Posts

Looking at some Discord first organizations this describes how they could play out and how much potential is there if you want to put some effort in it.

“The technology is not the hard part. It’s already invented, but we have to pay ourselves to install it fast. So, again, that’s an economic question, and it doesn’t work in capitalism. We have the means right now to arrange for everybody alive today to have adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, education, and healthcare, within the biosphere’s carrying capacity.”

Once you’ve worked with post-commit reviews, I promise you will not want to go back to the PR way of working again.

I had some people from the Greens explain to me how the SUV was not so bad after all (as my intuition told me). Turns out my intuition was right.

Most of my discussions with data scientists have revolved around exactly this point (usually to serious pushback): that they need to be end-to-end to deliver value in an organization.

It looks like Cards Against Humanity is over and I can’t say that I’m sad about that.

An interesting story about the interaction between loving the outdoors and Instagram culture.

You may find yourself suddenly leading a project as an IC and if that is the case, please take this guide by Gergely Orosz with you. It will prove very helpful.

A funny German interview with Ben Hammersley on the surface about laziness and productivity but what is a much more current strand to pull on is the ability to systematize large parts of our quotidian life and work.

An uncannily thorough treatment of why DARPA works and how you might go about replicating it. Maybe people at the European policy level should read this instead of trying all these initiatives where everything good dies in a committee.

Foul things fled, fierce things tame; discord turned to harmony! For how could there be greed where all had enough? How could the vice, the crime, the ignorance, the brutality, that spring from poverty and the fear of poverty, exist where poverty had vanished? Who should crouch where all were freemen; who oppress where all were peers?

Fuck Manhattan. This (Jackson Heights) is the real New York: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/27/arts/design/jackson-heights-queens-virtual-walk-tour.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

“Viele Unternehmen sehen zu viele theoretische Risiken statt einfach zu vertrauen, dass Menschen grundsätzlich mit Freiheiten verantwortungsvoll umgehen.”

Talking with people about their career and professional development options is one of my active areas of improvement at the moment. If I’m generous I’d say I’m at level 2.

Caring Gardening Engendering Resurgence Nurture Contingency Knots Assemblages Terrestrial Interdependence Precarity The Dithering https://twitter.com/anabjain/status/1230150599007756289

https://twitter.com/AntonJaegermm/status/1270410350278643714

This look into QAnon by a game designer goes deeper and is a lot more disturbing.

I love the examples in this bit about great engineering cultures: teamwork as default, quality is personal, results driven meetings & retrospectives are fun

We’ve also switched to somewhat more durable teams prompted in large part by Will Larson’s book. Here Anna Shipman lists the benefits of doing so.

I’m no stranger to ARGs but still I learned a lot from this reading of QAnon as one.

“Ist es extrem, leben zu wollen? Ist der Wunsch extrem, deinem Kind nicht dabei zusehen zu müssen, wie es von Polizisten erschossen wird? Oder, nicht mehr jeden Cent zweimal umdrehen zu müssen? Nein. Die Ansicht, dass das extrem sei, ist extrem. Und zwar extrem menschenfeindlich.”

I thought I knew how big a deal TikTok was a year ago already but I feel sorry for not diving in back then because it is much bigger a deal than I had thought.

“The second thing is that there’s almost no watchable esport for a normal person. The real issue is that no one has actually made [an esport] that people like to play, that is fun to play, that is also remotely tolerable to watch for a normal person. They’re all baffling. I dare anyone to turn on Overwatch in front of a person and even explain what’s going on to them. The closest we’ve gotten [to something watchable] is Rocket League, because it’s just soccer.”

Reading this account by the former COO Francoise Brougher, I’m disappointed to learn how badly Pinterest failed at Diversity and Inclusion.

The JIRA team does not use JIRA and of course why would they if anybody gave them the choice. Also, JIRA is often not used for software engineering anymore but it fits the bill for large scale workflows and compliance trails.

https://twitter.com/aaronzlewis/status/1291889682788253696

There are the leaders that — like samurai — embrace death. They see their role as protecting and empowering the people below them who do the real work and it’s an honor to serve the team’s interests even if things do not go well for them personally.

I think there was another study about psychopathy in high status car drivers but for now this is good enough.

I have my first name as my user name in a bunch of places. I’ve had my Twitter account (Twitter.com/alper) for a very long time but my Instagram account (Instagram.com/alper) got a lot more attention after Instagram got really big. A couple of weeks ago I lost that account.

I thought this was a great interview with Kim Stanley Robinson but it turns out the Corona virus has not rewritten our imaginations enough, not enough at all.

The opinions of ‘Uncle Bob’ have always been harmful both when it comes to code as well as non-code. It’s a bit shameful for us as an industry that it took so long for people to wisen up to this.

A lovely and long history of Nespresso a coffee I’ve hated to drink but it’s still been better than many alternatives.

The types of resistance available to women are particularly interesting: They themselves understand their daily tasks — the upkeep of their homes and the care of their families — as a form of steadfast resistance.

Crucially, at street scale, on-street parking is not allowed, which opens up the streetscape for people, on foot and on bike, for conversation and activities, and yes, for moving goods and people around but as a secondary ‘enabling’ activity to the life of the street itself.

Remember that in any organisation, people make decisions — decisions are about trade-offs, and decisions can be influenced, overturned, and changed. More importantly, organisations evolve— the way decisions were made yesterday might not be the way they get made tomorrow!

Stripe joins the list of companies that have tried out remote working and are now doubling down on it.

I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with the FT’s reporting, diversity, tech-savvy and also the travel specials.

The Zendesk story of how they built a globally distributed company is quite amazing, but there are many more like this by now.

Desert Golfing is een game over golfen in de woestijn. In een twee-dimensionaal pastelkleurig woestijnlandschap moet je een bal de hole in schieten. Je vinger bepaalt de kracht en de hoek van je slag en als je loslaat vliegt de bal weg. Hoe ver je bal komt, hoe vaak hij stuitert en hoe lang hij doorrolt voelen perfect, eigenlijk precies alsof je echt golf speelt in een woestijn. Alleen ben je hier na 18 holes niet klaar. We weten nu dat er duizenden willekeurig gegenereerde woestijnlandschappen—de een moeilijker dan de andere—wachten om gespeeld te worden en er is nog geen einde in zicht. De combinatie van eenvoud en oneindigheid maken dat je Desert Golfing lang kunt blijven spelen. Het is een fijn tussendoortje voor onderweg en tegelijkertijd een meditatie op hoeveel er met heel weinig mogelijk is.

Je kon hem al spelen, maar Proteus van Ed Key is nu eindelijk officieel uit. Proteus is de naam van het willekeurig gegenereerde eiland wat je bezoekt. Aangekomen op het strand zie je op het eerste gezicht alleen wat bomen maar als je verder loopt kom je gaandeweg dieren en ook andere objecten tegen. Door rond te lopen beïnvloed je het eiland. Dat zie je niet alleen, je hoort het vooral in de muziek (gecomponeerd door David Kanaga) en de geluiden die allebei reageren op wat je doet.

Het langverwachte “Botanicula”van Amanita Design is uit en het is nog mooier dan de vorige spellen (Samorost, Machinarium etc.) van deze studio. De jaren werk die erin zitten zijn af te zien en te horen aan dit spel dat verbaast door zijn pure schoonheid.

“Where is my Heart?”is een platform-puzzelspel van Deense sensatie Die Gute Fabrik. Je bestuurt om beurten een van drie ontheemde monsters die een tocht door het bos maken om de weg naar huis te vinden. De monsters zijn erg charmant geanimeerd, de niveau’s in het bos zijn getekend in pixelart van een toverachtige schoonheid en de soundtrack bestaat uit stemmige 8-bit muziek die zich tijdens het spel mee ontwikkelt. De uitvoering is perfect, maar die is niet zo belangrijk.

In ‘The Binding of Isaac’ wil Isaacs godsdienstwaanzinnige moeder hem opofferen zoals in het gelijknamige bijbelverhaal. Jij moet Isaac helpen ontsnappen in een hellegang onder zijn eigen huis. Een apart thema en off-beat humor zoals we eerder ook zagen in Super Meat Boy van dezelfde maker.

Kinderen dwingen om erts te verzamelen, zelfmoordende fabrieksarbeiders opvangen, gadgets werpen naar blind rennende consumenten zijn niet de dingen die je in een game verwacht. Het kon bij de censoren van Apple ook niet door de beugel. Het spel Phone Story waarin dit allemaal gebeurt heeft een paar uur in de App Store gestaan voor Apple het verwijderde.

Op 5 maart 1967 overlijdt Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq na een gevecht met keelkanker. Hij had daarvoor jarenlang in de gevangenis en onder huisarrest gezeten omdat hij als premier van Iran zijn volk wilde bevrijden van de Engelse koloniale invloed. De Engels-Amerikaanse staatsgreep die hem afzette heeft een grote invloed gehad op de wereldgeschiedenis maar dit inspirerende en historisch belangrijke verhaal is nauwelijks bekend in het Westen.

Het lijkt een leuke variant van Space Invaders maar Inside a Star-filled Sky heeft oneindig veel meer te bieden.

“There must be agreement on a coalition between labor and capital, whose interests are aligned in seeking taxation from landowners rather than workers or productive activity.”

Edge C2 is a nice ideal position to move towards in this article about military agility that contains a bunch of useful elements including an interlinked OODA loop and a visualization of the Trust Equation.

“It is not quantity of his audience that matters so much as the nature of it, however. And the neoreactionaries do seem to be influencing the drift of Silicon Valley libertarianism, which is no small force today.”