Squidtree | Zettelkasten Notes

Time to open is highly correlated to code cycle time.

2025-02-01T17:09:00Z

According to a study of 180,000 merge requests from 500 teams, time to open (first commit to merge request open) has an 87% correlation with code cycle time. This suggests that code ships faster when the decisions are smaller and brought to the team for input sooner. Indirectly, this may suggest that strong pairing practices make code ship faster.rD13

↩
Noah Davis, “What Analyzing 180,000 Pull Requests Taught Us About Shipping Faster,” Code Climate (blog), November 28, 2018, https://codeclimate.com/blog/what-data-science-tells-us-about-shipping-faster/. (See notes.)

Cycle time.

2025-02-01T17:06:00Z

The time it takes to do something start to finish.

In software development, we usually separate the coding portion into code cycle time—time from first commit to deployment—away from the lead time of design and ideation, as these are squishier activities.rD12

This metric puts pressure on merge request and team process sizes to speed up sub-cycles within the work.rD12

Time to open is correlated most strongly with code lead time.

↩
Noah Davis, “What Is Cycle Time and Why Does It Matter?,” Code Climate (blog), December 8, 2020, https://codeclimate.com/blog/software-engineering-cycle-time/. (See notes.)
↩
Noah Davis, “What Is Cycle Time and Why Does It Matter?,” Code Climate (blog), December 8, 2020, https://codeclimate.com/blog/software-engineering-cycle-time/. (See notes.)

Skip levels.

2025-01-19T17:28:00Z

A skip level is a one-on-one between an employee and someone higher in their management chain than their manager.

The goals of a skip level are for the leader to learn about the performance of their management team, to keep a pulse on how changes are landing amongst steams, and to learn of challenges or concerns. Some ways to meet these goals: deep dive into specific areas of concern, test out new ideas in a speculative way, confirm important information is flowing down correctly and that there’s alignment. The discussion needs to be safe for the employee in order to meet its goals. Not every problem is a request for intervention.rR12

Like other one-on-ones, this is a good place to share feedback and observations, especially praise.

↩
Jade Rubick, “Why and How to Do Skip Level 1-1s,” September 30, 2024, https://www.rubick.com/skip-level-1-on-1s/. (See notes.)

Failure modes of scrum (and its derivatives).

2025-01-19T13:02:00Z

Scrum goes poorly when top-down management techniques are applied. The following symptoms can signal that leaders don’t know how to trust a team, which might be repaired by redoubled efforts toward delivering high visibility, high quality increments:rJ2

Standup is extractive rather than collaboration planning for the day
Planning is a series of demands rather than a goal and then self-organization
Sprint review is mostly lamentation of failed expectations, same with retrospectives

Managing stakeholder expectations is a big part of this failure mode.

↩
Ron Jeffries, “Dark Scrum,” September 8, 2016, https://ronjeffries.com/articles/016-09ff/defense/. (See notes.)

Brain matter.

2025-01-18T21:18:00Z

Brain matter consists of grey matter, which is used in the cortex and associated with more active thinking processes, and white matter, which is more for connecting different parts of the brain together.

In one study, it was observed that human males have somewhat more white matter, possibly indicating higher statistics for spatial awareness and motor control. Women were shown to have higher grey matter, suggesting a stronger propensity for memory and emotional awareness. Importantly, statistics may be useful for generic claims, but gender is only one part of the picture, and nurture will have a noteworthy impact on an individual’s capabilities, as well as environment.rG6

↩
Sanjana Gajbhiye, “Male and Female Brains Truly Are Wired Completely Differently,” Earth.com, January 9, 2025, https://www.earth.com/news/male-and-female-brains-are-wired-completely-differently/. (See notes.)

Troubleshooting.

2025-01-18T15:03:00Z

Nine rules of debugging are:rW6

Understand the system: read about it, learn its tools.
Make it fail: identify success and failure cases, look for patterns in intermittent failures, record all of the steps.
Quit thinking and look: only guessing should be about where to add more visibility.
Divide and conquer: cut down the problem space progressively, zooming into the cause.
Change one thing at a time: don’t fix until the cause is clear, try comparing the current state to the last known good state.
Keep and audit trail: write all changes down, assess for cause and effect.
Check the plug: start at the beginning, identify and verify all assumptions.
Get a fresh view: rubber duck, talk to experts, listen to experience, discuss symptoms rather than conclusions.
If you didn’t fix it, it ain’t fixed: verify fixes truly work, know that things can’t just start working, find the root causes.

↩
David Wheeler, “David A. Wheeler’s Review of ‘Debugging’ by David J. Agans,” March 2, 2004, https://dwheeler.com/essays/debugging-agans.html. (See notes.)

Barbell method of reading.

2024-12-27T23:29:00Z

This method optimizes for the time expense to value ratios. In this method, one reads through a body of literature once, marking anything interesting. If the piece proves useful, a second pass is taken, only reading what was marked. Notes and connections are made during the second pass.rF5

↩
Sascha Fast, “The Barbell Method of Reading,” Zettelkasten Method, 2018, https://www.zettelkasten.de/posts/barbell-method-reading/. (See notes.)

Five Whys is a cause analysis technique.

2024-09-29T12:08:00Z

Often used in defect management, the technique guides participants to move from symptoms or problems back into its cause. The question “why?” solicits an analysis of the factor, but by no means suggests that there is only one factor underneath and subsequently only one root cause; the exercise should pursue any interesting leads that arise. The assumption that there’s only one cause is problematic.

Fishbone diagrams show cause and effect.

2024-09-29T12:04:00Z

Also called an Ishikawa diagram. Commonly used as part of defect management to assess for root causes of some deficiency. The diagram appears as a fish skeleton, with the problem to be solved listed at its head at the right and four to eight major categories of potential cause extending to the left. The root causes are listed horiztonally, attached to the relevant category.

Different industries use different high-level categories. Some useful for software engineering might be:

People
Process
Tools/Technology
Requirements
Environment
Management
Quality

Porter’s Five Forces.

2024-09-29T11:56:00Z

Also called the Competitive Forces Model, this assess competitiveness in an industry. The forces are:

Intensity of rivalry
Threat of potential new entrants
Bargaining power of buyers
Bargaining power of suppliers
Threat of substitute goods/services

A sixth force is sometimes added: Power of complementary goods/services providers.

PESTEL analysis.

2024-09-29T11:55:00Z

This is used to assess a business’ outer context. It stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, & Legal. Historically, only the first four traits were used.

SWOT analysis.

2024-09-29T11:51:00Z

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weakenesses, Opportunities, Threats. It is used as a planning tool to help assess organizations and projects. It is a matrix of helpful/harmful and internal/external.

	Help	Harm
Internal	Strength	Weakeness
External	Opportunity	Threat

Analysis.

2024-09-29T11:47:00Z

Analytical tools & models:

SWOT (planning).
PESTEL (market position).
Porter’s Five Forces (industry competitiveness).
Fishbone (cause/effect).
5 Whys (root cause).
Cost-benefit.
Scientific method.
WSJF (project sequencing).
Template.

The scientific method.

2024-09-28T18:07:00Z

The scientific method is an analytical and decision making framework used especially in the scientific community. Its steps are:

Form a question
Research
Form a hypothesis
Run an experiment
Analyze results
Draw a conclusion

Template for decision making and analysis.

2024-09-28T18:05:00Z

Start by reviewing decision making, problem solving, and goals and objectives.

Problem statement.

What do we need to figure out?

Is analysis needed?

Is there a faster or more direct solution? Are there significant risks at hand?

Observations.

What’s caused us to think we need this analysis?

Context & factors.

What’s the context? What factors and traits are involved?

Anatomy of the system.

What are the components and flows in the system?

Hypothesis.

What might explain the mechanics behind the observation?

Leverage points.

What might change the system of those mechanics? Which leverage points are most impactful?

Enact change.

Execute the change, perhaps as part of a change initiative.

Feedback loops to monitor change.

Ensure there are feedback loops that can create new observations, possibly restarting the process.

Usability heuristics.

2024-09-22T20:07:00Z

According to Nielsen Norman Group:rN5

Visibility of system status: Tell the user about what the system is doing with their actions, especially when something of consequence is happening.
Match between system and the real world: Use terms and representations that match the user’s natural context. Avoid jargon.
User control and freedom: Allow undo, redo, and cancel. Let the user get out of their current actions easily.
Consistency and standards: Maintain consistency, both within the product and with expectations the user learned externally in other products.
Error prevention: Use constraints and good defaults to prevent inattentive errors (“slips”). Reduce user mental load and add warnings to prevent consequential problems. Mistakes are caused by misunderstanding the system.
Recognition rather than recall: Information required to use the system should be available where it’s needed. Make the information architecture visible.
Flexibility and efficiency of use: Allow shortcuts for power users, personalization for tailored experience, and customization of product behavior.
Aesthetic and minimalist design: Focus content and design on the essentials. Remove irrelevant or infrequently useful elements.
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors: Use recognizable error design elements. Use plain language. Offer the user an action they can take to affect the situation.
Help and documentation: When otherwise unavoidable, show documentation where it’s needed. It should be searchable and give the user concrete steps to follow.

↩
Jakob Nielsen, “10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design,” Nielsen Norman Group, 1994, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/. (See notes.)

Other things to do to improve executive presence.

2024-09-22T20:01:00Z

Generally:rR11

Improve by recording and watching communication from meetings.
Take note of peers’ strengths and try to copy their skills.
Schedule time to prepare for meetings.
Dress and groom to be in the top 2/3 of peer group in terms of avoiding the appearance of immaturity and shabbiness.rS13

↩
“A Practical Guide to Executive Presence,” May 27, 2023, https://staysaasy.com/leadership/2023/05/27/executive-presence.html. (See notes.)
↩
Jade Rubick, “Executive Presence Coaching – Use These Tips to Become a Better Leader,” February 7, 2022, https://www.rubick.com/executive-presence-coaching/. (See notes.)

Themes in executive presence-focused communication.

2024-09-22T19:58:00Z

There seems to be two primary themes: creating clarity and avoiding defensiveness.

Anxiety can cause a whole slew of defensive behaviors, so as a leader it is critical to engage in ways to alleviate shame and anxiety. Authenticity is therefore a key cause for executive presence.

Creating clarity has another series of associated tactics.

Focuses during communication to improve executive presence.

2024-09-22T19:54:00Z

Things to focus on:[^r11]

Ask questions & then wait—don’t add to them. Count if needed.
Ask for feedback about executive presence.
Improve writing by putting more attention into editing.
Tailor communication style to discussion context: executive discussions are action-focused and brief, other types may allow more exploration.
Avoid responding immediately where deeper thought offline is needed.
Speak definitively (remove “I think”), but enable disagreement by asking for weakenesses in ideas.

Similarly:rS13

Show confidence where experience/data/logic allow; okay to have no opinion.
Don’t destroy confidence by freaking out—freezing, anger, lashing out.
Avoid defensiveness. Consider all angles of your role, even if indirect. Avoid whataboutism. Take control of problems leading to excuses.

Continued.

↩
“A Practical Guide to Executive Presence,” May 27, 2023, https://staysaasy.com/leadership/2023/05/27/executive-presence.html. (See notes.)

Ways of speaking to improve executive presence.

2024-09-22T19:52:00Z

Several particulars to mind:rR11

Use active verbs, avoid passive verbs. Take accountability.
Similarly, avoid adverbs.
Don’t stress about filler words—focusing on connection with audience should naturally reduce them anyway.
Be concise. Relatedly, don’t ramble—increases surface area for saying something dumb, which is likely because rambling may come from a failure to understand the topic well enough to be concise.rS13

↩
“A Practical Guide to Executive Presence,” May 27, 2023, https://staysaasy.com/leadership/2023/05/27/executive-presence.html. (See notes.)
↩
Jade Rubick, “Executive Presence Coaching – Use These Tips to Become a Better Leader,” February 7, 2022, https://www.rubick.com/executive-presence-coaching/. (See notes.)

Executive presence.

2024-09-22T19:50:00Z

Executive presence may be defined as a set of behaviors that influence others to listen.rS13

We may break it into a few high-level categories of action:

↩
“A Practical Guide to Executive Presence,” May 27, 2023, https://staysaasy.com/leadership/2023/05/27/executive-presence.html. (See notes.)

Staff engineer level description.

2024-09-22T18:10:00Z

Level details:rG5

Time scope: 2–3 months.
Complexity scope: Large & complex tasks spanning the system. Turn significant ambiguity & upcoming needs into clear tasks.
Risk management: Manage risk for team projects & objectives, especially by establishing the sequence of deliverables.
Domain expertise: Expert in domain, moving toward architecture and system thinking.
Big picture: Prioritization & solution input to product strategy.
Influence: Team, 5–15 people.
Supervision: Lead team in delivery over 2–3 month timelines.
Communication: Proactively give input to improve others’ work. Share the technical achievements of team to a larger audience.
Team contributions: Technical lead. Mentor others into new responsibilities. Build consensus with team and management about team direction.
Evaluation: Manager & director.

↩
Aria Beingessner (@Gankra), Twitter post, September 30, 2018, <https://twitter.com/Gankra/status/1046438955439271936/photo/1>. (See notes.)

Senior software engineer level description.

2024-09-22T17:29:00Z

Level details:rG5

Time scope: 1 month.
Complexity scope: Disambiguate tasks into actionability. Effectively work across multiple parts of the system.
Risk management: Manage own risks & blockers. Escalate if overwhelmed.
Domain expertise: Advanced understanding of domain. Aware of other domains on the team.
Big picture: Solid understanding of product strategy, solve big problems.
Influence: 2–5 peers.
Supervision: Largely self-directs on assignments.
Communication: Unblock teammates. Go-to for code review. Contributes to team discussions.
Team contributions: Go-to on team. Improves team productivity. Interviews candidates effectively
Evaluation: Manager.

↩
Aria Beingessner (@Gankra), Twitter post, September 30, 2018, <https://twitter.com/Gankra/status/1046438955439271936/photo/1>. (See notes.)

Fellow.

2024-09-22T17:24:00Z

Level details:rG5

Time scope: 3–5 years.
Complexity scope: Ground breaking solutions. Solves high risk problems.
Risk management: Solves existential risks for company & industry.
Domain expertise: Industry leader in multiple domains.
Big picture: Helps build company purpose, aligns product/org strategy with needs on 3–5 year timeline.
Influence: Industry (10,000+).
Supervision: Industry leader.
Communication: Runs industry discussions. Part of senior leadership.
Team contributions: Mentors senior leaders across company & industry. Adjusts company culture to meet future objectives.
Evaluation: SVP.

↩
Aria Beingessner (@Gankra), Twitter post, September 30, 2018, <https://twitter.com/Gankra/status/1046438955439271936/photo/1>. (See notes.)

Distinguished engineer.

2024-09-22T17:21:00Z

Level details:rG5

Time scope: 1–2 years.
Complexity scope: Coordinates solutions across internal & external teams.
Risk management: Assesses risks for the whole industry.
Domain expertise: Industry leader, expert in multiple domains. Familiar with domains across the company.
Big picture: Lead product strategy with organization leaders.
Influence: Company with 1000+.
Supervision: Directs whole organization with management.
Communication: Manages industry discussion. Advises senior leadership.
Team contributions: Mentors senior tech leadership. Strategic recruiting. Responsible for individual contributor culture.
Evaluation: Directors & VP.

↩
Aria Beingessner (@Gankra), Twitter post, September 30, 2018, <https://twitter.com/Gankra/status/1046438955439271936/photo/1>. (See notes.)

Principal engineer.

2024-09-22T17:19:00Z

Level details:rG5

Time scope: 6-12 months.
Complexity scope: Reconcile priority conflicts. Reduce overarching complexity through systems & architectural thinking.
Risk management: Design to reduce risk for whole company.
Domain expertise: Company leader. Easily deepens expertise through others.
Big picture: Inform new product strategy through engineering capabilities.
Influence: 50+ across organization.
Supervision: Drives cross-team initiatives from ideation to delivery without regular oversight.
Communication: Manages company-wide technical discussion.
Team contributions: Mentors mentors. Improves organization process, tooling, & culture.
Evaluation: Director, VP.

↩
Aria Beingessner (@Gankra), Twitter post, September 30, 2018, <https://twitter.com/Gankra/status/1046438955439271936/photo/1>. (See notes.)

Senior staff software engineer.

2024-09-22T17:15:00Z

Level details:rG5

Time scope: 3–6 months.
Complexity scope: Complex work across multiple teams & domains. High impact work. Finds & solves areas for improvement.
Risk management: Manages risk while working with other teams.
Domain expertise: Company leader in domain.
Big picture: Turns strategy to action with company leadership.
Influence: 15–50 among peer teams.
Supervision: Provides direction in large or multiple teams. Requires infrequent oversight.
Communication: Known for written and verbal technical communication. Actively teaches others.
Team contributions: History of mentorship, collaboration, leadership, recruiting. Improves team efficiency & trains others in engineering culture.
Evaluation: Manager & director.

↩
Aria Beingessner (@Gankra), Twitter post, September 30, 2018, <https://twitter.com/Gankra/status/1046438955439271936/photo/1>. (See notes.)

Software engineer 2 (mid-level engineer).

2024-09-22T17:13:00Z

Level details:rG5

Time scope: 1–2 weeks.
Complexity scope: Minor collaborative tasks.
Risk management: Escalate blockers before they occur.
Domain expertise: Understands domain & aware of others on team.
Big picture: Awareness of & contribution to product strategy.
Influence: Self.
Supervision: Weekly or fortnightly attention from manager, senior engineers.
Communication: Share progress with team.
Team contributions: Follows & improves team process. Self-improvement to productivity.
Evaluation: Manager.

↩
Aria Beingessner (@Gankra), Twitter post, September 30, 2018, <https://twitter.com/Gankra/status/1046438955439271936/photo/1>. (See notes.)

Software engineer 1 (junior engineer).

2024-09-22T17:10:00Z

Level details:rG5

Time scope: 1–3 days.
Complexity scope: Minor, self-sufficient tasks.
Risk management: Escalate blockers.
Domain expertise: Learning industry & best practices.
Big picture: Potential to learn it.
Influence: Self.
Supervision: Frequent attention from manager & senior engineers.
Communication: Status updates to manager.
Team contributions: Learns & follows team processes.
Evaluation: Manager.

↩
Aria Beingessner (@Gankra), Twitter post, September 30, 2018, <https://twitter.com/Gankra/status/1046438955439271936/photo/1>. (See notes.)

Engineering levels.

2024-09-22T17:08:00Z

As defined by Mozilla:rG5

↩
Aria Beingessner (@Gankra), Twitter post, September 30, 2018, <https://twitter.com/Gankra/status/1046438955439271936/photo/1>. (See notes.)

Senior engineers need new skills to advance.

2024-09-22T16:59:00Z

To move into management or staff engineering, senior developers must develop further:rS12

Learn to scale scope: Combination of taking on more scope by prioritizing important things more carefully, but also by training others & working through them—with or without authority.
Managing ambiguity: Get better at picking tradeoffs & making bets by making & falsifying hypotheses, isolating uncertainty into specific problems, decomposing problems into subproblems, eschewing paralysis by making decisions with minimum viable information, & making choices flexibly against what’s volatile.
Influence without authority: Not really just the magic words people need to hear (persuasion), but personal connections, brand, negotiation.

↩
Irina Stanescu, “3 Critical Skills You Need to Grow Beyond Senior Levels in Engineering,” April 8, 2024, https://www.thecaringtechie.com/p/3-critical-skills-you-need-to-grow. (See notes.)

Becoming a staff engineer.

2024-09-22T16:58:00Z

Senior engineers need new skills to advance.

What individauls can do about burnout.

2024-09-22T16:29:00Z

Employees can:rO4

Introspect their true values outside of work & invest more deeply in them. Work is not who we are, we need to invest in our hobbies, health, etc.
Set boundaries to prevent exhaustion. Create non-negotiable personal routines such as exercise.
Get perspective from friends & family about work stresses.

↩
Csaba Okrona, “Demystifying Burnout – A Deep Dive Into Its Symptoms And Remedies,” June 26, 2023, https://leadership.garden/demystifying-burnout/. (See notes.)

What organizations can do about burnout.

2024-09-22T16:27:00Z

Organizations can:rO4

Promote balanced workloads & deadlines, build slack into the process
Realign on values so both individual & org needs are incorporated
Ensure transparency in compensation & promotions
Recognize employees better through programs & public praise
Nurture intrinsic rewards such as learning

↩
Csaba Okrona, “Demystifying Burnout – A Deep Dive Into Its Symptoms And Remedies,” June 26, 2023, https://leadership.garden/demystifying-burnout/. (See notes.)

Burnout is not merely excessive stress.

2024-09-22T16:26:00Z

Stress diminishes with relaxation, but burnout persists through it.rO4

↩
Csaba Okrona, “Demystifying Burnout – A Deep Dive Into Its Symptoms And Remedies,” June 26, 2023, https://leadership.garden/demystifying-burnout/. (See notes.)

How burnout manifests.

2024-09-22T16:24:00Z

Burnout syndrome appears as:rO4

Emotional exhaustion: An overwhelmed sense where no more could imaginably be tolerated. Rest & vacation don’t change anything.
Depersonalization or cynicism: Short fuse with everyone & a persistent assumption of malicious intent.
Sense of personal ineffectiveness: Even when things are going well, there’s a loss of purpose & no sense of accomplishment.

This is not merely stress.

↩
Csaba Okrona, “Demystifying Burnout – A Deep Dive Into Its Symptoms And Remedies,” June 26, 2023, https://leadership.garden/demystifying-burnout/. (See notes.)

Signs of an unhealthy organization.

2024-05-25T16:54:00Z

There are many signs that an organization has been tainted by shame, including:

Perfectionism
Weird power dynamics
Framing worth by productivity
Blame-focused culture

Other “org smells” include:rB7

Conflict-avoidant leadership
Moving poor performers around
Leadership burnout

↩
Suzan Bond, “An Incomplete List of Org Smells,” Substack newsletter, Suzan’s Fieldnotes (blog), April 25, 2022, https://suzansfieldnotes.substack.com/p/an-incomplete-list-of-org-smells. (See notes.)

Signs that an engineering director is struggling.

2024-04-27T17:33:00Z

It’s a common problem that directors do not get the training or support that they need to be effective. It’s also common to trim companies by their middle management layer when it’s time to take a hard look at who contributes what. This can create significant fear in this layer, and insecurity + fear = defensive behavior, particularly by drawing inward into the certain skills that made success in past roles and by spending greater focus on their teams than the organization. They de-risk their failures by ensuring lax timelines and increasing headcount requests. Blame is deflected on these factors, too. Knowledge silos increase and the connectedness of more junior employees decreases. Other parts of the organization start to route around things the director is rendering ineffective.rN4

↩
Johnathan Nightingale and Melissa Nightingale, “Director Means Something,” January 10, 2024, https://www.rawsignal.ca/newsletter-archive/director-means-something. (See notes.)

Webserver sessions.

2024-04-20T00:00:00Z

Sessions are IDs that address a timeboxed set of activity performed by a specific client. They are often associated with session storage which records specific details about client-server interactions. In webservers, sessions are often set as cookies in the client which are carried on each interaction with the server, but any method of trading session tokens can work. Sessions are often additionally defined by level of identity verification of the client, with each level having unique IDs and potentially different timeboxes.

Webservers.

2024-04-20T00:00:00Z

Sessions.

Rules of the UNIX philosophy.

2024-03-24T00:00:00Z

As follows:rR9

Rule of modularity: Simple units connected by good interfaces.
Rule of clarity: Clear over clever.
Rule of composition: Programs are design to interact with each other.
Rule of separation: Separate interface and rules from how it works.
Rule of simplicity: Add complexity only when absolutely required.
Rule of parsimony: Write big software as a matter of last resort.
Rule of transparency: Design to accommodate troubleshooting.
Rule of robustness: Comes from transparency and simplicity.
Rule of representation: Express knowledge as data, keep logic simple.
Rule of least surprise: Design interfaces to minimize surprise.

Continuation

↩
Eric Steven Raymond, “Basics of the Unix Philosophy,” 2003, http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html. (See notes.)

Tactics for effective leadership.

2024-03-24T00:00:00Z

Some approaches to combat leadership pitfalls:rR10

Explicitly ask for arguments against your ideas. Creates the space for pushback that one may expect but not naturally receive.
Make bad proposals, or incomplete ideas, to solicit their thoughts. Implicitly delegates solutioning to them and builds trust as they find their ideas affect change.
Build relationships everywhere. Gives access to better context, space to bounce around ideas, and opportunity to act on hidden problems.
Appreciate opposition to help de-risk future contributions from individual contributors.
Servant leadership. Stay hidden during success, act as support.
Roll out plans incrementally with previews and feedback gathering.

↩
Jade Rubick, “Everyone Lies to Leaders,” June 1, 2021, https://www.rubick.com/everyone-lies-to-leaders/. (See notes.)

The UNIX philosophy.

2024-03-24T00:00:00Z

The components of UNIX philosophy originate from a series of maxims by UNIX and C language experts. They focus on software composition, simplicity, and optimization.

Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is the universal interface.

—Peter H. Salus

Rob Pike offered a series of rules that advise that we don’t optimize algorithms until we’ve measured a bottleneck and only if it overwhelms the rest of the program at that, because fancy algorithms are buggier and only offer improvements at large scales. Ken Thompson simplifies it to:

When in doubt, use brute force.

—Ken Thompson

From these statements and actions of early design master, a series of rules may be extracted.rR9

↩
Eric Steven Raymond, “Basics of the Unix Philosophy,” 2003, http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html. (See notes.)

Rules of the UNIX Philosophy, continued.

2024-03-24T00:00:00Z

Continuing from the first 10:rR9

Rule of silence: Only output if there’s something surprising to note.
Rule of repair: Fail as early as possible, loudly.
Rule of economy: Programmer time is more expensive than compute.
Rule of generation: Write code that writes code where possible.
Rule of optimization: Make it work before improving it.
Rule of diversity: There’s rarely a single right way.
Rule of extensibility: Design for the future.

↩
Eric Steven Raymond, “Basics of the Unix Philosophy,” 2003, http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html. (See notes.)

Pitfalls for leaders.

2024-03-24T00:00:00Z

Rules of power:rR10

Leaders lose touch with reality: The further one gets from the ground, the less information about it one has—with proportionally more responsibility to fixing issues.
Everyone lies to leaders: The further away you are, the more likely they are to say what is least likely to get them in trouble.
Leaders are overconfident: Cockiness and aggression escalate when present in a culture, often trickling down. Confidence is valuable but overconfidence is distorting.
Leaders get credit: This can reinforce ego and diminish the contributions of others.

These pitfalls can be countered!

↩
Jade Rubick, “Everyone Lies to Leaders,” June 1, 2021, https://www.rubick.com/everyone-lies-to-leaders/. (See notes.)

Inner-platform effect.

2024-03-24T00:00:00Z

This is an anti-pattern where a system designer overly favors flexibility to the degree that their system starts cloning features of the platform they are building atop. This duplication is done poorly and inefficiently, not to mention the expense of it.

The Unix philosophy helps mitigate this through its focus on composability and simplicity.

Software architecture philosophies.

2024-03-24T00:00:00Z

Domain-Driven Design.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

Domain-Driven Design (DDD) focuses design on business-level abstractions. This creates better technical abstractions.

Remote work.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

Ongoing research about remote work has shown that the shift toward remote work had no impact on productivity. Conversely, return to office (RTO) mandates have not improved company performance and either do not improve or do harm to productivity. RTO harms employee satisfaction. Studies suggest a correlation between CEO power and belief that RTO is necessary.rZ2

↩
Maxwell Zeff, “There’s More Proof That Return to Office Is Pointless,” January 30, 2024, https://gizmodo.com/more-proof-that-return-to-office-is-pointless-1851209231. (See notes.)

Developer experience.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

The returns on DevEx investment.

The appendix.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

While commonly regarded as pointless, the appendix actually serves the important role of providing a safe place for “good” bacteria to hang out. This is valuable during gastrointestinal events where bacterial colonies may otherwise be disrupted or destroyed, as the appendix offers a way to rëestablish the colonies after.rS11

↩
Selena Simmons-Duffin, “Your Appendix Is Not, in Fact, Useless. This Anatomy Professor Explains,” NPR, February 2, 2024, sec. Short Wave, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/02/02/1228474984/appendix-function-appendicitis-gut-health. (See notes.)

Distribution of employee impact.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

Conventional HR wisdom holds that employee performance follows a bell curve and results of performance reviews should follow this curve fractally—everything is roughly relative to nearby neighbors, there should be no truly outstanding teams or divisions.

The reality is that impact follows a power law distribution: there’s a long tail of average to middling impact, while a small handful—the top ~20%—are markedly more valuable. Research puts top performers at 3–4x more useful than average performers. Steve Jobs saw the difference as those who get company process versus those who understand its true purpose.rH5

↩
Jeff Haden, “27 Years Ago, Steve Jobs Said the Best Employees Focus on Content, Not Process. Research Shows He Was Right,” March 9, 2023, https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/27-years-ago-steve-jobs-said-best-employees-focus-on-content-not-process-workplace-research-shows-he-was-right.html. (See notes.)

Risk assessments.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

A methodical risk assessment practice starts with asset identification, reviews practicality of risks, and makes recommendations as an output. A process for this:

Create a census of data types, interfaces, and flows.
Classify the data risk categories by integrity, availability, and confidentiality as high, medium, and low.
List some threats to the data, classifying each as adversarial, accidental, structural, or environmental. Don’t pursue comprehensiveness.
Identify vulnerabilities that trigger the threat, classifying which data risk category the vulnerability harms. These are the Risks.
List an controls that presently mitigate each risk.
Rate the likelihood of each risk occurring. Rate impact, too.
List the risk rating from a matrix of impact versus likelihood, with low taking precedent, medium next, and only high + high = high.
Finally, list risks + ratings and produce a recommendation for each.

Business-centric interfaces encapsulate abstraction better than data-centric interfaces.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

Data-centric interfaces typically revolve around CRUD activities, while business-centric interfaces focus on actions occurring at the level of the business. All software is about the business activities rather than technical concerns, at the end of the day, so it stands to reason that structure based on the business will convey more relevance across systems than CRUD descriptions will. For example, Employee Deleted does not convey as much information as Employee Terminated—while the former could include the additional semantics, the default implementation will omit it if the source system does not value the additional data. There’s a real chance downstream systems do benefit from it though, so everyone agreeing to discuss the business instead of technical implementation will reduce data loss and complexity. If the interfaces expose the source schemas directly, then the clients will couple to it and make changes harder, breaking encapsulation.rC6

↩
Derek Comartin, “Event-Driven Architecture Lost Its Way,” March 7, 2024, https://codeopinion.com/event-driven-architecture-lost-its-way/. (See notes.)

High performers have a fundamental appreciation of the company’s purpose.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

Steve Jobs differentiated company process from its “content,” the stuff that the company exists to make. While process is important, there’s not usually a repeatable pattern to innovation. When something works, there’s often an impulse to try to crystalize it into something that can make more success. The trouble is that success comes from a clear understanding of purpose and a relentless pursuit of that alone. To that end, great employees are difficult to manage because they are way more driven to accomplishment than purpose, and this makes them not marginally more valuable than others but multiple times more valuable.rH5

↩
Jeff Haden, “27 Years Ago, Steve Jobs Said the Best Employees Focus on Content, Not Process. Research Shows He Was Right,” March 9, 2023, https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/27-years-ago-steve-jobs-said-best-employees-focus-on-content-not-process-workplace-research-shows-he-was-right.html. (See notes.)

Digestive system.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

Appendix.

Jobs to be done framework.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

A product development framework that frames user needs as goals for which they want to “hire” a product or service. Key concepts include:rR8

Market: A group of people largely defined by the job they need done.
Job: Task or goal a person would “hire” a service or product to help them do. A verb-first phrase that describes what they want, including functional, social, or emotional aspects.
Outcome: A goal or “What does success look like?”. Should be phrased in a way that suggests a measurement or other success qualification.

Suggested practice for applying the framework:rR8

Explore markets: Explore and research based on hypotheses about user needs. Distill into a coarse idea about the Jobs in the markets. Narrow to viable or underserved markets.
Discover all jobs and outcomes: Interview three experts in the market to learn all their jobs, together in one session, and their outcomes in a second.
Quanity unmet needs in a survey.
Prioritize unmet needs: opportunity score = Importance % + (Importance % - Satisfaction %)

↩
Sara Landi Tortoli, “Uncover Your Customers’ Hidden Needs In 4 Steps with Jobs-To-Be-Done + Access Custom GPT | HackerNoon,” December 14, 2023, https://hackernoon.com/uncover-your-customers-hidden-needs-in-4-steps-with-the-jobs-to-be-done-framework. (See notes.)
↩
Sara Landi Tortoli, “Uncover Your Customers’ Hidden Needs In 4 Steps with Jobs-To-Be-Done + Access Custom GPT | HackerNoon,” December 14, 2023, https://hackernoon.com/uncover-your-customers-hidden-needs-in-4-steps-with-the-jobs-to-be-done-framework. (See notes.)

Write with the readers’ context in mind to increase effectiveness.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

The average reader reads 240 words-per-minute (WPM). Brevity of words and fewer ideas or requests help readers access what’s most important. Make reading easy by shortening sentences and using short/common words. Design for ease of navigation by:

Making ther most important things immediately visible
Separating distinct ideas
Placing ideas in priority order
Grouping related ideas
Using headings
Adding visuals

Formatting should be used just enough. Overuse will dilute the most important points which need formatting to highlight. Finally, readers need to be told why the text matters and why it applies to them (or, who it’s supposed to apply to).rD6

↩
Sam Thomas Davies, “Words Into Works #099 | The Six Principles of Effective Writing,” December 11, 2023, https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/the-six-principles-of-effective-writing/. (See notes.)

The returns on DevEx investment.

2024-03-17T00:00:00Z

Allocating significant focus time to development increases productivity by 50%. The focus here is on establishing and maintaining flow state. Developers working on engaging projects are 30% more productive. 42% productivity boost when developers believe they have a high degree of understanding of their code and context around it—documentation efforts therefore have a clear ROI. Intuitive processes, including technical processes and issues around blockers/friction, create 50% more innovation. Fast turnaround on feedback loops creates 20% higher innovation. Fast responses to questions during development leads to 50% less technical debt.rK6

↩
Eirini Kalliamvakou, “Yes, Good DevEx Increases Productivity. Here Is the Data.,” January 23, 2024, https://github.blog/2024-01-23-good-devex-increases-productivity/. (See notes.)

Anna Karenina principle.

2024-02-08T16:48:00Z

Pulled from Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina:

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

In essence, in certain cases, a state arises from many other states, but the lack of any single one causes the absence of the state of interest. As another example, animal domestication requires many specific traits to line up, and any misaligned trait leads to an animal or species being undomesticatable.

Policy docs.

2024-02-04T16:54:00Z

There are three major levels for policy documents:

Policy: This is the highest level which captures what the org is committing to and why. Vision-adjacent.
Standards: This is capturing the details of the commitment, especially through measurements or goals. Mission-adjacent.
Practices: Specifics of the approach. Implementation prescriptions. Strategy-adjacent.

Order of abjectives in English.

2023-11-19T14:27:00Z

The order in which adjectives usually present in English is:rC3

Opinion
Size
Physical quality
Shape
Age
Color
Origin
Material
Type
Purpose

Following ontological parasitism which more or less suggests that what we consider objects are just collected properties of collections of matter, the order of adjectives leading into a noun suggests we are intuitively aware of the relationship between properties and objects. Nouns are essentially just large groups of properties presumed to be together. The list of adjectives before that group of properties is ordered roughly by specificity, ascending.rV1

↩
Vsauce, “Do Chairs Exist?,” YouTube video, 37:51, 2021-09-14, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXW-QjBsruE. (See notes.)
↩
“Adjectives: Order,” accessed May 6, 2023, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/adjectives-order. (See notes.)

Grammar and parts of speech.

2023-11-19T14:26:00Z

Order of adjectives.

Mereology is the philosophy of parts and wholes.

2023-11-19T14:22:00Z

Part of ontology. Mereology is partly concerned with answering the Special Composition Question, which is: “When do two or more things become something else?” Mereological universalism answers that any combination of things across space or time constitutes a new thing regardless of sensibility. Regards it arbitrary to accept some composites as things while not others—that discernment, on the flipside, is eliminitivism. Mereological nihilism rejects these distinctions and postulates that only simples physically exist in reality.rV1

↩
Vsauce, “Do Chairs Exist?,” YouTube video, 37:51, 2021-09-14, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXW-QjBsruE. (See notes.)

Ontological stances or viewpoints.

2023-11-19T14:18:00Z

These reference basic concepts:rV1

Ontological reductionism: A whole is nothing more than its parts, and ordinary objects exist through composition.
Ontological realism: Things objectively exist and don’t require the interpretation of an observer because the universe has meaningful “joints” by which to separate.
Ontological anti-realism: There are many ways to perceive the universe. Our perceptions are only as we need them to be. No objective “joints”.
Ontological innocense: Things arise from their simples but are not literally those simples. A thing “exists” in its own right, not necessarily as a reference to its literal parts. Things can be defined this way by introducing an application condition to provide enough context to distinguish a thing from the rest of the simples involved.
Ontological parasitism: Wholes must be hosted by something else cannot exist unto themselves. Object fixation/property repression has us focus on the parasite and ignore that only its materials actually exist.

↩
Vsauce, “Do Chairs Exist?,” YouTube video, 37:51, 2021-09-14, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXW-QjBsruE. (See notes.)

Basic concepts of ontology.

2023-11-19T14:15:00Z

Especially in relation to mereology:rV1

Ordinary objects: Average and obvious objects such as chairs.
Composition: All things are composed of simples.
Simples: Some basic component of the universe that is not composed itself. (In a “gunky” universe, though, there are no simples, just infinitely lower orders of composition. Contrast with “junky”, which has infinitely larger structures which everything rolls upward into.)
Existence has senses: The neutral sense refers literally to groups of simples, while the sortal sense refers to higher-level countable objects. Simples need an application condition to have enough information to distinguish things.

↩
Vsauce, “Do Chairs Exist?,” YouTube video, 37:51, 2021-09-14, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXW-QjBsruE. (See notes.)

Ontology: the study of what exists.

2023-11-19T14:14:00Z

Black hole stars could explain otherwise impossibly large black holes.

2023-11-19T14:09:00Z

Black hole stars are a hypothesis which explain why we see black holes from the first billion years with hundreds of millions of solar masses, which should not be possible. The stars we can see max out around 300 solar masses and can create black holes of dozens of solar masses. They can only grow very slowly because matter is super heated on a very long orbit before reaching the event horizon, which in turn puts pressure on other matter to keep it away. Even with merging black holes, there would not have been enough time to grow this large.

Black hole stars resolve this by being so large—forming in dark matter halos from many millions of solar masses of material which outweighs smaller galaxies—that when the pressure causes the core to collapse into a black hole, the resulting supernova is not powerful enough to blow away the outer mantle. The outer gravity overwhelms the black hole’s outward forces, force feeding it and generating tremendous radiation pressure which keeps the star stable until it runs low on matter, at which point it would explode.rK5

↩
Kurzgesagt, Black Hole Star – The Star That Shouldn’t Exist, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeWyp2vXxqA. (See notes.)

Stars.

2023-11-19T14:09:00Z

Black hole stars.

Resource utilization must be less than full to allow flow.

2023-11-19T14:06:00Z

A simple example of sequential task flow between multiple participants shows:rK4

At full utilization, flow is reduced to a crawl as each step constitutes a bottleneck.
Focusing on one item at a time means the overall system is wasting capability.
Changing to a pull-based, rather than push-based, model allowed the system to maximize throughput and minimize waste.

↩
Henrik Kniberg, “The Resource Utilization Trap,” 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CostXs2p6r0&ab_channel=crispagileacademy. (See notes.)

The Lippitt-Knoster model for managing complex change.

2023-11-19T13:38:00Z

This model says you have six elements that are all desired for success, and six pitfalls when an element is missing. This list has each element and its associated pitfall:rO3

Vision: when missing creates confusion.
Consensus: becomes sabotage when missing.
Skills: anxiety without.
Incentives: if unclear, will meet resistance.
Resources: change is frustrated when lacking.
Action plan: false starts until clear.

Where each of these are present, the change should meet success.

↩
Addy Osmani, “Managing Complex Change,” November 7, 2022, https://addyosmani.com/blog/managing-complex-change/. (See notes.)

Leaders lead change initiatives.

2023-11-19T13:37:00Z

For complex change, they may turn to the Lippitt-Knoster model for identifying pitfalls in their approach.

Implementing engineering manager support groups.

2023-11-19T13:29:00Z

One senior leader acts as the organizer who designs the groups of 5–8 and determines who the facilitators will be.rR4 They monitor and report on how the program is doing, in particular by checking in with participants. Organizers help facilitators learn from each other, and modifies the groups as needed.rR5

Facilitators handle scheduling, help people engage discussions, coaches people on trust issues, and guides conversation toward curiosity and reframing rather than festering.rR5 A typical discussion will solicit a challenge from each participant, prioritize them, and proceed to group discussion of each challenge. This requires absolute confidentiality to be established.rR4 A well-run group will behave like a conspiracy to improve the organization.rR6

↩
Jade Rubick, “Variations for Mini-M Management Support Groups,” February 10, 2023, https://www.rubick.com/mini-m-variations/. (See notes.)
↩
Jade Rubick, “Uplevel Your Managers with Mini-M Support Groups,” January 28, 2023, https://www.rubick.com/mini-m-support-groups/. (See notes.)
↩
Jade Rubick, “How to Implement Mini-M Support Groups,” February 2, 2023, https://www.rubick.com/implementing-mini-m-support-groups/. (See notes.)
↩
Jade Rubick, “How to Implement Mini-M Support Groups,” February 2, 2023, https://www.rubick.com/implementing-mini-m-support-groups/. (See notes.)
↩
Jade Rubick, “Uplevel Your Managers with Mini-M Support Groups,” January 28, 2023, https://www.rubick.com/mini-m-support-groups/. (See notes.)

Rationale for forming engineering manager support groups.

2023-11-19T13:26:00Z

There are a number of benefits to creating these groups:rR4

Learn from peers instead of just your manager.
Opportunity to grow by filling in your knowledge gaps through teaching.
Allows growth where you are rather than where a curriculum or mentor decides you should be.
Creates a long-lived support network.
Creates intentional connection and touchpoints which especially helps in a remote world.
Increases retention, lengthens their tenures, and attracts new talent.

↩
Jade Rubick, “Uplevel Your Managers with Mini-M Support Groups,” January 28, 2023, https://www.rubick.com/mini-m-support-groups/. (See notes.)

Generate IDs outside DB for high scale.

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

At a large scale, DBs can no longer generate their own IDs. Cassandra operates at a scale where it doesn’t even have a default option since each implementation needs to be so particular. Autoincrement IDs don’t work when distributed, and UUIDs are too random to efficiently paginate through IDs when sharding. Twitter assigns an ID from a central service to a new action the moment it enters the ecosystem.rC5

↩
Rob Conery, “A Better ID Generator For PostgreSQL,” Rob Conery, May 29, 2014, http://rob.conery.io/2014/05/29/a-better-id-generator-for-postgresql/. (See notes.)

Database IDs.

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

Crockford base32.

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

0-9, A-Z, omitting I, L, O, U for human readability. Includes a check character at the end for automatic error checking.rC4

↩
“How to Generate Human-Friendly Identifiers | Connect2id,” 2016. https://connect2id.com/blog/how-to-generate-human-friendly-identifiers. (See notes.)

UUID.

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

UUID is not adequate for high-security purposes. Because UUIDs use hexadecimal, they are quite uncompressed, especially when compared to something like base58.

How long to guess a hash?

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

where A is guesses per second, B is the number of bits of randomness in the hash and S is the number of sessions that are valid to guess.rM8

↩
Neil Madden, “Moving Away from UUIDs,” Neil Madden (blog), August 30, 2018, https://neilmadden.blog/2018/08/30/moving-away-from-uuids/. (See notes.)

UUID is inadequate for high security.

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

UUID4 has 128 bits, 122 of which are random. Bitcoin’s whole network in 2018 had a hashrate of 2⁶⁴ H/S, which could have guessed a UUID in 35 minutes, according to the OWASP hash guessing timing equation. Contrast with 160 bits of randomness, which would take 18 million years at that hash rate.rM8

↩
Neil Madden, “Moving Away from UUIDs,” Neil Madden (blog), August 30, 2018, https://neilmadden.blog/2018/08/30/moving-away-from-uuids/. (See notes.)

ID representations.

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

base32.
z-base-32.
Crockford base32.
UUID.
base64.
base58.

Security.

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

base32.

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

A-Z 2-7 with = as a padding character. Omitted numbers are to improve human readability by removing numbers that look like letters.rC4

↩
“How to Generate Human-Friendly Identifiers | Connect2id,” 2016. https://connect2id.com/blog/how-to-generate-human-friendly-identifiers. (See notes.)

z-base-32.

2023-11-18T00:00:00Z

a-z 1-9, omitting 0, l, v, and 2. Omissions are for human readability and to eliminate potential mistakes in handwriting.rC4

↩
“How to Generate Human-Friendly Identifiers | Connect2id,” 2016. https://connect2id.com/blog/how-to-generate-human-friendly-identifiers. (See notes.)

Creating engineering manager support groups.

2023-04-30T15:59:00Z

Gustafson’s Law claims that efficiency improvements will be used to do harder jobs.

2023-03-18T18:15:00Z

This is in contrast to doing the old jobs faster.rS10 The implication here is that less interesting problems are selected when constraints are tight, but aren’t necessarily the real focus from a global perspective. Put differently, there is a positive correlation between available resources for a solution space and the afinity with which the resources are addressing the fundamentals of the problem space.

↩
Jason Sachs, “Zebras Hate You For No Reason: Why Amdahl’s Law Is Misleading in a World of Cats (And Maybe in Ours Too) - Jason Sachs,” February 27, 2017, https://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/1033.php. (See notes.)

Amdahl’s Law computes how much an improvement will speed up a system.

2023-03-18T18:10:00Z

It can be written as:

with f meaning the fraction of the work process being improved and N referring to the speed multiplier for that subprocess. In its original context, N meant the number of parallel workers and 1 — f represented the remaining serial work. Thus, this equation describes an improvement made to a part of a system, but not the whole system.rS10

Gustafson’s Law claims this view is myopic, and that improvements to efficiency usually result in more interesting types of work rather than more efficient conduct of the old work.

↩
Jason Sachs, “Zebras Hate You For No Reason: Why Amdahl’s Law Is Misleading in a World of Cats (And Maybe in Ours Too) - Jason Sachs,” February 27, 2017, https://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/1033.php. (See notes.)

Stages of insurgency.

2023-03-17T17:23:00Z

According to CIA field manuals on insurgency, there are three main stages:rO2

Pre-insurgency: Groups form around specific grievances and begin growing their numbers.
Incipient conflict stage: These groups start building militias by acquiring weapons and training. Infiltration of police and military provides further training and intel. The populace and government risk delayed action by not realizing that initial attacks are coordinated by insurgent groups.
Open insurgency: The groups engage open warfare.

↩
KK Ottesen, “‘They Are Preparing for War’: An Expert on Civil Wars Discusses Where Political Extremists Are Taking This Country,” Washington Post, March 8, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/03/08/they-are-preparing-war-an-expert-civil-wars-discusses-where-political-extremists-are-taking-this-country/. (See notes.)

Precursors to civil war.

2023-03-17T17:20:00Z

According to a study commissioned by the CIA, there are two highly predictive factors that lead to civil war:rO2

Anocracy: A society that is straddling authoritarianism and democracy likely has a government made of weakened institutions and is less able to enforce policy.
Identity-based factions: Rather than societal friction stemming mostly from political affiliations, society is focusing on identity such as religion, race, or ethnicity.

Countries ranking highly in these two factors have ~4% risk of breaking into civil war per year, which has a compounding effect over time.

↩
KK Ottesen, “‘They Are Preparing for War’: An Expert on Civil Wars Discusses Where Political Extremists Are Taking This Country,” Washington Post, March 8, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/03/08/they-are-preparing-war-an-expert-civil-wars-discusses-where-political-extremists-are-taking-this-country/. (See notes.)

Internal conflict.

2023-03-17T17:19:00Z

Peace and conflict studies.

2023-03-17T00:00:00Z

Internal conflict.

Properties not necessary to consciousness.

2023-03-07T00:00:00Z

A materialist view suggests a few non-requirements:rS9

Contiguousness: Presumably, components can communicate at a distance.
No conscious sub-components: There’s no reason part of the conscious system cannot have its own conscious properties.
Procreation: Nothing about the properties of consciousness require procreation to function.

Contrast with necessary properties.

↩
Eric Schwitzgebel, “If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious,” Philosophical Studies, no. 172 (2015): 1697–1721. (See notes.)

Properties of consciousness.

2023-03-07T00:00:00Z

A materialist view suggests minimal requirements:rS9

Organization of information to coordinate action
Responsiveness toward certain goals
Self-monitoring of some sort to maintain homeostasis
Phenomonology (what it’s likes to be oneself)

Other properties seem necessary, but aren’t.

↩
Eric Schwitzgebel, “If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious,” Philosophical Studies, no. 172 (2015): 1697–1721. (See notes.)

Cunningham’s Law.

2023-03-06T15:14:00Z

The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.

—Steve McGeady, after Ward Cunningham, inventor of wikis.rF4

↩
Nancy Friedman, “Word of the Week: Cunningham’s Law,” Fritinancy, May 31, 2010, https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2010/05/word-of-the-week-cunninghams-law.html. (See notes.)

Listing tables in schemas.

2023-03-06T15:13:00Z

Schemas are different than databases. In Redshift and Postgres, schema tables can be listed as \dt schemaname.*

Sword of Damocles.

2023-03-06T15:09:00Z

As told by the Roman philosopher Cicero in 45 BC, Dionysius II was a tyrant over Syracuse around 400 BC. He had many riches and much power, but had created many enemies in getting there. He was deeply unhappy, worried continuously about the threat of assassination. He lived through this fear in every way.

Damocles served the court, and in one occasion upset the tyrant by expounding on how successful, rich, and happy Dionysius must be. Dionysius offered to allow Damocles to sample his life. He arranged for a throne and servants to shower Damocles with luxuries. As Damocles enjoyed these gifts, he came to notice a sword hanging above his head, suspended only by a strand of horsehair. He was thus unable to continue enjoying his wealth, threatened by death at the slightest change or accident. He begged to be released from the throne.rA5

↩
Evan Andrews, “What Was the Sword of Damocles?,” HISTORY, February 17, 2016, https://www.history.com/news/what-was-the-sword-of-damocles. (See notes.)

Mythology and folklore.

2023-03-06T15:08:00Z

The Sword of Damocles.

History.

2023-03-06T15:08:00Z

Linguistic relativity, or the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

2023-03-06T15:06:00Z

Simply put, language shapes the way we think and what we think about. Reality and our perceptions of reality are clearly different things, and the way we describe reality shapes what we are capable of noticing about it. Grammar prescribes a process for breaking reality into descriptions, so grammar itself restricts what we are capable of considering.rH4

↩
Basel Al-Sheikh Hussein, “The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Today,” Theory and Practice in Language Studies 2, no. 3 (March 1, 2012): 642–46, https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.2.3.642-646. (See notes.)

Linguistics.

2023-03-06T15:05:00Z