WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:19.248 The Weekly Thing, issue 34. Weekly Thing for December 30, twenty seventeen. Published December 30, twenty seventeen. By Jamie Thingelstad. In this issue: Lowertown Line, Jeremy Messersmith, Trampled by Turtles, microservices pattern language, iPhone X, Apple AirPods, blockchain use, Santa Facts xkcd. 00:00:19.848 --> 00:00:38.797 I hope you all have been having a wonderful Christmas and New Years and are getting some time away to rest and relax. I’m sure you're wondering how my first attempt at Glorified Rice turned out? It was pretty good! I learned I didn't need to make a double batch, and I needed a little more crushed pineapple. 00:00:39.297 --> 00:00:52.648 I’m taking this week off from work and we have been enjoying time at the lake doing puzzles, video games, Legos, watching movies and playing new board games. We are all looking forward to a fabulous twenty eighteen! 00:00:54.048 --> 00:00:55.706 Now, the Blog posts section. 00:00:56.306 --> 00:00:57.685 What apps make you better? 00:00:58.185 --> 00:01:01.900 What apps do you have on your phone that are making you a better person? 00:01:03.300 --> 00:01:05.020 That's the end of Blog posts. 00:01:06.420 --> 00:01:07.700 Now, the Photo section. 00:01:08.300 --> 00:01:11.940 All bundled up for the winter with temperatures well below zero. 00:01:12.440 --> 00:01:16.544 December 28, twenty seventeen at 8:40 AM Warsaw MN. 00:01:17.944 --> 00:01:19.189 That's the end of Photo. 00:01:20.589 --> 00:01:21.827 Now, the Links section. 00:01:22.427 --> 00:01:25.115 Link one. The Lowertown Line, Twin Cities PBS. 00:01:25.615 --> 00:01:38.616 I just discovered this show while browsing through stuff on Apple TV and was excited to see episodes with a number of artists I like. Jeremy Messersmith, Cactus Blossoms and Trampled by Turtles are great places to start. 00:01:39.516 --> 00:01:46.572 Link two. What work really is, or 17 things I learned about productivity in twenty seventeen, a n n i e m u e l l e r. 00:01:47.072 --> 00:01:52.410 I greatly enjoy Mueller's writing and this reflection on productivity is another good one. 00:01:53.310 --> 00:01:56.328 Link three. A pattern language for microservices. 00:01:56.828 --> 00:02:06.353 A collection of various pattern components for microservice design. Not sure what to think of this. Is this a new thing or a rethink of existing patterns in microservices? 00:02:07.253 --> 00:02:10.805 Link four. Checklist for Plain Language, plainlanguage.gov. 00:02:11.305 --> 00:02:32.161 I've shared with many people that I dislike the word "utilized" and it’s all about using plain language. Used is a fine word and I have yet to find a case where utilized was necessary over the more pedestrian used. This checklist is a good one to revisit language in your writing. I don't know what to think of the fact that this is a US Government website? 00:02:33.061 --> 00:02:36.678 Link five. twenty eighteen and the Internet: our predictions. 00:02:37.178 --> 00:02:48.971 Cloudflare sees an incredible amount of activity across the web and they share some thoughts on what they expect twenty eighteen to bring, as well as visiting some of their twenty seventeen predictions. 00:02:49.871 --> 00:02:50.843 Link six. OpenEvents. 00:02:51.343 --> 00:03:04.997 This is a solid idea. There are any number of systems in a platform that would benefit from subscribing to event data, but having a common structure for events is a foundational requirement to unlock any of that capability. 00:03:05.897 --> 00:03:08.253 Link seven. Daring Fireball: The iPhone X. 00:03:08.753 --> 00:03:53.586 Gruber's writeup on the platform transition that the iPhone X represents is interesting. When Apple introduced the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X I told a number of folks this is the transition point. I fully expect there to be an iPhone 9 and iPhone XI (let's hope the roman numerals go away). What we are seeing is the transitional period from the first arc of the iPhone and iOS to the second big arc, and during that time we'll have some overlap to allow users and apps to transition and for the cost curve to come down on the new tech. This is something that nobody has ever done at this scale, and those that have done it have not done it well. Think Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X or whatever flavor of Windows to Windows the next flavor. 00:03:54.486 --> 00:03:58.157 Link eight. One Year with Apple AirPods, Beardy Guy Musings. 00:03:58.657 --> 00:04:12.289 I haven't written that much about my AirPods but I find them an absolutely delightful product. They just work, and work in so many ways. I agree with this recap on them. Plus, what a great name for a blog -- beardy guy! 00:04:13.189 --> 00:04:19.025 Link nine. One-on-one meetings are underrated, whereas group meetings waste time, Smash Company. 00:04:19.525 --> 00:05:00.272 I've been thinking about the effectiveness of different types of meetings and aligning those meetings to my goals. I’m a manager more often than a maker, so my schedule is key to executing projects and tasks. This article is a strong argument for more frequent one-on-one meetings. I can see the point of making it the easiest way to get truthful and direct info. I also can see the point that group meetings can be driven by ego. But I also find one-on-one meetings to require a high amount of after meetings actions, after all you just had the one person to talk to. I also wonder about getting skewed perspective that may send people down odd tangents. 00:05:01.172 --> 00:05:06.111 Link ten. How to Write Articles and Essays Quickly and Expertly ~ Stephen Downes. 00:05:06.611 --> 00:05:20.964 I like articles from folks that know a craft and can share some of how the sausage is made. Writing articles has a structure, just like songs and poems and computer code. But to those who don't know that structure it seems like magic. 00:05:21.864 --> 00:05:25.386 Link eleven. Lanier’s Social Medium Ultimatum, James Shelley. 00:05:25.886 --> 00:05:28.105 I love this call out from Jaron Lanier. 00:05:28.605 --> 00:05:51.849 Quote. People have to take responsibility to become literate in a new way if they are going to use the technology at all. So if you just can’t find it in yourselves to delete all your social media accounts, then you must take it upon yourself to really learn how it works. Learn how the addiction cycle works. Learn how the manipulation works. Become aware of it. End quote. 00:05:52.349 --> 00:05:56.364 We have to become much smarter customers and users of these services. 00:05:57.264 --> 00:06:01.136 Link twelve. Computer latency: 1977-twenty seventeen. 00:06:01.636 --> 00:06:05.257 What a great project filled with delightful sentences like. 00:06:05.757 --> 00:06:44.505 Quote. At 144 Hz, each frame takes 7 ms. A change to the screen will have 0 ms to 7 ms of extra latency as it waits for the next frame boundary before getting rendered (on average,we expect half of the maximum latency, or 3.5 ms). On top of that, even though my display at home advertises a 1 ms switching time, it actually appears to take 10 ms to fully change color once the display has started changing color. When we add up the latency from waiting for the next frame to the latency of an actual color change, we get an expected latency of 7/2 + 10 = 13.5ms End quote. 00:06:45.005 --> 00:07:11.391 I've never been bothered by latency from key to display on any of my computers, but it’s curious to see that the latency has gone up with complexity. I do notice this whenever I use an Android device. Touch devices drive the latency demand higher in my opinion since your finger is there and your brain and eyes want to see the reaction with as close to no latency as possible. For me Android has a frustrating amount of latency. 00:07:12.291 --> 00:07:16.620 Link thirteen. Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain. 00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:21.496 A good contrarian read to the fevered meme that the blockchain is the next Internet. 00:07:22.396 --> 00:07:28.561 Link fourteen. How to be a 10x engineer: Business value for technologists, Striving for greatness. 00:07:29.061 --> 00:07:42.340 Donnie Berkholz connecting the dots on how to really deliver value as a tech team — understand your business objectives. Making sure that your teams understand and connect their work is one of the key jobs of leadership. 00:07:43.240 --> 00:07:45.233 Link fifteen. Santa Facts, xkcd.com. 00:07:46.133 --> 00:07:50.662 Link sixteen. A long time ago, in a Glasgow far, far, away… Three Letter Acronym. 00:07:51.162 --> 00:08:00.712 PCalc has been in active development for 25 years. That's amazing. I use the term "decade project" from time to time and this is a good example of one of those. 00:08:01.612 --> 00:08:04.444 Link seventeen. Zines are the future of media. 00:08:04.944 --> 00:08:10.239 Kottke's read on this prediction is good. I hope that the prediction is directional right. 00:08:11.139 --> 00:08:15.396 Link eighteen. The best board games of twenty seventeen, Ars Technica. 00:08:15.896 --> 00:08:23.696 It's cool to see how much board games have evolved in recent years. It is a good time to be someone that enjoys strategy games. 00:08:24.596 --> 00:08:26.660 Link nineteen. Google Maps’s Moat. 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:44.890 Amazing side-by-side analysis of Google Maps and Apple Maps. Better thought of as an analysis of how Google is scaling their mapping data using machine learning and visual analysis. You get the sense that Google is looking at map data at a whole different level than everyone else. 00:08:45.790 --> 00:08:51.337 Link twenty. Snowden-Backed App 'Haven' Turns Your Phone Into a Home Security System, WIRED. 00:08:51.837 --> 00:09:23.951 This article got me thinking about other ways that your phone could be used to help your personal security. This use case is interesting and for people that have to work in random places globally (like journalists) would make sense. I wonder if there is other stuff that your phone could do at night to monitor the environment around you while you sleep. The dot projection camera on the new iPhone X is probably not strong enough to scan a room, but maybe in the future it could detect movement in a completely dark room? 00:09:24.851 --> 00:09:28.752 Link twenty one. Foo Fighters: Christmas Medley (Live), SNL, YouTube. 00:09:29.252 --> 00:09:34.567 The Foo Fighters are so awesome, and now I find myself wishing for a Foo Fighters Christmas Album! 00:09:35.967 --> 00:09:37.214 That's the end of Links. 00:09:38.614 --> 00:09:40.071 Now, the Now Reading section. 00:09:40.671 --> 00:09:42.376 Tetris: The Games People Play. 00:09:42.876 --> 00:09:43.716 by Box Brown. 00:09:44.216 --> 00:09:57.896 It is, perhaps, the perfect video game. Simple yet addictive, Tetris delivers an irresistible, unending puzzle that has players hooked. Play it long enough and you’ll see those brightly colored geometric shapes everywhere. 00:09:58.396 --> 00:10:14.887 I had always heard that Tetris had a complicated legal background and this graphic novel is a fun read on the complicated web of relationships that were behind the most popular videogame in history. It also helps explain why even today all Tetris games are so strictly controlled. 00:10:16.287 --> 00:10:17.763 That's the end of Now Reading. 00:10:19.163 --> 00:10:21.169 Now, the Microblog updates section. 00:10:21.769 --> 00:10:31.413 First, watched Hacksaw Ridge tonight. Very well done. Battle scenes were a bit much. Tammy and I have now watched all the twenty seventeen Best Picture nominees. 00:10:31.913 --> 00:10:38.518 Second, static site generators are great in so many ways, but the friction in publishing with them is horrible. 00:10:39.018 --> 00:10:52.484 Third, I want to be an energy efficient household but this monthly report from XcelEnergy does nothing to help me. Just makes me feel bad. Showing min/max/avg by day and hour would at least give some data to work with. 00:10:52.984 --> 00:11:02.018 Fourth, … NAS issue resolved? After extended SMART test said all was fine I did another rebuild of the Volume and after 14 hours it succeeded. 00:11:02.518 --> 00:11:06.987 Fifth, watched The Circle. Thought provoking ideas and concepts. Okay movie. 00:11:07.487 --> 00:11:14.877 Sixth, I got an Anki Cozmo robot for Christmas and we’ve been having a lot of fun with it. Little thing has a lot of character. 00:11:15.377 --> 00:11:18.332 Seventh, we are going to bring in the new year… frozen! 00:11:18.832 --> 00:11:26.058 Eighth, tyler and I did this LEGO Technic RC Tracked Racer. Very fun! One of the most impressive LEGO kits we’ve done. 00:11:26.558 --> 00:11:35.287 Ninth, … back to NAS issue. I ran the extended SMART test on every drive in my Synology and no errors. Attempting to repair the RAID volume again. 00:11:35.787 --> 00:11:41.715 Tenth, watched Fences tonight. Amazing acting all around and great dialogue. Thoroughly enjoyed it. 00:11:42.215 --> 00:11:48.291 Number 11, playing Prime Climb with the family. Interesting game. Sort of like Sorry. Lots of math! 00:11:48.791 --> 00:11:52.356 Number 12, playing Maze Racers with the kids. Fun game. 00:11:52.856 --> 00:11:56.136 Number 13, christmas Eve dinner on Big Green Egg. 00:11:56.636 --> 00:12:00.617 Number 14, nice gentle snow for Christmas Eve this afternoon. 00:12:01.117 --> 00:12:10.927 Number 15, watched Arthur Christmas again last night with the kids. That movie might get a spot on the annual Christmas movie list next to (but lower than) Elf. 00:12:11.427 --> 00:12:26.172 Number 16, been getting errors on disk 3 in one of my Synology DS416 units. Swapped out the bad disk and started volume repair. Now seeing errors on disk 2 and failing volume repair. Uh oh. Luckily this data is all mirrored. 00:12:27.572 --> 00:12:29.779 That's the end of Microblog updates. 00:12:30.279 --> 00:12:37.351 Thank you for subscribing to the Weekly Thing! If you know of people that would like the Weekly Thing please forward it along! 00:12:38.751 --> 00:12:45.231 That brings us to the end of the Weekly Thing, issue 34. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.