markshead

8 ms·

1.
by markshead 3y ago
Too often a daily standup is really just a way to try to make sure everyone is busy. Asking everyone what they did yesterday, what they are going to today, and if they have any blockers, doesn't usually help the team coordinate their
2.
by markshead 3y ago
That is an excellent point. If everyone knows exactly what the next most important thing is for the customer, and they are already working collaboratively to deliver it, maybe the meeting only takes 5 minutes. Or maybe the coordination happ
3.
by markshead 3y ago
I haven't ever seen an organization focused on "doing Scrum" that gets good results. However, some teams trying to deliver working software iteratively for their customers do find Scrum lets them deliver better than what th
4.
by markshead 3y ago
> Video was supposed to be the future. Instead, it’s just another way to pick up the phone. If you are using it to replace a phone call, then yes. It is just another way to pickup a phone. On the other hand, I've worked with teams t
5.
by markshead 4y ago
There are few better ways to increase your learning on a technical topic than to write a post about it and get lucky getting traction on HN. I wrote a post on State Machines a few years ago and the feedback I got from the HN community was i
6.
by markshead 4y ago
Back in the early 2000s I had a blog where I would try to post multiple times each week. While I wasn't a poor writer before, it was amazing how much I learned about overcoming writers block and being able to quickly get ideas from my
7.
by markshead 4y ago
A few books that I've found useful: The Goal - Eli Goldratt - It is a novel about optimizing a factory, but it is immensely valuable in thinking through what are the actual constraints on your team's ability to deliver software an
8.
by markshead 4y ago
A decade ago Harvard Extension School's ALM in Software Engineering was a good match for what I was looking for as a self taught programmer with a Bachelor's and Master's degree in another field. There was a good blend of com
9.
by markshead 4y ago
> "Jira is the worst project management tool, except for all the others" This is key. The problem with Jira is less about Jira as a tool and more about how we approach project management. I've seen some teams thrive with J
10.
by markshead 5y ago
I was once looking for a solution to some technical problem, clicked on a promising web result, and found myself at my blog. I had posted a solution several years earlier but had forgotten about it.
11.
by markshead 5y ago
Felix Mendelssohn wrote a collection of pieces called Songs without Words for the piano. This might suggest that the term "song" can be more nuanced than simply whether or not there are vocals.
12.
by markshead 5y ago
> Those with extreme views certainly do exist but they tend to be pushed to the front by those who have vested interests against homeschooling. On the flip side, many homeschoolers have encountered public school teachers with extreme vie
13.
by markshead 5y ago
I've had good luck with video team rooms vs. having lots of video meetings scheduled. With a video team room you basically "hang out" like you would in a real team room. You might have 4 people with one sharing while another
14.
by markshead 6y ago
I own a home in a very rural part of the US, but do a lot of work with people in large cities. I was talking with some people in NYC about our 5 bedroom home that we bought for $120,000 and how most of the houses for sale in our town are ab
15.
by markshead 6y ago
Just having a book that you've written on any topic listed somewhere on your resume is nearly always a positive. It is kind of like having a college degree in that it shows you can start something and finish it.
16.
by markshead 7y ago
If you like the idea of a small lisp machine, you should look at uLisp. Last time I priced out the components they came to somewhere in the $20 to $40 range.
17.
by markshead 8y ago
Do most people think that autopilot is used to avoid other planes and obstacles like mountains? I always assumed autopilot was basically like cruise control for planes and just kept it level, at a fixed direction, and constant speed. Same t
18.
by markshead 8y ago
If that is the case, autopilot on a plane seems to be more like cruise control expanded to maintain pitch, yaw, and roll than autonomous flying.
19.
by markshead 8y ago
Also dramatically different than the low cost $13.95 time-of-flight sensors. ( https://www.adafruit.com/product/3316 )
20.
by markshead 8y ago
Obviously, this can be used to simply lie about not having a dog. On the other hand, it is also the way you deal with any objections that might be raised if you are dealing with a claim that is wrong on many different levels. Say that someo
21.
by markshead 8y ago
Nand2Tetris was very good. I think Coursera has it listed as "Build a Modern Computer from First Principles: From Nand to Tetris." The course does an incredibly good job of walking you through building a CPU starting with NAND chi
22.
by markshead 9y ago
Keep in mind there is a whole spectrum of what constitutes thought leadership. Several times, I've had clients say, "Last night I was looking for X and I found a great article on it. Turns out it was something you wrote!" Ano
23.
by markshead 9y ago
So where would you put what we call "determination?" When someone has 9 businesses/jobs/experiments/etc fail and gets "lucky" with the 10th one, it seems like there is another aspect other than luck and ta
24.
by markshead 9y ago
I have. It is interesting but didn't really stick for me when I tried it. I've found some techniques that didn't work well in one period of my life work incredibly well in a different period when I'm working on different
25.
by markshead 9y ago
I don't flip it over. Usually I'll go beyond the timer for some period of time because once I get some momentum on a task, I'll want to finish it up. I also use it to timebox activities that can consume the entire day. For ex
26.
by markshead 9y ago
I have a 7-minute sand timer I picked up for a few dollars. Whenever there is a task I keep putting off, I'll commit to doing the task at least until the timer runs out. It probably sounds silly, but it really helps me get things done
27.
by markshead 9y ago
I was just saying that curves of how much is forgotten seem to look similar to a caching mechanism.
28.
by markshead 9y ago
I've heard something similar, but I think it had to do with the fact that we tend to "fill in the gaps" if we can't remember something about a situation. So we just make up information. I'm not sure if there are way
29.
by markshead 9y ago
Our memory is a cache and each timed repetition increasingly delays the purge date of a particular memory.
30.
by markshead 9y ago
> Modern agriculture is a highly skilled job done with millions of dollars of capital equipment. While there is definitely truth in this statement, there is still a spectrum of work to do on modern farms and plenty of it isn't highl

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