I've curated a collection of fascinating links I've encountered across the web, encompassing a variety of topics which intrigued me. Enjoy!
I just spent a week talking with some exceptional students from three of the UK's top universities; Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College. Along with UCL, these British universities represent 4 of...
An interesting take on how risk-averse we are here in the UK. We are never taught that running our own business is a potential opportunity and we have expectations that you'll just go and get a job.
The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past. Edition 195.
I love this! Small things do matter.
There's a very specific reputation I want to have on a team: "Nat helps me solve my problems. Nat get things I care about done."
This is a great idea! Write down all of things wrong with your team in order to find the pain points.
My startup (gettruss.io) released a few LLM-heavy features in the last six months, and the narrative around LLMs that I read on Hacker News is now starting to diverge from my reality, so I thought I’d share some of the more “surprising” lessons after churning through just north of 500 million tokens, by my estimate. […]
Some interesting learnings from a company that had used ChatGPT for data extraction. Worth reading.
Calm companies are profitable, value freedom, have a purpose, and improve the team's lives. Frenzied companies are crisis-driven.
100% agree with this. Life's too short to have a non-calm company.
Discover how to find the best Mario Kart 8 build using the Pareto frontier method. This interactive guide explores multi-objective optimization of speed, acceleration, and other key stats to help you beat your friends on the race track.
A great visualisation of choosing your Mario Kart character and vehicle.
For Zapier, a workflow automation software that facilitates application integrations, capturing more than 280,000 visits from high-intent searchers every month (per Ahrefs) is a systematized process that’s practically on autopilot.
I'm always really interested in how you can leverage automation to build out programmatic websites which are also useful. This is great article describing how Zapier owns this space.
Inspired by dance music, living room after parties, and futuristic design, wipE′out″ changed the perception of video games forever. Speaking to the people who made it, Daniel Dylan Wray delves into its legacy
While I didn’t work on the original game, I was lucky enough to work on WipEout Pure and also lead the WipEout Pulse versions on Sony’s handheld PSP. A fantastic game that still stands the test of time.
One startup released “the first AI software engineer,” while another aims to build a “superhuman software engineer.” As intimidating as these sound: what if it’s more marketing than reality?
A very measured take on the Devin AI tool which could replace developers.
A growing number of startups and Big Tech companies offer equity - stocks, options, and others - as part of software engineering compensation. However, I've noticed few engineers understand what these mean.
When I was a hiring manager at Uber in Amsterdam, engineers usually focused far more on the base
Although I've worked in tech for over 30 years, I've only recently worked at startups that offered stock options. This is a great read to understand more if you're a relative newbie like me.
David Flanagan explains Kubernetes, containers, WebAssembly, and self-hosted infrastructure to Wes and Scott. He provides tips for managing your own servers and recommendations for learning more.
This is a great interview if you want to learn more about containers, Kubernetes, and WASM.
It was the biggest online game in lockdown. Now the National Videogame Museum has collected players’ experiences to find out what it meant to them.
We bought Animal Crossing for our daughter during the pandemic. It felt like a way to disconnect from the stress of what was happening but also allowed her to connect with others during a time when in-person meeting was limited.
Our latest film explores the story of jungle, from its myriad roots to the present day; the sound's unique characteristics and stylings; how it infiltrated the mainstream with tracks like "Original Nuttah" by Shy FX and UK Apache; and how, alongside the genre's pioneers, artists like Nia Archives and Shy One are passing it down to the next generation.
"I can't accept drum and bass, we need jungle I'm afraid". From the University Challenge meme, this is a great video on the history of jungle.
I wonder what would happen if you tried really hard.
I love this! I'm amazed at how little people try sometimes but also how hard it can be to get over the embarrassment of trying. Just going for it when you're maybe a little nervous is sometimes needed.
Seven questions can clarify what really matters to you and help you build your own life strategy, according to BCG’s Rainer Strack.
While it might feel a little bit corporate, I thought this was an interesting idea to use a consultant's strategy to determine the sort of life you want.
To find the sweet spot between impostor syndrome and overconfidence, you first need to understand that you can make mistakes without it reflecting on your competence.
As someone who feels that he suffers from imposter syndrome from time to time, this is a good point. Working in a culture where failure is allowed is a great way to step out of your imposter mindset.
Are you ready for a serving of #SpicyTechChat? 🌶️ Recently, someone asked me, "What does an Engineering Manager (EM) even do in a small team if they don't code?" Ouch. Let's discuss why non-coding EMs can be an immense value add that drives success across engineering.
It's always interesting to read whether people think Software Engineering Managers should write code or not. I personally think it's difficult to have the time to be an effective coder and an effective manager.
Yes, just set that deadline.
An interesting blog post that suggests we should always set deadlines for projects or they will take a lot longer than they should.
During my latest job search, I found myself wishing I’d kept more detailed notes on situations encountered in previous roles. It’s led me to put together something I’m calling a ‘Tell me about a time…’ document.
I love this idea of "tell me about a time" documents! It's so easy to forget what you did as a manager and this sounds really useful.
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A golden era for newsletters in the pre-Substack days.
An interesting read about one of the OG newsletter providers.
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As unscrupulous AI companies crawl for more and more data, the basic social contract of the web is falling apart.
A great read about a tiny text file that rules the web.
Only optimists can create a great future. One day, I decided to become an optimist and life became much more fun.
I try my best to be an optimist and this affirms my belief that optimism is the way.
If you want to create digital artifacts that last, they must be files you can control, in formats that are easy to retrieve and read. Use tools that give you...
I love this idea: "if you want to create digital artifacts that last, they must be files you can control, in formats that are easy to retrieve and read."
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
This is a great article on podcasts being the last web media to still be open. In the age of tech companies wanting to create a walled garden, podcasts are still an open technology.
please don't say just hello in chat
A few people at the BBC used to do this and it was really annoying! It's great to say hello first but then ask the question. 😃
