01 Dec 2020
In what now feels like a previous life I got paid to be a software developer. I worked with Java and Python and a Java derivative called Kotlin. I struggled with some of the architecture side of things. My ability to solve specific local problems with code was pretty solid, but ask me to design a larger solution or an entire software system and I’d falter.
I’ve since moved into the application space, supporting ServiceNow in my current role. The work I do is more strategic than tactical, and I’ve missed some of that other kind of work, stretching my abilities to solve specific problems in the present moment.
Enter Advent of Code. From December 1 through Christmas Day, Eric Wastl (or more accurately a bot written by Eric Wastl) posts a small programming puzzle every day at Midnight Eastern US time. I have participated in AoC in the past, but have renewed interest this year.
The puzzles can be completed by people with limited programming knowledge and some problem-solving skills. It does not require you to be a professional developer at all.
For example: the first puzzle of 2020 asks you to help Santa’s elves with their finances. They give you a list of numbers and ask you to do this (I’m paraphrasing):
Two numbers in this list add up to 2020.
Find those two numbers, and provide us the result you get when you multiply them.
The way I solved this problem was to go through each number in the list, subtract the number from 2020, and see if the remainder was a number on the list. That gave me the matching pair, and the rest was history.
If you have even the least little bit of interest in software development, or if you just like puzzles, check these out!
I’ll be posting my solutions on my github profile; if you have questions or want to learn more, don’t hesitate to reach out!
29 Nov 2020
In a recent post on his blog The Process of Being my friend Diego Gonzalez argues that process can sometimes inhibit creativity:
When you try to constrain and optimize that which is inherently messy, unpredictable and serendipitous to a process, you miss the point of it and strip the humanity away.
Diego is thinking of the wrong sort of process.
A process, the noun, is the repeatable, predictable, task-driven thing that he’s discussing and it can be stifling to a person who’s stuck. I’d argue that the best creative process has some slack in it and accounts for noodling around and sitting with uncertainty, but this isn’t my point.
If we think of process as a verb, the friction Diego describes disappears. The act of processing is messy, unpredictable and serendipitous.
It’s working through it, it’s getting to the bottom of it, it’s the reason why Seth Godin famously doesn’t believe in writer’s block: doing the work makes the work easier.
If we’re stuck or struggling (and it’s not because our life is in upheaval or we’re struggling to make rent) it’s likely that we’re waiting for perfection to be visited upon us.
Perfection isn’t coming. Like Elizabeth Gilbert says,
Embrace the glorious mess that you are.
18 Nov 2020
I’m keeping the streak going with these and catching up to current. Up to now, I’ve reviewed every book that I read. The problem with that is that I don’t have meaningful thoughts on all of them.
So, with that said, if you want to see all the books I read (for whatever reason), check out my goodreads!
Breath by James Nestor
We breathe between six and ten times per minute, every minute, for every hour and day of our lives. This book is a fascinating exploration of the connection between breath and health, breath and mindfulness, breath and higher states of consciousness.
The first third of the book might as well be called Nasal Breath, because Nestor hammers on the idea that mouth-breathing alone is intensely bad for you. He participates in a clinical experiment under a rhinologist: for 14 days, the author’s nostrils are plugged with silicone nose plugs, 24/7. Then for the second 14 days, his breathing is unrestricted and he participates in breathing exercises every day. The vital changes just in those two weeks are striking.
This book has convinced me that modern Western medicine doesn’t have a monopoly on truth. I am by no means decrying medical research or its usefulness. What I’m saying is that there are breathing practices from thousands of years ago that still bring people physical and mental benefits, and those breathing practices are given little to no attention by some audiences that would most benefit from them (emphysema patients, for instance).
The place where the book doesn’t go is toward extreme competition that involves holding your breath or breathing rhythmically. Free divers merit a passing mention, but they are underwater for minutes at a time at intense depths without breathing. I wanted to know more about their experience.
It sounds like a joke but everyone who breathes should read this book. I’ll never be fully unaware of my breath again.
Everything is Spiritual by Rob Bell
I love Rob Bell’s work. He has helped, more than any other religious thinker, to transform the way I think about God and Christ. The books written during his tenure at Mars Hill and immediately afterward are vital and urgent and grab you by the collar, in a positive and loving and Christ-centered way.
I didn’t love this book. I wanted to, but I didn’t. It’s more a memoir than anything, which I’m not against, but it also attempts to do this kind of stream-of-consciousness thing that didn’t work for me. At all. I found it kind of obnoxious; the kind of thing that happens when an author gets “too big to edit”. His divergences into rudimentary astronomy and physics were meandering, and not in a charming way.
If you’re going to get into Rob Bell, start with Love Wins or What is the Bible?. Both are accessible entry points and will tell you if Rob’s style will gel with. This book is an easy pass, sadly.
The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim
This book is essentially a fictionalized case study for embracing ITIL, Kanban, and Agile principles in an IT Operations space.
It’s a mediocre novel. The characters are flat and the turnaround too tidy. It’s in the tradition of books like Leadership and Self-Deception, which do their best to impart knowledge for folks who don’t have the patience to read more traditional professional development books.
That said, I learned some things and took lessons away that I immediately started applying in my work. I’d recommend it to my peers, particularly my less technical peers, but don’t expect The Sun Also Rises. Treat it like a jumping-off point into the subject.
Fire by Sebastian Junger
I bought this book after reading Junger’s War and loving it. In the author’s words,
The stories in this book all deal, in one way or another, with people confronting situations that could easily destroy them.
An ancient whale hunter in the Caribbean who still uses a harpoon, attempting to pass on the art. A trapper who went over and over into territory controlled by the Blackfoot tribe, at increasing risk to his life. Footsoldiers of the diamond wars in Sierra Leone.
Junger ventures into intense, dangerous places in order to tell the stories of those who are living it. I was captivated by this book, and you may be as well. Highly recommended.
The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty
This weighty volume is the conclusion of The Daevabad Trilogy, named after the magical city that’s suspended over a lake somewhere between Mumbai and Cairo.
It’s a fitting close to the series, even if everything is tied up a bit too neatly at the end. I would have preferred a little more darkness, a little more loss.
I’ve written in the past about The City of Brass. If you’re a fantasy fan, I can’t recommend the series highly enough. A unique magic system, multiple points of view, and a clear beginning and end.
A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
This book is hilarious. It chronicles the Free Town Project, an idea to create some facsimile of Ayn Rand’s “Galt’s Gulch” in a small town. If enough Libertarians (or freedom-minded people) move to a single town, they can pack the City Council and essentially take over a town and reforge it in their vision.
This effort was fraught from the beginning. Shared services were decimated. Without a competent fire department, the town had more houses burn down per capita than anywhere else in the state. Without a trash service operating in the area, bears began to come from the surrounding hills, in a couple of cases attacking citizens.
The book is very kind to the people featured, but in a kind of Daily Show way, it allows the individuals to speak for themselves and their words would seem like parody if they weren’t verifiably real.
It’s a reminder that Galt’s Gulch was driven and created by a single person: Ayn Rand. It was not a triumph of spontaneous order. In fact, the Free Town Project is an abject failure of the idea of spontaneous order. I’d love to see a breakdown of the events of this novel from someone who’s experienced in MBM.
This is easily the funniest book I’ve read this year, and you should not miss it.
Thanks for reading these reviews! If you have thoughts or feedback or you want to recommend a book to me, reach out!