August
First week of August we spent in Portugal with the family close to Nazare, the pinnacle of surfing. A nice whole-family vacation in a long time and I am glad for the time we were able to spent together.
Not much more intesresting sutff this month except maybe SumUp’s Summer party that was a lot of fun and I’ve got the chance to meet a lot of people physically after spending quite some time with them in the Zoom calls. I also got introduced to the proper way of brunching. To my best knowledge, proper brunch starts the day before when you need to acquire hangover and ensure that you get only a few hours of sleep in order for the brunch to hit just right. The brunch itself must begin no earlier than at 12am, has to include at least one alcoholic beverage, coffee, and meal (anything more than 1 is welcomed but not mandatory). The conclusion is, I am definitely more of a brunch person than lunch or dinner person. If you manage to do an activity before, your daily dose of happinnes can be basically fullfilled by around 2 hours into the brunch and you have the rest of the day to not do anything.
If the sun’s out and you have another day on this Earth, what’s there to be worried about? Alyssa Limperis
Reading
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On owning a software problem - list of low-friction small thing that most people will not notice, but that when they do, it’s a sign of craftsmanship, expertise, and pride in your work. Notably:
- Accurate documentation of a repo and an easy, reproducible way to run the project
- Formatted and linted SQL statements
- Editing typos and inaccuracies in old communications
- Explaining acronyms and industry jargon when in an audience that might not be familiar with it, and being cognizant of when they’re in that audience
But there’s no dispute that everyone will find their own. For me this would for example be leaving comments
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Gardening Platforms - about software platform teams.
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The Case for Bad Coffee - Essay not about coffe, but about people and experiences in live being more important about product. It’s about a product’s quality being defined not by its substance but by its reminder of things that can’t be purchased.
Bad coffee is the stuff you make a full pot of on the weekends just in case some friends stop by. It’s what you sip when you’re alone at the mechanic’s shop getting your oil change, thinking about where your life has taken you; what you nurse as you wait for a loved one to get through a tough surgery. It’s the Sanka you share with an elderly great aunt while listening to her tell stories you’ve heard a thousand times before. Bad coffee is there for you. It is bottomless. It is perfect.
This month I learned
- Chesterton’s fence - The principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood.