Espresso Shots 5-25-25

Here's my weekly update with a few interesting random findings that I came across the last week or two. I am going to try to make sure they're here in time for you to enjoy with your morning coffee (or beverage of choice) every Saturday or Sunday, and include some of my thoughts around them.

Videos 📺

As a long time Kurt Vonnegut fan, I really enjoyed (and encourage you to watch) Sir Ian McKellen reading a letter from Vonnegut entitled, 'Make Art and “Make Your Soul Grow'.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

The Latest Drippings ☕️

• The Luxury Of Saying No. Greg Storey has been hitting them out of the park with posts that almost perfectly capture the feelings running around my brain for the last year or so. 'The real threat to creativity isn't a language model. It's a workplace that rewards speed over depth, scale over care, automation over meaning.' Read of the week (and may as well throw in a shameless plug for my most popular shirt!)
• The Anxiety-Curiosity Switch. Another area that I have been spending several months thinking and writing about is the importance of curiosity. Whether it's about thinking about how technology can help you if you engage in critical thinking or how to attack almost any problem in the real world, all roads lead me back to the basics of curiosity. Anne writes, 'curiosity activates many of the same brain regions, but with a crucial difference in framing. Instead of asking "What might go wrong?" curiosity asks, "What might I discover?"'. Perfection.
• How Convenience Kills Curiosity. And now, for the flip side of the coin, Joan Westenberg (who is a writing machine!) ponders our current world and the death of curiosity. 'Knowledge is earned through movement. Friction. Ambiguity. The old experience of falling into a stack of books at the library wasn't efficient, but that was hardly the point. You'd go in looking for one answer and come out with five better questions. That's how curiosity thrives: in the space between expected and unexpected, between map and territory.' 'Convenience rewires the mind. It makes learning feel like confirmation. It reduces exploration to retrieval. You end up knowing more but noticing less.' Important thinking here.
• Good Struggle Vs Bad Struggle. Speaking of struggles, 'not all struggle leads to personal growth,' dives into the emotional cost of dealing with stuff you're worried about.
• NYC Restaurant Interior or Black & White Drawing?. OK, next time I'm in New York, I'm going to take some time and venture over to Shirokuro, where all of the floors, chairs, walls, counters, etc. are painted to look like a 2-dimensional drawing. Mind blown 🤯.
• Things I Learned from The Idea Factory. A fun read about some of the history of Bell Labs, AT&T, and the history of the phone.
• Thoughts Going Into The London Podcast Show. I've found myself falling into the camp of 'Stop staring at your screen; put your phone in your pocket. Get outside. Move your body. Listen to something that feeds your mind in a healthy way.' and podcasts have been a big part of that. My only ask is to keep them short. I have no idea how people have time to listen to 2-3 hours of podcasts; 15 minutes is my sweet spot.
• Opinionated vs. Flexible Software. YES! 100x YES! Choose boring software, and be more opinionated about your development stacks. Through constraint, find freedom!
• The Onion's Ben Collins Knows How to Save Media. It's been interesting - I have been drawn more and more to printed news again: The Onion, The Southwester, n+1, Mountain Gazette are among my recently printed subscriptions. There's nothing better than taking a printed form of reading, sitting in an Adirondack, and looking at the water.
• The Importance Of Virtue In Software Engineering. One lesson that I have had to learn (and try to pass on) is the Dichotomy of Control: You can only control your thoughts and actions; everything else you can't. This article was a good read on why some overlook basic virtues in software engineering and why engineers sometimes have arrogance when hired primarily for technical skills, neglecting and type of character assessment.
• The Quest For The Best Writing Tool, A Spinoff. I'm always a sucker for a great post about pens and notebooks.
• Who You Are is Not What You Do. I love this thought nugget: Change the verbiage from I am to I do. 'If you attach your identity to anything you do, then your accomplishments, setbacks, and failures will directly impact your self-worth.'
• Scientists Have Been Studying Remote Work For Four Years And Have Reached A Very Clear Conclusion: Working From Home Makes Us Happier.. No shit. But it's a great read.
• Sharing, Helping, Connecting. Wrapping this week up on a positive note, and something that I have been trying to do a lot more of the last few years: 'I discovered that I enjoy being an enabler. I don't care all that much about the things I do for myself, but I care deeply about helping others. Because I still think this wacky digital space called the web has so much potential for good.'

Amor Fati ✌🏻