dad rock - the National, LCD Soundsystem

Quirky dad rock - Cake

Over-enthusiastic dad rock - Foo Fighters

This ended up covering late Davis stuff. He’s basically inventing a new genre of jazz every album or two now.

• On the Corner: Davis invents funk/soul jazz.
• A Tribute to Jack Johnson: Davis invents rock/jazz fusion.
• Tutu: Davis invents synth-jazz/the thing that would get distilled and warped down to New Age/Kenny G jazz in the 90s.

There are numerous live albums! I didn’t go down the rabbit hole on this part. Miles and Quincy Live at Montreux features Quincy Jones and is a pretty great end-of-career retrospective.

“Willie Nelson” on Directions is surprisingly funky.

Overall, I could have gone for less Birth of the Cool-esque and more Bitches Brew. 🤷I like bop, but funk and fusion are more legible to my modest jazz-harmony ear.

Highlights: On the Corner, Jack Johnson, Tutu. The last was originally planned as a Miles Davis/Prince collaboration (❗ ❗ ❗) which fell through. Still pretty good.

What I’d hoped to get out of this, and indeed did, was hearing the invention of large swaths of the jazz landscape over time, album by album. In this way, Miles Davis was a singular influence on the course of music, a lot like Beethoven was.

Hopefully, in my lifetime, we’ll realize another musician has come around and broadly invented entire genres of music every few albums. (I’m assuming we’ll still have albums!)

Previously: Notes from the Miles-verse Parts 1 and 2, Into the Miles-verse.

Should engineering managers write code?:

Spending time in meetings and working through complex team relationship issues leaves you feeling more drained than energized most days. You look longingly at your team and feel a slight tinge of envy. You want to code again.

The good news is that you can! The bad news is that you shouldn’t. At least not directly on your team’s codebase and not on any critical path work.

Good ideas therein! Let me emphasize one I’m particularly fond of.

In my first engineering management role, I had the opportunity to go completely hands off. For a while, I found it a little off-putting. I really like solving problems with code! (I later realized leadership and management are solving problems with people, but that’s for another time.)

I felt a lot better about engineering management once I figured out it gave me license to code on impractical things. When you’re an EM (the hands-off variety, not the sitting-on-the-fence variety), you have the opportunity to code on whatever draws your interest, knowing it won’t block your team.

That’s a pretty rad opportunity for someone like me who’s a bit of an esoteric tinkerer.

If you’re less of a tinkerer and more of a shipper or solver, even the highest functioning teams have some pile of ambitions and ideas they aren’t actively pursuing. An engineering manager can explore the frontiers on these ideas. Maybe a plan is made, research is noted, or its found the idea isn’t all that great after all. Still a win!

As long as your code doesn’t create challenges or blockers for your organization: dive into it, have fun, explore the space!

Wherein I’m listening to Miles Davis’ studio albums in chronological order. Priors: I have listened to Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew a lot. I’m mostly familiar with “earl years” sort of stuff.

Basically bop

• Collector’s Item: this album starts to sound “Idiomatically Miles Davis”. Which I guess means “rather abstract bop-vibe”.
• Bag’s Groove: this is very hip.
• Cookin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet: I’ll take basically any version of “My Funny Valentine”, same as I will listen to any version of “Caravan”.

The albums Davis made with Gil Evans are my early new-favorites. Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, and Sketches of Spain all sound more lofty, less improvised than the earlier stuff. Almost composed, classical music, not unlike some of Mingus’ work.

Very much not bop

Getting into Davis’ fusion era (1968–1991) is my big discovery. I know Bitches Brew is a thing, but where it fits chronologically is the missing piece. Davis entirely switching gears from bop to an entirely different vibe must have been as jarring as Rite of Spring was to Parisans. Favorites so far: Filles De Kilimanjaro, A Tribute to Jack Johnson, On the Corner. In a Silent Way is entirely different from the albums around it in this era, but I like how it’s basically a long song.

Currently listening: Circle in the Round.

Previously: Into the Miles-verse.

Rabbit-hole-athon - it doesn’t look like an event is scheduled, but I dig the idea:

Tl;dr, we are organizing a weekend long IRL rabbit-hole-athon for technologists: an intimate retreat/hackathon dedicated to reading, thinking deeply about a topic, and sharing your learnings with others.

Like a hackathon or BarCamp, but with the intent to focus an individual’s attention on a topic of their choosing instead of diffusing it. (Which is fine, on balance!)

We believe that being a good builder and problem solver is rooted in being a clear thinker. Intentionally dedicating time to exploring, pursuing your curiosity, and understanding things deeply is an important part of exercising this muscle. We believe this is essential in shaping the next generation of technologists, builders, founders, and researchers.

That’s a snappy manifesto! The notion of taking an afternoon/day/weekend to throw tactics to the wind and go deep on a topic is exciting. I’m already thinking about topics I could go down the rabbit hole on. 🧠

I saw this local band Adam’s Farm (no relation, promise) a few times when I was 15 or so. In the era of mixing bass guitar out of rock music (no thanks, Metallica), these fellows stood out by being having an EP where I could clearly hear all the instruments. It was almost 25 years later that I’d learn that “Girlfriend” in particular is a Modern Lovers cover.

Sidenote: it seemed like this local band was lost to the internet until recently as well. I figured I’d ripped one of the only copies of this CD, but Adam’s Farm music appeared on YouTube recently. Fancy that!

William Shatner’s cover of “Common People” is less difficult to find, but possibly equally obscure. Back in the late ’90s, Shatner did some voice overs on a Ben Folds pre-solo album Fear of Pop. In the mid ‘00s, Folds produced William Shatner’s album of songs with tons of guests doing the singing and Shatner mostly talking about mortality and aging. Again, it was several years before I heard the original of “Common People”.

I rather like these two covers better than the originals. So it goes with a notable cover!

The modern marvel that moves commodities, sub-assemblies, finished product, and people across the planet is largely invisible. Except when I’m bumped from an overbooked flight. Or when I can’t buy your favorite kind of candy because the trucks to move the containers from the ships to the stores are in the wrong place. Or when one can’t build a car in Germany because semiconductor fabrication plants aren’t as elastic as some executive thought they were. Then it becomes all too apparent that the default state of transportation is, absent considerable effort and coordination, for the wheels to fly off constantly.

Hence, A Brief Introduction to Container Logistics is a great primer for understanding the weird state of our world:

The whole shipping process involves dozens of actors, from the exporter, through a long chain of companies who handle the container (incurring costs on behalf of the shipment), all the way to the importer. This creates a trust problem: who is responsible for the problems that arise when one part of this chain goes wrong? Some of these companies are hired by the shipping company, others by the exporter or importer, or even by a logistics company acting as a middle man. This is usually solved by some kind of chain of custody, where any problem with the container must be immediately noted and complained about by the relevant party.

Adjacent: Venkatesh Rao, Remystifying Supply Chains:

Supply chains are a new class of engineered-emergent artifact, one that includes a few other globe-spanning things like the internet, the air travel system, and low earth orbit, that exist at a level of Gaian phenomenology, terraforming, and planet-scale husbandry. We only ever catch local glimpses of these things. The wholes are too big to fit in a single human mind, and the physical embodiments are too vast to capture even on a single map, let alone in a single photograph.

We have to understand these beasts, in all their evolving, learning glory, while living within their bellies. Abstract slicing and dicing of the phenomenology, via aspects like computation, circularity, and situatedness, can only get us so far. To finish the picture, we have to develop a sensitivity to how we inhabit these beasts at a human scale.

This is extremely my jam. Beethoven Symphonies Abstracted:

To accompany the National Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven & American Masters concert series, author and illustrator Mo Willems presents Beethoven Symphonies Abstracted, an exhibition of nine large-scale, painted abstractions inspired by the music and genius of Beethoven. Each large-scale work is a response to one of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, divided into panels that visually interpret each symphonic movement.

(Via Austin Kleon)

Previously: my affection for symphonies seven and eight, John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” animated.

Fancy some near-term imagination on the opportunities the re-commercialization of space presents us? Yes, have some! Science upside for Starship:

It is, however, a fun exercise to enumerate all the ways in which Starship and related technologies can help execute bold, ambitious missions of scientific discovery.

Giant, poly-lithic space telescopes? Sure.

Probably the coolest telescope concept enabled by Starship, though, is the giant segmented telescope to end all giant segmented telescopes. An unmodified Starship can deliver perhaps a dozen 8 m monolithic hexagonal free-flying segments per launch to a target location such as L2, where they self assemble, calibrate, and then focus incoming light. Over a few dozen Starship flights, a truly enormous spherical mirror section perhaps 1000 m in diameter and with a focal length of 1000 km or so can be assembled behind a free-flying sun shade, pointed in a direction of general interest.

Heating (low-key terraforming) Mars with constellations of mirrors? Okay.

The second is mass producing light sails on Earth, launching them into LEO, then flying them to Mars where they can lurk near Mars-Sun L2 and reflect light back at the planet, reducing heat loss during the Martian night.

“Flood the zone” of our planetary neighbors with exploratory robots? As you wish.

Why shouldn’t we have a dedicated orbiter, lander, rover, helicopter, and submarine on every discrete body in the solar system over, say, 100 km in diameter? Let’s build a fleet of clockwork automatons for Venus and an armada of submarines for Europa, Enceladus, and Titan. Let’s darken the Martian skies with helicopters. Let’s drive rovers across the frozen nitrogen plains of Pluto.

I’m sure it’s a lot more complicated than it sounds from these pull-quotes. I’ll bet that SpaceX’s starship won’t meet some of these expectations. We will have to hold our nose or plug our ears as Musk bloviates. Despite all that, it’s exciting that folks are thinking, writing, and blogging about this and some of it could come to fruition in my lifetime!

Favorite tracks: “Suck My Kiss”, “Sir Psychosexy”, “Power of Equality”, “The Righteous & the Wicked”.

The essential (in my opinion) Red Hot Chili Peppers album is, for me, a few things:

• One of the first albums I heard with good bass playing (I ‘grew up’ in the age after Metallica had mixed bass guitar entirely out of their albums and many others followed suit)
• One of the first albums I heard that was great from end to end and where many of the songs flowed into each other as if played live, meant to fit together, or like they weren’t even separate songs
• Extremely teenage and horny, of which I was both when I first heard it

It’s an album that has aged well for me. It was an excellent album when I first heard it, and is still an excellent album when I listen to it today.

There are other nice qualities too: Rick Rubin’s production work. When it’s not extremely horny, it has some good lyrics. It’s rooted in the RHCP musical predecessors with intelligent awareness, not than blind copying. They are seeing further by standing on the shoulders of George Clinton, not just sitting on his shoulders for a free ride. It’s just good funk.

And yes, the RHCP joke in The Good Place is superb.

Gotta sneak this one in under the wire, otherwise it’s just a sparkling list of things.

Movies

Summer of Soul - Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone. Heck yes.

Dune - loved the world building here and I’m willing to look past the decision to split this into two movies.

Somewhere You Feel Free - I didn’t realize Wildflowers was so pivotal for Tom Petty. Made me want to get in my car and listen to the whole thing, which I did and greatly enjoyed.

Shows

Only Murders in the Building - is there a greater showbiz duo than Martin Short and Steve Martin?

Hacks - inside baseball on standup comedy plus Jean Smart is 👨‍🍳

What We Do in the Shadows - a mockumentary sitcom expanding its world, taking chances with changing things up, and absolutely nailing the landing.

Albums

Funkadelic, Maggot Brain - hits more emotional points than I’d ever expect from a George Clinton thing.

Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain - nudging into Very Intellectual, nearly classical, jazz, Davis is at least as good as Mingus was at this.

Prince, Welcome 2 America - recorded ten years ago, but it absolutely works today.

Books

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon - I finished re-reading the whole Baroque Trilogy plus this one and they surpassed my recollection of how good they are.

Adrian Newey, How To Build a Car - a memoir on designing three decades of winning Formula 1 cars.

Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist - enjoyed the whole trilogy on writing motivation.

My best writing

Don’t be spooky

“Rationalize and solve” doesn’t help someone who is venting

One priority is like wind in the sails

The long game of notes

My best tweeting

On emerging from a winter storm 

On accordions

Finishing is the hardest part

The Red Hot Chili Peppers vs. no shoes/shirt policies

Proof of work is a better idea for sustaining recurring meetings than for software currency

Kevin Kelly, The Third Way:

Huge monopolistic companies running platforms like Facebook and Amazon are not mere corporations, nor are they governments, even though they have many of the attributes of both government and corporations. They are a new third thing: platforms. We should not expect to regulate platforms like companies, nor expect them to behave like governments. We need a third category of rights and responsibilities for them.

Platform-principalities. Bank-states (which, oddly enough, includes airlines). Energy-sovereigns (British Petroleum, Exxon). Media-empires (Disney, Universal).

We require a better term for companies that have grown so extraordinarily. Those like Apple that run international diplomacy programs with China. Those like Amazon or Google, that regard their employees as de-facto citizens. Those like airlines that can print a currency (in the form of loyalty programs).

And, as Kelly notes, we should look at them in an entirely different way. We shouldn’t treat Amazon the same we treat a local retailer, just like we don’t treat your local HOA the same way we treat the European Union. “Platforms” is a good start, but a word that connects the tremendous influence modern mega-corps have with the power that Standard Oil or The British East India Corporation had at their apex would be even better!

Endtroducing is my canonical example of a revealing album. I heard “Building Steam With a Grain of Sand” completely accidentally in a college business writing class, of all places. A fellow student used it in their presentation, ironically. Afterwards, I asked “what was that?!”, my mind still blown.

I downloaded it and was immediately like “wow”. A whole new angle on music became apparent. I was vaguely aware that hip-hop quotes other music, but didn’t really understand sampling. I’m just old enough that hip-hop has always been a thing. But this was so different, like an other-worldly quote-fest. But, in a good way. A great way, even.

I later learned Endtroducing is notable in that it was made manually. Ableton didn’t exist, so if you wanted to change tempos on samples, you had to pitch correct them yourself. You didn’t have to tape splice anymore, thankfully. But it was still far tricker than making this album would have been today.

This album would spark many musical explorations. Mash-ups like A Night at the Hip-Hopera. The Roots, J Dilla, Soulquarians, and a myriad of other artists. “Building Steam With a Grain of Sand” sparked amazement, curiosity, and appetite for more music I was previously unaware of.