Notes for August 25th 2023
- This week Musk went to his own website to let everyone else on his website know that he'll remove the "block" function, save for DMs. People are rightly unhappy as it re-pollutes their feed with the stuff they deliberately wanted to avoid. But those people are on Elon's site. And he can do what he wants with it.
- Join Mastodon.
- Thinking about $workplace, we've had some heavy hitters leave the business lately, with notes of departure. All very complimentary, but certainly looking at the "old days" (namely, pre-Covid) as the best era. Up-to and including the grim outlook at today is when the smartest people are in the biz, and somehow we'll stop being a talent magnet in future, etc. I seriously disagree and was wondering why that sentiment was there, even though it's limited.
- My thought is that I think the company has been pretty poor at listening to experienced folks who came from other companies that "build the machine." It over-indexed on smart, intellectually curious folks who hail from startupland. That's changing, and the "new guard" are ushering in new goals, challenges and timelines that align more to what "building the machine" needs today. The machine, for what it's worth, means serving the low end of the market (startups, SMB) with the care & attention they need but also serving the enterprise with the deft touch they need too. I think this change is freaking those from startupland out; they're spooked because $workplace is becoming very real now.
- "MVP" means "minimal viable product" and is a darling for companies small & big alike. But I think it represents the worst possible combination of things for any customer or user. No one wants minimal, they want the max value. They don't want "viable," they want operating and working order. And they don't think of the world as a set of products to use/pay for, they think of solutions. MVPs are rarely minimal, rarely viable and rarely representative of an actual product. Drop the bullshit!
- With all of the rain, and sun, and heat, my garden has been growing fairly mad. We have 3 main products to get: some herbs, rhubarb and berries. And I could probably generate revenue from how much we get. I was thinking of cutting back our rhubarb and just sticking it out of the front for folks to take for free, since we'll never use it all.
- I spent some time in Copenhagen, and one observation I always have is that the cycling infrastructure is insanely better than Ireland, but it’s hardly on another stratosphere. I think the Dutch are better at that part. It can be confusing to figure out where the lane is, if it’s contra-flow, etc. You’re reliant on other cyclists to follow to figure that out. And it interacts with cars a lot. But it’s real, tangible and used a lot. And the car traffic is still busy. But reasonably free-flowing.
- Also, the Danes weirdly pride themselves on coffee consumption. And while there are great coffee shops, I think they'd fall over in a heap if they knew how many great coffee shops Dublin has per capita by comparison. Sometimes you've to walk quite a bit, even when central, to get to a good coffee there.
I just loved this photo below. Not mine, but stellar and worth sharing by instagram user irishskies.
Our mortgage rate went up a bit (.1%) which is irritating. But, our crèche costs will go down. On balance we're going to be up, but managing the bills this year has been tough. And it shouldn't be given I'm on a very good salary, we have very low outgoings and my wife also works. I can't imagine how stupidly hard it is for someone struggling.