2024-09-27 linkly roundup
Table of Contents
Links and things for the week ending 2024-09-27.
If you want to meet a shy creature, maybe try patience? #
Are we too impatient to be intelligent? #
Are we too impatient to be intelligent? [a]
Speed is not (always) the best variable to optimize. For example, the main benefit of Uber is not finding a ride quickly, but certainly. You may wait the same amount of time, or maybe longer, but you know your ride is coming.
Also, speed has diminishing returns. If you’re going slow, increasing speed makes a huge difference, but if you’re going fast, increasing your speed is less effective. This “paceometer” hits that home. The inner numbers are miles/hour and the outer numbers how many minutes it takes to go 10 miles at that speed. The faster you go the smaller the time savings.
The Stay-at-Home-Intellectual Mom #
The Stay-at-Home-Intellectual Mom [a]
A mom of two reflects on having given up academia to pursue her writing while also being a stay-at-home mom. I have the greatest respect for stay-at-home moms. My mom was a stay-at-home, homeschool mom, as is my wife.
- You don’t need to go “out” into the world to find intellectual and spiritual fulfillment.
- US culture wrongly disdains stay-at-home mommery as not being “real” work.
Over the course of my work I may impact thousands of people, but it will probably end there. My wife’s work will impact generations. She is literally shaping future generations in a way that they will share even more generations; her impact is exponential.
Also something, something “embodiment” and The Mind at Work (affiliate)… I riffed on X about it.
Mr. Moxie Marlinspike #
I use Signal. I’ve been aware of Moxie, but haven’t paid much attention to him. I say that, but it’s not like he’s like out there begging for attention.
But I should have been paying more attention. He wrote a great article [a] about how software engineering organizations are almost always mismatched for the type of work they’re actually doing, and this is because people think of software engineering as a straightforward linear process. In fact, the vision for a software project and the engineering have an “intertwined and bidirectional relationship.”
I agree and would extend this insight to all creative projects. I made some comments with hypothes.is.
Also Moxie evokes this happy vagrant vibe. He hitchhikes his way into adventures, fixes up old sailboats and casts off for warmer seas (you had me at sailing…), he and his friends challenge each other to do new things.
I am not (never was) a vagrant type, but it does make me nostalgic for my more carefree days in college and young adulthood…damn I’m getting old.
“I’m ashamed of” project #
Silvia did some impressive work designing a new cover for visakanv’s book. In looking at her feed I found a project where she put up a form for people to anonymously share shames that she posted. Nothing particularly commentarious to say here. I can’t precisely describe my emotions about it. I just found it interesting/inspiring in a weird way.
Quaker names #
Quakers had some pretty awesome names (also boingboing).
More here (though you have to comb through for the good ones) and here.
Dad TV shows #
Men confer masculinity on each other generation-to-generation and within generation. Men pass that masculinity culture on through the ways they spend time together, including the shows fathers and sons watch together. I like a grizzled survival show as much as the next guy, but maybe not everyone does. There is a certain kind of masculinity that is less valued today, and I lament that, even if it’s not my particular masculinity.
Take it with a grain of salt, my dad wasn’t much of a TV or sports guy, but I think I turned out all right. Yet, it inspired me with the idea of men spending time together and to think intentionally about how I spend time with my sons.
[REPOST] Good conversations have lots of doorknobs #
"[REPOST] Good conversations have lots of doorknobs" [a]
I’m a subscriber to Experimental History (Adam Mastroianni). It’s great. This is a repost, so it was a repeat for me, but I shared it with my wife, because we had been talking about conversations and how with certain people they feel one-sided. Some people want to give the spotlight and some want to take it (no judgment). Conversational affordances, or “doorknobs”, help both givers and takers have a good time.
The B Lane Swimmer #
Another classic that I revisited. At swim training, Holly noticed that swimmers were friendly and encouraging except the “B lane” swimmers, the second best swimmers. Why? Maybe because they were too focused on their ambition and how they couldn’t quite cut it?