W – Wash hands
U – Use masks properly
T –Touch nothing
A – Avoid crowds
N – Never touch your face with unwashed hands
G – Go to the hospital if you have severe symptoms
Wu Tang Clan on Instagram
The case of the missing hit
Such a great podcast episode about a song that seems to have vanished from the internet. Totally amazed by the lengths to which the team has gone to solve the mystery:
A man in California is haunted by the memory of a pop song from his youth. He can remember the lyrics and the melody. But the song itself has vanished, completely scrubbed from the internet. PJ takes on the Super Tech Support case.
Reply All #158 The Case of the Missing Hit
Best quote:
“The only way to cure an earworm is to listen to it. But what do you do when that song no longer seems to exist?”
How to get more out of OneNote
OneNote is one of those underappreciated apps within Office 365. To be honest, I’ve only used it for the last two years despite my wife having praised it for her work as a teacher for a long time. But it really has grown on me and I enjoy taking notes, working on outlines and reviewing documents with OneNote. Its integration with Teams makes it a no-brainer to share notes among a project team.
I recently saw an unanswered tweet asking for help about OneNote and thought this might be an opportunity to share some of the things that I’ve learned to appreciate about OneNote over the last two years.
Read MoreDear Library, Thank You!
The end of the year is an opportunity to look back and be grateful. When we moved here, the local libraries of King County and Seattle welcomed us with open arms. No credit history or social security number required, not even a monthly fee. We’ve been continuously surprised by the local libraries and their commitment to excellence. Their dense network of locations for pick ups and drop offs, the amazing collection of books and their great electronic options to name a few.
They have been particularly helpful for our daughter. Not only did story times and a generous limit on book loans help us nurture her interest in books, it even helped her deal with daily life challenges. When she became a big sister picture books prepared her for what was to happen. When she was afraid of going to the doctor “Leo gets a check up” showed her that it will be OK. When she showed interest in diggers and construction vehicles, there were lots of picture books about how all that heavy machinery works together.
The adults in our household enjoy the electronic selection, in particular Kindle loans for eBooks and Libby for audio books. The latter blew me away. Searching, checking out and listening audio books all from within one app is a great user experience. The user interface is intuitive (better than Audible) making it easy to take notes and set bookmarks. I very much appreciated the option to search by “What’s available”, which helps me get through household chores. The collection of physical books is amazing as well. And if a book is not available right now, we can just place a hold and are pleasantly surprised once it turns up in the future – deferred gratification, a rare treat in today’s world.
We recently also discovered their Kanopy and Hoopla services, where we’ve now watched a couple of movies. They don’t encourage binge viewing, but limit consumption to five movies a month. That’s a good amount. We like the selection of movies, ones that we often wouldn’t find on other streaming services. And it’s all included in the membership.
And how much does all of this cost? It’s part of our tax dollars at work. Do they track my data to target advertising? Not that I know of. Libraries have been these shining oases nurturing our souls that we are very grateful for. If you are looking for a New Year’s resolution for 2020, making more use of your local library is a great one.
Let me close with quotes from two articles from last year that put it so much better than I could. Khoi Vinh on his blog:
Even more radically, your time at the library comes with absolutely no expectation that you buy anything. Or even that you transact at all. And there’s certainly no implication that your data or your rights are being surrendered in return for the services you partake in.
Your Public Library Is Where It’s At
This rare openness and neutrality imbues libraries with a distinct sense of community, of us, of everyone having come together to fund and build and participate in this collective sharing of knowledge and space. All of that seems exceedingly rare in this increasingly commercial, exposed world of ours. In a way it’s quite amazing that the concept continues to persist at all.
And one quote from the New York Times:
Libraries are an example of what I call “social infrastructure”: the physical spaces and organizations that shape the way people interact. Libraries don’t just provide free access to books and other cultural materials, they also offer things like companionship for older adults, de facto child care for busy parents, language instruction for immigrants and welcoming public spaces for the poor, the homeless and young people.
To Restore Civil Society, Start With the Library
Kids
Paul Graham wrote five years ago something that stuck in my head ever since:
He finally followed up and wrote a great post about his experience of having kids. I much appreciated its honesty (“I hate to say this, because being ambitious has always been a part of my identity, but having kids may make one less ambitious. It hurts to see that sentence written down. I squirm to avoid it. “) and its pragmatic advice such as
I have some hacks […]. For example, when I write essays, I think about what I’d want my kids to know. That drives me to get things right.
It reminded me of Jeff Atwood’s blog post on parenthood back in 2011. I wonder whether there is a hall of fame of parenthood essays written by hackers.
A Meditation on the Open Web
This little video was published nearly a year ago by Automattic, the company behind WordPress. But it stuck with me and makes me want to contribute more to my little corner of the internet. It’s pretty remarkable for an ad to stick in your head for nearly a year with very little repetition.
Consistency > Intensity
When we left Australia a little over two years ago, we left behind many friends. One of them imparted a piece of wisdom I’ve come back over and over:
Don’t worry about our friendship. Friendship is not about intensity, but rather consistency.
His point was that friendships are less about the grand gestures and more about staying in touch. Even if it is just once a year for a birthday note. A quick photo to share an experience or a message to share a thought.
Read MoreThe Web We Have to Save
But in the world of webpages, gaze functions differently: It is more empowering. When a powerful website — say Google or Facebook — gazes at, or links to, another webpage, it doesn’t just connect it — it brings it into existence; gives it life. Metaphorically, without this empowering gaze, your web page doesn’t breathe. No matter how many links you have placed in a webpage, unless somebody is looking at it, it is actually both dead and blind; and therefore incapable of transferring power to any outside web page.
[…]
The web was not envisioned as a form of television when it was invented. But, like it or not, it is rapidly resembling TV: linear, passive, programmed and inward-looking.
The Web We Have to Save – Matter – Medium
Culture is not one-size-fits all
The Wall Street Journal recently had a story on Netflix’ corporate culture. It reads similar to the 2015 New York Times piece on Amazon’s culture or going way back to the late 1980ies piece on Microsoft’s culture. There are probably a lot of pieces about other high performing companies that hit a similar note: high performance comes at the expense of a humane culture. I’m not sure whether I agree with that.
An anecdote between Steve Ballmer and Mark Zuckerberg in the early days of Facebook comes to my mind. Mark asked for some leadership advice and Steve recommended writing down “what it means to be one of us”. The story goes that Mark took that advice to heart and compiled a list of ten-ish traits, which were highly opinionated. Most people who read the list would have a hard time identifying with those traits, but the few who that list spoke to were highly attracted and motivated by it.
The lesson here is that culture is not one-size-fits-all. In that it can produce work environments that look very odd and even hostile to most, but appealing and accommodating to some. In that I wouldn’t view those articles as condemning write ups, but rather an (at times sensationalist) account for a moment in time. I’d even go as far as saying that those cultures drive higher employee satisfaction and performance than most cultures that don’t take a stance.
Offscreen magazine
Offscreen is an offline magazine telling the stories of the people behind the web. When I receive my copy I’m always impressed by the depth of the interviews, the photography and the overall production of the magazine. If you are interested in the web I very much encourage you to order a copy and check it out.