When a man who spent decades making us laugh and cry takes his own life we have to wonder what we’re doing wrong. He gave us so much joy, but never found the help he needed. If you do not feel good – get help. I won’t judge or make fun. I can’t. I too have needed help with how I feel. It’s hard, but it does get better.
Category: Culture
How do You Define “Public”?
“Public is not simply defined. Public is not just what can be viewed by others, but a fragile set of social conventions about what behaviors are acceptable and appropriate. There are people determined to profit from expanding and redefining what’s public, working to treat nearly everything we say or do as a public work they can exploit. They may succeed before we even put up a fight.”
Anil Dash on “What is Public?“
Round, Complex Humans
“And I love that these people are more than their passions and their expertise; I love that Twitter lets me see how rounded and complex we are as humans. That someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of military strategy or democratic theory might also know the name of every episode of Adventure Time.”
Chris Plante on why sticking up with crap on social media is worth it.
Cognitive Biases in Software Engineering
“This is one of the harder biases to get over in my opinion, because it means acknowledging our own limitations, and really stressing the fragile parts of the code that we write. We all want and expect our software to work, so we are inescapably drawn to evidence that confirms this desire. Keep fighting this urge, keep testing, and always question your assumptions.”
Jonathan Klein on how our brains deceive us when encountering issues in software development.
Maciej Ceglowski, creator of Pinboard on Cognitive Burnout
“Avoiding burnout is difficult to write about, because the basic premise is obnoxious. Burnout is a rich man’s game. Rice farmers don’t get burned out and spend long afternoons thinking about whether to switch to sorghum. Most people don’t have the luxury of thinking about their lives in those terms. But at the rarefied socioeconomic heights of computerland, it’s true that if you run a popular project by yourself for a long time, there’s a high risk that it will wear you out.
…
What burns you out is the constant strain of being responsible for a lot of other people’s stuff.
The good news is, as you get older, you gain perspective. Perspective helps alleviate burnout.”
It does seem circumspect to complain about the benefits of working in an air-conditioned, safe, not physically taxing office like one does, but man – is burnout ever a thing to worry about.
Congratulations to Maciej, doing anything for 5 years straight is amazing. Running a big and successful web-based company is even more impressive.