Leave it to the Netherlands to have a Green party that is right-wing just like every other party. Their leader, Jesse Klaver, styled himself after Trudeau during his campaign but after that, the result has been a bit lackluster without a seat in government.
Below is the story how they backstabbed our boy—or more wayward son—Zihni Özdil because he didn’t kowtow to the great leader.
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/05/30/opkomst-en-ondergang-van-een-bevlogen-kamerlid-a3962131
Fijn zo’n land onder de zeespiegel dat wordt beheerst door klimaatontkenners. En gezien het Nederlandse asielbeleid is het niet heel waarschijnlijk dat klimaatvluchtelingen elders op een warm welkom zullen kunnen rekenen.
Ages ago we also made a game that:
So yeah, I’m always glad if our ideas are proven years after the fact. Something that happened quite regularly.
Gitlab’s CEO Shadow Program is a testament to their deep and deliberate thinking about organizational development. I’m curious whether more companies do this.
I had no idea but it seems Berlin has a booming Chinese art scene.
Cities like Barcelona are starting to fight back against AirBnB and tourism.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/29/the-airbnb-invasion-of-barcelona
I recently refused to help some local tourists to call the bike share hotline in German. We were legitimately in a hurry but my flat out refusal was not appreciated. Next time I’ll tell them I won’t be helping them because I do not support tourism.
Ik dacht dat Arjen van Veelen één van de beste schrijvers op de Correspondent was. Dat is hij misschien nog steeds, maar dan shrijft hij wel dit soort onzin.
Set aside all of the obvious outcry, I haven’t seen a single argument yet that explains how encrypted communications are compatible with state power.
I listened to this and didn’t hear that explanation nor did I find many of the arguments against very convincing.
https://logbuch-netzpolitik.de/lnp302-wir-wollen-euch-nur-ein-bisschen-abkuehlen
Swisher is doing good work here on Facebook/Fakebook but her handling of the worst of technology is still astonishingly softball given what is happening.
A huge deep dive into how Stripe invests in technical infrastructure that contains too many good things to list.
Prioritize as much work into the future as possible, shedding “forced” work.
To start digging out, sometimes you can get creative, finding more leveraged approach, push on the constraints a few times to make sure you’re not being rigid. The goal here is to find work that addresses “forced” work that also reduces future “forced” work.
Consider getting product managers into your infrastructure organization. Not every team needs them all the time, but having even a few who can help navigate the transition from firefighting to innovating is super helpful.
If your team is doing forced, short-term work, then dig out by investing into your operational excellence.
If your team is just starting to experience the thrills of discretionary, long-term work, then invest into your product management skills.
If you have discretionary budget, but still find yourself running from one problem, then identify the principles to balance your approach, and set baselines for each principle.
I am hard out at three 2/3 days a week to pick up my children and stayed at home last Friday to take care of a sick kid, so I am doing my best to parent very much out in the open in my workplace. It helps that my grandboss is also very explicit about this but I still find it difficult.
“code is just a high precision design medium”
https://twitter.com/PavelASamsonov/status/1127207381673418752
From an interesting discussion of the nuances between product and design strategy a notable tidbit that sheds a lot of light.
Also while we are discussing the ever-shifting definition of design, here’s another interesting tweet.
You see this a lot with design wanting ‘a seat at the table’ but more often than not at those tables (which are inexplicably always at the highest echelons of power either in companies or government), most designers will not have the first clue what to contribute.
The play: SPD goes populist-nationalist to catch all of the right-wing worker votes and nibble off from AfD/CDU. They leave the open society social-democratic policies to the Greens.
I’m not sure whether in that constellation Green and SPD would be able to work together anymore. In Denmark the labour party has taken a hard right like that and it’s a bit difficult to stomach. Still, I’d prefer those votes to go to classical labour parties instead of going to fascists.
After their long nap, I took both out for a round of recycling cardboard, pumping some tires and buying some coffee beans1.
Both of them put on their helmets of their own accord and jumped into the Christiania as soon as we got there. It was clear that they had a destination in mind. They then tried to describe to me which playground they wanted to go to and how to get there lacking most of the vocabulary to do so. Extremely adorable and no doubt in my mind that they’ll be able to describe their wishes here pretty soon as well.
On the way back both kids were singing something in the cargobike while I in the back was trying to vocalize a rendition of Lemon Tree from very distant memory. We should definitely install a sound system in the bike.
In her estimation, I knew, I was assured a safe life, an easy life, a fine education, every opportunity. I would never have to eat rationed food, or obey curfews, or watch riots from my rooftop, or hide neighbors in water tanks to prevent them from being shot, as she and my father had.
In my son’s eyes I see the ambition that had first hurled me across the world. In a few years he will graduate and pave his way, alone and unprotected. But I remind myself that he has a father who is still living, a mother who is happy and strong. Whenever he is discouraged I tell him that if I can survive on three continents than there is no obstacle he cannot conquer.
What risks are acceptable is often not documented, and when they are, they are stated in soft, unquantified terms that cannot be used clearly in a calculation to determine if a given expenditure is justified or not.
Measurement: A quantitatively expressed reduction of uncertainty based on one or more observations.
If a decision maker or analyst engages in what they believe to be measurement activities, but their estimates and decisions actually get worse or don’t at least improve, then they are not actually reducing their error and are not conducting a measurement according to the stated definition.
What you want to know is whether you have less uncertainty after considering some source of data and whether that reduction in uncertainty warrants some change in actions.
We can measure the value of art, free time, or reducing risk to your life by assessing how much people actually pay for these things.
If your concern is that upper management won’t understand this, we can say we have not observed this—even when we’ve been told that management wouldn’t understand it. In fact, upper management seems to understand having to determine which risks are acceptable at least as well as anyone in cybersecurity.
Since we know at least one (if not both) must be wrong, then we know qualifications and expertise in cybersecurity alone are not sufficient to determine if a given opinion on this topic is correct.
More fundamentally, does it even matter whether risk analysis works? And by “works,”do we really just mean whether it succeeds in putting on a show for compliance, or should we mean it actually improves the identification and management of risks?
They are all based in part on the idea that not knowing exact quantities is the same as knowing nothing of any value.
All of the operations just described require some source of an input. In this example, we will be using the calibrated estimates of the CISO. Since the CISO is using his previous experience and his calibrated probability-assessment skill to generate the inputs, we call them an “informative prior.”
Practically speaking, there are only so many models that can be run and maintained at any given time.
Berlin will also regularly call on McKinsey to ‘fix’ its problems. As this description of them giving Puerto Rico the Greece-treatment shows, where they come nothing good will follow.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/mckinsey-in-puerto-rico.html
With my background in behavior change, I’m very pleasantly surprised to find this quote in what is a connoisseur’s treatment of the nuances of agile/agility: “There is only one way to create business value, and that’s to change someone’s behavior.”
https://medium.com/columbus-egg/iterating-pivoting-agile-agility-940bcb1a0895
“Admittedly, this neat combination of worshipping totems while pursuing practical benefits is quintessentially Chinese.”
A critical but hopeful treatment of Chinese and wider tech culture as seen through the radical lens of Burning Man.
A lot of very salient thinking on books, metacognition, double-loop learning and the deliberate design of new forms by Andy Matuschak in “Why Books Don’t Work”.
I acknowledged earlier that of course, some people do absorb knowledge from books. Indeed, those are the people who really do think about what they’re reading. The process is often invisible. These readers’ inner monologues have sounds like: “This idea reminds me of…,”“This point conflicts with…,”“I don’t really understand how…,”etc. If they take some notes, they’re not simply transcribing the author’s words: they’re summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing.
I’ve been thinking of doing a talk about how to get the most out of your reading both quantitatively and qualitatively. Many people do not even know how much is possible, let alone that they would have an inkling of how to get there. I think anybody can easily get to at least a doubling of reading quantity and conceptual retention.
Readers must decide which exercises to do and when. Readers must run their own feedback loops: did they clearly understand the ideas involved in the exercise? If not, what should they do next? What should students do if they’re completely stuck? Some issues are subtler. For example, textbook exercises are often designed to yield both a solution to that specific problem and also broader insights about the subject. Will readers notice if they solved a problem but missed the insights it was supposed to reveal?
Work in new aesthetic and educational forms along with opening up systems to allow people to make their own rules for going through them, is all of the stuff we had been occupied with in Hubbub as well.
Of de Nederlandse omroepen en kranten nou extreem-rechts zijn of niet, het effect is hetzelfde. Ze ondersteunen systematisch politiek en politici die rechts of heel rechts zijn.
A collective of the largest German YouTubers have just before the European elections launched a campaign against the CDU and it’s a joy to see.
The CDU which is usually fully ignorant when it comes to digital issues has taken this broadside seriously. That by itself was a huge mistake. Most serious institutions would and should brush off something coming from new media.
Whether this will have an effect is hugely unclear. The core CDU audience is disconnected and apathetic but they do get a lot of votes from other segments as well and there they could be slightly vulnerable. In any case, the series of fumbles that the CDU has embarked upon while trying to address this has only served to give the boycott movement wings.
What’s interesting about the YouTubers is that they break with the German institutional consensus which is white, male and old. That group of people has a certain set of opinions and interests which has made sure that Germany has become increasingly backward. The YouTubers are young, (judging by their names and handles) diverse and not all male. And most importantly they have reach and fewer entrenched interests.
“The key to building this aura is to become increasingly detail oriented, to be more prepared than anyone else, and to have a higher bar than those around you.”
I’ve always dabbled heavily in product but reading something like this really gets me hyped up to consider switching into Product Management.
The issue around the Python standard library finally comes to a head thanks to a Twisted contributor. The standard library has felt stale for a very long time now. It’s nice that it’s there but nobody can really program anything in Python without external packages. There really is no debate here and core Python should support actual programmers.
https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2019/05/amber-brown-batteries-included-but.html
“Changes to one team’s service may be implemented by another team who needs the enhanced capability by what is called an Away Team. This team works on the Home Team’s code to add what it needs according to established engineering standards and then leaves that code in good order to be maintained by the Home Team who owns the service, with help when needed.”
Fully embedding your team in another team’s context to get something done, seems to me a very interesting compromise between autonomy and collaboration. Every team is an island, but it is ok to travel to another island and if that’s not possible, you can still build your own.
Also more than disorienting to see an in-depth piece about engineering organizations like this appear on The Register.
Putting an entire team in another team’s context is something I have considered for all the collaboration, delivery, culture etc. benefits that it will most likely yield in exchange for a minor hit in delivery.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/14/amazons_away_teams/
Germany has a lot to improve as well when it comes to pro choice, but it is nowhere near as dire as the USA. If you have money to give, The Yellowhammer Fund seems to be a good place to donate to.
Venkat’s newsletter “Life Spirit Distillation”has a nice argument against personal growth and instead in favor of life intensification reframing the question into:
What do you do with the unexpected person you find you’ve turned into?
Many years ago I suggested building in async facilities into Django. I got ridiculed for that both for technical feasibility (rightly) and necessity (short-sightedly). Now finally we have a proposal to build those features into the framework that demonstrates the same need and that can be implemented.
https://github.com/andrewgodwin/deps/blob/async/draft/0009-async.rst
This article about forecasting dovetails nicely with the book about measuring risk that I just read. It makes the case for foxlike thinking, something of which I don’t need to be persuaded.
Among those, they identified a small group of the foxiest forecasters—bright people with extremely wide-ranging interests and unusually expansive reading habits, but no particular relevant background—and weighted team forecasts toward their predictions. They destroyed the competition.
Tetlock and Mellers found that not only were the best forecasters foxy as individuals, but they tended to have qualities that made them particularly effective collaborators. They were “curious about, well, really everything,”as one of the top forecasters told me. They crossed disciplines, and viewed their teammates as sources for learning, rather than peers to be convinced. When those foxes were later grouped into much smaller teams—12 members each—they became even more accurate. They outperformed—by a lot—a group of experienced intelligence analysts with access to classified data.
It’s exciting to see the Emirates government put design front and center. Unfortunately though in a closed context such as that, it is more than likely that design will be instrumentalized and deployed only for material gain.
A book and an overview of how career opportunities are closed off to those without the right background and how to be cognizant of this and correct for it.
Usually it’s not for a good reason but still, it’s nice to see my grand-boss Dror on television regularly explaining cybersecurity to the German public.
Not a word wrong in this piece, landlords are the original rent-seeking leeches.
Innisfil, Ontario’s troubles filling in their public transit with Uber is a great example of how governments should not outsource things to private contractors whose unit economics do not make sense.
Deze Nederlandstalige app van Juf Jannie belooft puzzels voor kinderen vanaf 2 jaar aan te bieden maar de interactie en gebruiksvriendelijkheid zijn erbarmelijk slecht.
Ik heb mijn geld terug gevraagd en ik raad aan andere mensen dat ook te doen bij apps die onder de maat zijn.
Even given that this is an amazing job description, you don’t often see companies describing themselves as a ‘socio-technical system’. This is a great way to show off both your care and your depth of thinking.
Fascinating to read about the care with which Slack designs their workplaces.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90341688/slacks-head-of-workplace-design-thinks-open-floor-plans-suuuck
A paean for canteens something of which Berlin has ample for a variety of historic reasons.
I can confirm most of the best practices from this guide of Stack Overflow’s remote first design culture.
Americans feel ripped off by the Corres’s bait and switch and it seems now we’re going to seeing a free for all where they will mercilessly rip the site.
It was disappointing to realize — to actually see in the numbers — that while The Correspondent raised $2.6 million in part by stressing diversity and inclusivity, tapping ambassadors like DeRay Mckesson and Baratunde Thurston, the Dutch site is not a model of that diversity.
There is a lot of criticism and hate in the Netherlands as well but it’s not so pronounced because:
The USA is not bothered by either of those and that creates a more honest environment because frankly a lot of the criticism is valid.
A Mac app that turns any website into a handy application, another wild app exploration by Morten Just.
Zählen für die Kleinsten 123 heb ik gekocht omdat er een Nederlandse versie van is (inclusief de audio). Helaas is de kwaliteit te slecht om dat vaker aan te horen en de interactiviteit laat veel te wensen over.
Dikkie Dik spelletjes is een officiele app van de uitgever Gottmer. Het is een rijke verzameling spelletjes maar over het algemeen matig bruikbaar en ongeschikt voor kinderen van 2 jaar oud.
