Substrate

#decisions
gut feelings
gut feelings
I think one of the best (and rarest) feelings in the world is knowing you’re doing something that feels right. I really really respect people who are good at listening to their gut instincts, who are in tune with what feels right and chart their actions accordingly. ​ True resonance between the right people has its own language. It’s incredibly effortless, a warm glow of energy they give you. Some people you can’t help but love. You can’t resist being a moth drawn to a flame. Something in you just knows: these are my people, this is my person. ​ “If you get close to what you love, who you are is revealed to you, and it expands” – Ethan Hawke ​ A lot of my friends are ‘free’ in ways that I am not and therefore they inspire me to grow and change.
·nicoles.substack.com·
gut feelings
Find the third way
Find the third way
The third hurdle is your ego ⏤ be extra cautious when you already prefer an option. It will be hard to let go of it to explore alternatives.
·garybasin.com·
Find the third way
Independent Conviction
Independent Conviction
In our personal lives, many of us let these types of emotions rule our choices. Think about how many times you and your friends have told a close friend to quit their job/get out of a relationship/stand up for themselves/do something else risky. Instead of following what everyone is saying, often people defy the advice of the people closest to them and trust their gut (whether it’s right or wrong is irrelevant). ​ My friend Ryan is famous for saying “confident about the inputs” and that’s kind of all many of us have. Take your inputs, your external data points, and your internal thoughts, and iterate on your stances.
·notes.michaeldempsey.me·
Independent Conviction
Unbundling the University
Unbundling the University
With these two new models for schools in place (decision schools + trade schools), we'd also have the benefit of easy mobility later in life. Want to make a change and not sure what comes next? Go to Decision School, decide on a new path, then go to another trade school that can get you into that field.
·darkblueheaven.com·
Unbundling the University
Bad Metaphors: The 30,000-Foot View
Bad Metaphors: The 30,000-Foot View
The phrase is meant to convey authority, but it is also a plea for trust. Believe me, I can see more than you — so do as I say. ​ While these sights may amaze the neophyte air traveler, the window-seat view soon becomes routine — and yet it still manages to conserve its power in metaphor. ​ While everyone is invited to see things from 30,000 feet, not everyone is invited to stay there or make decisions from such an elevated position. ​ The expression enfolds a double maneuver: It shares a seemingly data-rich, totalizing perspective in an apparent spirit of transparency only to justify the restriction of power, the protection of a reified point of authority. ​ It’s not about flight at all: It is a vertical metaphor to negate horizontalism.
·reallifemag.com·
Bad Metaphors: The 30,000-Foot View
Tracking Dependencies With DEPENDENCIES.md
Tracking Dependencies With DEPENDENCIES.md
A growing list of third-party libraries is something most development projects have to deal with it. On many projects it can be hard to figure out why a certain dependency was added, or whether it still makes sense to keep it. We can track dependencies through a DEPENDENCIES.md document just like we track changes via a CHANGELOG.md.
·blog.mazur.me·
Tracking Dependencies With DEPENDENCIES.md
“Sometimes we to have to shave a few yaks to figure out what ‘better’ is. If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be ‘research.’”
“Sometimes we to have to shave a few yaks to figure out what ‘better’ is. If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be ‘research.’”
@rob_rix Sometimes we to have to shave a few yaks to figure out what "better" is. If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be "research."— Chris Parker (@ctp) February 13, 2014
·twitter.com·
“Sometimes we to have to shave a few yaks to figure out what ‘better’ is. If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be ‘research.’”
Pareto efficency
Pareto efficency
I often think of Pareto efficiency in terms of decision making. The closer you get to the Pareto frontier (of the space of possible solutions), the harder it is to make any decision Pareto efficient. Meaning for almost all decisions, you’re going to have to sacrifice something. For instance when you do a big refactoring of a system it’s easy to get hung up on trying to preserve all features while adding a few new ones. In reality this is going to be extremely hard or impossible. If you can do it possibly it’s because you forgot to include some other axis in your analysis, like code complexity. It’s like pushing a balloon into a box. loss aversion may sometimes be explained by people trying to make Pareto efficient decisions. My conclusion from this silly example is that you should really think twice before assigning the responsibility of a functional area to a single person. A simple model for why buying decisions are so hard is that it involves Pareto effiency – market economy will drive out all TV’s that are dominated, leaving only the TV’s on the Pareto frontier. That makes it a lot harder as a consumer because now every choice will become a trade-off. Whereas in something like clothing there’s a lot of dimensions, so you should expect a more fragmented market.
·erikbern.com·
Pareto efficency