Betterment

In the 1914 short story, “Araby”, James Joyce wrote about a wee boy in 1890s Dublin, who has a huge crush on a young girl his age. One day, the girl (who

Engineers often use the rubber duck approach when they are stuck, but why not draw for our little yellow friend instead?

If you’re in need of a gathering place, a dry, functional, centrally located facility for your folks to meet, a cathedral is probably way more than you need. It’s far more expensive to …

When it’s tough going and it feels fraught, it’s easy to imagine that the headwinds will never end. And yet, when all is going well and the wind is at our back, it’s tempting to i…

A manual I recently read listed the “cons” of having a meeting virtually: Limits options for engagement Engagement can be less meaningful At home distractions More difficult to read bod…

A plugin to keep helpful stuff available in a sidecar panel.

Possibly the most impressive structure of Late Antiquity were the Theodosian Walls, the largest defensive city walls in the Byzantine Empire built in the

The innermost room in the ancient Israelites’ temple was called the Holy of Holies — the sanctum sanctorum. It was here, it was thought, that heaven intersected with earth. Only the High Priest was allowed through the curtain that marked off this sanctuary, and it was said that when he left it, his face would […]

6 times 1/2 doesn’t equal 3. It equals zero. We’re tempted to do a little less than we need to. Perhaps we’re busy, with too many options. Perhaps it’s resistance, pushing u…

In the old days, companies had a suggestion box. It was immortalized in cartoons, but the idea that an employee could anonymously submit a suggestion to make things better is a first step in engage…

Wouldn’t it be nice to always be able to pick up the phone to ask for a job referral when you need one, no questions asked? Or to ask for an intro to someone? Or for support or advice on an idea?

Back in the old days (think Ancient Greek or Viking times), our word was considered VERY important. We took an oath VERY seriously, and if we broke our

In action movies, there’s a lot of leaping. Brave shifts in which the hero gets from here to there, all at once. It’s easy to imagine that sudden leaps are how we make our impact. This …

Aphorisms of 18th-century German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: “There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible.” “To read means to borrow; to create out of one’s readings is paying off one’s debts.” “How close may our thoughts come at times to grazing on a great discovery?” “I would often rather read what a famous author has cut from one of his works than what he has let stand.” “A golden rule: one must judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.” “My body is that part...

We’re busy, we’re confused and we’re always seeking a shortcut. If a company is hiring, the person who worked at Google or Apple or Disney gets more of the benefit of the doubt. E…

Who decided that this sparkle symbol means “A.I.”? The sparkle symbol has been around for a long time, but it’s never had a clear, stand-out meaning,

How big a swing do we need to make it feel like it matters? At the casino, some folks play with $5 chips, some with $100 chips. Do the high rollers have more fun? Are they more engaged? It’s …

More personalised large intelligence models that can unlock (or unhide) latent knowledge. And other news on 'beyond human intelligence' and embodiment (aka #AI #robotics)

If we take a big enough dataset… Add to it machine learning and autotune and the race to fit in and reach the masses… We end up with a relentless march toward mediocrity. Mediocre is an…

There is a big literature on the ages at which intellectuals peak in life. The rate of publishing papers peaks about tenure time. Physical sciences peak earlier than social sciences. And per paper, each one has an

One of the unmentioned causes of division in much of our culture happens because of the shift in expectations and rules when we begin to live in close proximity to one another. In a non-crowded set…

I recently got an email asking about self-publishing books, and wanted to summarize my thinking there. Recapping my relevant experience, I’ve written three books: An Elegant Puzzle was published in 2019 as a manuscript by Stripe Press (e.g. I wrote it and then it was released as is), which has sold about 100,000 copies (96k through the end of 2023, and selling about 4k copies a quarter over past two years), Staff Engineer which I self-published in 2021, which has sold about 70,000 copies (also selling roughly 4k copies a quarter over the past two years) The Engineering Executive’s Primer which was published by O’Reilly earlier this month.

Have you ever noticed that people often get weirder as they get older? They go a little crazy; they fall apart; they come to seem increasingly “off.” Mental illnesses worsen. Depression deepens. Addictions harden. It isn’t just issues that rise to the clinical level that emerge; what were once mere quirks in someone’s youth intensify […]

If you were around when the Model T was first announced, you could have built the organizations that became Disney, McDonald’s and Holiday Inn, all of which were powered by cheap, plentiful c…

Happy Friday. What's good? Not me. I am not good. Indeed, I almost wrote to you this morning to tell you there'd be no newsletter today or Monday. I'm having a very hard time with everything right now – that collision a few weeks ago has really upended my world, mentally

Living indoors, connected to a screen, it’s easy for the months and years to blur together. The seasons used to matter more. But for young adults, they still do. Transitions are built around …

It’s sort of the opposite of “cued.” In addition to being delightful to spell, the idea of work that’s queued up is energizing. The chapter ahead of schedule, the process in…

Thoughts I jotted down on Mastodon: 1) Blogs are newsletters that don’t require subscriptions. 2) Blogrolls are lists of blogs. 3) Both require the lowest possible cognitive and economic over…

Which came to my attention via Bruce Sterling’s EYE BURNING Artmaker Blog. A series of posts: Bonus round: Bruce notes that it’s a lot of work. It’s a terrifying amount of work that starts at 5am e…

When architects show off their work, or propose a bold new building complex or even ask for a zoning variance, the public sees the external photos. The tall spire, the innovative use of glass, the …