From: nayafia <nadia.eghbal@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 7, 2018, 6:23 PM -0400
To: jasdevs@gmail.com
Subject: Things that happened in July
Hello!
July was a lot of travel and conferencing. This was partially an experiment in work process: I spent every week in a different city, but somewhat “settled” into each place. I was curious to see if changing up my environment would help me work better. (I really love working out of hotels…)
Answer: nope. I did read more, thanks to all the plane time. But it was hard to write, so I gave in to my calendar and focused on how great it was to see lots of people that I don’t normally get to see in SF. Now I’m happy to be back. Yay!
On the docket: I’m finishing up an analysis of open source community grant programs, which I’ll publish soon (or you can subscribe to RSS if you want it before next month’s email).Writing
- “Methodologies for measuring project health”: I looked through ~30 papers to see how researchers measure OSS project health and found I didn’t love any of their methodologies. So I wrote up this analysis. (Although the conclusion is that we should look at activity, rather than contributor count, to measure project health, the point I most care about is that contributors aren’t fungible, due to differences in incentives. More on that...soon!)
- “Doing good and being quiet”: Quick reflection on the tradeoffs between achieving impact vs. maintaining privacy when it comes to helping others
Notes
Notes from this past month have been updated. Also known as Nadia’s Analog Semi-Private Twitter. A few highlights:
- Crypto governance debate (on- vs. off-chain) feels similar to the “is technology a tool to augment or replace human capacity” (augmented vs. artificial intelligence) that dominated convos about early computer design (link)
- From a friend: “Decentralization doesn’t have to be the answer or a panacea, but just a new ‘fabric’, or set of conditions, for operating in” (link)
- I wonder whether similarly to how women entering the workforce, having more agency, etc kinda messed with the institution of marriage, whether people working longer and doing more things they truly love will mess the institution of death. Where suddenly, we’re all so happy doing what we love that we now desperately don’t want to die, and the inevitable experience of quickly-approaching death makes us miserable (link)
- Where people sit in a room at an event (front to back) is like chromatography for personality types (link)
- “Concept stores”, but for libraries and bookstores. Ex. a friend told me about a bookstore they went to in Japan that only sells one featured book at a time, and then sells other things related to the themes/characters/etc around the book. Why aren’t there more privately curated, but open-to-the-public libraries? (link)
- (From a convo with a friend) How she distinguishes between keeping a community welcoming without bending over backwards: “All people, but not all behavior is welcomed” (link)
- It seems that some midsized tech companies are going through a reverse innovator’s dilemma: they only pursue innovation/brand-new ideas and features, at the expense of keeping up with their core product. Ignoring the fundamentals to chase down new ideas that nobody really wants. Maybe startups are especially afraid of becoming stodgy old companies, so they overcompensate? Is this unique to tech, vs. other industries? (link)
Thinking of re-organizing this page chronologically, instead of by theme, so it’s clearer which ones are new.
Links
Useful articles I’ve read this past month.
- “The Twitch Streamers Who Spend Years Broadcasting to No One” (Patricia Hernandez): Similarly to open source, creators finding value in making their work public, even if nobody’s looking
- “A Future Friendly Fork” (Zooko Wilcox): I have a half-formed theory on “maximum local governance”: the idea that governance should only be as big as it can be simple/non-contentious, and to some extent, that dictates software design. Any bigger and you should fork or start a new project. This post provoked further thoughts on when you should break apart governance vs. when you should fork (not always the same)
- Handshake paper: Handshake started a $10.2M community fund for OSS developers, and they’re allocating 70% of their tokens to OSS developers. I suggest skimming the “Project Summary” section to understand why they did it, and how they hope to align sponsor/developer incentives. (More info on their website)
- Research bonanza! Tricks for getting access to paywalled papers (Holly Witteman), why research isn’t like building a startup (Vi Hart), and cheaper travel costs encourage collaboration among scientists (Christian Catalini et al)
Books
Relevant books that I’ve read this month.
- The Psychology of Everyday Things (Don Norman): I read this for structural reasons, as I’m still looking for more books that “catalog our observed world”. In this case, it’s Don Norman looking at everyday objects to better understand design concepts. Good reminder that understanding essential questions, while often unglamorous, is an important and overlooked part of research.
- The Wizard and the Prophet (Charles Mann): I am half-techno-optimist and half-apocalyptic-permabear, and I really enjoyed this fair and balanced treatment of the two philosophies, viewed through the lens of environmental issues. IMO, exceptionally well-researched and well-written.
- Tuxedo Park (Jennet Conant): Biography of Alfred Loomis (a Wall Street magnate who used his wealth to fund science research), written in the style of the New York Times’ wedding section. Some useful insights on independent research, which makes it worth a skim. And if you’re into WWII military technology (which I am not), this is an interesting look into how they were developed and used.
Internet Money by nayafia 88 Colin P Kelly Jr St San Francisco, CA USA
Sent to jasdevs@gmail.com — UnsubscribeDelivered by
