The Hill We Climb
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I first read this in James Clear’s 3-2-1 Newsletter, but thought the idea from Naval Ravikant was so good that I just had to share…
Like this? Consider joining my mailing list, or at least using my affiliate link when buying from Amazon 🙂Humans evolved in societies where there was no leverage. If I was chopping wood or carrying water for you, you knew eight hours put in would be equal to about eight hours of output. Now we’ve invented leverage… As a worker, you want to be as leveraged as possible so you have a huge impact without as much time or physical effort.
A leveraged worker can out-produce a non-leveraged worker by a factor of one thousand or ten thousand. With a leveraged worker, judgment is far more important than how much time they put in or how hard they work.
For example, a good software engineer, just by writing the right little piece of code and creating the right little application, can literally create half a billion dollars’ worth of value for a company. But ten engineers working ten times as hard, just because they choose the wrong model, the wrong product, wrote it the wrong way, or put it in the wrong viral loop, have basically wasted their time. Inputs don’t match outputs, especially for leveraged workers.
What you want in life is to be in control of your time. You want to get into a leveraged job where you control your time and you’re tracked on outputs.
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
Last week I had the opportunity to “attend” ArchConf (virtually). Of the sessions I attended, Venkat Subramaniam’s presentation of “Building Evolutionary Architectures” was easily the best and combined an engaging and enthusiastic style with useful content. David Sietz’s “Data as a Service (DaaS)” presentation was also very good and applicable for my needs. Aside from that, Joshua Smith and Laine Minor from RedHat were probably the most entertaining/fun/funny.
If you’re interested, here are my notes for each session I attended and took notes for :). Replays (for attendees only)
Nathaniel Schutta – 3/5
Main Takeaway: In order to successfully implement micro-services they must have consistent/good monitoring
Nathaniel Schutta – 4/5
Main Takeaway: Any alert someone gets should be informative and actionable. Otherwise, put it on a dashboard or report.
Laine Minor & Josh Smith – 3/5
Main Takeaway: Consider “hugging” (applying micro-service best practices) legacy apps that are too big to strangle
Nathaniel Schutta – 3/5
Main Takeaway: Review boards and heavy handed governance doesn’t work.
Nathaniel Schutta – 3/5
Main Takeaway: Consider implementing architectural briefings
Venkat Subramaniam – 5/5
Main Takeaway: Postpone decisions until the last possible moment because it’s possible YAGNI and doing so lessens the considerations for reversibility. Keep all code as simple as possible.
Venkat Subramaniam – 4/5
Main Takeaway: Have the courage to postpone doing things, and when you do, keep it DRY
Rohit Bhardwaj – 3/5
Main Takeaway: The API should come first. Or, when implementing an API for an existing implementation, don’t model the API on the internal workings of the system.
Nathaniel Schutta – 2/5
Main Takeaway: The value in the artifact is not in the artifact itself. It’s in the conversation it facilitates.
Ken Sipe – 3/5
Main Takeaway: Question everything. Don’t be afraid of a little chaos or of making mistakes
Jeremy Deane – 4/5
Main Takeaway: Need to have ownership to have accountability, and ownership needs to be end to end.
Jeremy Deane – 4/5
Main Takeaway: Be aware that there’s a trade off (negative) to any choice you make.
Laine Minor & Josh Smith – 2/5
Main Takeaway: For good or bad, metrics (or data if you prefer) are needed to promote any tech
David Sietz – 5/5
Main Takeaway: Publish data changes to your topics, have microservices consume the data as needed, and version as necessary.
Hats off to President Elect Biden. As I’ve said before, I’m not really even that big a fan of the Democratic Party, but the actions of the crybaby in chief, his minions, 17 state AGs, and hundreds of Congressmen have guaranteed I will NEVER vote for someone in the Republican Party. I can only hope a majority of Americans feel the same.
Until then, the restraint, kindness, and generosity shown by the President Elect is admirable. Too bad his predecessor and minions are all pathetic weasels.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-us-election-results
https://apps.npr.org/liveblogs/20201103-election/
https://www.270towin.com/2020-election-results-live/
https://go.cnn.com/?stream=cnn
Like this? Consider joining my mailing list, or at least using my affiliate link when buying from Amazon 🙂A good perspective from the author of Sapiens, Homo Deus, and more on the Coronavirus
https://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75Like this? Consider joining my mailing list, or at least using my affiliate link when buying from Amazon 🙂
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Disclaimer: Thoughts and opinions are my own, and do not reflect the views of any employer, family member, friend, or anyone else. Some links may be affiliate links, but I don't link to anything I don't use myself. You would think this should be self evident these days, but apparently not...
This was from my parents pastor, but I thought it was good enough to share…
In 1948, professor and author, C.S. Lewis, wrote an essay titled On Living In An Atomic Age. With the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki still ringing in the world’s ears, fear about atomic technology was rampant. Lewis’ words were a timely reminder then. In the perilous times that we are currently living through, the professor’s words are just as important.
As you read through this excerpt from his larger essay, I’ve replaced the word “atomic” with “coronavirus”, and ask yourself, how will the bomb (or the virus) find you?
*In one way we think a great deal too much of the coronavirus. ‘How are we to live in an coronavirus age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat at night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents. *
*In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the coronavirus was invented… It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty. *
*If we are all going to be destroyed by a virus, let that virus when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about the coronavirus. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds. *
What the coronavirus has really done is to remind us forcibly of the sort of world we are living in and which, during the prosperous period before, we were beginning to forget. And this reminder is, so far as it goes, a good thing. We have been waked from a pretty dream, and now we can begin to talk about realities.
*It is our business to live by our own law not by [fear’s]: to follow, in private or in public life, the law of love and temperance even when they seem to be suicidal, and not the law of competition and grab, even when they seem to be necessary to our own survival. For it is part of our spiritual law never to put survival first: not even the survival of our species. We must resolutely train ourselves to feel that the survival of Man on this Earth, much more of our own nation or culture or class, is not worth having unless it can be had by honorable and merciful means. *
*Nothing is more likely to destroy a species or a nation than a determination to survive at all costs. Those who care for something else more than civilization are the only people by whom civilization is at all likely to be preserved. Those who want Heaven most have served Earth best. Those who love Man less than God do most for Man. *
Let the coronavirus find you doing well,
Like this? Consider joining my mailing list, or at least using my affiliate link when buying from Amazon 🙂This part may be even better than Part 1. Love the commentary on shared calendars and documenting over meetings.
https://share.transistor.fm/s/2a0efd93Like this? Consider joining my mailing list, or at least using my affiliate link when buying from Amazon 🙂
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Disclaimer: Thoughts and opinions are my own, and do not reflect the views of any employer, family member, friend, or anyone else. Some links may be affiliate links, but I don't link to anything I don't use myself. You would think this should be self evident these days, but apparently not...
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