
> Sadowski has a great term to describe this problem: "Hapsburg AI." Just as royal inbreeding produced a generation of supposed supermen who were incapable of reproducing themselves, so too will feeding a new model on the exhaust stream of the last one produce an ever-worsening gyre of tightly spiraling nonsense that eventually disappears up its own asshole. [^1]



[^1]: [Post from @andreasio@mastodon.social](https://mastodon.social/@andreasio/109876703120349065)

Artificial intelligence

Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is a [greenhouse gas](/notes/greenhouse-gases).

## The global carbon cycle

[Greenhouse gases](/notes/greenhouse-gases) are constantly cycling between the land, ocean, and atmosphere.

![_files/2023-02-21-2.png](/_files/2023-02-21-2.png)

There are different "stocks" of carbon, such as in the atmosphere or permafrost. They are measured as "gigatons of carbon", or GtC. 1 Gt is 1 x 109 metric tons. "Fluxes" are the movement of carbon from one stock to another. These are generally measured using GtC/year. Currently we see a net positive flux of 5.1GtC/year.

### Carbon sinks

A "sink" draws carbon out of the atmosphere. The main carbon sinks are vegetation (plants using CO2 for photosynthesis) and the ocean, which dissolves massive amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.

### Carbon sources

A "source" is a stock that emits carbon to the atmosphere. The largest source is the burning of [fossil fuel](/notes/fossil-fuels).

While sinks have grown somewhat over time to absorb the additional carbon in the atmosphere, both sinks and store may become less reliable over time. Wildfires are one example of this. As wildfires become more frequent and intense, more trees that had been absorbing and storing carbon are burned, releasing that carbon straight back into the atmosphere.

It is now likely that the Amazon is [a net source](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/14/amazon-rainforest-now-emitting-more-co2-than-it-absorbs) of [greenhouse gases](/notes/greenhouse-gases), with more than half of Amazonia impacted by humans. In California, emissions from the massive wildfires of 2020 were more than enough to [cancel out](https://twitter.com/globalecoguy/status/1432550767790108675?s=11) the state's years-long efforts to reduce GHGs.

Another issue is ocean acidification. As the ocean absorbs carbon, it becomes more acidic. This is already affecting coral reefs and broader food chains, and it may lead to new feedbacks and complications that are [hard to predict](https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Carbon+Uptake). Permafrost melting is another concern, as it releases vast amounts of [methane](/notes/methane).

## Impact of atmospheric carbon

High atmospheric carbon dioxide can impact food quality as it lessens the amount of nutrients.

Carbon dioxide

## Factors that impact Earth's climate

- [Greenhouse gases](/notes/greenhouse-gases) in the atmosphere.
- Solar flux, i.e. changes in solar energy over time;
- Changes in Earth's orbital cycle
- Aerosols from volcanic and human activity.
- Changes in land usage. This can impact the earth's albedo (reflectivity).

## Measuring the health of Earth's climate

In relation to [climate change](/notes/climate-emergency), average temperature is the key metric used to assess Earth's climate health. On top of this, the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) has identified [54 Essential Climate Variables (ECVs)](https://gcos.wmo.int/en/essential-climate-variables/) that scientists use to better understand Earth’s climate. ECVs are "a physical, chemical or biological variable or a group of linked variables that critically contributes to the characterization of Earth’s climate".

[Climate models](/notes/climate-models) are also helpful in predicting the future direction of the climate.

### Measuring temperature

- Temperature levels are measured at ground sites, at sea (ships and buoys), and sometimes by satellites.
- Temperature data sets are complex and have different strengths and weaknesses. e.g. [Global surface temperature data: HadCRUT4 and CRUTEM4 | Climate Data Guide](https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/global-surface-temperature-data-hadcrut4-and-crutem4)

### Measuring carbon dioxide

- [Carbon dioxide](/notes/carbon-dioxide) levels are measured by both ground-sites and satellites. Historical levels are measured by like at air bubbles trapped in ice cores (to up to 800,000 years back).
- We started measuring [carbon dioxide](/notes/carbon-dioxide) levels in the atmosphere from the top of an extinct volcano in Hawaii in 1958. This resulted in the [Keeling Curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve). We now measure CO2 levels in the atmosphere at around 100 other sites around the world.
- Researchers have even reconstructed CO2 levels from 66 million years ago by examining the chemical makeup of fossils of tiny marine organisms to understand ancient warming.



[^1]: [ESD - Emergent constraints on transient climate response (TCR) and equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) from historical warming in CMIP5 and CMIP6 models](https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/11/737/2020/)

Climate


## Current situation

As of 2023, the actual policies being implemented by governments puts us on a path to 3.3°C warming by 2050.[^3] On top of this, it's believed that emissions are underreported by 23%, which is not accounted for in the above number. It also doesn't account for reduction of photosynthesis as the globe warms (photosynthesis has an upper heat limit).

## The Swerve

> Focus on the swerve. Believe it or not, the swerve is a happy ending...All we've got left is the swerve. [^1]

[Cory Doctorow talks about "The Swerve"](https://locusmag.com/2022/07/cory-doctorow-the-swerve/), i.e. the course correction we as a species need to make to stop our proverbial bus from driving off a cliff. "It won’t be nice", but it is our "most hopeful future"

> Our happy ending isn't averting the disaster. Our happy ending is surviving the disaster. [^1]

## Carbon offsets

Carbon offsets tend towards being scams. See [this John Oliver episode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0) for examples. I'm sure there's some nuance though, so it's something I want to research more.

## Ethical travel

How to ethically travel is something that I'm still trying to figure out. As an expat I fly pretty frequently. When I lived in Europe, train travel was an option, but Phuket presents a challenge: no trains and bus and car travel is too far (roughly 900km to either Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur), not to mention [the abysmal road safety record in Thailand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate), so flying becomes the default choice. On top of this I need to regularly visit family in Australia and Borneo, so again flying is the only option. [Tim Bray makes good arguments](https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2022/08/16/Slow-travel) that we should be shifting towards slower forms of travel, but unfortunately that isn't a possible choice for us yet.

> Of course, I’ve just ruined everyone’s vacation plans because they don’t get enough time off work for this kind of extravaganza. Well, that’s a bug too. As is the notion that it’s ever a good idea to travel at one time-zone per hour. [^2]

## Impacts

### Temperature

- Today, 0.8% of global land is too hot for human existence. On a pathway to 3°C net warming, 19% of global land would be too hot for human existence (i.e., home to a third of humanity).

### Climate refugees

- Roughly 1 billion people will be displaced for every 1°C of warming.

## Resources to learn about climate change

- [Project Drawdown](https://drawdown.org/). Broad set of solutions for reducing carbon.

## Companies fighting climate change

- [Running Tide](https://www.runningtide.com/). Carbon capture in oceans using kelp.
- [Norrsken Impact 100](https://www.norrsken.org/impact100). List of startups having a positive impact on the world (not all climate change related).

## Organisations fighting climate change

- [Client Earth](https://www.clientearth.org/). Fighting climate change through legal systems.
- [Climate Emergency Fund](https://www.climateemergencyfund.org/)

## Investing in climate change solutions

- [Raise Green](https://www.raisegreen.com/)
- [Tin Shed Ventures](https://tinshedventures.com/). Patagonia's venture capital fund.

## Job boards for climate change

- [Climatebase](https://climatebase.org/)

## Open source climate projects

- [Open Sustainable Technology](https://opensustain.tech/). A curated list of open technology projects to sustain a stable climate, energy supply, biodiversity and natural resources.

## Climate change education

- [Terra.do: Climate Jobs, Climate Education, and Climate Community](https://terra.do)
- [SEEQS](https://www.seeqs.org/)

## Reporting

- [SourceMaterial – Climate. Corruption. Democracy.](https://www.source-material.org/)

## Misc. climate tech links

- [Get Green Hosting!](https://www.getgreenhosting.org/). List of green web hosts.



[^1]: [The Swerve](https://locusmag.com/2022/07/cory-doctorow-the-swerve/)
[^2]: [Slow Travel](https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2022/08/16/Slow-travel)
[^3]: [Emissions Gap Report 2022](https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022)

Climate emergency

> A global climate model typically contains enough computer code to fill 18,000 pages of printed text; it will have taken hundreds of scientists many years to build and improve; and it can require a supercomputer the size of a tennis court to run. [^1]

[Climate](/notes/climate) modelling is similar to weather forecasting but at a timescale of decades instead of hours. [Some metereological services use climate models for both](https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/modelling-systems/unified-model).

> At their most basic level, climate models use equations to represent the processes and interactions that drive the Earth’s climate. These cover the atmosphere, oceans, land and ice-covered regions of the planet.

A number of fundamental physics principals go into models:

- The first law of thermodynamics. i.e "in a closed system, energy cannot be lost or created, only changed from one form to another".
- [The Stefan–Boltzmann law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law), i.e. that [greenhouse gases](/notes/greenhouse-gases) naturally keep the earth about 33°C warmer than it would be.
- [The Clausius-Clapeyron equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clausius%E2%80%93Clapeyron_relation) which "characterises the relationship between the temperature of the air and its maximum water vapour pressure".
- [The Navier-Stokes equations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navier%E2%80%93Stokes_equations) of fluid motion, which "capture the speed, pressure, temperature and density of the gases in the atmosphere and the water in the ocean."

Climate models are typically written using Fortran!

## The energy balance model

- Earth gets ALL energy from the sun. In turn, it returns energy to space. In general: $\texttt{energy in} = \texttt{energy out}$
- Energy from sun that hits the earth is called a "solar flux", measured as watts/m2.
- Energy in can roughly be calculated as $\frac{S}{4}$, where S is a solar flux.
- $\texttt{energy out} = \texttt{radiated energy} + \texttt{reflected energy}$
- "Albedo" is the reflectivity of the earth.
- Reflected energy is calculated as $\frac{AS}{4}$, where $A$ is the albedo
- The remaining energy is absorbed, either into the atmosphere or into Earth's surface. It's then converted to infrared energy and emitted from Earth to space as infrared radiation.
- A "black body" is a perfect absorber and emitter of radiation. Earth is not a black body, but it's relatively close to being one.
- Radiated energy is calculated as $\sigma{}T^4$, where $T$ is the temperature of Earth and $\sigma{}$ is the [Stefan–Boltzmann constant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_constant).
- Therefore:

$\texttt{energy in} = \texttt{energy out} = \frac{S}{4} = \frac{AS}{4} + \sigma{}T^4$



[^1]: [Q&A: How do climate models work? - Carbon Brief](https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-how-do-climate-models-work/)

Climate models


## Why be an EM?

> Just as in engineering IC roles, you can continue to build your management skills for many years before topping out or hitting a ceiling on your potential organizational impact. People who choose to specialize in line management roles are often an incredible gift to our organizations, and we should incentivize this by allowing for a range of levels within each management role type and not forcing people to move higher in meta-management to progress. [^1]

## Responsibilities

### Career development

> We often talk about the imperative to give feedback in organizations as though it only flows down and sideways—our managers owe us feedback, and we owe it to our peers. But if we are sincere about wanting to create more inclusive, equitable organizations with more empowered employees, something is clearly missing from this equation. We want managers to be incredibly emotionally intelligent and intimately familiar with their team members’ dreams, preferences, and experiences. This doesn’t happen without a two-way communication conduit—one that involves positive and constructive feedback flowing in both directions.
> 
> A precondition for this has to be that managers create an environment with a high degree of psychological safety and show a genuine interest in accepting feedback gracefully and taking action on it. [^1]

### Personal growth and self-care

>  Put on your own oxygen mask first...I know a number of engineering managers who have stretched themselves incredibly thin attempting to support, care for, and cover for their teams. It’s lovely when managers can play this role for their teams, but we also have to remember that they are humans with their own problems who are not trained as therapists or even coaches. It’s essential to set boundaries around what we can and will do to support our teammates’ personal needs. Managers can often help employees seek out the additional support they need from a coach, a mentor, a therapist—but sometimes there are problems we can’t reasonably solve for our team members, and that’s ok. It’s also ok for the bandwidth we have for these problems to fluctuate based on what’s happening in our own lives. [^1]

>  Share the weight of accountability with others. Managers have traditionally been the conduit through which accountability flows in our organizations. But this idea that managers bear all accountability for team performance is rooted in the older world of management, where ICs are fungible “resources” who can’t be trusted to be accountable themselves. [^1]




[^1]: [An Engineering Manager's Bill of Rights (and Responsibilities)](https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/an-engineering-managers-bill-of-rights-and-responsibilities)

Engineering management


- Fossil fuels are the largest source of [carbon](/notes/carbon-dioxide) emissions to the atmosphere.

Fossil fuels

Greenhouse gases include [carbon dioxide](/notes/carbon-dioxide) and [methane](/notes/methane).

## How greenhouse gases impact Earth's atmosphere

Without greenhouse gases Earth's average temperature would be roughly the same as the moon, i.e. -18°C., and it'd swing wildly between -170°C and 100°C across a day. During the day our atmosphere blocks out the most harmful rays and about 1/3 of visible light, and at night it traps infra-red radiation to keep the temperature higher.

Only gases with electric charges (i.e. more electrons than protons) block solar energy. Most of the atmosphere is made of molecules, like oxygen, nitrogen, and water, that don't have an electric charge (i.e. balanced number of electrons and protons). However some molecules are "lopsided" (i.e. most protons on one side and electrons on the other side of the molecule) and can absorb the energy of infra-red rays - water (H2O), ozone (O3), and nitrous oxide (N2O) are examples.

[Carbon dioxide](/notes/carbon-dioxide) and [methane](/notes/methane) are examples of gases that internally bounce around enough to sometimes become "lopsided" and also absorb infra-red rays. The vast majority of our atmosphere (oxygen and nitrogen) cannot absorb infra-red rays. Despite this, the gases that can absorb this energy can absorb up to 90% of outgoing heat, despite only making up 1% of the atmosphere. These are greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases trap heat energy leaving Earth's surface and radiate it back towards Earth. Records from ice show that small variations in [carbon dioxide](/notes/carbon-dioxide) produce big variations in temperature.

Greenhouse gases

Methane, or CH4, is a [greenhouse gas](/notes/greenhouse-gases). [Atmospheric methane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane) has been rising and had record highs for 3 years running (as of 2023).

Methane


I've taken to time-blocking my calendar over the last few months. I'm still tweaking my process, but I've found it to be rather valuable for making sure I spend focused time working on problems. Below are some thoughts on my current process:

**Positives**

+ It allows me to review a day and see where my focuses lay.
+ I can more easily prioritise work.
+ It allows me to have more deep focus when needed.

**Negatives**

- I too often put vague time blocks like "coding" or "management stuff". These are useful sometimes, but I'd like to shift more to have specific tasks time-blocked.
- I'm not too disciplined at sticking to the time blocks.

**Other**

- It can make it difficult for people to add me to meetings. For this reason I try to only block time on the current day to give space in my calendar for the next few days.

> Use Your Calendar as a Todo List. Normal todo lists don’t force you to make tradeoffs. Sequence your work, set limits, and know when to decline or delegate tasks. When time block planning, eat your frog: Put First Things First. [^1]

## Further reading

- [Block off more of your calendar](https://critter.blog/2021/10/21/block-off-more-of-your-calendar/)
- [Three ways to make time for reflection as an engineering leader](https://leaddev.com/leadership-skills/three-ways-make-time-reflection-engineering-leader)



[^1]: [35 Principles for 35 Years](https://www.swyx.io/35-principles)

Time-blocking


## Positive feedback instead of praise

Praise is essentially just giving thanks. Positive feedback may be thankful, but more importantly it give context for why I'm thankful and encouragement to continue the behavior in the future. [^1]

## Context

Get to know your team members preferences for feedback contexts, so you can find the right time to give feedback. 

> My previous manager knew it would be most impactful to give feedback right away on how I could have presented better in a review or ran a meeting more effectively. But there is also the risk of not being in a mental space where I really hear the feedback. He would do a great job of stopping to first ask if I’m open to hearing feedback and then proceeding, which made me way more receptive to whatever came next [^2]

## Receiving feedback
> Denying or deflecting a compliment is rude. Accept it with thanks, even if you believe it is not deserved. [^3]

## Appreciation

> Your group can achieve great things way beyond your means simply by showing people that they are appreciated. [^3]

Part of feedback is just being appreciated or noticed for the work you put in. The receiver may know they are doing good work, but might not be aware that others see it. Receiving appreciation can push them to raise the bar even further.

## Encouraging feedback

> Guarantee feedback by giving feedback. [^4]

## Criticism

> Praise in public, criticize in private. (Exception for companies and people that are actively harming or misleading the vulnerable.) [^4]

##  Be aware of past feedback

I.e. [Consider the ratio](https://charity.wtf/2022/08/15/giving-good-feedback-consider-the-ratio/. As a manager you're probably giving feedback to multiple people, but for the receiver it's quite possible you're their sole feedbsck provider. If you're consecutively giving critical feedback it may lead to the receiver feeling a lack of appreciation, even if thats not how you as the provider view the situation.





[^1]: https://jacobian.org/2021/may/12/praise-vs-positive-feedback/
[^2]: I forgot to write down where I saw this quote
[^3]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)
[^4]: [35 Principles for 35 Years](https://www.swyx.io/35-principles)

Feedback


This page documents projects I'd love to be involved with and help build (inspired by [Jonathan Borichevskiy's post on the same topic](https://jon.bo/posts/help-build/)). Send me an email or message on Mastodon if you're keen to chat about any of these!

## Tools to combat climate change and encourage sustainability

This is something that I think about a lot but am not sure how to really tackle. I want to lend my skills (software development and [engineering management](/notes/engineering-management)) to the cause, while not falling into the classic developer trap of thinking that slapping a web framework and a database on to a problem is always the solution.

The [climate change](/notes/climate-emergency)/sustainability space contains a myriad of facets, and currently I'm taking part in a course at [Terra.do](https://terra.do/) to understand which of those I can make the greatest impact on.

## Co-operatives

I have a curiousity about co-operatives that's adjacent to my interest in sustainability. I believe that a sustainable future for humanity isn't possible without drastic changes to our modes of business and production. Co-ops seem like a great alternative to me, but I've never participated in one and would like to have that experience.

## Anything TTRPG adjacent

Tabletop RPGs have always been interesting to me, but over the last few years have morphed into a bit of a passion. It also happens to be my favourite kind of hobby; one that encourages creation (in the same way that music and electronics do for me). I'd like to harness that energy and create something that I can share with others.

Currently I'm working on an app for creating characters using the [Cypher System](http://cypher-system.com/) ruleset. If it goes well I plan to share it and explore the opportunity to make a system-agnostic character builder.

Things I want to help build


> The Holocene extinction, or Anthropocene extinction, is the ongoing extinction event during the Holocene epoch. [^1]

Scientific consensus seems to point to human predation and habitat loss, as well as the impacts of [climate change](/notes/climate-emergency), as the main causes of the mass extinction event.[^1]

## Anecdotal evidence

- [What happened to all the bugs that used to splatter on the windshield years ago?](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/103yjtz/what_happened_to_all_the_bugs_that_used_to/)



[^1]: [Holocene extinction - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction)

Holocene extinction


> Wherever I saw animal life in abundance …. on the lakes where scores of species and millions of individuals came together to rear their progeny; in the colonies of rodents; in the migrations of birds which took place at that time on a truly American scale along the Usuri; and especially in a migration of fallow-deer which I witnessed on the Amúr, and during which scores of thousands of these intelligent animals came together from an immense territory … in all these scenes of animal life which passed before my eyes, I saw Mutual Aid and Mutual Support carried on. [^1]

## Further reading

- [The Ants Have Not Read Kant: Pëtr Kropotkin and Mutual Aid - Areo](https://areomagazine.com/2022/01/12/the-ants-have-not-read-kant-petr-kropotkin-and-mutual-aid/)



[^1]: [Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, Peter Kropotkin 1902](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1902/mutual-aid/introduction.htm)

Mutual aid


Some of the below points are presented from an interviewers perspective, some from an interviewee's perspective, however I think all are relevant for both sides of the equation.

- For video calls, let the interviewee know I'll be taking notes, so if I'm not looking at the camera that's why. Nothing throws off an interviewee like feeling that their interviewer is disinterested, so it's good to preempt this.
- Interviews should be a two-way street:

> If they allow you plenty of time to converse with your interviewers throughout the process, great. If they tack on a cursory “any questions for us?” while wrapping up, they don’t think it matters what you think of them. Pull the ripcord.  [^1]

- When hiring for a manager role:

> If you're a manager being interviewed by a group that doesn't include your direct reports, that's a red light. i would seriously consider opting out. [^2]

> If they don't interview you, ask to interview them. I've been at enough companies now to know that some of them use this as a tactic... "If they don't ask to meet their direct reports, then don't hire them". [^3]

- Use [the STAR method](https://lethain.com/star-method/) for answering interview questions.
	- Answer questions in sections of Situation / Task / Actions / Results

## Interview questions

### General

- Talk about a difficult challenge you've faced in your work.
- What professional achievement are you most proud of? [^4]
- How do you define success in your role?  [^5]

### SRE / DevOps

- Talk about an incident you were involved with. How did you approach it?
	- When faced with a significant incident, how do you decide what to do and how to prioritize? How do you help out your team members? [^5]
- Which metrics are most important to you in your role, and which are least important? Why is that? [^5]
- What is your experience with automation in your previous roles? Where has it benefited most? [^5]




[^1]: [How can you tell if the company you’re interviewing with is rotten on the inside?](https://charity.wtf/2022/01/29/how-can-you-tell-if-the-company-youre-interviewing-with-is-rotten-on-the-inside/)
[^2]: [https://twitter.com/mipsytipsy/status/1536281211521224704](https://twitter.com/mipsytipsy/status/1536281211521224704)
[^3]: [https://twitter.com/CadsOakley/status/1536430819031457792](https://twitter.com/CadsOakley/status/1536430819031457792)
[^4]: [[No Spoilers] I saw a post here where someone used Molly's "What are you most proud of" in an interview. Inspired by that, I asked a potential employee the same question. HUGE difference.](https://www.reddit.com/r/criticalrole/comments/xad8qb/no_spoilers_i_saw_a_post_here_where_someone_used/)
[^5]: [Top SRE Interview Questions You Should Know](https://www.blameless.com/sre/sre-interview-questions)


Interviewing


Organisational transparency is a prerequisite to success as an [engineering manager](/notes/engineering-management):

> If we want our engineers to operate with autonomy and ownership and our engineering managers to be successful, we must arm them with real information about what’s happening at the highest levels of the company, and why. Too often, transparency stops at the EM and they’re stonewalled by upper management, who neither loop them into what’s really happening, nor feel accountable for accepting feedback from the team or providing a response.
> 
> In organizations that operate this way, the EM is destined to be crushed between upper management’s silence and these very legitimate new expectations from their teams. [^2]

## Toxic transparency

> Some things that may look like transparency are actually toxic. Think gossip, manipulation, and unproductive venting that pits one person or group against another. This may seem obvious, but it can be hard to reflect in the moment. I’ve certainly made this mistake, especially when stressed. But when transparency can be a way of honestly connecting with someone, where’s the line? 
> 
> I try my best to draw it at: What can I say that would not embarrass me if another person or group heard it? Have I given the party mentioned this feedback directly? [^1]



[^1]: [Toxic transparency](https://critter.blog/2022/12/22/toxic-transparency/)
[^2]: [An Engineering Manager's Bill of Rights (and Responsibilities)](https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/an-engineering-managers-bill-of-rights-and-responsibilities)

Transparency


> Do something every day that you're afraid of. [^1]

This page is to track different weekly experiments I'm doing. These could be considered trial runs for [habits](/notes/habits) to see whether they're things I truly want to do or not. This is inspired by a few different sources:

- [This article](https://critter.blog/2020/09/21/experimenting-on-myself/) from [Mike Crittenden](https://critter.blog/)
- The [Do By Friday podcast](https://dobyfriday.com/)
- [Matt Cutts' 30 day challenges](https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days?language=en)

I have [a backlog of potential experiments here](/notes/weekly-experiments-backlog).

One thing to note is that this is not an every week thing, at least not currently. Some weeks I don't have the time, energy, or inclination to take on something new. So don't be surprised if the entries below are sporadic!

## Week 46, 2022 - Don't use my phone in bed

*Goal*: Don't use my phone in bed when I wake up in the morning.

*Hypothesis*: I've tried this in the past before, so I know it's effective. Playing around on my phone when I wake up just means my morning progresses slower.

*Outcome*:

## Week 42, 2022 - No caffeine after midday

*Goal*: No caffeine after midday!

*Hypothesis*: Over the years I feel like I've gotten more affected by caffeine. I'm not ready to quit my morning coffees, but I can at least aim not to drink caffeine after midday and see if that helps improve my sleep and energy levels.

*Outcome*: So I found this one tricky to maintain. The problem is that I generally work off two cups of coffee in the morning, but sometimes I miss that second cup and will have it later in the day. I've decided to just try to be more aware of my caffeine intake, but also not setting any hard and fast rules.

## Week 36, 2022 - Bundle exercise and TV

*Goal*: Only watch my favourite TV shows while exercising

*Hypothesis*: I've been bad at forming an exercise [habit](/notes/habits). Hopefully using the concept of "bundling" might help change this. I spend a fair amount of time each week watching [actual play](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_play) shows. My plan is to allow myself to only watch these when riding my exercise bike.

*Outcome*: This worked reasonably well! I was exercising mora than usual. Unfortunately I moved house since then and haven't set up my bike yet - but once I do I'll keep this one up!


## Week 34, 2022 - Start to read at 10pm every night

*Goal*: Get in bed and read at 10pm every night.

*Hypothesis*: I have bad night time habits (i.e. I just end up playing computer games to late into the night). I also read a lot less these days then I used to. I want to hopefully reverse both of these trends by making it a habit to get into bed at 10 each night and read a bit of something.

*Outcome*: Failed. I don't think I managed to accomplish this any night of the last two weeks. I'm going to put it in the backlog and try again at some point.


## Week 30, 2022 - No sweetened sodas

*Goal*: Don't drink any sweetened sodas

*Hypothesis*: I've gone through a couple of phases in my life where I avoided sweetened drinks, and I'd like to get back on to that habit. They're no good for my body in the long term, and I suspect even in the short-term the sugar rush has a negative impact.

*Outcome*: I did reasonably well with this one! Completely cutting out sweetened sodas was a little hard as I often found myself in situations where there weren't alternative drinks (yes, I know I could just not have a drink, but I'm not quite at that level yet!). However I've acquired a taste for sparkling water (the Singha brand here in Thailand is cheap and widely available) so I'm now opting for that when I have the choice.

## Week 28, 2022 - Meditate

*Goal*: Do a meditation session every day

*Hypothesis*: I've tried meditation before and while it didn't immediately gel for me, I can see how it might start have more of an impact with consistent practice, so I'd like to try and do at least 7 days straight. I'm going to use the app Calm for guided sessions.

*Outcome*: This one actually went for a few weeks as I'm still travelling and it's been tricky to devote time to these weekly experiments. That said, I think I'm really starting to take to meditation. I haven't been doing it daily, but when I get into a chain of a few days I really start to feel the positive impact. I'm going to try to continue to make this a habit!

## Week 27, 2022 - Sleep at 10:30, wake at 6:30

*Goal*: At 10:30pm every day I'll got to sleep (or try to), and have an alarm set for 6:30am

*Hypothesis*: A regular sleep schedule is something I've strived for for a long time. For the last few years it was tricky with a baby around, but with her sleep more regular now I think I can try this out again. I'd like to know if 8 hours is truly what I need, or perhaps it's more or less.

*Outcome*: This didn't go too well. First off, I'm bad at holding myself accountable. Second, I'm currently visiting my wife's family and I don't have a lot of control over my own schedule right now, so it wasn't the best time to try this out. I'm going to return it to the backlog and try again when the situation is more conducive,


## Week 25, 2022 - Journal every day at the same time

*Goal*: At 10pm every day I'll write a journal entry.

*Hypothesis*: I've journalled on and off in the past and always found it a useful and thoughtful exercise. I think a lot of value is unlocked by it becoming a habit though, so I'd like to try it out and see how it feels. The timing is important I feel, but I could be wrong. I've been quite interested in the concept of journalling since watching [this interview with the musician Scanner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goORCtKvCAc) where he talks about having journalled every day for the last 30 or 40 years.

*Outcome*: I was very inconsistent with this, but it's something I'd like to continue doing. I know from past experience that it gets easier to right after I become more habituated to it. It's a nice little meditation at the end of the day if I give it the proper time.

## Week 24, 2022 - Cold showers

*Goal*: Only have cold/lukewarm showers

*Hypothesis*: I get really dry skin these days and dropping hot showers is often recommended as a fix to this. So hopefully after a week I notice my skin is less dry

*Outcome*: I stuck to this all week, though I think they'd probably be classified more as lukewarm showers. It went fine though, and I think I'm going to continue doing it but maybe lower the temperature a bit every day. The real test will come when I head back to Australia in a few weeks and try it in a colder climate!



[^1]: [Ask HN: What mental models do you use everyday?](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297594)

Weekly experiments


![Unhealthy vs healthy conflict](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FaI03bGXoAgGDlr?format=jpg&name=900x900)

Conflict


I’d like for 2022 to be my “[year of habits](/posts/2022-the-year-of-habits)”, so this note will act as a place to store wisdom and thoughts related to creating/maintaining/losing habits.

> To make a thing inevitable, do as much as you can right now. For instance, to make it inevitable to take a letter to my office the next day, I put it inside my shoes. - BF Skinner

> Habits > Willpower
> If you want to change your own behavior, developing a new habit is going to be more effective than applying willpower. [^1]

> The consistency of your endeavors (exercise, companionship, work) is more important than the quantity. Nothing beats small things done every day, which is way more important than what you do occasionally. [^2]

> We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can achieve in a decade. Miraculous things can be accomplished if you give it ten years. A long game will compound small gains to overcome even big mistakes. [^2]

> If you repeated what you did today 365 more times will you be where you want to be next year? [^2]

> Habit is far more dependable than inspiration. Make progress by making habits. Don't focus on getting into shape. Focus on becoming the kind of person who never misses a workout. [^2]

## Personal baseline
This is inspired by the post [Finding my baseline](https://critter.blog/2022/04/27/finding-my-baseline/) from Mike Crittenden. In essence a baseline are the things you do in a day to keep you in a good headspace and not dip into existentialism/depression/$YOUR_PERSONAL_HANGUP (for me it's usually existentialism). A lot of these are what new habits are generally driving towards - adjusting your baseline so you can feel better each day.

My current baseline is:

- Did some writing (at least one 30 minute stretch). The topic doesn't seem to matter, just the act of dedicated writing seems to energise me.
- 2 or less coffees. More than that sends me spiralling as I tend to sleep late and that flow into the next day.
- Following on from that, roughly 7-8 hours of sleep, ideally at a recurring time.
- I'm sticking to my [GTD](/notes/getting-things-done) reviews, specifically doing a daily review. If I don't do this I start to feel adrift.
- Having a tidy workspace. Whenever I'm not at my best my desk tends to accumulate clutter. Whether the clutter is an input or output doesn't really matter - tidying up helps me find balance.

I'd like to add to that list, but I'm still trying to figure out what exactly fits!

## Incremental changes

It's important to remember that every habit starts with the smallest of actions:

> It only takes five minutes to break the cycle.
> 
> Five minutes of exercise and you are back on the path. Five minutes of writing and the manuscript is moving forward again. Five minutes of conversation and the relationship is restored.
> 
> It doesn’t take much to feel good again. [^3]




[^1]: [Tweet from Lorin Hochstein](https://twitter.com/norootcause/status/1533499004721324032)
[^2]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)
[^3]: [3-2-1: The last 30 days of the year, the power of thoughts, and certainty - James Clear](https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1/december-1-2022)

Habits


This is a backlog for potential [weekly experiments](/notes/weekly-experiments). They're split into 3 categories:

- (+) indicates the experiment adds a new activity and takes up more of my time.
- (-) indicates a change in a current habit that should theoretically free up some of my time.
- No suffix indicates the experiment has no impact on my time usage, or that it could go either way.

I organised it this way after reflecting that I have a bad habit of saying I'll do more than I can actually do in the time that I have (see [Four Thousand Weeks](/books/four-thousand-weeks) as this is basically the central thesis of the book). So if for one week I do an experiment that adds to my schedule, the next week I'll aim to do an experiment that counter-balances that.

- Walk my daughter to school (+)
- Use Moonlander (+)
- Do some birdwatching (+)
- Spend time using iNaturalist (+)
- Make healthy lunches when working at home (+)
- Don't look at Twitter (-)
- Drink tea instead of coffee
- Keep strictly to sleep times
- Use Reddit more intentionally
- Stop using weasel words when I write
- Start to read at 10pm every night

Weekly experiments backlog


## How to write

- Decide what your message is. "The goal of writing is to deliver a message to an audience in an effective way"[^1], so you better know what that message is.
- Context matters for writing, particularly longer pieces. "Prepare for a writing task, like you would for a hike. You are in for a grind."" [^1] Personally I like to take my iPad, keyboard, and headphones to a bar or coffee shop to get some quality writing done.
- "Start at the top not the beginning" [^1]. Write an outline and make sure your section headers convey the story you're trying to tell. Many readers will skim an article to decide if they want to read it, so your headers need to be convincing.
- Outline => Content => Polish. Don't get stuck polishing things before you know where your writing is going (i.e. avoid [bikeshedding](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding)).
- Provide summaries! There's a reason people know the acronym 'tl;dr'. Summaries are a great place to highlight actions that the reader can take too
- Get feedback. On outlines, on drafts, on amendments. Solicit feedback after posting too. And don't forget to acknowledge those people who do give feedback!

## Why write?

> My English teacher in school used to say: “Writing. Only writing brings blessing.” I did not think much about this slogan, but it was catchy enough to stick with me. Now I consider it a deep truth, and keep it at the top of my blog, as a reminder. [^1]

> Writing is Stupendously High Leverage. [^2]

- Some writing, such as these notes, can act as a "second brain" or Memex.
- It can help to find like-minded people (see [Do things, tell people](/[notes/do-things-tell-people)]).

## Write consistently

"The only way to improve your writing is by writing."[^1] I'm a big fan of how [Mike Crittenden](https://critter.blog/) approaches this. He posts almost daily, though quite often just a thought-provoking paragraph or two. Another approach is to create a set of personal rules for how you write, as [as proposed by Matt Webb](https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/10/streak). This can help to "bump [yourself] out of certain mental traps that [you] know will otherwise stop" you.

## My personal rules for writing

These are not writing tips (for those, see my note on [notes/writing](/notes/writing)). Rather these are rules that I set for myself when writing (inspired by [this post from Matt Webb](https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/10/streak)).

- Write something every day
- Write at least one comprehensive post once a week
- "Titles should be descriptive and have the flavour of the post. And rewrite the lede once the post is done so the whole thing gets to the point faster."
- Define the topic of the piece I'm writing and stay within its bounds. Avoid tangents.
- Be honest to my personality. Don't try and write as if I'm another person.
- Don't assume the reader has the same knowledge as I do. Try to explain the more esoteric/abstract topics I'm mentioning.
- A post/note should be more than a link to some article. I should be synthesising and sharing my opinions.



[^1]: [Writing for Engineers](https://www.heinrichhartmann.com/posts/writing/)
[^2]: [35 Principles for 35 Years](https://www.swyx.io/35-principles)
[^3]: [15 rules for blogging, and my current streak](https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/10/streak)

Writing


> **The value of human time at most software companies is 20-100x the value of machine time.** This means it’s possible to _lose money_ by doing optimizations which save only machine time, but not any human time! [^1]

## "Goals, Signals, Metrics" framework

> 1.  Define the actual goal you’re trying to accomplish. Opt for a descriptive definition, for example, say “here is a description of what we want to actually accomplish with our work.” Not the vaguer, “I want to measure X.”
    2.  Define signals. How would you know if you accomplished that goal, if you had infinite knowledge of everything? These are called “signals.” For example, a signal is “how happy are people with my product?” You cannot directly know how happy people are with your product, unless you’re magically all-knowing. However, if having happy customers is one of your goals, then this is the right _signal_ for that.
    3.  Figure out your metrics. These are proxies for that signal. Metrics are _always_ proxies, there are no perfect metrics.  [^1]



[^1]: [Measuring Engineering Efficiency at LinkedIn](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/linkedin-engineering-efficiency)

Developer experience


## Email

> The best time to call me is email. [^3]

> Spend as much time crafting the subject line of an email as the message itself because the subject line is often the only thing people read. [^1]

## Public speaking

> When public speaking, pause frequently. Pause before you say something in a new way, pause after you have said something you believe is important, and pause as a relief to let listeners absorb details. [^1]

## Miscellaneous

> Illustrate Your Point. Adding code samples or drawing 2x2’s and system diagrams makes your idea much more effective. A picture IS worth a thousand words! Even this shitty example works, you can do better than me. [^2]



[^1]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)
[^2]: [35 Principles for 35 Years](https://www.swyx.io/35-principles)
[^3]: [Tweet from @jchernov](https://twitter.com/jchernov/status/390238818928164864)

Communication


## Limit participation

> There are three ways in which participants can contribute to a meeting: 1) input, 2) decision, 3) commitment. If a person cannot make any of these three contributions, don’t invite the person because this person just needs to be informed by broadcasting the meeting notes. [^1]

I think this is something I'd like to move towards running [remote teams](/notes/remote-teams). Currently the default for a lot of meetings is to invite the whole team/groups of people, but this is mostly just for [knowledge sharing](/notes/knowledge-sharing) which can be achieved by good [note-taking](/notes/note-taking) instead (which is more beneficial anyway as it creates a concrete record of decisions/direction).

The "commitment" part is the most unclear to me, but I like Mike Crittenden's explanation that it "means you cannot move forward without that specific person committing (even if they disagree)". [^2]

## Optional by default
For [remote teams](/notes/remote-teams) you cannot rely on everyone being available for a meeting, so optional attendance becomes a default. To make this work you need to also encourage async participation. Record the meeting, take notes, and broadcast after the completion of the meeting. If the goal of the meeting is to make a decision on something, seek thoughts and opinions prior to the meeting for those who can't be there.

## Ensure meetings have a purpose and agenda

>At GitLab, roughly 1% of meetings should end within the first minute as it becomes clear that the meeting doesn't have a known meeting outcome [^5]

There should be a clear purpose for a meeting. Similarly, there should be an agenda attached to the calendar invite. "No agenda, no attenda." [^5] If you want to get formal, Gitlab have [a nice list of requirements for meeting agendas](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/meetings/#4-all-meetings-must-have-an-agenda).

> Stop calling meetings so you can simply organize your own thoughts with witnesses [^3]

I've been guilty of this, and I work with people who are guilty of this. I think this is relevant to the quote further up of the reasons to be part of a meeting - noticeably information sharing is not one of them. I think for a successful remote working organisation (even non-remote!) this is key, and that [knowledge sharing](/notes/knowledge-sharing) should be done as asynchronously as possible. Meetings are ephemeral and there will be loss of knowledge.

## Documenting meetings
> It's not rude to focus on documentation in a meeting. A surefire way to waste time in a meeting is to avoid writing anything down. Meetings within an all-remote company require documentation to be worthwhile. [^5]

## Supporting documents

If for a meeting to be held the attendees need to have read supporting documents (design docs, RFCs, etc.), have that reading time at the start of the meeting. This ensures everyone is on the same page.

## Etiquette

- Start on time, end on time (or earlier!). Make sure to spare time at the end for outlining the outcome, action points, etc.
-  Don't book meetings for a full hour/30 mins - leave some buffer time at the end for people to rest/take notes/etc. in case they have a meeting in the next hour. Google Calendar has a built-in setting for this.

> You can be whatever you want, so be the person who ends meetings early. [^4]



[^1]: [The Manager's Handbook](https://themanagershandbook.com/working-as-a-team/running-meetings#meeting-attendees)
[^2]: [The only three reasons to attend a meeting](https://critter.blog/2022/01/05/the-only-three-reasons-to-attend-a-meeting/)
[^3]: [Tweet from Amber Naslund](https://twitter.com/AmberCadabra/status/1496504515125776393)
[^4]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)
[^5]: [All-Remote Meetings](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/meetings/)

Meetings


When do you ask for help? This is a difficult question to answer for software engineers, regardless of their skill level. As a manager I notice this paradox: when I onboard a new team member I'm always adamant that they should reach out for help if they get stuck, yet at the same time I expect them to also not immediately shout for help and try to figure things out on their own for a bit. Daniel Roy Greenfeld proposes a "thirty minute rule" where "if anyone gets stuck on something for more than 30 minutes, they should ask for help"[^1]. I think this strikes a nice balance, though there's another little paradox within that of how to define "stuck". More often than not what a developer is experiencing is very minute progress, so not technically stuck, but also not making normal progress either.

> Ask For Help More. People are happy to help and like you more when they have helped you. Don’t worry about showing weakness; you are getting something far more valuable in return. [^2]



[^1]: [The Thirty Minute Rule](https://daniel.feldroy.com/posts/thirty-minute-rule)
[^2]: [35 Principles for 35 Years](https://www.swyx.io/35-principles)

Asking for help


## Good for coffee

- [Campus Coffee Roaster](https://www.facebook.com/campuscoffeeroaster/). In Phuket Town, so it's a little tricky to access by car. Great in-house coffee and beans. Probably good for meeting with a friend, but not ideal for working as there isn't a lot of seating.

Cafes in Phuket


Inspired by [Artur Piszek's bucketlist](https://piszek.com/bucketlist/). I started writing this on October 30, 2021 - I've done lot's of cool stuff in my life before then, but I'm not going to cover it all here 😁

## Done

~

## Going to do

- BL1 Go on a long-distance motorcycle trip.
- BL2 Go on a long-distance cycling trip.
- BL3 Write a book
- BL4 Visit Italy
- BL5 Record and release an album
- BL6 Play D&D with my kid(s)
- BL7 Go on a road-trip alone with my kid(s)
- BL8 Release a SaaS product.
- BL9 Run a D&D campaign in my own world.
- BL10 Make US$1000 passive income in a month.
- BL11 Work in a co-op company.
- BL12 Go fully vegetarian
- BL13 Create a home cocktail bar
- BL14 Visit Iceland and see the Northern Lights
- BL15 Live in Japan for a while
- BL16 Contribute to a museum or some sort of historical conservation project
- BL17 Create a family tree that goes back at least 3 generations (for my wife's family too)
- BL18 Own a home that runs fully on renewable energy
- BL19 Go camping with my kid(s)
- BL20 Build and release a video game (of any size/scope)
- BL21 Make it a habit to only buy things that last a long time/can be easily repaired
- BL22 Publish 1000 blog posts
- BL23 Create a will
- BL24 Have a screen-free digital detox weekend
- BL25 Speak at a conference
- BL26 Become a regular at a coffee shop
- BL27 Make kimchi
- BL28 Build a guitar
- BL29 Measure my carbon emissions
- BL30 Take a sabbatical at [Recurse Center](https://www.recurse.com/) or something similar
- BL31 Explore using solar power at home

Bucketlist


> Succeeding at a project in an organization is like pushing a boulder up a hill that is too heavy for any single person to lift. It doesn’t make sense to ask what the “root cause of success” is for an effort like this, because it’s a collaboration that requires the work of many different people to succeed. It’s not meaningful to single out a particular individual as the reason the boulder made it to the top. [^1]

The same is true of failure. When it is a collaborative effort there will never (or at least very rarely) be a single point of failure.

> Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer - Niccolo Machiavelli



[^1]: https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2021/08/13/root-cause-of-failure-root-cause-of-success/

Failure


## Roles of a leader

> When you lead, your real job is to create more leaders, not more followers. [^1]

> Create Clarity. Simple Explanations of What, Why, and How are extremely underrated and extremely useful. This is also a core skill of all leaders. [^2]



[^1]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)
[^2]: [35 Principles for 35 Years](https://www.swyx.io/35-principles)


Leadership


> For the best results with your children, spend only half the money you think you should, but double the time with them. [^1]

> Kids don’t care about budget or how much things cost. We have toys we’ve spent hundreds of dollars on only to have the near free to free one be a hit. [^2]

> Kids will generally have fun with anything you show a degree of interest in. The copper pipe plumbing example in this thread is a perfect example. A simple Task became a life long activity for the kid. They will remember it forever and tell someone in the future “this time I welded with my dad”… they won’t remember that time my dad didn’t hire a plumber. [^2]

> If you ask a kid if they want pancakes or cereal for breakfast, they'll pick one and be delighted. If you ask them what they'd like to have without presenting options, this can lead to a complete meltdown. Picking from infinite options, forcing them to think all of them up and then turn down n-1 of them... It can be too much for a kid. [^2]

## Things to do

- Go to a library or used book store twice a month
- Plant some plants
- Microscopes and other science projects
- Origami
- Electronics
	- Build a [Phoniebox](http://phoniebox.de/index-en.html)
- Lego

### Games

> I remember playing with my father who passed away a few years ago simple word games. We called that Word-building, a game where one player says a word and the next one has to say to word starting with the last letter of the previous word eg: Apple, Egg, Goose, Elephant and so on. Occasionally my father would say an uncommon word and when I asked him what it was, he casually pointed me to the dictionary, asked me to bring it and taught me how to use it. [^2]

> Another game we played then is what we called Name-Place-Animal-Thing where we pick a letter and then have to say a proper name, a place name, an animal and a thing that starts with that letter. For eg: V -> Victor, Virginia, Viper and Vase. [^2]



[^1]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)
[^2]: [Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31965616)


Parenting


> “You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” — James Clear


Systems


This document covers the tools and services I'd generally default to when working on a personal project. Every project has it's own needs and circumstances, so sometimes I may opt for other tools, but in general my mind will go to these ones first. Check back from time to time as I'll update this post as my tech stack evolves!

## API / database

While I'm comfortable rolling my own backend using Python/Ruby/Node, I always find this to be a big time investment, and it's also usually the place I run out of steam on projects. So recently I've been using [Hasura](https://hasura.io/) for creating [CRUD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete)-like GraphQL APIs for my projects. This allows me to create an API in 10 minutes and getting to working on the front-end code that usually sustains my interest in a project. Hasura requires a database provider and for that I've used [Heroku](https://www.heroku.com/) - it works well enough so far, but I haven't used either Hasura or Heroku with any backend intensive projects yet.

For a backend requiring more than just a CRUD API I'd try to see if I accomplish what I need using serverless functions before reaching for something like [Express](https://expressjs.com/) or [Rails](https://rubyonrails.org/).

## Language

Generally I'd aim to use [Typescript](/notes/typescript) for everything I do. There's a few other languages I'm either comfortable with (vanilla JavaScript, Ruby, Python) or somewhat familiar with (Elixir, Go, Java), but unless I'm intentionally setting out to improve my skills in a different language I'll opt for [Typescript](/notes/typescript) on both front and back end as that's what I can move fastest with.

## Frontend

Similarly, here I'll opt for [React](/notes/react) as that's what I'm most effective with. If the project will benefit from techniques like static page generation or server-side rendering, than I would choose to work with [Next JS](TODO:), otherwise I'd just go with a vanilla React app (no bootstrapping) and potentially pull in [react-router](TODO:) if needed. I'll almost certainly end up using [Apollo](TODO:) too for GraphQL requests.

## CSS

I've used [CSS](/notes/css) pre-processors like [Sass](https://sass-lang.com/) is the past, but given the fast pace of evolution in vanilla [CSS](/notes/css) in the last few years I now prefer to just work with that, though possibly pulling in [CSS Modules](https://github.com/css-modules/css-modules) for larger projects. For the last year or so I've also been using [Tailwind](https://tailwindcss.com/) as I've found it allows me to iterate fast while maintaining a consistent design system.

## UI / component library

I've not been a huge fan of React component libraries as I find I end up spending more time adapting them to my app then writing them in the first place would have taken. What I have been using recently though is [Tailwind UI](https://tailwindui.com/) as it allows me to quickly prototype a design and then alter it along side the design system I'm working with.

## Forms

I currently don't have a great solution for working with forms in React. I've recently been testing out [react-hook-form](https://react-hook-form.com/), but I'm not fully on board yet.

## Dev tools

ESLint and Prettier are must haves for code style. I have [my own ESLint config](https://github.com/lhansford/eslint-config-lukehansford-base) that I pull into any project I work on.

For a build tool I've recently been trying out [Vite](https://github.com/vitejs/vite) and have had a positive experience, though this is a fast evolving space at the moment so there's a chance I might end up with an alternative. I've also been happy with [Parcel](parceljs.org/) for projects that are relatively simple in their build process.

## Testing

For testing I like to go with a combo of [Jest](https://jestjs.io/) and [Testing Library](https://testing-library.com/), and I can bang out unit and integration tests at a fast pace with these two tools. In the end-to-end testing space I've worked with [Cypress](https://www.cypress.io/) but have had a mixed experience and I'd like to experiment some more with alternatives to find something that works better for me.

## CI and automation

For CI and other automation (e.g. publishing node modules or documentation) I go with [Github Actions](https://github.com/features/actions). So far I've find them incredibly easy to work with and quite flexible too.

## Deployments / Hosting

I've recently been using [Vercel](https://vercel.com/) for deploying and hosting web projects and it's been a really good experience so far. I've traditionally been an S3 or "spin up my own server" guy, so this is a space I'm still learning about at the moment.

My current tech stack



> If I were to generalize, I’d say most of the companies I’m picking on fall into one of two categories:
> 	- They believe in DevOps ideas, but they’re unwilling to invest in changing their ways.
> 	- They aren’t convinced that some of the scarier ideas (like deploying multiple 	times per day) will help after all. [^1]

> [I]f your “DevOps” and “developer” teams are completely separate, and your developers don’t understand how or where their code is deployed, it’s pretty clear to me that you haven’t adopted much of what “DevOps” was meant to be. [^1]



[^1]: [Devops: An Idea so Good, No One Admits They Don’t Do It](https://wagslane.dev/posts/no-one-does-devops/)

DevOps


It's not just assigning work - it's assigning work that you as a manager are personally responsible for. The two benefits are reducing of workload and providing growth opportunities to the person being delegated to.

> If you’re only using delegation as a way of making your job easier, you’re missing the point. It’s not just about assigning work; there’s something in it for the direct, too. [^1]

For the person being delegated to, it's important that they also be delegated the power to make decisions related to the delegated work. It's also vital that others understand that you've delegated authority. 

Potential for [failure](/notes/failure) in delegation is actually a pro! It gives the opportunity to learn from mistakes. Don't wait until a report is "ready" for the work, but rather make failure a "safe option". Set them up for success, but allow room for [failure](/notes/failure), and don't jump in immediately when things start to go off track. [^2]

> “Early on, my manager told me, ‘I don't want you to mess up. But if you mess up, I will have your back.’ This instilled in me that my manager trusted my decisions, was willing to help me through potential failure, and subtly applied pressure to live up to that trust. He said it once, but it was impactful enough that I still think about it when I face a new decision in my role,” says Madeline Willett, Associate Director for Division Operations at Verto Education. [^3]

> “I trust you, make the call” might be the six most powerful words you can hear from a supervisor. [^4]

Ask someone if they want to be delegated the work, don't just tell. And explain to them why you've chosen them. If they say yes, you should then provide a brief and explain the intended outcome. In reality you should be delegating outcomes and letting the delegate decide the appropriate way to reach them.

As for what to delegate, there's two good indicators. Easiest is if the delegate has expressed interest in that domain and it aligns with the direction they'd like to grow in. But also useful is to delegate what I personally enjoy doing - the things that excite and challenge me - as there's a good chance the delegate would enjoy it too. [^5]

## My delegation process

1. Confirm that the potential delegate has bandwidth to take on more work.
2. Confirm with person that they're open to take on the work (optional/situational).
3. Document the work to be done, include knowledge transfer and setting of expectations, time-frame, and constraints.
4. Set a date to check-in on progress.
5. Give [feedback](/notes/feedback) to the delegate, both during the project and after its completion.

## A delegation backlog

As a manager you'll always have more in your backlog than you can ever accomplish. It's good to be honest with yourself about whether you can truly get to everything there, but I've found a nice alternative to doing a "[select all and delete](/notes/select-all-delete)" on your backlog is to shift some of those things into a delegation backlog that's visible to your reports. Let them know that these are projects that need an owner and you might be surprised by who takes the initiative to tackle some of those projects.

## Further reading

- [Tools for effective delegation in engineering management](https://leaddev.com/professional-development/tools-effective-delegation-engineering-management)



[^1]: [What’s delegation?](https://jacobian.org/2021/jul/19/whats-delegation/)
[^2]: [Make Failure A (Safe) Option](https://jacobian.org/2021/jul/20/make-failure-safe/)
[^3]: ???
[^4]: ???
[^5]: [Give Away Your Toys](https://jacobian.org/2021/jul/19/give-away-your-toys/)

Delegation


- [https://confs.tech/](https://confs.tech/): Useful tool for finding conferences.

## General

- [GOTO Copenhagen](https://gotocph.com/2021)
- [NDC Oslo](https://ndcoslo.com/)

## Web

- [An Event Apart](https://aneventapart.com/)
- [Perfmatters](https://perfmattersconf.com/): Web performance focused conference.

## Javascript

- [Nordic.js](https://nordicjs.com)

## React

- [React Europe](https://www.react-europe.org/)

## Ruby

- [Euroko](https://2022.euruko.org/)
- [RubyConf Thailand](https://rubyconfth.com/)

Conferences


- The onboarding process should be as hands off/automated as possible [^1]
	- A caveat to this though is that there needs to be human presence to make the new team member feel welcome. Don't just give them a list of tasks and leave them be.
- Every person being onboarded should be contributing to the documentation as they go through onboarding. Part of the process should be something like "add your info to the repo", in order to "break the ice" on making changes. But part of it should also be updating any outdated information in onboarding (e.g. who to talk to about getting an account set up, the URL of a repository, etc.).
- Make sure to solicit [feedback](/[notes/feedback) at different intervals. After the first week, but perhaps also after a month or 3 months to figure out what the new team member felt was missing from onboarding.

## Onboarding as an opportunity chance for org. improvements

> When I join a new company or team, I’m usually filled with WTF’s.
> 
> WTF – why is the PM running sprint planning?
> WTF – why aren’t we releasing more often?
> WTF – why do we have to do that deploy step manually?
> WTF – why does that alert exist if everyone ignores it?

> People tend to forget about their radical ideas after a few months...[so] write down every WTF you come across, so you can remember them once you’ve started taking things for granted. And when another new person joins, be the first follower when they raise an issue so it can gain momentum. [^2]



[^1]: [Treat Your Onboarding Process Like Your Build System](https://medium.com/vpe-coach/treat-your-onboarding-process-like-your-build-system-381474aff0f1)
[^2]: [The first few months are precious](https://critter.blog/2022/07/14/the-first-few-months-are-precious/)

Onboarding


> You need to learn how to start saying no to things you do want to do, with the recognition that you have only one life. [^1]


[^1]: [Four Thousand Weeks](/books/four-thousand-weeks)

Saying No


> Will this matter or affect me in 5 years? If not, don’t spend more than 5 minutes worrying about it." [^1]

> Every decision to use a portion of time on anything represents the sacrifice of all the other ways in which you could have spent that time, but didn’t – and to willingly make that sacrifice is to take a stand, without reservation, on what matters most to you. [^2]



[^1]: [The 5×5 rule for worry](https://critter.blog/2021/11/03/the-5x5-rule-for-worry/)
[^2]: [Four Thousand Weeks](/[books/four-thousand-weeks)


Priorities


> Luck = [Doing Things] * [Telling People]
> The more things you do multiplied by the more people you tell, the larger your Luck Surface Area becomes. The larger your Luck Surface Area, the more likely you are to catch luck as it flows by. [^1]

> You can get away with just doing one of the two, but that's rare, and usually someone else is doing the other part for you. [^2]

This aligns with my experience. Currently I mostly do things, but don't tell people, and unsurprisingly I come up with a lot less interesting opportunities.

I think there's corollary to the above formula. The opportunities enabled by the "Luck Surface Area" only arise because there's someone on the other end picking up what you're putting out. So you can also increase your own "Luck Surface Area" by engaging with those who are "Telling People" (perhaps via some praise or helpful [feedback](/notes/feedback)).



[^1]: [Publishing your work increases your luck](https://github.com/readme/guides/publishing-your-work)
[^2]: [Do things, tell people.](http://carl.flax.ie/dothingstellpeople.html)

Do things, tell people


> It’ll never stay as great as you want, it’s never really as bad as you feel. This, too, shall pass. [^1]



[^1]: [35 Principles for 35 Years](https://www.swyx.io/35-principles)

Stoicism


> Don't ever work for someone you don't want to become. [^1]

## Career KPIs

When thinking about my career I don't really have any sort of long-term plan, or even short-term objectives really. Instead I like to think in terms of KPIs. These KPIs fall into 4 categories:

- **Am I sharing knowledge?** It could be through [mentoring](/notes/mentoring), pair programming, blog posts, tweets, conference talks, whatever. Sharing my knowledge with others in a win-win situation in my books, and I don't ever want to be in a situation where it's not happening.
- **Am I learning?** Or more specifically, am I learning something that can be applied again in the future. Both management and development involve constant learning, but not all of it is transferable.
- **Am I proud of what I'm working on?** This has multiple levels, from the technical implementation of a feature or the running of a product team, to the more fundamental question of whether or not the time I spend in my job is having a positive impact on the world.
- **How's my [well-being](/notes/well-being)?** Am I working too much, or too stressed out? Or do I just generally feel drained at the end of the week? Am I meeting my [personal baseline](/notes/habits)? I could be knocking the first 3 KPIs out of the park, but if this one is no good then it's not worth it.

Every Friday afternoon I'll take 10-15 minutes to think about these KPIs and decide if any action needs to be taken to improve them.

## Salaries

> The best time to negotiate your salary for a new job is the moment AFTER they say they want you, and not before. Then it becomes a game of chicken for each side to name an amount first, but it is to your advantage to get them to give a number before you do. [^1]

## Purpose

Having [purpose](/notes/purpose) in my career is something I've been thinking about a lot recently (see "Am I proud of what I'm working on?"  in the career KPIs above). One area I can see on my horizon is doing work that helps to fight the ongoing [climate emergency](/notes/climate-emergency). Currently I see two approaches to this:

- Work directly on something that lessens [climate change](/notes/climate-emergency) or it's side effects.
- Work in a way that sets an example on how a sustainable company can thrive (i.e the Patagonia model as outlined in [Let My People Go Surfing](/books/let-my-people-go-surfing)).



[^1]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)


Career


> The purpose of a platform team is to enable stream-aligned teams to deliver work with substantial autonomy. The stream-aligned team maintains full ownership of building, running, and fixing their application in production. The platform team provides internal services to reduce the cognitive load that would be required from stream-aligned teams to develop these underlying services. [^1]

> A platform team...putting it crudely...builds the stuff that lets others build and run their stuff. [^2]



[^1]: [Team Topologies](https://teamtopologies.com/)
[^2]: [Who should write the Terraform?](https://zwischenzugs.com/2022/08/08/who-should-write-the-terraform/)


Platform teams


## Examples

- [Engineering Ladders](http://www.engineeringladders.com/)
- [Medium](https://github.com/Medium/snowflake)
- [Dropbox](https://dropbox.github.io/dbx-career-framework/)

Engineering ladders


> Aim to die broke. Give to your beneficiaries before you die; it’s more fun and useful. Spend it all. Your last check should go to the funeral home and it should bounce. [^1]



[^1]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)

Giving back


## General

- [Awesome Ruby Meetups & Organizations](https://planetruby.github.io/meetups/)
- [Rails Girls](http://railsgirls.com/)
- [Ruby Central](https://rubycentral.org/)
- [Ruby Conferences](http://planetruby.github.io/conferences/)
- [Ruby Conferences](https://rubyconferences.org/)

## Asia

- [Bangkok.rb](https://www.facebook.com/bangkok.rb/)
- [RubyConf TH](https://rubyconfth.com/)
- [RubyConf India](https://rubyconf.in/)

## Europe

- [EuRoKo](https://2022.euruko.org/)
- [Stockholm Ruby](http://www.stockholmruby.com/)

## Americas

- [RubyConf](https://rubyconf.org/)

Ruby/Rails community

Infrastructure


> Your job as an infrastructure leader is diagnosing the right mode of operation for your company’s infrastructure costs today, understanding when you’re likely to switch modes, and ensuring you’ve done the prework to make the transition relatively painless. [^1]



[^1]: [Efficiency: Managing Infrastructure Costs](https://infraeng.dev/efficiency/)

Infrastructure costs


For any service, piece of code, or piece of [infrastructure](/notes/infrastructure) it should be simple to know the following:

- Which team owns it (it must be owned!)
- Which individuals are part of that team.

From an infrastructure team perspective this allows easier action when [SLOs](/[notes/service-level-objectives)] are affected by the entity (e.g. ballooning costs, flaky CI, degraded performance).

## Further reading

- [Ownership metadata](https://infraeng.dev/ownership-metadata/)

Infrastructure ownership

Service level objectives


## Weekly updates

This seems to be a commonly recommended format in tech, specifically the 15-5 format:

> Spend 15 minutes at the end of each week on a report that can be read in five minutes. Send this out to your manager and a few peers at work. [^1]

Shaun Wang has [summarised a number of approaches](https://www.swyx.io/the-importance-of-writing-weekly-updates/), but my favourite is the supposed original from Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard:

1. Accomplishments for this week (completed activities, notable wins, what’s working)
2. Priorities for next week
3. Challenges/Roadblocks
4. Lessons Learned/Opportunities for improvement



[^1]: [Becoming a better writer in tech](https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/becoming-a-better-writer-in-tech/#build-writing-habits)

Knowledge sharing


> The only productive way to answer “what should I do now?” is to first tackle the question of “who should I become?” [^1]

Deciding "who should I become" is difficult because it inherently is accompanied by "who should I not become" and the closing off of possibilities.

> You are as big as the things that make you angry. [^1]

> I'm always thinking about "Create vs. Consume" => make sure it's at least 50-50, aim for 80-20. Most men I've met on death beds regretted doing nothing. [^2]



[^1]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)
[^2]: [Ask HN: What mental models do you use everyday?](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297594)


Purpose


> Document, document, document. No matter your seniority or rank, you should be documenting.
> 
> Document how you work, how you expect to work with others. Make changes to documentation that other people wrote proactively. Be the example. [^1]




[^1]: [@Jobvo on Twitter](https://twitter.com/Jobvo/status/1543157549826023425?s=20&t=hrVZYjaaA418_EFICrsZ3Q)

Documentation


I happened upon the phrase [digital garden](/notes/digital-gardening)[^1][^2][^3] and it quite resonated with me — it's basically what I'm doing here. To push the gardening metaphor to the extreme though I think what I'm going for is a herb garden situation. Something for me to go back to from time to time, or to give a few things to a friend now and then. I've seen others ([Visa is a primary example](https://twitter.com/visakanv)) who emphasise the _public_ in "[Learning in public](/notes/learning-in-public)" much more, but that's now really where I'm at.

## Metadata

### Type

My notes have types mainly to allow me to render them differently on my website. I use the following types:

- **Note**. This is just the default document type.
- **Blog post**. For if I'm writing something that is intended as more of a once-off, permanent article (see Cactus below).
- **Book**. For notes/reviews of books I'm reading.

### Status

Like I few things in my digital garden I've nicked this concept from [Maggie Appleton's website](https://maggieappleton.com/garden). I have the following statuses on notes:

- 🌱 **Seedling**. This is for notes that are just starting out and I'm not really clear on the direction of yet. These will be super rough and likely not too useful to anyone but myself.
- 🌿 **Budding**. This is for notes that I've put a bit of time and editing into. They're probably legible enough for others, but I'm still working through my thoughts on the topic.
- 🌲**Evergreen**. These notes are "complete" in the sense that they can be read as a coherent whole, however I will still be updating them over time.
-  🌵**Cactus**. These are notes that are written once and won't be touched again (cactus, get it? 😉). Essentially these are blog posts or snapshots in time.

I'm just trying this out and I expect to iterate a bit on it over time (including probably dropping the plant metaphor for something I'm more familiar with).

### Tags

When adding tags to a note I limit myself to a maximum of 3 tags. This will hopefully prevent the creation of too many niche one-off tags.

## Further reading

[Digital Garden Terms of Service](https://www.swyx.io/digital-garden-tos/)



[^1]: [https://twitter.com/Mappletons/status/1279798483218767877](https://twitter.com/Mappletons/status/1279798483218767877)
[^2]: [https://maggieappleton.com/garden](https://maggieappleton.com/garden)
[^3]: [https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history](https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history)

Digital garden readme


> Your growth as a conscious being is measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have. [^1]



[^1]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)


Personal growth


## Team retros

- [Remote Retro](https://remoteretro.org/)

## Group activities
- [skribbl.io](https://skribbl.io/) - basically online Pictionary
- [Geoguessr](https://www.geoguessr.com/)

## Misc.

- Some sort of screen recording tool. I've been using [Loom](https://www.loom.com/), but it's not 100% what I'm looking for. On MacOS Quicktime does a decent job too.

Remote working tools


## DORA metrics

These are 4 good metrics for measuring the performance of an engineering team. The book [Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps](https://lukehansford.me/books/accelerate) goes in to details on these, but the basics are:

**Deployment Frequency**: High-performing teams tend to ship often, so measuring deployment frequency is a good indicator.

**Lead Time For Changes**: i.e. how long does it take you to go from starting a ticket to getting it in production. A high lead time could indicate any number of problems, from poor scoping, to high work load or overly slow CI/code reviews. It can help to break down this measurement into sections too (e.g. time to PR, time for review, time for CI, etc.).

**Change Failure Rate**: How often does a change result in a bug/outage/etc.? A high rate indicates something wrong in the quality process of your team.

**Mean Time To Recovery**: How long does it take to recover from a failure? If you have a low MTTR, you can be more adventurous and in experimental in your work with the knowledge that failure has a low cost - the opposite applies if you have a high MTTR.

### Implementing

> Measure first; set targets later (or not at all) [^1]

You can't set a target without first knowing where you stand today. You'll also find that the process of setting up and viewing measurements will lead to positive improvements in itself.

> Carefully define ancillary terms. There are several terms that the DORA metrics use that you need to carefully define: “failure”, “recovery”, “change”, what “started” and “finished” means, etc. Even “deployed” can be more complex than it first appears: what if you deploy new features behind feature flags? Do you stop the clock on LT when the code hits production, or when 100% of users are flagged in? Somewhere in between?...the answers don’t really matter as long as you’re consistent [^1]



[^1]: [DORA Metrics](https://jacobian.org/2022/jun/17/dora-metrics/)

Team performance


Use [SMART goals](https://www.atlassian.com/blog/productivity/how-to-write-smart-goals). Straightforward in theory, but for some goals this can be quite difficult to do. E.g.

> Write 10 tests vs learn and apply 10 new testing concepts.

Better yet, use [SMARTPIPE goals](https://critter.blog/2022/03/30/smartpipe-goals/). 

> I learnt and applied 10 or more new testing concepts, giving me a more comprehensive skillset for testing applications.

[Never set a goal that a dead person can do better that you](https://critter.blog/2022/01/28/never-set-a-goal-that-a-dead-person-can-do-better-than-you/). For example, instead of “stop drinking Coke”, I could have a goal like “replace drinking Coke with drinking water/tea/etc.”.

> Make goals that you have control over [^1]

Goals such as “get a book published” contain elements out of your control. Remove externalities in order to have more achievable goals.


[^1]: [Brandon Sanderson - The common lies writers tell you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH9sJrAVeC0)


Goals


> “Art is fire plus algebra.” That’s a quote credited to Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Basically the idea is that in really great art—and, by extension, storytelling—there is an almost mathematical precision to decision-making. Yes, much of artistic expression is about feeling and emotion. But plugging that into a logical framework is essential for the idea to really make sense to the audience.

The above is an amazing paragraph that comes from, of all places, [the comment section of a review of season 3 of the TV show "The Boys"](https://www.avclub.com/the-boys-season-3-tv-review-prime-video-1849006548)!

> "A prototype is worth a thousand meetings" — IDEO

Creativity


## Where to promote

- LinkedIn
- Hacker News "Who's Hiring?" threads
- [Cooperpress newsletters](https://booking.cooperpress.com/jobs) (e.g. Javascript Weekly, Frontend Focus, etc.)
- Jobs channel in the [LeadDev](https://leaddev.com/) Slack

## Writing a good ad
- Try recording a video to go with the ad. It ads a personal connection that most job ads lack. [Here's one example](https://www.loom.com/share/3671f8bb3fd34f668bcdaaaa825a9753) I've come across.

## Always be hiring

Chris Toomey from [The Bike Shed](https://www.bikeshed.fm/) has said this on multiple episodes, and it’s an approach I’d like to adopt, though I currently don’t have any tangible actions for it.

## Further reading

- [Learn To Hire Well And You’ll Never Lose](https://hunterwalk.com/2021/10/22/learn-to-hire-well-and-youll-never-lose/)

Hiring


> When you are stuck, explain your problem to others. Often simply laying out a problem will present a solution. Make “explaining the problem” part of your troubleshooting process. [^1]



[^1]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)


Rubberducking


> Getting cheated occasionally is the small price for trusting the best of everyone, because when you trust the best in others, they generally treat you best. [^1]



[^1]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)

Trust


## The PERMA framework

From [Martin Seligman’s book Flourish](https://www.amazon.com/Flourish-Visionary-Understanding-Happiness-Well-being/dp/1439190763/ref=sr%5F1%5F6?dchild=1&qid=1627409990&refinements=p%5F27%3AMartin+Seligman&s=books&sr=1-6) by way of [this blog post](https://cpbotha.net/2021/07/27/weekly-head-voices-229-staycation-perma-station/#perma-the-five-building-blocks-of-well-being):

> Positive Emotion: gratitude, savouring the present, hope and optimism,
> Engagement: Lose oneself in a challenging (err) task,
> Relationships: Love and be loved by friends and family,
> Meaning: belonging to and serving some cause greater than oneself and
> Accomplishment: Pursuing achievement and mastery for its own sake.


Well-being


> The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished. [^1]

## Motivation is a skill

This is absolutely something I struggle with. Or perhaps it's more like "maintaining motivation is a skill". Or even identifying what my real motivation was in the first place:

> Half of experience is recognizing when you want the thing versus when you want the thing only because you unconsciously want something else that’s a potential side effect you don’t want to cop to.[^2]

## Thinking is not doing

Another thing I struggle with. I tend to play out a lot of scenarios in my mind, and I think that tricks my brain into thinking I've achieved what I thought about. Obviously I'm aware I haven't done it, but I lose the urgency to do that thing pretty quickly.

> About 99% of the time, the right time is right now. [^1]

It would seem a good remedy is to immediately translate thought into action. It doesn't necessarily mean I drop everything I'm currently doing, but rather capture the thought in an actionable way (echos of [GTD](/notes/getting-things-done)) so I can pick up the thread in the future.



[^1]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)
[^2]: [https://twitter.com/andy_matuschak/status/1279821699014201345](https://twitter.com/andy_matuschak/status/1279821699014201345)


Motivation

Getting things done


- [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)
- [Merlin's Wisdom Project](https://github.com/merlinmann/wisdom)
- [35 Principles for 35 Years](https://www.swyx.io/35-principles)

Lists of advice


> Efficiency is highly overrated; Goofing off is highly underrated. Regularly scheduled sabbaths, sabbaticals, vacations, breaks, aimless walks and time off are essential for top performance of any kind. The best work ethic requires a good rest ethic. [^1]



[^1]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)


Productivity


> Instead of looking for a mentor, just find somebody who can answer some questions you have. Then, if you think they can answer some more, ask them again. In reality, a mentor is mostly just somebody that answers questions more than once. [^1]

> It is the duty of a student to get everything out of a teacher, and the duty of a teacher to get everything out of a student.[^2]



[^1]: [Stop Looking For Mentors](https://staysaasy.com/career/2021/10/16/mentorship.html)
[^2]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)

Mentoring


I've never been particularly good at note-taking, but I'm very aware of it's positive effects. One thing I intend to do going forward is to ensure that whenever I read an article of value (i.e. something that ends up on [my Pinboard account](https://pinboard.in/u:lhansford)), that I take some notes as a reflection of what I learnt from reading that article.

Another trick is to “keep it short”[^1].  Write more often, but write less and try to emphasise clarity.

> The biggest lie we tell ourselves is “I dont need to write this down because I will remember it.” [^2]



[^1]: https://blog.kewah.com/2021/write-more-but-shorter/
[^2]: [103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known](https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/)


Note-taking


I recently purchased a Mac Mini for personal use and decided it'd be fun to document how I set it up. This is a work in progress and I plan to keep it up to date as my preferences and habits change.

## OS settings

- First thing is to update the OS if needed.
- Jump into Audio MIDI Setup and set my audio interface as the default device for output and my webcam as the default input.
- Untoggle the mouse scroll direction from "Natural".
- Remove all apps and folders from the Dock and switch the Dock to auto-hide. I use the Dock for identifying what apps I have open, not as a place for opening them.
- Log in to iCloud, but disable for all apps. Later on when I install Draft and Obsidian I'll allow syncing for these (I prefer to do all my syncing via Dropbox, but these two apps don't have that option).
- Disable spelling correction, text replacement, “smart quotes”, etc. in the Keyboard preference pane.
- In the Advanced settings of Finder turn on "Show all filename extensions".

## Apps
- [Homebrew](brew.sh). I use this package manager for both CLI tools and as many apps as I can.
- [iterm2](https://iterm2.com/). My preferred Terminal replacement.
- [Dropbox](https://www.dropbox.com). I use this for syncing almost all my files (excluding those that end up on Github). Initially though I need it to grab my config files.
- [1password](https://1password.com/). I install this early on as there'll be a lot of logging in going on as I install the apps below!
- [Firefox](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/). My browser of choice. I'll probably install Google Chrome later on too as it's useful for development, but for bread and butter browsing I try to use Firefox.
- [Karabiner Elements](https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/). I use this for keyboard remapping. Nothing fancy, just adding a Hyper key (i.e. command, control, shift, and option all in one to allow for easy global shortcut creation) and making Fn + a/w/s/d into arrow keys.
- [Divvy](https://mizage.com/windivvy/). A very straightforward window management tool. I have shortcuts for the resize widget (Hyper-D) and to make the current app full screen (Hyper-F).
- [Alfred](https://www.alfredapp.com/). I prefer Alfred over Spotlight, so I'll disable Spotlight and replace the shorcut to point to Alfred. I have pretty simple settings here, with just search for folders and apps.
- [Todoist](https://todoist.com/) (install via App Store only). This is my task management tool of choice. I add the shortcut Hyper-O for quick adding a task.
- [Drafts](https://getdrafts.com/) (install via App Store only). This is a newer app for me, and I use it for, well, drafts 🙂. For the quick add widget I use the shortcut Hyper-W.
- [Fantastical](https://flexibits.com/fantastical). Hands down the best calendar app out there.
	- I set the shortcut Hyper-C to open mini view.
	- I set it so that the next/current calendar item is visible in the Mac menu bar.
- [Aerial](https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/). Really pretty screensavers. I set it to turn on after 10 minutes.
- [Visual Studio Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/). My code editor of choice for quite a while now.
    - [I also set it up so I can type `code` to access it from the terminal](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/mac#_launching-from-the-command-line).
    - Download the [Inconsolata](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Inconsolata) font family as that's my default in VS Code.
    - Download my settings (see below for a list of plugins).
- [Rocket](https://matthewpalmer.net/rocket/). A global emoji picker with a syntax similar to Slack.
- [Notion](https://www.notion.so/). For personal notes and assorted data and info I need to hold on to.
- [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/). For public notes and writing. I've only recently started using Obsidian and I'm still figuring out what I want to live in Notion and what lives here.
- [Anki](https://apps.ankiweb.net/). For language study.
- [Google Chrome](https://www.google.com/chrome/browser-tools/). Not my go to browser, but useful for development and the occasional website that plays up in Firefox.
- [Tweetbot](https://tapbots.com/tweetbot/). My go-to Twitter client, though I do find myself using the browser version a bit more these days.
- [Espanso](https://espanso.org). In the past I've used [Dash](https://kapeli.com/dash) for text snippets, but I've felt that app's experience degrading over the years. I've decided to try out Espanso as a replacement and I'm liking it so far, though I haven't gotten into any complex snippets just yet.
	- I keep my configuration in Dropbox and symlink it to the correct location using `ln -s ~/Dropbox/config/espanso ~/Library/Preferences/espanso`
- [Choosy](https://www.choosyosx.com/). If you set this app as your default browser it allows you to pick the browser to use whenever you click a link. You can also setup up more specific rules, though I don't really use this feature.
- [Loopback](https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/). This tool allows you to route audio on your Mac. I specifically use it for sharing system audio for video meetings (e.g. screenshare a video on a call and have the audio playback to other people).
- [Discord](https://discord.com/). I'm not a heavy Discord user, but there's a few channels I'm in.
- [Gifox](https://gifox.io/). Create GIFs from screen recordings.
- [Bunch](https://bunchapp.co/). Groups apps together and toggles them open/closed with one command. I'm only just starting to play around with it to see if it's something I'd like to fold into my daily workflow.
- [Stretchly](https://hovancik.net/stretchly/downloads/). This app tells you when to take a break from the computer. Normally I don't go in for this kind of thing, but I gave it a try after seeing [Shaun Wang](https://www.swyx.io) recommend it and it immediately clicked for me.

## Firefox extensions

- [Pinboard+](https://github.com/lostsnow/pinboard-firefox). For quickly adding articles to [Pinboard](https://pinboard.in/).
- [To Google Translate](https://github.com/itsecurityco/to-google-translate). For quick translations. This is probably the part I miss most about Chrome as it has a far better in-page translation experience. 

## Visual Studio Code plugins

There's a lot, not all of which are particularly interesting to mention, but a couple of good ones are:

- [Darktooth Theme](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Poorchop.theme-darktooth). I've been using this for a few years now and am still pretty happy with it.
- [Import Cost](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=wix.vscode-import-cost). Shows the kilobyte cost inline when importing a Javascript library.
- [In Any Case](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=will-stone.in-any-case). Allows quick conversion between casing styles for a string.
- [TODO Highlight](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=wayou.vscode-todo-highlight). Make all those `TODO:` comments bright yellow.
- [Toggle Quotes](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=BriteSnow.vscode-toggle-quotes). Toggle the type of quotes used for a string.


## Terminal

- Install [Oh My ZSH](https://ohmyz.sh/).
- Install the [Cobalt2 theme](https://github.com/wesbos/Cobalt2-iterm).
- Symlink my `.zsh_rc` file from Dropbox.
- Symlink `.zsh_history` from Dropbox.
- Sync settings for iterm2 via Dropbox.
- Install [zsh-autosuggestions](https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions)
- Checkout [my git commit template](https://github.com/lhansford/git_commit_template).
- Symlink my `.gitconfig` from Dropbox.
- Install [diff-so-fancy](https://github.com/so-fancy/diff-so-fancy). For fancy diffs 🎩.
- Install NPM and Yarn.

## Global Node packages

- [todoist-random-project](https://github.com/lhansford/todoist-random-project). This is a small script I wrote that picks a random project from Todoist for me to work on. Good for when I'm being indecisive.

## Work specific setup

- Figma

## Other setups that I took inspiration from

- [My 2021 New Mac Setup by Shaun Wang](https://www.swyx.io/new-mac-setup-2021/)

Setting up a new Mac


## Tips

- Only follow people if you can imagine being friends with them [^1]
- Follow people you want to talk with and talk with them [^2]
- "When you feel ready, reply to a tweet. What you reply with will depend on the context, the tweet you’re replying to and who you are, but some basic guidelines include: be nice, and make sure your tweet adds some kind of value. Maybe it’s answering a question, furthering a joke, or simply saying something like “Great job!”"[^3]
- "If you’re still not sure what to write about, consider giving yourself a bit of structure to play around with. Pick two topics to focus on..." [^3]
- It'll take time to find your voice, but tweets are free so keep trying and iterating. But also be aware that those tweets will remain on the record, so be true to yourself.



[^1]: https://twitter.com/reconfigurthing/status/1383186252967649281
[^2]: https://twitter.com/Malcolm_Ocean/status/1448568774785789954
[^3]: https://tasshin.com/blog/a-guide-to-twitter/

Twitter


This is a list of personal websites/blogs that I've come across and really enjoyed from a web design/development perspective.

- [Shawn @swyx Wang](https://www.swyx.io/) - Simple, functional, nice content filter/search.
- [Dave Rupert](https://daverupert.com/) - I like the bookshelf page and hidden RSS posts. The About page is really cool too, showing it as a horizontal timeline.
- [Industrial Empathy](https://www.industrialempathy.com) - Nice consistent color scheme.
- [Josh W Comeau](https://www.joshwcomeau.com) - I like the use of animation and other unusual elements like "asides" and tables of content.
- [Monica Dinculescu](https://meowni.ca/) - Great incorporation of generative art, icons, and other smaller design elements.
- [https://tonsky.me/](https://tonsky.me/) - A bit of an intense design, but it has personality and was quite memorable.

Personal website inspiration


These are some of the resources and tools I've used to build this website. If you want to peak under the hood most of it should be in [the Github repository](https://github.com/lhansford/lukehansford.me) too!

## Design

I'm not a designer myself, so I've shamelessly ripped off a couple of works to come up with the design for this website. First off is the album cover art for [Blue Note Records](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Note_Records) designed by [Reid Miles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_Miles), in particular I've adopted a very similar color scheme to the art on the cover of the Wayne Shorter album [JuJu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JuJu_(album)).

![Wayne Shorter - JuJu](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a1/JuJu-Wayne_Shorter.jpg/220px-JuJu-Wayne_Shorter.jpg)

The other design inspiration was from the [International Typographic Style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Typographic_Style) movement, specifically the posters of [Armin Hoffman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Hofmann).

![An Armin Hoffman poster from 1961](https://i0.wp.com/www.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/da4aaf_83cbb4a9b4cb43c199a028005a78cd21mv2-1.jpeg?resize=940%2C1329&ssl=1)

## Fonts

## Icons

[Teeny Icons](https://teenyicons.com/) - I was looking for an icon set that fit the more "angular" vibe I was going for with the design. Unfortunately I didn't come across many good options. Teeny Icons is nice for now, but I'm on the look out for an icon set that gels better with the rest of the website (please reach out if you have suggestions!).

## Code

The site is built with [React](/notes/react), Tailwind, and [Typescript](/notes/typescript) because I love working with the three of them. During the recent re-design I migrated the website from the [Next.js](https://nextjs.org/) framework to [Remix](https://remix.run/). This was mainly just to experiment with Remix a bit, not because I had any issues with Next.js (which I currently use in my day job).

## Infrastructure

I currently deploy to [Vercel](https://vercel.com/), as it's pretty low hassle to get working and the developer experience is nice.

Tools and resources used to build lukehansford.me


- Use SMART [notes/goals](/notes/goals)
- 3 core components; structure, drilling, practice. These components should touch on all 4 language skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking).
- Structure is learning the basics and building knowledge of a language, generally via a course of some type. 
- Drilling reinforces the leaning in the structure phase. Flash cards are a good option here.
- Practice uses **input** and **output** to further deepen language skills.
- At some point your resources will get too easy, somyou should move onto something more challenging.
- Start with roughly a third of your time on each core component and adjust as needed.
- Have a study routine with ideally at least one hour of study a day.
- If possible, spread your learning through the day.
- Use resources you enjoy to maintain motivation.

## Anki

- [Recommended Options Settings](https://refold.la/roadmap/stage-1/a/anki-setup#Recommended-Options-Settings)

## Input

Real life(ish) examples of the language. Should be both comprehensible and interesting to you.

### Resources 
- [/r/languagelearning resources](https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/wiki/resources)



- [How to Teach Yourself a Foreign Language](https://github.com/SAJForbes/HowtoTeachYourselfaForeignLanguage)

Language learning


## Tips

- Be aware of how your reports might interpret your actions and words - you're always under the microscope. [^1]
- Create and maintain a [Manager README](/notes/manager-readmes)



[^1]: [When you’re a manager, your behavior is under a microscope](https://jacobian.org/2021/oct/26/manager-microscope/)

Management


I personally find that creating and maintaining a Manager README is of great benefit, to both managers and the people they manage. You can [read my Manager README here](https://github.com/lhansford/manager-readme).

Mike Crittenden [makes an argument for very succinct personal/manager READMEs](https://critter.blog/2021/12/20/50-word-personal-readmes/). While I agree with his premise that "people like writing about themselves too much ...[and]... don’t know where to stop", I think having a 50 word limit swings too hard in the other direction. For me it's about knowing your audience. With a personal README I would agree — no one wants an essay about you when (digitally) meeting you for the first time. But for a manager README I'd find 50 words to be woefully lacking when trying to understand how my new manager functions.

Manager READMEs


- Not assigning blame is not about "being nice". We want to name names in post-mortems in order to show the bigger picture of what happened, and people won't name names if they feel it comes with blame. [^1]



[^1]: [Incident writeup as sociological storytelling](https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2021/06/11/incident-writeup-as-sociological-storytelling/)

Post-mortems


This is my framework for deciding how I prioritise "work" that comes my way in my day job. It's something of an extension of the do/defer/[delegate](/notes/delegation) process from [the GTD method](https://gettingthingsdone.com/).

There's two parts of the process. First is a simple "do it now or put it on a list" triage that occurs throughout the day as new tasks pop up. Do it now only applies if the task takes less than 2 minutes. I intentionally skip the [notes/delegation](/notes/delegation) decision at this point as I find that can take some time to actually do as it requires communication and documentation to handover the task. Deferred tasks go into [Todoist](https://todoist.com/) where I have a [Kanban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_(development)) board containing all work-related tasks. The task goes into one of three columns: "backlog", "blocking someone", or "time-sensitive".

The second step of the process occurs when I'm deciding what to focus on next. My Kanban board has an "in progress" column with a limit of 3 tasks. I pull in new tasks from either the "time-sensitive" or "blocking someone" columns first, or if those are empty just from "backlog" (the choice here is mostly a gut feeling of what's "important"). Once that task is in the "in progress" column I go through the below decision tree:

- Is it a coding task?
	- Is it something to be done in the near future? (e.g. next month or two)
		- If yes, add it to Jira.
			- Is it part of the "core" of our work?
				- Delegate it.
			- Does it align with someone's growth [notes/goals](/notes/goals)?
				- Delegate it.
		- If no, document the concept/idea in Coda.
- Is it a larger technical or process change?
	- Create an [RFC](/notes/rfcs).
- Does it align with someone's growth [notes/goals](/notes/goals)?
	- Delegate it.
- Is it team/guild related?
	- Add it to Jira or the agenda for the next guild meeting.

How I prioritise work


RFCs, or "Requests for Comments", are a great tool for ideating and getting feedback on software design. They can be used to gain consensus from a team on a technical decision.

## Further reading

- [6 Lessons I learned while implementing technical RFCs as a decision making tool](https://buriti.ca/6-lessons-i-learned-while-implementing-technical-rfcs-as-a-management-tool-34687dbf46cb)
- [some notes on RFCs](https://blog.npmjs.org/post/153881413635/some-notes-on-rfcs)

RFCs


Over the years I've tried to have different morning routines to varying success. In the [latest episode of the Bike Shed](https://www.bikeshed.fm/266), co-host Steph Viccari mentioned her approach to a morning routine is to ensure that it:

> ...connect[s] to the part of you that makes you feel happy to be alive...

This seems blindingly obvious in hindsight, but in the past I've always tried to make morning rituals featuring things that I *think* I'm supposed to be doing; exercise, meditation, etc. Enjoyment was never really a criteria.

I'm not going to lay out a new morning routine here, as I need some time to mull it over, and life with a 1 year old doesn't exactly play nicely with routines. One thing I might try is to switch out my usual Twitter doomscrolling for perusing my RSS feeds with breakfast instead - something I used to do back in the Google Reader days. Learning from others is one of my joys in life, so I think that fits nicely.

---

> I also realised, on reflection, that I'd encountered the very same issue in my efforts to implement morning routines, which have a way of becoming utterly deadening the moment you try to define them too strictly: "630am get up, 645am journalling", and so forth. Far better, in my experience, to draw up a "menu" of things you'd ideally like to do every morning, then select one or two of them each day. (Because it's less yoked to specific clock times, this approach is also vastly better suited to a life in which your routine is liable to be interrupted by small children waking and requiring your attention.)

This [approach from Oliver Burkeman](https://ckarchive.com/b/5quvh7h6ke25) also resonates with me. I've been experimenting with [time blocking](/time blocking) recently, but I find that it if I miss one scheduled time block, everything else suddenly seems to have an invisible "(Optional)" added to in my calendar and my schedule falls apart.

Morning routines


A digital garden probably has a different meaning to each individual creator. Maggie Appleton has [a great write-up on the history of the concept](https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history), but for me I'd define it as simply a space to share my thoughts on a wide variety of topics without having to go through the full (and somewhat perfomative) act of writing a blog post. Lowering this bar for getting the proverbial pen to paper has the knock on effect of getting me to record a lot of knowledge that would have previously just stayed locked up (and eventually forgotten) in my brain.

Digital gardening is a bit of a new concept for people, so you can check out my [Digital garden readme](/notes/digital-garden-readme) to get a better feel for what I'm doing here.

## Gardens I like

[http://notebook.zoeblade.com/](http://notebook.zoeblade.com/) - Zoe Blade is a fantastic electronic musician, and her wiki is tailored to that field. Dig in if you want to nerd out on analog synth stuff.

[https://maggieappleton.com/garden](https://maggieappleton.com/garden) - Just an amazingly curated and designed website. This was one of my earlier inspirations when it came to digital gardening and I've cribbed a few ideas and concepts from Maggie.

[https://piszek.com/](https://piszek.com/) - Not really a digital garden, but I like how Artur has organised his website.


Digital gardening


These are a number of different techniques and ideas for increasing the performance of web apps and sites that I've come across in my work.

## General

- Use the coverage tool in Chrome to identify how much CSS/JS is not being used. [^1]

## Fonts

-  Serve from the same domain as the website. [^1]

## Images

- All images should have height and width. Doesn't need to be exact, but they should have the right aspect ratio. In CSS set the width to `100%` and height to `auto`. [^1]



[^1]: [Top 10 performance pitfalls - HTTP 203](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh9q3h2khlc)

Web performance


> **[Webmention](https://www.w3.org/TR/webmention/)** is a web standard for mentions and conversations across the web, a powerful building block that is used for a growing [federated](https://indieweb.org/federated "federated") network of [comments](https://indieweb.org/comment "comment"), [likes](https://indieweb.org/like "like"), [reposts](https://indieweb.org/repost "repost"), and other rich interactions across the decentralized social web. [^1]

In short you can collect and store your social interactions across the web with Webmentions (assuming those platforms allow for it).

## Tools

- [webmention.io](https://webmention.io/) - API for getting/creating Webmentions.
- [Bridgy](https://brid.gy/) - Connect your social media networks to Webmentions.

## Further reading

- [Webmention](https://indieweb.org/Webmention)
- [IndieWebify.me](https://indiewebify.me/)
- [Jumping Into Webmentions With NextJS (or Not)](https://css-tricks.com/jumping-into-webmentions-with-nextjs-or-not/)
- [Using Webmentions in Eleventy](https://mxb.dev/blog/using-webmentions-on-static-sites/)
- [Clientside Webmentions](https://www.swyx.io/clientside-webmentions/)



[^1]: [Webmention](https://indieweb.org/Webmention)

Webmentions


## Tutorials

- [A more realistic HTML canvas paint tool](https://dev.to/ascorbic/a-more-realistic-html-canvas-paint-tool-313b)
- [How to make the canvas not look like crap on retina](https://coderwall.com/p/vmkk6a/how-to-make-the-canvas-not-look-like-crap-on-retina)

## Examples

- [Monica Dinculescu's website](https://meowni.ca/) - Generated images from code.
- [Fishdraw](https://fishdraw.glitch.me/) - Procedurally generated fish illustrations.

Generative art



## React

- [Epic React](https://epicreact.dev/) - React course from Kent C. Dodds.

## Web
- [Every Layout](https://every-layout.dev/) - CSS layouts


Learning resources



- Self host fonts. Cross-domain caching doesn't work so you're better off hosting closer to the rest of your site instead of leaning on Google or whoever's CDNs. [^1]
- Use `font-display: optional;`. This only loads a font if the browser deems it can be loaded quickly. [^1]



[^1]: https://www.industrialempathy.com/posts/high-performance-web-font-loading/

Web fonts


## Organizing

I.e. where exactly to place CSS rules. I don't personally have a strong preference at the moment, though I'm somewhat persuaded by [this argument for ordering alphabetically](https://ericwbailey.design/writing/organize-your-css-declarations-alphabetically/). I tend to follow the following structure though:

- Element selectors at top, classes at bottom (I don't tend to use ID selectors).
- Variations on rules (e.g. media queries, hover states, etc.) are underneath the "main" rule.
- I like to use CSS modules where possible, so most component specific styling should be co-located with the component code.


I wrote this down in my notes the other day after hearing a colleague say it. It's such an interesting concept for me. As developers it feels like there is some sort of inertia toward working on your own, but whenever I pair program it always end up being a much more enriched experience. One of the biggest things for me is that there is always some one learning when pair programming - and in the best cases it's everyone involved. Jeff Atwood sums it up nicely:

  > If you're serious about programming, you should demand to work with your peers.[^1]

The one hurdle I'm not sure how to overcome is the classic "I'm stuck and just going to Google for 15 minutes" situation. But maybe that's something I need to grin and bear? Either way, I'm trying to make a habit of just dropping a video chat link to my team when I start a new task and asking if anyone wants to jump in.

[^1]: [In Programming, One Is The Loneliest Number](https://blog.codinghorror.com/in-programming-one-is-the-loneliest-number/)

Don't code alone


Markdown is great, but it doesn't have any built in metadata abilities. Front Matter seems to be something of a semi-standard way of adding metadata to markdown docs. From what I can tell it originally came out of [Jekyll](https://jekyllrb.com/). It's basically just a slab of fenced off YAML at the top of the file.

I'm personally a little against tampering with an open format like Markdown, but for my own personal notes and posts I'm not too concerned.

For parsing in JS, [grey-matter](https://github.com/jonschlinkert/gray-matter) seems to work well.

## Further reading

[Jekyll Docs - Front Matter](https://jekyllrb.com/docs/front-matter/)

Front Matter


Sometimes you just need a clean slate. I guess this is an inverse of choice paradox. My impetus for writing this is dealing with my todo list app of choice, Todoist, and the large number of overdue tasks. I generally don't put dates on task unless there is an actual hard deadline, but I do have a number of recurring tasks that will show up as being overdue. I find myself getting into a cycle where all I can accomplish is catching up on those overdue recurring tasks and not accomplishing the higher-level work that I'd like to be doing.

At my current job we have the concept of a "zero bug policy". It's a bit of clickbait name, but essentially we say that if a bug has not been fixed or is not in the process of being fixed within 3 weeks of being reported, then it is removed from our bug backlogs. The idea behind this is that a truly important issue will come up again in the future, and it'll save us the mental energy of having to always see that one bug in the backlog that we never get round to fixing because it only happens when all the proverbial planets align.

So I feel like I need to apply a "zero bug policy" to a bunch of different areas in my life sometime - remove everything and let the important parts float back to the top.


Select all + delete


I used to be heavily involved in supporting and advocating for independent music. I would go to gigs and buy physical media. For years I wrote about local bands and ran an online radio station championing local music scenes across Asia. When I moved to Sweden a couple of years ago though, I stopped being as involved in local music. Instead I began to lean heavily into Spotify (ironically, a local company) for music consumption. When it comes down to it it's basically about ease of use - I can stream to my speakers, there's a desktop app, and while it doesn't have everything, it certainly has enough to keep me going for a long while.

But when it comes down to it, I know that streaming a track on Spotify is not supporting the musician. For 10000 streams an artist might get $40[^1]. I've happily paid that much for vinyl LPs before and only listened to the record a few dozen times. There's clearly some disconnect in my mind between digital and physical media.

  
All of this is to say that I'm going to try and start purchasing more directly from artists. Probably via [Bandcamp](https://bandcamp.com), a service that has been impecabbly supporting independent music for a long time now.



[^1]: [Streaming Royalty Calculator](http://www.streamingroyaltycalculator.com/)