books Willpower and self-control Over the last week I read "The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It [https://www.amazon.ca/Willpower-Instinct-Self-Control-Works-Matters/dp/1583335080] ". I liked this book more than I thought I would. I was expecting a run-of-the-mill productivity book, but
behaviour A reminder to stay humble Someone on my team posted this to our slack a few weeks back. Coming from someone who once studied Schopenhauer, I thought it was particularly funny!
management Manager readme At the risk of coming off hokey, I'll give this a shot. If nothing else, I'll be back in a year to see how I've changed. * Our 1:1 is primarily for you to get the most out of your time on our team, so that comes first. But it's
writing Thoughts on descriptive writing Just some thoughts on language and writing. Probably partly because I'm reading Leadership is Language, but also likely because of a recent focus on processes and pipelines with my team. Lately I've been attempting to lean into a more descriptive style of writing. This is opposite to a prescriptive style
agile Requirements or acceptance criteria? Lots of questions on this lately as we examine how our product teams could scale. Requirements are the input to your engineering function. It's what your client wants. They are idealized descriptions of what the client thinks they want the software to do. They're generated ahead of time, often as
leadership Engineering lead ++ Over the last quarter I've read a few books on indistraction and focus. A point that has stuck with me is about how identity and ideology plays into indistractable focus and discipline. It's much easier to find discipline on things that you value deeply. It's asking what kind of person
behaviour A morning routine revamp No more snooze. Can't exactly pinpoint what has changed, but I don't need it. I'm up at 6:30, and in 15 minutes have my teeth brushed, fresh coffee and a glass of water on my table downstairs. I check my calendar, asana, and email, and put together a todoist
music May albums Wow, what a great time for music! New Aurelia Kaitlyn Smith [https://kaitlynaureliasmith.bandcamp.com/album/the-mosaic-of-transformation], Jerry Paper [https://jerrypaper.bandcamp.com/album/abracadabra], Shrouded Amps [https://shroudedamps.bandcamp.com/album/make-me-strange], Perfume Genius, Blake Mills to name just a few! Audrey and I spend every Sunday morning drinking
architecture Lightbend Academy is free (for a while) https://academy.lightbend.com/ I've been curiously monitoring the whole reactive architecture [http://www.reactivemanifesto.org/] development over the past five years or so. I haven't had a significant business case to pivot on technologies, but now I can at least get more familiar and experienced through this excellent online
techno Weekly beats challenge Consistent with streamlining other aspects of my life, in 2020 I'm challenging myself to more consistent, productive play. After hearing my chiptune friend @bryface sing the praises of weeklybeats.com for a few years, I'm taking the plunge. One beat a week for the whole year. A "beat" is a
life Married Happy to say that Audrey and I "tied the knot". We had a lovely day with our closest friends and family.So stoked to spend my life with this wonderful and loving woman.
behaviour My bag is on the couch again Audrey and I recently moved in together, and she has asked me multiple times not to place my bag on the couch. At first I simply answered "sure, no problem!" and moved my bag. But sure enough, the next day my bag was back on the couch. I hadn't noticed
career Aligning personal narratives with business objectives I recently started a new job as an engineering lead at a mobile game company. My responsibilities are typical for engineering management and technical lead roles, as well as a dash of project management. Among other things, I'm responsible for: * the prioritization, scoping and planning of work * the establishment of
life A quick little life update Audrey and I are now settled in our new home. We have a nice little loft apartment near Kingsway and Fraser in Vancouver. It's easy to get downtown for work, and it's easy to bike around east vancouver to pick up cheap groceries. I might as well also come out
employment A new home at A Thinking Ape I've joined A Thinking Ape as an Engineering lead. I'm very excited about this, as it's exactly the kind of company I've been looking for: hard problems and smart people in a values-driven organization [https://www.athinkingape.com/work/#values]. I'm specifically stoked about being in an organization that values
rust Learning Rust A couple of weeks ago I decided I'd spend the next couple of months learning Rust. At the time I was intrigued by it's application for WebAssembly, and I still am. But I knew I wouldn't want to jump right in. As many have mentioned to me, Rust can take
Fundamentals are the building blocks for engineering excellence A friend asked me recently if there's any reason for him to brush up on his datastructures and algorithms, considering that he's never used them in his day-to-day as an technical lead at a local digital organization. I find similar questions and comments fairly frequently on the engineering subreddit, and
Vancouver meetup for CS fundamentals and algorithms I've started a Vancouver meetup group to for studying CS fundamentals. Ask questions and join in on an hourly weekly session where we discuss common algorithms, time and space complexities, and leetcode challenges. The name 1337 Study just means that you too can realize secret knowledge through the application of
protocol IP routing (part three) In this post I dive into routing, which I previously knew almost nothing of. There's quite a lot of history in routing, and in researching this topic I was quite suprised at how facinating it is. I think I had wrongly assumed that routing was a boring topic ;) This bulk
protocol TCP for me (part two) Hi all -- with this post I elaborate on the Transmission Control Protocol, including the the basics of initiating, using and ending a TCP connection. TCP is used extensively for webpages (WWW), FTP, SSH, Email, and much else. It's one of the foundational protocols for internet communciations, so it's well
protocol IP basics (part one) This is my first post in a series covering the basics of internet networking. This is a new topic to me, so I'll likely spend the next couple of weeks focused on learning this material. Feel free to tweet at me if you have any requests or suggestions. Prehistory In
rust Ethereum, Wasm, Rust It's been a busy couple of months. I started out studying up on Bitcoin Core, worked my way through my first Solidity project, and joined a blockchain cohort [https://7gate.academy/]. I'm feeling comfortable with the Web3 [https://web3js.readthedocs.io/en/1.0/] Ethereum Javascript API and the Solidity
employment Leaning into blockchain The abrupt end of Scenarion [https://codydjango.com/startups-end-abruptly/] has challenged me to determine how I want to spend my time. The last five years has been constant work, with Powershifter [https://www.powershifter.com/], Telus, freelance programming, and Scenarion. During that time I was jumping from project to project,
Pretix docker-compose I'm a big fan of Docker. The documentation is excellent, and I love knowing I'm not cluttering up my filesystem when developing weirdo client projects. I'm currently working on an Ethereum payment processor for an open-source ticketing software. It's a django project, and quite complex. It comes with a Dockerfile,
employment Startups can end abruptly Scenarion is no more. It came abruptly, a couple of days before we were to launch our marketing campaign. Something about securing investor funding. It was completely unexpected, and a major dissapointment to us who had been working very hard for months on our new products and web experience. I
