hello! here are my slides from my talk at @brooklyn_js - thanks again for your support, and i'd be happy to work with you/your company on more cute, creative tech projects

Like many of Apple’s biggest hits, it wasn’t immediately well-understood. ​ In hindsight, I think the rollout of the Apple Watch was unnecessarily complicated for a first-generation product. ​ it’s truly the kind of product that you need to use to understand it. ​ But despite the allure of recent models’ GPS capabilities and far nicer industrial design, I have not had the itch to upgrade. ​ it’s still a little strange to see so many people wearing the exact same watch every day. ​ Rather than augmenting what I already wear, it replaces something. ​ Finally, there’s something about wearing an Apple Watch with my AirPods in my ears while looking at an iPhone that makes me feel, well, a little bit dorky. I don’t want to make a big deal out of this; I’m sure it’s just elevated levels of self-consciousness that are more indicative of who I am than of the device. This is almost certainly a me problem. But, still. Akin to Ryan’s old Rule of Three tweet about Apple devices (https://twitter.com/ryandawidjan/status/930511618529746944). Or I can leave it in the bank and add to it for a watch that’s far more like a piece of jewellery than it is a wrist computer. Even the nicest stainless steel Apple Watch is still identifiable primarily as a device. I have also learned something over the last four years that I’ve used an Apple Watch: I learned that my hesitance to upgrade is not from a lack of new features — there are plenty of those — but almost the opposite. I don’t know that I want more of anything happening on my wrist; I guess I just want less.

Category theory and intelligence seem to be deeply linked - both are guided by the goal of organizing and layering abstractions. Automation of exactly that - organizing and layering abstractions - seems to be the quest of machine learning.

a lot of my maturation as a developer has come from realizing that intuition is a disease and a crutch rather than a thing that should be relied on in lieu of formal verifications: the goal should be to delay intuition until it is reified in a thing that exists beyond your mind.

Bonus content: here's how I'd shim it into a switch statement: pic.twitter.com/W4Wu7M0923— Ben Cohen (@AirspeedSwift) April 25, 2019

I'm excited to share the positive news and to be working on such an interesting project! I believe we have just begun to scratch the surface of applying category theory to understanding the universe around us and inside us. https://t.co/KgpHpkfEgA— Bruno Gavranović (@bgavran3) April 23, 2019

seems like teenagers are perpetually rediscovering that every identity is "manufactured" and "effortless identity" requires even more effort (and cognitive dissonance) to sustain— Rob Horning (@robhorning) April 24, 2019

Cross posted from http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Expert-to-Expert-Brian-Beckman-and-Erik-Meijer-Inside-the-NET-Reactive-Framework-Rx Erik Meijer and team (developer Wes Dyer, in particular) have created a profound and beautiful .NET library that will take managed event based programming to new levels. Of course, many of you wish that you could write LINQ expressions over events. Well, now you can thanks to Erik's and Wes Dyer's latest creation, Rx - .NET Reactive Framework. Erik, being a fundamentalist functional theoritician, can't create new programming abstractions without employing some form of monadic magic. Enter astrophysicist and monadic composition wizard Brian Beckman. The last time Brian was on C9 he taught us about the State Monad. At the end of that discussion he mentioned he wanted to teach us about the Continuation Monad next. So, who better to conduct this episode of Expert to Expert than Dr. Beckman? Yep. You guessed it! Rx employs the Continuation Monad in its composition. Erik is in the hot seat this time and it's always a real pleasure to converse with Erik and Brian in the same room at the same whiteboard. Now, what is Rx? The .NET Reactive Framework (Rx) is the mathematical dual of LINQ to Objects. It consists of a pair of interfaces IObserver/IObservable that represent push-based, or observable, collections, plus a library of extension methods that implement the LINQ Standard Query Operators and other useful stream transformation functions. Observable collections capture the essence of the well-known subject/observer design pattern, and are tremendously useful for dealing with event-based and asynchronous programming, i.e. AJAX-style applications. For example, here is the prototypical Dictionary Suggest written using LINQ query comprehensions over observable collections: Please subscribe to this Channel 9 interview to be notified when we have clearance to distribute Rx over the counter (lame puns intended Smiley. Tune in. This should prove to be an instant classic besides being a very important episode of E2E. Rx is deep, man. Deep. Enjoy!

Sharing suffering is actually one way to minimize suffering, and minimizing suffering is at the core of my beliefs on compassionate teams. ​ If you're a senior engineer wondering what's next, try turning your attention to your team. I would bet that you'll learning something worthwhile.

And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual.

The phrase doesn’t really refer to the internet; it refers to a place, but not one that exists in any substantive way, concretely or even conceptually. Instead, it uses “offline” as a metaphor for a place that is simply Not Here. ​ while also providing a catch-all that allows one to blame technology for the annoying tendencies of its users.

When we're struggling with something, it's easy to feel isolated. But the mind is a shared, human condition. Knowing we are not alone can make all the difference. Love this animation from the @Headspace creative team pic.twitter.com/priLSy8CuA— Andy Puddicombe (@andypuddicombe) April 19, 2019

There is, of course, a connection between your character and your follow-through. But this has gotten blurry. Because many “productive type things” get thrust upon us by other people. People who have expectations which they’ve projected upon us without our consent!

Jailbreaking gives iPhone users almost unfettered access to their devices, offering a slew of customizations, new features, and improved apps that you just can't get elsewise. Unfortunately, Apple ...

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How does test-driven development make the design of our code better?

details from reality that betray the carefully staged set, and ground the images in the push and pull between performance and authenticity. We see details and habits revealed to us, captured in the fraction of a second the picture was taken in. ​ What makes Lee’s photographs so compelling is that they point to the infinite other moments that aren’t captured by the camera. We see a sliver of who this woman is in a fraction of a second—and behind the photograph hides a vast sea of other moments, unknown and opaque to us.

That gaze is a monolithic one: it’s the mass of readers I am potentially failing by writing something pretentious, boring and not worth their time. Everyone is watching! It had better be good! It's is the gaze that says: You can't write unless you're describing everything in the cellar. ​ And most of all, letters make me feel like I am reading things that were written to me and for me alone. And that's my favorite feeling in the world. ​ So maybe the privacy I’m talking about really is just trust, and the ability to write to someone you know will still love you despite your writing. ​ —I’m talking about a friend who loves you enough to edit your writing.

but jet lag has a way of making even comfortable beds in comfortable neighborhoods seem foreign. There should be a term for this sort of chain reaction of literary progeny: you read a book that forces you to read a book that forces you to read a book, the textual equivalent of a wild night out. but I just want to fade the instinct a little bit, to train myself for more durable content.

One of the key would be to keep it simple. It’s just one component in an ecosystem of tools. Do search, and do it well, and that’s it.

Home essentials for whatever life brings.

“i want to give a gentle reminder that telling someone they “need to get laid” or “need” anything romantic/sexual to help remedy their situation, this can be highly inappropriate for several reasons and hurtful to those on the asexual spectrum”

Recommendations for effective view models when working with RxSwift.

Sometimes I think the things that makes art beautiful are the ways in which it represents reality. But other times, it is in the idiosyncratic way each artist’s world is not quite the same as the real one. (Drawing is by Egon Schiele.) pic.twitter.com/zWuGNUZw21— Rowan Hisayo Buchanan (@RowanHLB) April 9, 2019

TDD is a procedure I can put in place to help me control my intuition until the facts are in

This guide is an attempt to correct some of the imbalance in information between companies and employees, and explain in plain English the whole stock option process. ​ Don’t be deceived if you’re offered a large number of shares without any mention of the number of shares currently outstanding. Many companies are reluctant to share this kind of information and claim it’s confidential. ​ The last thing worth mentioning here is that if you’re buying vested shares before you leave the company, than I strongly suggest you look into filing a “83(b) election”, which could significantly decrease the amount of tax you have to pay. A full explanation of 83(b) elections is a guide in itself, but essentially they let you pay all your tax liabilities for both vested and un-vested stock early, at the current 409A valuation (even if the valuation subsequently increases). ​ It’s much easier to find out the answers to these questions when you’re still at the company, so I suggest you get this information before you leave if at all possible.