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31 posts

Essay

Never pass up a chance to admit being wrong

I spent the better part of an hour today in a Slack discussion with coworkers about how to implement a feature ticket. We went back and forth, and fundamentally saw the issue two different ways. I didn't really see any way we could reconcile the two views. Either one of us or the other would have to just accept the opposite perspective to move forward. We kept drilling down into examples and use cases, and each of us found more reasons to justify our position. Eventually someone asked a questi … (Continued)

The Power and Danger of Identities

Part 1 I was talking to a friend recently, and discussing the fact that he's managed to stick with one hobby (learning Japanese) while having another hobby that used to consume much of his time go untouched for years (recording music). What I realized as we talked, and what I said to him, was that we don't really do things because we want to, or because we have goals. We do things because we want to be consistent with the identity that have of ourselves and we put out into the world. In hi … (Continued)

Avoid Digital Ketchup

In 2004, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article which, among other things, explores why there are hundreds of varieties of mustard, but only one type of ketchup. (I first encountered it in the printed collection "What The Dog Saw" which is, I think, Gladwell at his finest. Freed from the burden of an overarching narrative, he can tell interesting stories 30 pages at a time.) Part of the story is a meditation on the soul of ketchup: what it is, how it functions, and so on. The basic idea he lays out … (Continued)

Healthy Societies Are Built on Competiton

Eric Hoffer's The True Believer was published in 1951, six years after the end of World War II and two years before Stalin's death. Yet it presaged the current moment of identitarian tribalism (both on the woke left and the MAGA right) better than anything else I've read. Pardon the extensive quotes, but properly setting the stage of the problem to be solved is necessary to understand the solution below (emphasis mine): For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they mus … (Continued)

Folding Your Hand

Re-reading the notes I wrote while reading Skin In The Game a few years I came across this, in response to something in the first chapter: Roman emperor charging into battle to face certain death is meaningful only in a setting of honor and institutions. It is folding your current hand so that the next guy that takes your seat will have a fresh start and a strong hand. It only works if your sacrifice, transmitted via the public, transfers to your successor. Without that the incentives are to … (Continued)

Thoughts on "A Bright Shining Lie"

After finishing About Face by David Hackworth, my friend Gary renewed his recommendation of A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan. (I ended up with a copy that appears to be the first paperback edition, printed in 1989, with a sticker in the front declaring it withdrawn from Bowdoin College Library. When I got the book it showed no signs of ever being read.) It was a very good book, and I both enjoyed reading it and learned quite a bit from its 790 pages. T … (Continued)

Is Facebook More Like Cigarettes or Alcohol?

It's becoming increasingly clear that infinite-scroll, algorithmic social media in its current incarnation is harmful to both the users that over-indulge, as well as countries filled with obsessive users. For an overview of some evidence, here's a snippet fron Jonathan Haidt's interview with Joe Rogan. If that piques your interest, his full interview with Rogan is worth a listen, as well as his 2019 article in the Atlantic about how social media is corroding our republic, or his 2015 article wit … (Continued)

Limitations and Humility

There is a type of humility, an admission of limitations, that is as rare as it's ever been on the internet. But for some reason, I'm finding it standing out to me more and more. It sounds something like, "Here's what I think I know, and here's how I know it, but if that turns out to be wrong, I stand corrected." Here's a real world example: InstaHide Disappointingly Wins Bell Labs Prize, 2nd Place. The core argument of the article is thus: InstaHide (a recent method that … (Continued)

Parable of Discovery

Imagine two people meeting for dinner at 6 at a restaurant neither of them has been to before. Harry is a busy man with a calendar full of meetings. Google Maps says it's a 27 minute drive to the restaurant. At 5:31 he gets in his car, starts up the navigation, and gets directions straight to the restaurant. On the way, he listens to his podcasts at 150% speed because he has so many of them to get through. Tom on the other hand knows the general area is about 30 minutes away from his house. He … (Continued)

Quiet to Think

Eric Hoffer insisted that everyone needed time to think while your body was otherwise occupied. He famously wrote The True Believer, published in 1951, while working his job as a longshoreman on the docks of San Francisco. Unloading ships, mowing the lawn, or walking, whatever you do, you need quiet to hear yourself think. Time to digest whatever you've ingested in your intellectual diet, combine it with news from the day, and distill new knowledge or wisdom, concrete ideas that you can use to … (Continued)

The World We Were Promised, Part 2

When I set out to build this blog, it was deliberately a place to tinker. I already have one blog running on WordPress and there wasn't a "cool factor" to starting up another one. Why? Because WordPress is so old-fashioned. It's built in PHP, a programming language that is a few generations out of date and quirky. People who have other options would never choose to start a new project in PHP these days. There are just too many newer languages that are better-designed. Surely, then, someone has … (Continued)

Two Bushes

When we moved into our house, there were a number of bushes planted in various places by the builders. We pulled a few out because wanted to put other things there. Another one died on its own which was just fine with us. But the two bushes next to our back porch we actually liked quite a bit. In a few years when they're larger, they'll provide a nice bit of visual screening to the porch. But this spring, when things warmed up, they weren't growing very well. On a hunch, Steph cut a … (Continued)

The World We Were Promised, Part 1

Mozilla Corporation, the commercial arm of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, announced this week that they are laying off 250 people, which is a quarter of the company. The official press release on the Mozilla blog is very upbeat, including bits about "acting more quickly and nimbly" and that they will "experiment more." Piecing together reports from Twitter and elsewhere, however, it looks like the entire team of the Servo browser, an R&D project has been cut. (I guess that's not the kind of … (Continued)

The Volt, Part 3: End of Life

(Part 2 of this story) When I was doing my research to find a used Chevy Volt to buy, the news that the Volt was being discontinued after 2019 crossed my notice. Not a big deal, I thought. I wasn't planning to buy a new one anyway. But after driving this car for six months and really coming to like it quite a lot, I've noticed there's that voice in the back of my head. Enjoy it while it lasts. Nobody really knows why GM discontinued to Volt, and I won't try … (Continued)

The Volt, Part 2: Second Generation

(Part 1 of this story.) I've never been a car guy. I appreciate a nice Mustang or Corvette as much as the next American but I always knew I was way out of my depth compared to the guys who had been studying hot rods since high school. Then came the beginning of this year, and it was time to replace my aging Ford Focus hatchback that was I quite fond of. It was getting up in miles and with plans to start a family, having something more reliable was Stephanie's main criterion. And, of course, … (Continued)