It’s been a while since the sport of badminton has seen another great backhand smash. Taufik Hidayt was the defacto backhand king. See videos on DuckduckGo search.
Victor Axelsen of Denmark has been working on his backhand smashes and I believe it’s the new birth of the backhand smash. I’ve seen him use it at least 4-5 times a match.
Here is one of his best smashes on the backhand. I don’t like that he spins around, but hey, very effective!
We used to have shareware and that was how programmers could give you software for free. When 2% of people pay for ‘free’ software, the rest of the world could get the benefits of free software.
Because people don’t pay for mobile & desktop apps developers started adding very annoying ads into software causing some unintended consequences.
This is my call to action
This idea from Google is currently under limited available release. Learn more at https://whats.new/
.new is a domain extension exclusively for performing new actions online: any act that leads to creation can have a quick and memorable .new shortcut associated with it. Help your customers take action faster. Less time clicking means more time creating.
Listen here
After Hours: Healthcare Companies We’re Watching, and Productivity Hacks
https://hbr.org/podcast/2020/03/healthcare-companies-were-watching-and-productivity-hacks
About Facebook
Nor does she mince words when taking on one behemoth in particular. “I hate it,” she writes. “The company is one of the biggest mistakes in modern history, a digital cesspool that, while calamitous when it fails, is at its most dangerous when it works as intended. Facebook is an ant farm of humanity.”
Stay aware of the latest information on the COVID-19 outbreak, available on the WHO website and through your national and local public health authority. COVID-19 is still affecting mostly people in China with some outbreaks in other countries. Most people who become infected experience mild illness and recover, but it can be more severe for others. Take care of your health and protect others by doing the following:
People with no respiratory symptoms, such as cough, do not need to wear a medical mask. WHO recommends the use of masks for people who have symptoms of COVID-19 and for those caring for individuals who have symptoms, such as cough and fever. The use of masks is crucial for health workers and people who are taking care of someone (at home or in a health care facility).
WHO advises rational use of medical masks to avoid unnecessary wastage of precious resources and mis-use of masks (see Advice on the use of masks). Use a mask only if you have respiratory symptoms (coughing or sneezing), have suspected COVID-19 infection with mild symptoms, or are caring for someone with suspected COVID-19 infection. A suspected COVID-19 infection is linked to travel in areas where cases have been reported, or close contact with someone who has travelled in these areas and has become ill.
The most effective ways to protect yourself and others against COVID-19 are to frequently clean your hands, cover your cough with the bend of elbow or tissue and maintain a distance of at least 1 meter (3 feet) from people who are coughing or sneezing. For more information, see basic protective measures against the new coronavirus.
Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would rather have talked. – Mark Twain
In order to debug Android Auto
cd ~/Library/Android/sdk ./platform-tools/adb forward tcp:5277 tcp:5277
./extras/google/auto/desktop-head-unit
On your phone/emulator, turn on debugging then in Android Auto
Settings -> Start head unit server
Reference:
Removing praise and criticism from learning.
What good teacher do
https://www.npr.org/2020/02/03/802422904/when-things-click-the-power-of-judgment-free-learning
Let the machine help you build/make Android apps. Start with some of these plugins.
https://blog.codota.com/top-17-plugins-for-android-studio/
About
Tosh Hall
Global CCO
Tosh oversees the creative product for all our offices, including work for AB InBev, Dunkin’ Brands, Target and UNICEF.
His work’s been recognized at Cannes and by D&AD, The One Show, Clios, New York Festivals, Tokyo TDC, Graphis, Communication Arts, Print and AIGA—and featured in Forbes, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. After receiving his BA in economics and journalism from UNC Chapel Hill, he worked for Revlon and Landor Associates.
Tosh teaches at the School of Visual Arts and lectures worldwide. He was recently named one of the 50 ‘Most Creative People‘ by AdAge.
I have started to notice more physical book reading on Muni.
“San Francisco has often been called a transient city, a destination for young creative types and techies before they bounce off to places unknown. But to stereotype this city as a way station is to ignore the families who set down roots here generations ago.
We did a callout for multigenerational San Franciscans and were flooded with responses from people wanting to tell the stories of their clans.
This photo essay spotlights six “native” San Francisco households who have some special stories to share. The word native is in quotes, though, because even within these groups, the original homesteaders initially arrived here from another city or country. But they all are proud to call San Francisco home.” – The Bold Italic Editors
Debbie and her team do their homework in researching little known facts about their creative guests. Because of the research and preparations, her dialog and questions elicit surprising insights from the creative people she talks with. We favorite and bookmark many of her episodes in order to good deeper and learn more about here guests later on.
Having documentation right at your finger tips for Android SDK.
Open it in your browser at file:///Users/tonytam/Library/Android/sdk/docs/index.html
Grow 1% a day, start with free resources from SF Library (or your local library)
Start reading this blog article.
When I started working on a hackathon project to publish the Splunk .conf videos from our conf.splunk.com site into a podcast form, I learned a lot that I didn’t know. This learning through hands on work has led me to contributing software code to an open source project call AntennaPod. I will write more later about what I learned about contributing code to open sourced software, bug me if you are interested.
As Mary Meeker writes in her 2019 State of the Internet report, page 50, Podcast Listeners will grow 2x in four years from the base of 70MM.
“The future is here – it’s just not evenly distributed” – William Gibson.
When we come up with a good idea. If we take that idea and prototype and demo it, even when no one cheers you on, remember that they are just not in the same future as you yet.
If it was a good idea when you first proposed it, then it’s worthwhile to push forward. We should be able to tie the impact of our work to our own pride in the projects we create, the people who benefit directly from our work. We should not seek the validation of others ‘above’ the food chain.
I am often inspired by creative types. I heard about Jessica Hische when she was interviewed on Design Matters podcast. I found her
Follow up
case, Typographic Artisans”
This is free and a huge perk from our government to pull your credit report (without a score) https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action
https://www.levels.fyi/2019/ – I have no idea how accurate this salary data is, but it’s pretty outrageous how much software engineers are paid.
At work, what would change, would people truly miss you?
In your personal life, what would change and who would mourn you?
Now, start to do more of what is important and less of what is not valuable.
While listening to a podcast about the child free life (not childless life), a reminder that there is no script for life.
You can Google all the the possible Podcast apps out there, but I suggest you settle down with the paid version of the BeyondPod app. (This is my recommendation for people who subscribe to a lot of Podcasts!!)
Any podcast app worth downloading must have
Reason 1: You can map the bluetooth next button to skip over 30 seconds of advertising. When you are driving or using your headset, this is a MUST have.
Reason 2: Map the bluetooth prev button to skip to end and remove the podcast for episodes that you have no interest in. When you are driving or using your headset, this is a MUST have.
Reason 3: Mark episodes as favorites so you can go back and listen, you can interact with description with show notes and links inside the notes.
My gift for you this year is PRESENCE.
May you be utterly present in your life this year. Deeply aware of YOUR magnificence and of everything around you. Conscious of what makes you flow more freely. Confident in who and how you BE. Grateful for every moment. Living NOW.
Birthday Blessings!
In this clip from the CAFE Insider podcast, “Impeachment: The Opening Act,” co-hosts Preet Bharara and Anne Milgram break down the latest developments in the House’s impeachment inquiry and discuss witness strategy.Listen to the full episode with a free 2-week trial of the CAFE Insider membership.
I believe in celebrating life, this week I want to celebrate my 49th birthday for an entire week. Even doing a small thing for myself.
Sunday – annual family dinner for 3 generation of men, with my father in-law, my little nephew and myself!
Monday – Dinner with my lovely wife at Esperanto and a live theater show in the Mission. I was inspired by passionate people who go out on a limb.
Tuesday – Taro smoothie with red bean mixed it, coffee at South Park cafe
Wednesday – Playing badminton with my sfbadminton.org group of friends.
Thursday – Pastries at Jane bakery
Friday – Bopomofo in L.A. to check out the cafe opened my one of the founder of WongFu production.
Saturday – Dim Sum with family in San Diego, morning pumpkin bread and taro red bean in Atlas World Market
When I want to read any online article either on my desktop or mobile, I save the link into Pocket in order to get the same minimimalist, no ads view on my phone or desktop. This removes any ads, any sidebar (more info) and gives me a consistent view into any online article. The color is the same, fonts are consistent.
Get a link (mobile or desktop) ->
Share to Pocket ->
Read now on Pocket or read it later ->
Archive
Get a link (mobile or desktop) ->
Share to Pocket ->
Listen to the text via audio ->
Archive
Here is a quick video.
Unfortunately, the business model of selling ads drives the wrong decision for your users.
“The next decade is a story not about job loss, but more so about changes in job quality,” said Beth Gutelius, associate director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who authored the paper along with colleague Nik Theodore, a professor of urban planning and policy. “Technology has led to workers being pushed harder and also their privacy getting violated.”
Before googling for the answer, what do you think is the % women who receive computer science bachelor’s degrees in the United States in 2019?
See answer here
Where we spend our time and money reflect our true priorities. I have decided to support Asian American creators (artists, singles, podcast creators, etc) through Patreon.
If you have not heard of Patreon (it’s a play on the word Patron). It’s an online platform to provide a money payment to creators so that they have a predictable monthly income in exchange for exclusive content . It’s a platform for the the most die hard fans to support the artists who give them joy.
Wong Fu Productions – https://www.patreon.com/wongfuproductions
They are the OG of You Tube videos by Asian Americans for Asian Americans. they create shorts, films and web series. A lot of artists got their start as Wong Fu interns or employees! From Patreon: When we first started Wong Fu Productions, we had no expectations. We weren’t expecting to be well known or popular. We weren’t expecting to be role models or a voice for Asian Americans in media. We weren’t even expecting to get paid!
A lot has changed since those simple days in the mid-2000s. Most for the better! We’ve created hundreds of videos that have touched millions of peoples’ lives around the world.
Kina Grannis – https://www.patreon.com/kinagrannis
She creates videos and music and has over 1,712 patrons. She also starred in several Wong Fu videos. From Patreon: ” I think music is a magical thing. It has comforted and healed and inspired me throughout my life, and that is what I hope to do for others with the music I create. I want to connect with people and help them feel less alone (and I want them to help me feel less alone, too!). I want to bring hope and happiness to peoples lives. I want to help people feel. If this is something you believe in, something that feels important to you in some way, then this is the place where you get to be a part of all of that.“
Ross Draws – https://www.patreon.com/Rossdraws/
Ross Tran creates illustrations and engagement YouTube videos and shows you how to get better drawing digitally. From Patreon: Thanks to all of you amazing souls who have joined the adventure with us on Patreon! We’ve continued to hit goals and have blossomed into one of the most successful Art Channels in existence. We get to create super fun, educational, energy-infused Art Videos and it’s all thanks to you! I’m so honored to have many of you be part of the epic journey and this is only the beginning.
Over the year we’ve upped the production quality of the Video Demos and bringing you more exclusive content such as Merch!
Andrew Huang – https://www.patreon.com/andrewhuang
He creates a huge number of music tracks 2,000, super creative sounds! From Patreon: I’m Andrew, a producer of many songs and many videos. I post musical videos every Monday and Thursday, and by pledging $1 per week you’ll help me to keep creating new and better things. In return I’ll send you all the music I release for however long you remain a patron – usually around 100 songs a year! There are also other rewards you can find out more about on the right. You also get a lot of music right away, and three sample packs. As soon as you become a patron you’ll be taken to a page with links for Patreon-exclusive music downloads, including many of the songs from my videos plus my gigantic b-sides compilation Abandon which in itself is 1,426 tracks and 53 hours long.
ceik0 – https://www.patreon.com/ceik0
This artist built her brand on Instagram @ceik0 drawing and selling BTS pins, posters, key chains and many more engagement. She is a college student in MA. From her page: “Hi, I’m Cate! I’m an (aspiring) artist and full-time college student currently based in Massachusetts. I sell pins, charms, prints, and stickers at my shop, and I post drawings and updates to my Instagram. The products I create are mainly BTS-inspired— they’ve been such a positive influence on me both artistically and personally, and drawing is my outlet for that happiness and motivation!“
Alex Wong – https://www.patreon.com/Alexwongsounds
He creates stories through music. Very engaging artist in sound and singer.
From Patreon: I started this page two years ago as a way to open a window into the process of making my second solo album, The Elephant and the Seahorse. It was amazing to get to interact with my patrons during the creative process because I love when art is a conversation and not just a monologue. What I didn’t expect was how much that conversation would change my whole approach to creating! Knowing that I was sharing my new, unpolished creations with a community of people who were actively listening, rather than just throwing them into the abyss of the internet and hoping for a like or two, motivated me to create more freely and boldly than I ever thought possible. It even inspired me to start creating WITH MY PATRONS, as we did in the video for The Quiet Voice (above).
Minji Chang – https://www.patreon.com/firstofallpodcast
She is the host of the First All Podcast. From Patreon:
Thanks so much for stopping by! My name is Minji Chang, host of First Of All, your weekly podcast snack for your soul.
First Of All is a real, unfiltered conversation on career, family, love, & modern culture. As your host, I’ll be bringing in my friends & special guests from all walks of life to kick back in my virtual living room. Together we’ll laugh (warning, I’m loud), cry (it’s okay, let it out), drop whatever knowledge we have, & speak our truth on weekly featured topics plus a special advice segment called IMO (In My Opinion) addressing questions from you, our beloved listeners. Get ready for good times & all the feels.
On the N inbound. You can see Oakland across the bay.
As I’m getting closer to 50, either I feel young or 50 year old body is not that fragile yet. I’m still competing with 20 year olds on the badminton courts, smashing and moving just as hard and fast.
The advantage of being older is that we don’t care as much what others think anymore. I hear the same advice from many 60+ year olds. And now I’m slowing to “get it”
During a random walk in Paris, we saw some beautiful prints of flowers in the window of an artist studio. The 3 of us stood there admiring them and the artist waved us in.
See Hyun Jeung’s background www.hyunjeung.com
And of course checkout the amazingly beautiful work. This week she sent out a new series.
At work when I am interviewing for candidates to join my team for Engineering Productivity, I look for certain attributes.
Having an opinion based on authority and experience
I am looking for someone with one or two areas of deep expertise. Also you should have a strong opinion but here is the kicker, you need to be willing to listen to another opinion. Diversity of opinion, recognizing that there is another perspective and be willing to listen.
Be able to talk about a topic and deep dive.
When answering a question, I will continue to push you to explain or expand deeper. I want to discover how deep you know a subject matter.
Know how to communicate which means listening
I will let you talk and respond for as long as you want, in the meantime I am looking for how long you talk non stop before checking in and see if you have answered my questions. Part of communication is listening.
Recently I purchased a pair of used Moment Lens (macro and wide) for my Pixel 3a phone. This is an experiment using the macro lens
Pantone is the perfect place to find that right shade of blue.
Tonight for a SF Badminton bag, I selected to use Pantone 534 C.
SOMA changing fast
Wednesday’s report from TechCrunch of an “exposed server” that “contained more than 419 million records over several databases on users across geographies, including 133 million records on U.S.-based Facebook users, 18 million records of users in the U.K., and another with more than 50 million records on users in Vietnam.”
Wow, I had not expected this of Calgary, Canada. The new Central library is a must see for anyone who loves public libraries.
How Payal Kadakia Danced Her Way to a $600 Million Start-Up https://nyti.ms/2KCHzQH
Splunk is a company of thousands of talented individuals, distributed across product development offices in 8 offices in the U.S., AUNZ, Europe, and Asia.
How do we do our best work collectively and continue to push innovation while expanding at hypergrowth rate? How do we overcome the boundaries of timezone, physical location, and organization rigidity in order to create the most innovative products and solutions for our customers?
After working on Engineering Productivity at Splunk for the last 3 years, I struggled to understand WHY I chose which projects I devote time and attention to. There was a common thread, there was something there to the madness.
The list of seemly random efforts all have some type of common theme that my beloved wife, Katherine point out this weekend when I ask her for her always piercingly accurate perspective.
Here is the laundry list of random efforts:
In my next post, I will try to talk about the common themes I have identified
I’m looking for a list of best practices, (maybe mechanics) with data to back up recommendations:
For example, starting with resume reviews all the way to closing the candidates. (some random thoughts )
1) In the resume tool: Do you create a set of standard templates to send? Do you try to respond by a certain number of days? Do you contact the candidate directly, or always let the recruiter do it?
2) In the resume review, what assumptions do you make? Do you assume that you have biases, the resume may not present the candidate perfectly? Whose time do you optimize for? Meaning, would you rather cast a wider net and have your screeners pick out the candidate from the phone screen?
3) Each part of our funnel (resume review, technical phone screen, recruiter phone screen) what are we optimizing for?
4) When we are hiring for a single position, do we keep the hiring panel the same so we can easily calibrate? Who are our best interviewers, and why are they good?
5) For the interview panel, which managers make you feel your time is well spent? And why? Is it because they set the expectations, they give you good questions to ask? Does the hiring manager have good follow up, clear decision-making process on whether they move forward with a candidate?
6) Finally, within our own company, who has gotten this hiring pipeline down to a science and doing it really well? (and how do we know when we are doing a good job for ourselves and for the candidate applying?)
7)
Photo: Calder & Picasso exhibition in Paris 2019
Amazon popularized the silent meeting
Give this a read on medium.com
“Silent Meetings” are meetings where most of the time is spent thinking and discussing the topics at hand. Functionally, they are based around a “Table Read” that everyone at the meeting reads silently, comments in and then discusses. An assigned facilitator leads the comment synthesis and discussion to ensure the meeting is valuable.
NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/fashion/weddings/honeymoon-hashtag-hell.html
Ms. Huang Smith said she felt compelled to prove to the world that her honeymoon was as “epic” as her wedding.
We do not have to conform to the norms of bread winners.
We can communicate our weaknesses to our children, show vulnerability and strength.
This Sunday I was inspired by many articles, here are 2.
Drivers are 4 times more price sensitive than riders, a resonable guess is that 80 percent of the price burden will fall on passengers, 20 percent on drivers.
Spoiler Alert, the answer is No.
(The photo is taken of a poster of the move “Always Be My Maybe”) – such a funny Asian American movie, must see twice!
“Arrival fallacy is this illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness,” said Tal Ben-Shahar, the Harvard-trained positive psychology expert who is credited with coining the term.
I found this article funny and warm.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-car-phones.html
I geeked out listening to this podcast following along the career of the creator of one of most successful compiler platform LLVM.
While reading NY Times physical Sunday paper, I came across an article about Bumble’s CEO Whitney Wolf Herd’s work week diary. While the article was inspiring to see a day in the life of female CEO, I thought the mention of Emma Watson’s book club “Our Shared Shelf” is even more interesting.
From a cursory look, the book club has over 250K users on Good Reads.
From her list of books recommended in the book club, I ‘ve put this book on my library hold list “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race”
I started listening to a summary of this podcast “Truth Be Told“. As a man of color, there are topics that struck a chord with me. Including whether we should name our kids with our ethnic names & why people of color marry the dominate race.
Grammarly – Premium version to help me to correct grammar before I hit that Send button. https://www.grammarly.com
Others have recommended (yet to try)
https://undraw.co/illustrations – Open-source illustrations for every project you can imagine and create.
Free photos https://unsplash.com/
I started reading the book The Pragmatic Programmer, published In 1999!
It is such a fantastic book with very relevant tips for professional software engineers.
I am just on chapter 2 now, but I have already marked up the book about important ideas that I need to follow up.
How did I skip this vital book to help us in our craft?
For note taking, I optimize for 3 things
To do this, I’ve tried the following. Evernote, Google Docs, Google Keep, One Note. Several drawbacks with all of these systems are:
I was recently inspired by the creator of Wolfram, where he creates all his artifacts right in his Unix file system, and he maintains 3 major versions of how he layout his folder structure as he learns to get better.
So, here is my new method:
Some other notes
I do not tag, I did that a lot in Evernote, but I find it not very useful 1-2 years later.
Lastly, I don’t know how this will work once I have 2,000 notes. I’m relying on the fact that I can use Unix search as well as VSCode search.
VSCode is optional, any text editor would work fine in this scheme.
I can also rely on Google Drive search if needed.
I’m assuming I can optimize search via many other on disk/folder searching tool
Happy mother’s day.
Today, my sister and I told my mom things she never knew.
We hung out with kids who had a bad influence on us. Teaching us to smoke elementary school in China. Getting into fights in middle school with kids who bullied me. I bullied kids and was angry. I shoplifted with kids of her good friend.
I am 48 years old now, and I learned my mistakes. I know who I do not want to be.
In the last few weeks, I’ve learned the power of the following
Reciprocate
What did I learn?
Person X: “I don’t know why my kids would choose UC LA when they’ve been accepted at UC Berkeley!”
Tony: “Where do you live?”
Person X: “10 minutes away from the Berkeley campus”
Tony: “Well, what do you think?”
Person X: “uhhhh”
This BTS enamel pin is made by ceikzero ( Instagram @ceik0 ). Thoughtfully designed, meticulously refined. Shipping to you from San Francisco and soon to be from Boston.
If you have to ask what is BTS, this pin is not for you.
I’m coming to the end of the book “Skin In The Game”. It’s not an easy book to read but I find the author is able to make some arguments that are not mainstream but very convincingly.
Page :217 “you will not have an idea about what people really think, what predicts people’s action, merely by asking them — they themselves don’t necessarily know. What matters, in the end, is what they pay for goods, not what they say they “think” about them, or the various possible reasons they give you or themselves for that.”
Also on page 217: “”This is why I have been against the state dictating to us what we “should” be doing: only evolution knows if the “Wrong” thing is really wrong, provided there is skin in the game to allow for selection”
Also on page 217: “Recall that skin in the game means that you do not pay attention to what people say, only to what they do, and to how much of their necks they are putting on the line. Let survival work it’s wonders.”
Page 218 “To repeat, we do not have enough grounds to discuss “irrational beliefs.” We do with irrational actions”
So much good quotes: page 219: “There is a difference between beliefs that are decorative and different sorts of beliefs, those that map to action”
Also. On Page 219 “How much you truly “believe” kin something can be manifested only through what you are willing to risk for i”
Page 221″ “Rationality does not depend on explicit verbals tic explanatory factors; it is only what AIDS survival, what avoids ruin.”
Page 221: “Not everything that happens happens for a reason, but everything that survives survives for a reason”
I know I am an introvert. I relish the solitude of reading, writing, thinking by myself.
Solitude doesn’t mean I like to be alone all the time. Just some span of time, where I am by myself with my own thoughts. When I can get these thoughts out on paper, I feel energized.
This seems in opposition with my work, in which I have to interact with almost every engineers at my company. I enjoy one on one interactions, or even one to two. I find that we can exchange and learn from each other. These learnings usually can be translated down on paper and be applied more broadly.
This week, I’ve also made a decision in my career to focus on being an individual contributor and not pursue engineering management. Being an IC gives me energy. Being a manager to only a few people gives me energy.
(Again, this blog is for me, not for you )
Asking people to change is hard. The person asking for change might be asking others to move 10 steps ahead. The people being asked to change 1) Might not be convinced 2) Think it’s too hard and unknown 3) They don’t trust the person asking them.
My experience in pursuation is to first build that trust through many small acts. Once the trust is there, then the conversation can start about change. Trust is in credibility difficult to build especially with people who you don’t work with daily. So give it time and patience.
Start with trust, then move to step 1 and step 2. That’s it, this is short, I know. It’s for me, not for you.
Another way to think about “everything in it’s place” is to look at “What does not belong?”
You can apply this simply in organizing a drawer in your home. You can also apply this in backlog grooming at work. Out of 50 things on my plate, what doesn’t belong? What is extra that I’m working on that doesn’t advance my goal of working on the “very next most important thing for my customers?”
Next phase, “What is missing, what don’t I see?”
While reading the book “Skin in the Game”, I saw several negative references to Barack Obama. At first I chalked it up for something for me to think about. After the latest reference on pg 156, I thought for brief moment to brush it off as a conservative author taking shots at a democratic president.
I flipped through the index and found all the references and I do agree with most of his criticism of Obama. I think his greatest achievement is getting universal health care, but his greatest fail is leaving us with a much divided nation which allows someone like Trump to be president. Making a fortune off of a memoir (his and Michelle’s) … I don’t really know what to make of that.
pg 12: “complicit Obama administration that wanted to protect the game and the rent-seeking bankers”
pg 108: “I said in the Prologue 1 that the Obama administration was complicit with the Bob Rubin trade. We have plenty of evidence that they were afraid of rocking the boat and contradicting the cronies”
pg 138: “When, on leaving office, Barack Obama accepted a sum of more than $40 million to write his memoirs, many people were outraged”
pg 156: “Actually, the best actor is the one nobody realizes is an actor: a closer look at Barack Obama shows that he was even more of an actor: a fancy Ivy League education combined with a liberal reputation is compelling as an image builder”
I have listened to every episodes of Design Matters with Debbie Millman. One of the episodes I bookmarked is the one with Scott Stowell. I really enjoy hearing from people in different fields than the high tech industry in which I work.
Scott talked about how as a small child, he learned the craft of book making and color separation from his watching his parents. At an young age, he was able to do color separation, which really made him stand out in the school newspaper and in his first internship or job. His interview reminded me of how important it is to ask for something you want, even though you might night have 100% of the skill to do it. (I know it’s random)
Give this episode a listen https://designobserver.com/feature/scott-stowell/36778
6 offices in San Francisco, Santana Row, Vancouver, Seattle, United Kingdom, Boulder and Sydney are received 145 copies of 3 books.
Pragmatic Programmer, The Code Complete & 97 Things Every Architect Should Know.
Happy reading fellow engineers!
Everyone needs maker time at work.
Otherwise either you work more at home, or you often feel unaccomplished.
My maker time is about 60%.
(The photo is one of my favorite pencils I borrow from my daughter. I finally used up all the lead in the pencil)
20 minutes, that’s all it takes. “Could you show me how you work?” Let’s turn on screen capture. Oh, interesting, what else? Why do you like this over, let’s say this other thing X?
Oh, that’s interesting you do it this X way. I always thought people doing it the Y way.
It’s a fact, we will all die. What is important for you?
learn more about the app www.wecroak.com
Or listen to the co founder on Recode Decode podcast. You can find it.
Last week, a highly analytical person at my company demonstrated how he used Splunk to deep dive into customer issues. The level of sophistication and depth was truly inspiring.
In our life, I am reminded to always look for someone who operates at world class, level 10. Who set the bar for us to want to achieve, while knowing we will not get there.
This week I picked up the book Dear Data by Giorgia Lupi, Stefanie Posavec. In this color and wimsicle book, the 2 authors who live across the Atlantic write weekly hand draw postcards to each other, using inforgraphics to tell each other a data centric view of a weekly topic.
During my 10 page a day reading commitment, I was able to deeply read the first 2 postcards. The first was about tracking how often they check the time (watch, computer, phones, laptops, hearing it). Each of the author created vastly different ways to represent the data. Giorgia uses different tick marks, with annotation and group the data vertically in columns. Stefanie uses a dial format like a clock using the distance from the center to represent the days of the week.
Each method has it’s pros an cons, depending on the question one wants to answer. Visually, I could tell that Stefanie spent a lot of time checking the time in her car in the beginning of week and end because she was traveling? For Giorgia, Thursday was a light day in clock watching. Mornings and noon time in the later end of the week was not clock watching.
When there are stakeholders, there is a deadline and you are uniquely capable to do it.
(This post is not for you, it’s for me)
It started out as 5% of my time. Just a 4-hour hands-on workshop with new hires once a month. Now it’s the following
It is often not possible to get all three
1. job satisfaction and meaning
2. money
3. lifestyle
Most jobs can give you 2 out of 3. You may have to adopt a side hustle to fullfil the missing piece.
I am a cat person. My personality matches a cat. I like people watching and lazying in the sun. I move slowly, only pouncing when there is something that intensely interests me. I have a deep-seated fear of dogs biting me randomly.
I also raised a cat person and now she is 18!
It’s an odd time to tell someone else to meet. Why not 5:30 or 5:35?
It is a lot more precise and shows that I have planned it out. I mean what I say.
It’s odd, I know.
But it’s precise, exact and intended.
Let’s meet at 5:37. See you in 9 minutes. Could you meet in 4 minutes?
Getting There
The Merced Branch of the San Francisco Public Library system is 1/2 block from the 28, K buses. Right acrossed from the Stonestown mall. There is plenty of street parking with 2 car parking for 10 minutes.
What is different?
One standout of this library is the central garden space with maple trees and 5 benches. On this sunny Saturday, taking a book outside to read without checking out the book is a great way to spend 2-3 hours browsing and reading books. There is 1 aisle worth of Chinese fiction and non-frictions books.
Interior
There is a nice fireplace with 6 comfy leather seats. A lot of 4 top tables spread a crossed the library. It’s a single floor library with almost 1/3 of the space devoted to childrens area and a small teen section.
Noise
A lot of kids, so expect noise around level 5 out of 10.
(The photo was posted in the Chinese section of the SF Public Library near Stonestown shopping mall, written in simplified Chinese. It takes a lot of effort for me to read in the simple form. It basically says that it’s up to us as individuals to learn and thrive in a democratic society. There are some basic rules that we need to behave in the library, contact the librarian for the specific rules)
I have learned a lot from the book Skin In The Game (page 63-65).
Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.
The author believes that stock analyst should own the stocks they talk about (long or short). Otherwise “journalists will imitate, to be safe, the opinion of other journalists, thus creating monoculture and collective mirages”
He also talks about how doctors have skin in the game, but they don’t have the right skin in the game. They will either over prescribe medicine for mild illness, just to be safe (not be sued) or use the wrong treatment (if the wrong metric is used (Page 64)
The legal system and regulatory measures are likely to put the skin of the doctor in the wrong game.
In the book Skin In The Game, the author (pg. 61) stated a saying by the brothers Geoff and Vince Graham:
I am, at the Fed level, libertarian;
at the state level, Republican
at the local level, Democrat;
and at the family and friends level, a socialist.
The author’s argument is that we cannot apply the self-interest universally. We have to scope down to our clan. I don’t fully grasp the concept yet, but I agree with the argument.
Sympathy for all would be tyranny for thee, my good neighbor.
And finally
The ethical is always more robust than the legal. Over time, it is the legal that should converge to the ethical, neve the reverse.
Oh one more
Laws come and go; ethics stay;
In 2019, I wanted try something a bit different than 2018.
In 2018, I didn’t buy anything that was not a consumable.
In 2019, I wanted to be less extreme and only buy non consumables once every quarter.
In Q1 2019 – I have bought 2 pairs of shoes and that is it.
Something else I am changing, is to not spend money I don’t have. Going to all cash or ATM card. Hopefully this drives the right spending habits since I will both valued more what I paid for in cash and I don’t feel overwhelmed by a large Visa bill at the end of the month.
I remember my mom tried to teach me this when I was young.
Put things back in it’s place. Of course she said it in Chinese.
She was not very successful in teaching me. I was not a great listener when I was young.
I am still struggling with this at home, everything back in it’s place.
Whenever I get into the mode in tidying up my physical space, I hear my mom’s voice in my head. She never lectured at me to do it, just patiently told me that it is the simplest way to clean as you go.
Take a company like Facebook. They leave millions of passwords in plain text, they created the news feed where dictators use the various Facebook products (Instagram, FB, Whatsapp) to spread fake propaganda, they violate our privacy repeatedly (even those of us who don’t use it, but are connected to people who do) and hijack our attention.
What would turn them around when their very business model is based on driving engagement, taking attention and stealing time?
In the book Skin In The Game – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, argues that in most cases taking a company like Facebook to court and punishing them or the threat of a massive law suite is the best route to have Facebook change their behavior. Hence it makes sense that FB founder MZ asked congress to regulate them. Once they are regulated, FB knows how to play the game of paying for lobbyist and contributing to political campaigns to get around or stay at the edge of regulation.
He argues in the book that “If you harm me, I can sue you” has worked really well in cases of pollution for example.
While many of us might have immediate negative reactions to law suites, forcing FB and it’s employees to have skin in the game, ultimately gives them a framework and the right incentives to do the right thing.
Female engineers at the 2, 3, 4 levels
Introduce them to engineers, at least 2 levels beyond, who can help them with
The mentees should initiate most of the meetings and topic proposals that they are willing to talk about and work on.
Meetings should be regular (60 minutes a week) to start, until the 6th week.
Managers for mentee and mentor should be informed and help support the effort.
Mentors try to honor the 1:1 meetings time and postpone only if absolutely necessary.
Any side should disengage and politely thank the other side, if the match does not work out. Reach out to folks running the program for help in disengaging.
All conversation topics are confidential unless explicitly given permission to share.
Tony Tam 