Library

In no particular order, some links that I found interesting, funny, or worthwhile.

• What nobody tells you about documentation

  Recorded talk describing the four types of software documentation (tutorials, how-to guides, explanations, references) and the importance of keeping them separate. See also Divio’s website on the subject.

• What can we learn from SQL's 50-year reign?

  Overview of the history of database management systems and the development of SQL that concludes by analyzing how SQL has lasted until today.

• Metaphors can shape our thoughts in ways we don't realize

  Quartz article about psychology research that shows how use of different metaphors can influence our opinions about a wide variety of subjects.

• Choose boring technology

  Dan McKinley’s 2015 article advising against using the hottest new tech. This blog post invents the concept of “innovation tokens” that’s become widely used since its publication.

• What is experiential avoidance

  Short video that describes why people are often reluctant to try new experiences.

• The Kanye story

  Story of the whirlwind development of yeezy.dating after the developer accidentally created massive hype over a joke.

• Rediscovering the lost power of reading aloud

  Article on the importance of reading aloud (especially to children).

• How Starbucks got its buzz back

  Story of how Starbucks COO Roz Brewer turned the company around after her hiring.

• Epigrams in programming

  List of 120 short programming sayings from 1982.

• On coding, ego and attention

  Blog post describing why coding, among other activities, loses its enjoyability as one gets more skilled, and how to counteract that effect with a beginner’s mindset.

• Not implementing features is hard

  Blog post by a Firefox maintainer detailing why Firefox pushes back against features that don’t align with web goals.

• I came for the easy concurrency, I stayed for the easy composition

  Video of a 2014 talk by John Graham-Cumming about how certain programs that would be complicated in other languages are simple in Go. Slides on GitHub.

• Anti-algorithmic music: how Bandcamp is helping artists beat the odds

  Article about how Bandcamp better emulates a chaotic record store than modern radio in the music it promotes, to the benefit of small and independant artists, and unlike Spotify or Apple music.

• Welcome to AirSpace

  The Verge article that introduces the term AirSpace to describe the homogeneous aesthetic spread around the world by tech and business travel.

• The nuclear family was a mistake

  Atlantic article about the the history of various family structures, and their tradeoffs.

• The Cocktail Creationist

  New York Magazine article on Sidney Frank and the creation of the Grey Goose superpremium vodka.

• Technical debt is soul-crushing

  A good discussion of the problem of technical debt in software.

• How Takeru Kobayashi changed competitive eating

  Kobayashi took a new approcach to an old problem, and changed the competitive eating metagame.

• Data violence: the danger of biased datasets

  Medium article detailing examples of biased algorithms based on flawed data, along with some solutions.

• Cargo Cult Software Engineering

  Article discussing the differences between process-oriented and commitment-oriented software development.

• Beach erosion and sea level rise in Del Mar

  NPR article on the way a small, affluent, California town is having trouble handling climate change.

• The web is dead. Long live the internet

  Wired article describing the shift away from websites to internet-based apps.

• The tyranny of terrazzo - will the millennial aesthetic ever end?

  New York magazine article about the new importance of design and the color pink.

• The people who challenged my atheism the most were drug addicts and prostitutes

  Opinion by Chris Arnade, whose famous photography of drug addicts inculcated his acceptance of religion.

• The age of the wordless logo

  Atlantic article explaining why so many companies just use images for their logos now.

• How to recognize AI snake oil

  Princeton CS slide deck explaining what types of problems AI is and isn’t good at solving.

• How SNES emulators got a few pixels from perfect

  Bsnes project author BYUU’s description of the project’s incredible degree of accuracy.

• Grand Theft Auto V graphics study

  In-depth look into the frame rendering process for video games, with good pictures.

• ‘Close friends’ for a monthly fee

  Atlantic article describing how influencer culture has normalized paying for Snapchat, Instagram close friends or Slack access to your favorite content creators.