I'm a Woz, not a Jobs. I write this in reference to the personalities of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, the founders of Apple, although I would never claim to be as intelligent or as effective as either of them. Although I do have a strong product mindset and deep interests in usability and user experience, at the end of the day, like Wozniak, I want to be a good programmer, not a good businessman. I want to learn, not earn.

Some people are motivated by money, and that's completely reasonable. It pays the bills! It's just not who I am. It's not who I've ever been. Money, metrics, status: I care about those things like penguins care about Pilates. I'd rather watch paint dry.

Don't get me wrong. I can be deeply motivated under the right circumstances. You can hardly pull me away from the computer when I'm learning, iterating, honing my craft, and producing something I'm proud of. That's where I find flow. “Faster, faster, faster, more, more, more!” just because that’s what your boss wants? No, that doesn't work on me.

I'm amazed that style of management works on anyone, to be honest, but it must. I suppose some people who are motivated by promotions and prestige can clench their teeth and bear it. Maybe they even enjoy the challenge. Me? I don't see the point. Life is short, and nobody spends their final moments reminiscing about their corner office or their fancy car. Let's be honest, those things lost their luster after one week.

I regret not being more clear about this aspect of my personality in the past. Moving forward, I want to embrace who I am. If others don't like it, that's fine, but they're probably not the right people for me, and I'm probably not the right person for them.

#Favorites #Life #Maxims #SoftwareDevelopment #Tech

The video If TikTok Were Honest is surprisingly good. It does a great job of explaining the harms of social media in general and the harms of TikTok in particular.

Say you're into politics. [TikTok] will push you further and further into the extreme edges of whatever side you're on. Why? Because outrage and confirmation bias keeps you glued to your screen! This isn't just bad for your worldview, it's bad for society. Echo chambers breed division. They make people more certain they're right, more hostile to differing opinions, and less likely to engage in actual conversation.

—If TikTok Were Honest

Let's not gloss over the reminder that this is bad for your worldview. That's one of my biggest problems with social media. In making people more extreme and less aware of differing opinions, their persuasive ability weakens and they become counterproductive in their activism. To add insult to injury, they sometimes actually come to think of themselves as the sacred protectors of their various causes. Give me a break.

Don't leave social media because I told you to. Leave social media because it's making you hurt the people you're trying to help.

#Life #Maxims #SocialMedia #Tech

I heard this phrase recently, in a conversation where one person was trying to get through to another person who was being uncooperative. I think it's a great line, and I'm going to try to remember it for the future.

“I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.”

The problem is, that's pretty curt. I don't think most people would be able to really hear that, and I think we have a responsibility to make sure our words are heard. If we know our words won't be heard, what's the point of speaking at all? Is it to feel better about ourselves? It shouldn't be, in my opinion. We have enough of that already.

For that reason, I might try something kinder first when talking with an ornery person. In the past, I've used the following, and people seem to take it well.

“I'm sorry that's not the answer you want, but that's my answer.”

Substitute the word “answer” for “request,” “advice,” or any other word as needed.

#Life #Maxims #Quotes

I've come to feel that any belief, philosophy, or endeavor taken too seriously causes extreme harm. The most benevolent religious commitments taken to the extreme go completely off the rails, as do the most reasonable philosophies taken to their furthest logical conclusions. Even attempting to do no harm perfectly is likely to do immense harm, albeit in some unexpected way.

I'm self-conscious that it's taken me so long to see this, because it seems so obvious now. It only became clear after learning a bit about Nietzsche's criticism of philosophical stoicism, including that it leads adherents to act callously toward others and forego the most important challenges in life. I haven't noticed stoicism encouraging that kind of attitude, but when taken to its extreme, perhaps it does! That's one more reason for me to proceed with relative caution, rather than thoughtlessly adopting the worst of that worldview. Learning more about cults, in particular the Heaven's Gate UFO suicide cult, also helped me see this. Cult members, even those who commit terrible acts—especially those who commit terrible acts!—are usually not evil or stupid. In fact, they're often very intelligent and they almost always have the best intentions. They're just extremely committed to a bad idea. That's true of members, anyway. Many cult leaders are so deranged that they hurt others even when they know better. Others are true believers. Some are both; I suspect many cult leaders don't see a bright line between fact and fiction at all.

If you find yourself in the 99^th percentile of some endeavor, stop, slow down, and re-evaluate. A little common sense goes a long way, and at that high level of attainment, that's what you need most.

#Favorites #Life #Maxims

In August, in an effort to lose weight, improve my health, and learn to cook, I took the Jumpstart class with the Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute. Any attendee who participates fully—measuring changes in their health, attending meetings, etc.—is allowed one free retake within 12 months. I'll be beginning that retake on Monday. I'm grateful for the opportunity, because although I learned a lot and developed good habits the first time around, I got off-track with Kika's passing and the holidays. I try not to make excuses, though. I didn't want that change enough. I didn't want it enough to overcome those challenges, anyway. I hope that the retake helps me to rebuild those habits and stick with them.

The RLMI recommends a whole-food plant-based diet. I've been vegan since the summer of 2011 for ethical reasons, but over those years, I became a junk food vegan. There's plenty of highly-processed vegan food out there, full of sugar and salt and fat, and it hasn't served me well. Although I'm not one of those people who thinks any diet can work miracles, curing cancer or some such thing, I do think eating more real food from the earth is probably better for everyone. This program helps participants learn how to do that. (If you do believe a certain diet can work miracles and cure cancer, that's fine, but please don't rely on that at the exclusion of modern medical treatment. It won't work.)

Although I had followed other diets in the past, some very successfully, taking the course in August opened my eyes, for the first time, to how terrible most grocery store food is. Most of those items with big, bright logos, fun packaging, and exciting new flavors are filled with stuff that nobody needs. I'm not even talking about complex chemicals which have difficult-to-pronounce names—those things can be found in bananas, too. I'm talking about the heaps of salt and oil and sugar these brands pack their foods with to make them as delicious (and as unhealthy) as possible.

Since then, I've been struggling to come up with a term for this kind of food. Everyone knows the term junk food, of course, but that doesn't quite describe the food I'm talking about. Many people consider ice cream to be junk food, for example, but not oatmeal that's unnecessarily packed with sugar. I think we need a term for the latter.

After lots of thinking, I finally came up with one: funhouse food. If it has bright colors, a bold name, a cartoon character, fun packaging, or exciting new flavors, if it's loaded with salt or sugar or fat—if it's too much fun—it's funhouse food.

May I endeavor harder and harder to avoid it.

#Life #Maxims

I'm not an oracle, and it's usually easier to solve other people's problems than my own… or at least seem to. Even still, when others ask me for advice, I try to help them consider what they could do to improve the situation. I take this approach even when the advisee is the recipient of someone else's bad behavior. If someone is being mistreated by their boss, for example, I might suggest that they quit, talk to HR, or ask for an internal transfer.

Sometimes, the pushback doesn't take very long. “They're the jerk. Why don't you tell them to be different!?”

Of course, the other person often is the jerk, and I will try to tell that person to be better, if I can. At the same time, bad people—the truly awful, cruel, uncaring people of the world, the people others complain about—they usually don't take advice. They don't care what I have to say. If they were so reasonable, they probably wouldn't be causing this problem in the first place.

To that point, I try to remind the listener, “you're the only person you can control.”

It's not fair, but remembering that may be the only strategy that has any chance of succeeding. Jerks are everywhere, and if our happiness depends on them being better, we're probably not going to be very happy.

None of this is to excuse the importance of listening to others and trying to understand their pain without trying to fix anything. I could always do a better job of that.

If you do want something to change, though, focus on what you can do differently. It's not fair, but it may be the only solution worth attempting, because you're the only person you can control.

#Favorites #Life #Maxims

I'm a perfectionist, and not in a good way. It harms me much more than it helps me.

I was trying to come up with a phrase that I might be able to repeat to myself as a reminder that progress beats perfection and that small steps in the right direction really do matter. I came up with this:

Hope for perfect. Aim for great. Celebrate good.

Consider saying this to yourself any time perfectionism gets in the way of your happiness, whether the source of your frustration is your diet or your wedding. Nothing is ever perfect, and I've come to appreciate that any goal taken to the extreme becomes truly neurotic and harmful. Hope for perfect. Aim for great. Celebrate good.

#Life #Maxims

Some of the best healthcare is free: fresh air, sunshine, exercise, clean water, good sleep, meaningful relationships, and real foods from the Earth. (Well, whole foods like these are not free, but they're often less expensive than the big, bright, fantastical confections that dominate grocery store shelves.)

Of course, none of this is enough, or our ancestors would have lived much longer than they did. Vaccines, medicine, and medical treatments obviously extend life and improve outcomes in profound ways. But to a large extent, what we're lacking—what I'm lacking, at least—is not the big business of medical technology. It's healthier habits and deeper engagement with the real world.

I'm just beginning to really understand this, and I want to be better, so I'm writing this partly as a reminder to myself.

#Life #Maxims #Tech

Progress bars—those little horizontal bars that fill from left to right as your laptop or phone updates—are notoriously unreliable. One moment, a progress bar might be 10% full. The next thing you know, the work is done. If a written estimate is provided (e.g., “10 minutes”), you might notice it change dramatically in an instant.

As it turns out, building accurate progress bars is extremely difficult. In most cases, it's almost impossible for the computer to know how long the work will take without actually doing it.

This is the problem of software project estimation in microcosm.

#Favorites #Maxims #SoftwareDevelopment #Tech

Streaming is great if you like cable, but you want to install a different app for each channel.

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