Published
Weekend Reading — 👔🩳 Business Quarantine
This week we make a mask, dress business quarantine, bake bread, hoard all the podcast mics, and look at these two kittens cuddling!
no name “for keeping track”
How to Make a Mask with Filter Pocket & Nose Pinch This mask covers as much face as recommended by medical professionals, includes a nose pinch, pocket sized for PM2.5 filters, and ties (because there’s an elastic shortage!) Simple design that's easy to cut and sew. Get the instructions and diagram from https://shop.zoehong.com/face-mask
(I'm the guy on the treadmill, stress testing the mask for durability and breathability)
🏠 WFH
Felix Salmon #nopants
was just informed that the dress code for public Zoom calls from home is “business quarantine"
Do you miss the office? Try the office noise generator I don't miss the office, but I sure miss coffee shops, something about the background noise makes it easier to focus. Anyway, this site lets you simulate background office noise without leaving the house.
Bread Scheduler: Bread recipes, planner and timer for better sourdough Everybody in my timeline is baking bread, so I thought you'd appreciate an app for helping you schedule bread making.
Danielle Baskin “Once lockdown is lifted and we’re no longer on Zoom, I’m walking around with a tiny mirror above my face so you can continue to stare at your own face while we’re talking.”
:🧰 Tools of the Trade
idris-maps/middle-manager 😄 A tool for making better presentations: uses Markdown, CSV for tables, and the best part — a bullshit meter.
If you could end Covid-19 by sacrificing a JavaScript framework, which one would you choose and why Angular?
Andy Lindeman It's always DNS …
OH: "DNS is just naming things and cache invalidation, how could it end up being complicated?"
IBM will offer free COBOL training to address overloaded unemployment systems It's not too late to learn COBOL! The picture is not representative of what COBOL looks today, modern mainframes are not as chic, and you can probably dress business quarantine.
Architectural
Stefan Tilkov 👇 Thread:
Many enterprise IT departments have become big fans of an “API-first“ strategy. I think that in general, this is a bad idea. (Thread)
…
I blame most of the disasters in modern enterprise IT strategy on the fact that it’s people like me – backend architects with way too little focus on UI/UX aspects – who have been put at the controls for far too long.
The longer this pandemic drags on, the better the technology decisions companies make. This is entirely due to the lack of executive exposure to enterprise software ads in airports.
Peopleware
my boss just called and said “how are you” and I reflexively said “fine” and she was like “NOPE, START OVER, I am not fine and you are not fine and no one is fine, let’s have a real conversation, how are you” and I was like “super terrible” and she was like “MUCH BETTER”
Teamwork
Carta’s covid-19 layoff Carta had to layoff a significant portion of their workforce. This is the message from their CEO. It's a great example of leadership, clear communication, and humanity. Even though it's a dire situation, this one gave me inspiration to be a better leader!
If you are one of those affected it is because I decided it. Your manager did not. For the majority of you it was quite the contrary. Your manager fought to keep you and I overrode them. They are blameless. If today is your last day, there is only one person to blame and it is me.
Lynne Tye 👇 If you are interviewing in these difficult times, these questions will tell you a lot about the company culture and what it would be like working there:
A lot of you are interviewing for jobs right now, or will be soon. Regardless of the role, all interviewers will ask, “Do you have any questions for me?” BE READY, especially now (mid-COVID-19) when all interviews are remote.
Startup Life
The Founder's Field Guide for Navigating This Crisis First Round, as always choke full of useful information, from recession-era leaders, investors, and CEOs.
Finally, don’t change your stripes, says Simon Khalaf (currently Twilio, former CEO of Flurry Analytics). “Maintain the culture of the company. Don’t change who you are because the world is changing. Startups succeed because they want and will change the world, and not because the world changes them.”
The Psychology of Founders Who Win in Downturns This is must read for founders, and anyone who's working in a precarious business (startup, small business, etc). Read, grok, apply.
Bill Rodgers won the Boston Marathon and New York Marathon four times each. Rodgers attributed his success to a simple trick: he ran harder on the downhills than on the uphills. His magical insight? Runners tend to push hard to get up a hill but then let up once they go over the peak. They often expend energy trying to slow their descent. Rodgers took the opposite approach. “I always remind myself to lean forward and take advantage of gravity,” said Rodgers.
📈 Today in Business Models
Karat | Cards for Creators I like this idea: banking for creators/influencers. Instead of credit score, it looks at your assets/revenues, based on social engagements and brand deals. Welcome to the 20's!
CFOs looking to make remote work, telecommuting more permanent following COVID-19, says Gartner survey “74% of CFOs say they expect to move previously on-site employees remote post-COVID-19, according to a Gartner survey.” CFOs often resist WFH, yet also in charge of paying rent/lease for office space. RIP office real estate.
Exclusive: Mary Meeker’s coronavirus trends report The 28-page report her firm sent out to their investors.
This may become the "call to arms" to better marry technology with healthcare, in terms of everything from telehealth to rapid point-of-care diagnostics, to applying automation and AI to health care services.
"We are optimists and believe there is hope on the other side of despair.... We need government, business and entrepreneurial intervention at scale (deployed logically and effectively) to get to the other side."
How the Virus Transformed the Way Americans Spend Their Money The NYT looks at the radical change in consumer spending habits since COVID hit the US.
Locked Doors
xssfox “THIS IS NOT HOW YOU ANONYMIZE LOCATION DATA” (context)
Available for Hire
Rebecca Turner Principal/staff type eng role at a tech company with an eye toward dev-tools and/or tool-smithing. 25 years of experience.
Vinay Khade Front-end engineer, React and up for learning new technologies. https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinay-khade-b892b88a/
Silvia Senior Product/UX Designer. Singapore/relocate. http://ariantisilvia.com
Victor Kernes User Experience (UX) & Product Designer. San Francisco/remote. https://victorkernes.com
Benno From bare metal up to front-end. Australia. https://lwn.net
Alexis Ewing-Moody Full stack developer with experience in Ruby/Rails, JS/React, Golang, and team leadership. http://afrodevgirl.github.io
Camilla Second-year CS and Art student. Bay area/remote. http://www.camillaxguo.com/about
🤷 None of the Above
Margaret E. Atwood “This...”
If you weren't sure of how bad things have gotten, Amazon is out of podcast mics.
buns iverson “i’m baby”
“BC” now stands for “Before Coronavirus” and “AD” is now “After Distancing”
Raphael Rashid “Broadcaster exit polls in South Korea are on a whole other level. #415총선”
2020: A masked guy puts lasagna in your trunk and then you drive away.
Cats of Instagram “Kitten cuddling- the therapy we all need right now 🐾”
Alan Chen I will never!
The one-spacers have won. Microsoft Word now showing 2 spaces after a period as an error.
Kelly Vaughn “I sure love buying my banana’s by the each”
Olivia Cole is social distancing & u should be too I feel called out:
Hey writers, here's a great place to buy notebooks during quarantine!
...... your shelf where you have 50 million of them that you haven't used yet, stop playing
rt.live This is a great visualization of the Rt value — how fast COVID is spreading/slowing down — state by state.
Hurry, Don’t Rush - James Heathers This is a fantastic take on the research for COVID cures, and scientific pursuit in general:
The dire need for information should not mean rush to produce unreliable information quickly, and attempt to shoehorn your research in particular to the center of the problem. Hurry, don’t rush.
27 Of The Most Powerful Photos Of This Week Breathtaking.
Why Copper Is Good at Killing Viruses | Science | Smithsonian Magazine Sell gold, buy copper. On a more serious note, I ordered some copper tape and going to try sticking it to things, and report how it works.
Bill Gross To brighten up your day, aerial view of downtown Los Angeles with no smog.
