Category: All Posts

I took the week off from work this week, and the week flew by far more quickly than I expected. Here’s some stuff worth sharing.

• I got up early on Monday morning and hiked up Mt. Si, and made it to this breakfast spot by 8:00 am.
• I took Friday’s off for a month straight last summer. I was more productive, and more rested, and I think the 4-day work week should be “a thing”. This study agrees.
• After sitting on my kindle for over a year, I’m finally reading Sapiens. It’s a little dry in places, but overall, completely fascinating and poignant.
• Never realized it was worth mentioning until it didn’t work for a few days this week, but the Boost app for Reddit on Android is fantastic, and worth the download (and it’s working again)
• Finally, something I can relate to – The Snowball Effect of Procrastination

We made it through another week, and things continue to look slightly brighter. Here are a few things I found this week:

• The obligatory post about (potentially) going back to work: Why You’re So Anxious About Going Back to the Office
• For those of you who don’t want to go back, this may be a reason why your leaders want you back in the office.
• Part of my role at Unity is managing some of our documentation work. This article from the amazing Julia Evans on writing good examples is excellent,
• My dungeons and dragons group finished a long (3.5 year) campaign during the pandemic, and I’ve been filling in running our game while they can take time to be a player. I’ve been using Foundry VTT to run games, and I am loving it.
• Someone at work posted this cover of Everybody by Little Big, and I had to share.

See you all next week.

• It’s the beginning of a 4-day weekend – Now that the weather is more manageable in the Seattle area,I’ll probably go on a hike or two this weekend. The Hike Finder Map from wta.org is a great way to discover new trails.
• The TestBash Home 2021 talks are up (including mine), on the “future” of test automation.
• I’m a sucker for articles that describe what senior/principal/staff ICs do – this one from a tech lead at Facebook is concise, but good
• Loved this article on mapping out your services. Here be Dragons!
• In case you somehow missed it, you should know about Github Copilot

It’s been a weird week as I see more and more unmasked people milling about, but while still unnerving, it’s nice to see and end approaching. Here are some covid-free articles I found that seem interesting.

• I’ve been hearing a lot about Product Ops recently and then I found this article which provides (I think) a good overview.
• The Testing Festival videos are all online – requires registration.
• Some of you have heard me speak of a project at Microsoft I named, “stupid science project” to get Android apps to run on Windows phone. Getting it working was relatively easy – there was just no market fit. In an attempt to save Windows, it’s back on the radar.
• A wonderful article on What Pandemic Parenting can Teach us About Leadership
• I love watching the Euros, and it’s quarter final weekend (I’ll be busy )

Hello again – for those of you who were there, the highlight of my week was definitely a 60-minute AMA with Tristan Lombard at TestBash home. Ministry Of Testing Pro members should have access to the recordings shortly.

In other world news, here are some links I thought were interesting this week

• I’m in the generation and geographic location where I never heard of Juneteenth until a few years ago. While it pisses me off that I was taught a history of convenience, there’s still time to learn
• Juneteenth aside, now is as good of a time as any to recommend Lies My Teacher Told Me – a fantastic read on lies, half-truths, and missing items ignored (at least for me) in school history courses.
• Jack Black – check. Kevin Smith – check. Dungeons and Dragons – check. I’m a big fan of all three, and they’re all coming together.
• I try not to link to every single Michael Lopp post, but his post on decision making hit really close to home. I Think in Flowcharts
• A horrible, horrible chain of events in Finland led to a lot of lost privacy and a lot of lost trust – What Happens When Everything Goes Wrong

It’s a sort-of-sunny day in the Pacific northwest, and I have the day off from work (which probably means I’m cleaning the garage today. Here are some links to ponder from my recent browser history.

• Camille Fournier posted a wonderful (and incomplete) list of skills senior engineers need, beyond coding
• Lisi Hocke wrote a wonderful brain dump of her testing journey in a letter to her future self – that I think includes some of the feelings a lot of us have had over the past year
• I don’t know if I knew about Elpha before this week, but there’s a great post from Isral Asanea on Engineering Management Principles
• I just found the Doordash engineering blog this week, and this article on how they use Machine Learning is quite good
• Between direct reports, skip level employees, and peers, I do ~15-20 1:1s a week. I came across this article on what to do when a 1:1 becomes a vent, and it had some good tips I haven’t thought of before.

See y’all next week.

Survived my second Moderna shot this week – had a few hours of general ickyness about 24 hours after the shot, but been great ever since. Here’s what I found in the meantime.

• First off the wonderful Chris Fenning (who’s The First Minute I’ve mentioned previously) spoke to my team at Unity and blew us away with the simplicity and power of proper framing. I’ve linked the book before, so check out his video here.
• Hand in hand with framing is this article I found on Asking Good Questions
• Nice article on the github blog about personal analytics – The Good Day Project
• Also some good stuff in this article form Eran Kinsbruner on habits of continuous testing
• I think there’s a lot to learn from Conway’s Law (both good and bad). Here’s something new on Conway’s Law.

Coming in a little late tonight. Today was a day off from work, and my non-computer errand list took up most of my day. Once again, here are a few interesting things from my week.

• More than half of Americans (and 62% of adults) have had at least the first dose of the covid-19 vaccine. That’s good news towards opening back up, but we still have a lot to do.
• There’s a new post on the learning from incidents blog that’s worth reading.
• At least as interesting as the above is this interview with Nora Jones on the business of chaos engineering.
• Most people know that I’m not a huge fan of scrum – but I think it’s mostly because it’s so easy to get wrong, and just as easy to get horribly wrong. This article highlights some of those wrong things.
• Is it a bug, or a feature? Either way, this bug in Safari is worth reading about.

Yet again, a few things I found interesting this week.

• I’m excited to once again announce that I will be part of TestBashHome, and will be sharing my (likely controversial) thoughts on the future of automation
• This article on The Three Dominoes had a lot of head nods from me (a lot of lean, MT, etc.)
• Another nice article from Will Stockdale – this one with some good thoughts on how to be more graceful in handling your managerial mistakes.
• The inspiration for Will’s article above undoubtedly comes from articles like this one that call out the dumb things companies are doing as we think about returning to work.
• Everyone should check out this concert from The Linda Lindas

This week flew by, but I still found a few interesting things worth sharing.

• Microsoft (yes, Microsoft) have a great article on hybrid work that makes a lot of great points.
• Then there’s this article talking about the ability of “geriatric millennials” to lead our new hybrid workforce. I have some arguments, but it’s interesting enough to share.
• One of my favorite authors / books (Ray Dalio / Principles) has inspired yet-another-what-are-you-good-at assessment. If you’re interested, my main archetype in this assessment is The Explorer.
• This is a great (and important) article on simplifying the customer journey.
• Mississippi voters approved medical marijuana in the recent election – but the approval was voided because the Mississippi constitution requires one-fifth of signatures from each of their five congressional districts…but since 2000, they only have four congressional districts. Completely bizarre and more emphasis of what’s wrong with politics and law. Read it yourself.