Substrate

We stand in the rain in a long line

Every week’s edition of the newsletter keeps becoming my favorite.

“...and behind them nothing.”

“I know it's a tall thing. But words matter.”

I’m so excited for Substack.

A look at the winners of the 2018 iPhone Photography Awards

“One of the things that makes RC unique is that everyone has the rare opportunity to take responsibility for and direct their own learning — from deciding what is important to them to what their goals are and how to achieve them. At the same time, RC is at its best when everyone is mindful and supportive of each other’s learning goals. Bifurcating our community into “Recursers” and “residents” does not help this.”

Kaitlin is slowly trickling out teasers for her upcoming project

Justin knocked this one out of the park.

Probably my favorite WBW post to date

“...representative of the sort of slippage I want to avoid; I should and will do better, even if that means taking more time off when appropriate. Many of you have emailed me over the years on precisely this point, and I’m ready to listen.” Thompson’s cadence has always been bafflingly impressive. This is the first mention I’ve read from him about rest—a gentle reminder that we’re all human.

“PS Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don’t know your new address.”

“When Twitter the company moves too slowly, we make Twitter the product into what we want.”

“Manhattan is quiet and cocoonish when it's cold. The entire city goes into hibernation mode, and communal solitude has to be one of the loveliest things I've experienced.”

“...being weird as a teenager is generally good.”

“These are tools, not requirements. Don’t let them make you miserable. Tune them until they bring you pleasure.”

To leave something important to you unrefined — uniterated, firstdrafted — is the laziest safety net you can deploy.

“When refactoring, you know more about the domain than when the code was first written, so can unwind the erroneous assumptions of the past. You can make much more educated guesses at what the code will need to do in the future, and can structure it accordingly. You can see where the performance problems have been, and whether performance is in fact something you should be worried about at all.”

“But if you want to become a better developer, and you want to do it by reading books, and you ask me what books you should read, I am going to recommend that you read The Odyssey. And Ogilvy on Advertising. And The Fire Next Time. And The Elements of Color. And maybe some Murakami and Vonnegut, sure. And Claudia Rankine and Herman Melville and René Girard and Italo Calvino. And Plath and DuBois and McCullough and García Márquez.”

“Not knowing the source of this inspiration makes the concept of Anti-Flow at odds with a working day which perhaps makes a bike ride a better place to Anti-Flow. It’s one of the reasons when my wife asks me, ‘Do you get bored on three-hour rides?’ I respond honestly, ‘It’s when I do my most important work.’”

you could scatter his whole mind across a field.

you couldn’t browse the web without seeing RSS icons of all persuasions gracing the façades of Web 1.0’s finest.

I was an economics major in college, and I've been grateful ever since for a few key concepts those courses drilled into me: things like opp

I became well-rehearsed in failed attempts, and so much more patient as a result. ​ As a result, my tolerance for frustration is so much higher. I’m convinced that the seeds of patience and resilience were planted and sprouted in those math notebooks. ​ The art lies in knowing which tool to grab ​ And just because I arrived at an answer, didn’t immediately make it the right one. ​ Answering that question directly is a mistake. When are you going to need to factor a polynomial in the “real world”? Maybe never, kid. Especially not with that attitude. But when are you going to face a problem that requires focusing for more than 30 seconds? All the goddamn time. ​ I needed that bottom row of math textbooks. They were my anchor. The bedrock. The foundation for much of what I’ve learned, and a sturdy base for everything still to come. ​ At times, I hated math. And yet, six years later, I’m so grateful that I studied it. The reasons have nothing to do with numbers and everything to do with life.

and spoke two words that will dramatically change my life. ​ I know that, on my death bed, I would regret not giving this a shot. I know that I would say “why did I work, rather than just trying to make it by myself”. I don’t want to make that mistake. ​ The well-traveled road brings less surprise, but is paved with the regret of poorly trodden forks not taken. ​ I would be remiss to write this post without mentioning you. It is expressly because of the people that read this website — like you — and the people that listen to my podcasts — like you — and the people that watch my videos — like you — that I’m able to make this leap. Without you giving me your attention, my family would not be afforded this amazing opportunity. ​ I can think of only a couple other pairs of words that have had similar impact on my life. Coincidentally, they were both spoken by Erin: “I do.” “I’m pregnant.”

Any company that cares about their employees’ bodies enough to have a chef and a gym, should also offer something for the mind. Imagine how it changes the recruiting conversation to say “we have an onsite independent bookstore” as one of the amenities.