As unreleased material trickles out of the Prince estate, some fantastic stories have emerged. I haven’t yet read The Beautiful Ones, but even the stories that aren’t part of his incomplete autobiography are top-notch Prince mythology. Prince hired a DJ to play music for just him and his date: “And then it hits me,” WallyWaves … Continue reading Three (increasingly wild) bits about Prince →

Developers love contracts, i.e. types and type systems. Except, and especially, when they don’t. Contracts tell us, this module has a few functions and they definitely take these inputs and produce these outputs. Some languages (Haskell, Elm) even encode the possible side-effects of calling a function in the types. Contracts place useful, and sometimes comforting, … Continue reading Contracts made older objects better →

A thing I’ve learned from weightlifting (also from Destiny, but that’s a whole other thing), is the value of showing up several times a week and putting in the right kind of work. Learning is training, and the quality of your reps is important. David Perell makes the connection better than I could: Athletes train. … Continue reading Training & Learning →

How William Gibson Keeps His Science Fiction Real - I gotta read more Gibson; just as soon as I finish all the Stephenson. 🤦‍♂️ One of them showed him an episode of “Cops,” the pioneering reality series in which camera crews sprinted alongside police officers as they apprehended suspects. Policing, as performance, could be monetized. … Continue reading William Gibson in the New Yorker →

Setting roadmaps and key results feel like truthful, strategic work. But the flip side is, if you approach them at face value or don’t focus on the outcome, they reduce the ability for teams to creatively pursue different solutions in service of the desired outcome. That increases your risk of exceeding calendar/complexity budgets! I’ve come … Continue reading Options everywhere →

Software (currently, GoodNotes) and hardware (iPad Pro + Apple Pencil) are finally to a point where glass is competitive with paper (currently, Studio Neat Panobook, previously Baron Fig Confidant). I suspect we’re in a grey area like automatic vs. manual transmissions. Most folks won’t care and choose whichever is easier or at their disposal. A … Continue reading Taking notes on paper vs. glass in 2019 →

Working with software is frustrating, and working on software doubly so, because things up and break. Seemingly without warning or cause. One day the software is fine, the next day it flat-out doesn’t work. Even worse, one day it has this one bug or missing feature and the next day the bug is fixed or … Continue reading How regressions happen →

I'm having a moment where I feel like I've got a winning wakeup/morning formula 🎊. Wake up early, around 6:30am. Feed the cats so they don't barf in protest later. Skim the tweets and feeds for a few minutes while the brain boots up. Write for five, fifteen minutes or so. Organize and think about … Continue reading My 2019 routine, your mileage may vary →

“’tis better to have known a software bug than to have never had a software at all” Lord Alfred Tennyson, except not Software that never ships never has issues. Draw the line, get it out there. Celebrate a little and recharge your batteries. Now fix the important stuff; it may not even be the bug … Continue reading Sometimes you have to compile a list of known issues and ship →

Dave Rupert, Everything I Know About Remote Work. Me, everything I know about working with remote workers when you're co-located: Every single meeting has a video link.If one person is remote on a meeting, it's optimal to have everyone on the video call. Meeting rooms with video equipment are good, but don't put everyone on … Continue reading Supporting remote work when you're co-located →