Given that I have a lot less time these days, and that my brain is being taxed by a recent job change, I’ve been on the lookout for shorter, less attention-demanding podcasts. Enter AFK from Changelog. Episodes are less than 30 minutes, and showcase “the human side of creative work”.
Especially check out AFK with Suz Hinton. They touch on burnout, and the importance of asking for help. It’s not a sign of failure.
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I started a new job recently and my on-boarding mentor told me I was bringing lots of value to pull request reviews despite being the new guy. This caused me to pause and reflect on how I approach code reviews, what I might be doing differently from others, why I do it and where my habits came from.
Perhaps the best way to describe my approach is that I think of code reviews as an asynchronous pair coding session:
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Don’t trust your assumptions about yourself, and don’t apply them to others. They’re probably wrong.
– calinet6 on the Hacker News post, A (Short) Rant About Working Remotely
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Wherein I recap the things I’ve done and learned this year as a software developer (mainly at work). I’ve fixed many bugs and uttered many curses. Through it all I’ve constantly strived to make the code a better place.
Amazon Web Services
Video encoding instances Launch/Start when there’s a backlog, and Stop/Terminate when there’s not. Said goodbye to Amazon SQS for job queues, and hello to Redis. Hello consistency and speed.
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Building upon Working Best at Coffee Shops, a great article with several possible explanations about why so many find it more enjoyable and often, more effective, to work in noisy public places.
Another possible explanation:
That working in an unpredictable, yet pleasant, environment keeps your energy levels up. Each person that walks through the door heightens your senses, provides a shot of adrenaline, and otherwise keeps you buzzing. And of course, there’s often a window with a nice view, which for me seems to benefit problem solving similar to pacing around an office.
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The hacker community is impressive. You’d expect all programmer nerds to be far-removed from reality, but a good number are not. The new breed of computer scientists is much like the new breed of computers. They’re self-aware, they control themselves, they’re finally cool, they work great in all settings, and they’re running some of the best companies in the world.
Matt Maroon wrote an article last year that really struck a chord.
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(I accidentally deleted this post. Here’s a reconstruction)
Wednesdays are magical. Here’s my schedule:
Rise at 6:30 or 7 Check my “sites” and email Run for 15 minutes or exercise in some capacity Shower and eat Hop on my bike and head out the door to arrive at a downtown coffee shop just before 9am Begin working for my clients Lunch with my woman at 11:30 Continue working until 2 or 3pm Then … whatever!
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