Category: Life
-
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast
If you recognize this mantra, you may know it comes from marksmanship training. The idea is that it is better to move slowly and not have any hitches or unexpected bumps, rather than to hurry and have a less predictable outcome. Another way to phrase this is You don’t have time to do it right,…
-
This job is undoing me
… in the best way possible. My protective casing of hard-earned cynicism is being rubbed away by all this genuine kindness, cooperation, good culture, and all that jazz. It’s honestly kind of uncomfortable, like molting. You need to understand – I have this hard-ass candy shell for a reason. My first job in technology was…
-
When the cat’s away….
…the mice will self-organize? My manager is on vacation. Like really a lot on vacation. Logged out of Slack, not on email or phone, not showing up for meetings, none of that. This appears to be what he’s doing: And he’s been gone, like weeks. OK, I think it’s 2 weeks. But it is significant…
-
Milestone anniversary
We’ve been married 20 years today! My wife and I got married on a snowy January day, 20 years ago. We were young, and broke, and hopeful. It turns out, our hope was justified. Here are a few of our accomplishments: We still enjoy being married to each other One bachelor’s degree for each of…
-
Well, that didn’t go like I imagined
The Toggle Talk As a speaker, there are three things I count on to give a talk: Slides Narrative flow Speaker notes My dependence on these elements decreases as I give a talk multiple times, but I use the slides to help me remember where I am in the narrative even if I don’t refer…
-
#2018Liberation
I loved Cate’s post about deciding on liberations instead of resolutions. If I think there’s a change I should make in my life, I try to just… make it, instead of waiting for an arbitrary time marker. mostly because if I think about it too much, I’ll often talk myself out of it. But liberations?…
-
Shoes and software
I bought a new pair of shoes when I went to New York City the last time. I am trying to find shoes and boots that look good with both skirts and pants, fit properly, and are good for a full day of standing/7 miles of walking. This is a pretty tall order, as you…
-
Nothing gold can stay
This month marks the end of two organizations that were really important to me, and I want to tell you about them. Alterconf Alterconf was a conference series that happened all over the world. The organizing spirit was Ashe Dryden. She took all her experience with the tech industry, gaming, and conferences, and used it…
-
Packing, optimizing, and satisficing
I’m off on a two-week trip that happens to be broken by an 18 hour stop at home. (Nodevember, North Bay Python, SpringOne Platform, LaunchDarkly writing sprint). Every couple months, I try to clean out my bags entirely, get rid of the trash that accumulates, make sure that I have room for all the new…
-
New employment: LaunchDarkly
Last week I told you about my exciting new job title, Developer Advocate. This week, let me tell you about my exciting new employer! On Monday I started a job with LaunchDarkly, a startup that does feature flags as a service. Feature flags are a way to distribute software with reduced risk. For example, if…