Programmers: Stop Whining, Be Productive
I was pointed to Paul Graham’s post about programmers running on a separate schedule than other people. Programmers run on the “maker’s schedule” and prefer to work in large chunks of time, with units of at least half a day. Others, particularly their bosses, operate on the “manager’s schedule” and have things defined into hour-long chunks. Interactions between the two typically cause friction:
I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there’s sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I’m slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you’re a maker, think of your own case. Don’t your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don’t. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.
This is bullshit.
I’m not attacking Graham; he is merely pointing out the problem and explaining how he responds: by placing managers on the maker’s schedule. But this mentality is held by too many programmers, each of whom strokes his or her ego by running on a special schedule and taking advantage of the night, while the inferior mortals sleep.
Come on people, wake up (seriously, it’s 11 am already). This is not an issue of inability; it is an issue of discipline. I admit that interruptions are hard to recover from, and that a ten hour block is more productive than five two-hour blocks. But wasting an entire afternoon because you have an appointment at 3 is childish. Programmers get into a mode of thinking where they believe that the work they do is somehow more intense and more specialized than that of others. “I’m going to strap myself down and work for twenty hours,” they say, “because this is serious business. You can’t just scoot into your chair and tippy-tap for a few hours. You could really hurt yourself.” Again, bullshit.
I had the pleasure of attending Eric Ries’ presentation on The Lean Startup. Among the huge wealth of insight he had to share, one particular anecdote stuck with me. His company had traced the root of a particular problem to insufficient training procedures for new hires. Upon speaking to a manager about this, the manager explained that he agreed the problem was there but that he had so much to do he couldn’t possibly devote several days to setting up a training program. Ries suggested that the manager take one hour right then to do whatever he would have done for the first hour of establishing the training program. The manager retorted by highlighting the absurdity of this response, but Ries persisted, and off he went. The result of his hour of work was the creation of a new wiki page with a dozen bullet points stating some things that were good to know. This turns out to be reasonably useful, and more importantly, a subsequent hour of work the next week could expand this and get a lot more done.
I know it doesn’t always apply, but it’s commendable and inspiring. At work the next week, I found myself with 2 hours before a lunchtime meeting. I could have putzed around the internet for a couple of hours and saved my productivity to increase momentum in the afternoon, but I didn’t do that. Instead, I set up a quick database table and enabled logins on the website. After lunch I had a few minutes before a phone call, so I enabled logouts on the website. Rinse and repeat, you’ve got a social networking site by supper.
My point here is that anybody can be productive in any amount of time. It’s difficult, sure, and requires discipline. But productivity feels great, and it makes you far more flexible as a worker. It’s comparable to the sensation of waking up early to exercise and realizing how much time you had been wasting by sleeping past lunch. If you haven’t experienced this yet, I highly recommend it as well.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Profoundly moving
By Muriel Barbery, this novel is the story of two hyper-intelligent individuals living among Paris’ high society: Renée Michel, the concierge of the apartment building, and Paloma Josse, the shockingly perceptive 12-year-old. They seem to embody everything that the privileged elite should be but isn’t; the juxtaposition of their wisdom and class against the frivolous and shallow natures of those around them constantly lashes out at the empty finicking of the bourgeois lifestyles.
At the same time, this tiresome emptiness is contrasted with Japanese aesthetics, which often find beauty in simplicity. The line between nullness and emptiness is a thin but important distinction. Japanese art and culture are a constant source of peace for the two. Surely it is no coincidence that the arrival of the Japanese man is what brings new meaning into their lives.
The book is incredibly dense with wonderful material. Most of the book is structured to have one profound thought per chapter, and this adds up to a huge mass of wisdom and perceptiveness. Most authors, having arrived at one of these insights, would probably attempt to write a book about it, a masterpiece (they hope) which pivots around a truly thought-provoking idea. Barbery, on the other hand, had the audacity to fill the book with these thoughts and reveal one per chapter. It almost feels wasteful, seeing myself briefly appreciate the beauty of one chapter before hurrying off with excitement to see what will come next.
I wish I could comment more on the significance of Tolstoy, but I am grossly ill-versed. Maybe I’ll revisit this after reading Anna Karenina and re-reading The Hedgehog and the Fox.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Amazingly imaginative
This is the story of Oskar Schell, a young boy who is on a quest around New York City, attempting to solve a mystery left in the wake of his father’s death in the 9/11 attacks. The story is told in the form of narratives, letters, and journal entries from the perspective of three individuals, and their interwoven stories are revealed expertly in parallel. The book works as a scrapbook, with the reader discovering elements from the story appearing on the pages, as though they had been pasted in.
The best part of this book is the people you meet, and the stories they tell. Oskar meets a great number of people around the city, and each offers a delightful kernel of his or her life. Alongside these quick glimpses are stories and asides presented by the major characters, not necessarily relevant but always illuminating. Every anecdote is a gem that begs to be savored, and I often found myself setting down the book so I could digest.
This, I believe, is my absolute favorite book. I recommend it to everybody. Written by Jonathan Safran Foer, I believe it to be far superior to Everything is Illuminated.
Samasource Selected for fbFund REV
Hooray! Along with 18 companies and one other non-profit, Samasource was chosen to participate in fbFund’s incubator program this summer. Check out the full list of winners on VentureBeat or InsideFacebook.
What this means is that we’ll have Palo Alto office space, lots of media attention, an official Facebook seal of approval, and possibly free lunches /crossfingers. The catch?
Due to the way fbFund is structured, the non-profit startups cannot receive funding (Facebook dev blog).
Bummer…
Samasource’s Facebook product will allow developers to create work opportunities for underprivileged workers by setting up periodic testing for their active applications. With Samasource, developers lower costs, reduce poverty, and improve their applications. Being chosen as a fbFund winner, despite not entailing cash, is extremely significant. Samasource, along with Vittana, the other non-profit winner, is poised to be a frontrunner of social entrepreneurship within the Facebook ecosystem. Being able to work with Facebook officially should greatly increase product quality, market penetration, and overall social impact. Samasource also will provide a valuable service to application developers, so I have high hopes for the success of this project.
Now a quick word about changes within fbFund. Previously the fund awarded grants to the winners, but this year the funding is in the form of an equity investment (more coverage here). This makes sense, and I think it’s a reasonable change. It does put the non-profits in an awkward spot, but I believe that’s just growing pains. Two non-profits were chosen this year, and that’s a big deal. Optimism tells me that social entrepreneurship will hold a much more prominent position in the years to come. Exciting things are happening in the world of social change, and Samasource is fortunate enough to be able to make an impact in a high-visibility environment. We will not disappoint.
Meals as a Social Activity
Today I ate dinner alone. I think there is nothing wrong with that, but you just don’t see people alone in restaurants all that often (Aren’t you going to be bored? Do you want a magazine or something?). Eating meals, in most cultures everywhere, is regarded as a social activity. I would like to explore why, and have a few hypotheses.
Everybody has to do it. Three times a day, nearly everybody will eat food at roughly the same time. People share this activity, and so it makes sense for that time to be designated for social interaction. If everybody had tea at 3, or went to the gym at 4, then those would just as strongly be considered a social activity.
We are forced to sit down. In our busy lives, we are either doing something or are on our way elsewhere to do something. We need to eat though, and eating takes a few minutes, so we take a break and sit down. Meals become social times because they are the only times when social interaction is reliably possible.
For some, the social aspect of meals is essential. I have friends who refuse to spend meals alone, going out of their way to seek a companion or else not eating at all. This may even be the norm. Again, you never see people eating alone at restaurants. Why is this? When did conversation turn from a pleasant circumstance into an essential feature? If hypothesis two is true, then it may be because we depend upon meals for interaction. That doesn’t explain not eating, though. If you are forced to eat dinner alone, the conclusion ought to be, “Oh well, I guess I’ll eat alone today,” and not, “My meal is ruined, so I’ll settle for a quick sandwich.” Conversation is so essential that in its absence we lose all motivation to put effort into a meal. Solitude is preventative of food consumption.
No. That’s not true. Solitude prevents meals, and we resort to mere food consumption. A meal then, ought to be defined as an instance of eating food with others. We have redefined our culinary habits to be inherently social.
Where, then, does that put me? I usually eat meals very quickly, eager to get on with more interesting and productive parts of my life. Conversation is enjoyed, but only in the capacity of my minimal meal time. On the other hand, I enjoy good food and will seize any chance to eat well, even at the cost of doing so alone. It seems I regard meals primarily as food consumption, and enjoy it for gustatory factors. It is probably indicative that I required this posting to realize that meals are inherently social.
But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I am a sociable person who appreciates food. I enjoy conversation at irregular intervals and don’t mind time spent alone. Don’t get me wrong though, I would love to have dinner together. In fact, let’s do it soon.
Is that a Cigarette or a Lollipop?
I saw a girl at a bus stop who appeared to have a cigarette in her mouth. “Yuck,” I thought. Then, I realized it was a lollipop. I immediately wanted to become her friend.
You see, there is something special about lollipops. As far as your mouth is concerned, you could just as well be eating a normal hard candy. But the stick makes a world’s difference. You are proclaiming to the world, “I am enjoying a candy.” There is no way to be inconspicuous about eating a lollipop. You have committed to this act, and do so with no shame.
And anybody who feels such passion for candy is all right in my book.
Gravity Summit Stanford: Wrap-up
Tuesday, May 5th was Gravity Summit’s “Social Media Marketing for Business” at Stanford. I’ve known Rodney Rumford since Joachim and I made Graffiti for Facebook, and he was kind enough to save me a spot.
The focus of the talks was very much aimed towards large businesses; presentations were given by such notable people as Bob Pearson of Dell, Inc. and Charles Miller from DIRECTV. That said, it seemed there were plenty of small business owners attending, and many of the points were generalizable. The main idea is:
Social Media is conversation. When a business or individual understands this, they can do great things.
Bob Pearson pointed out that “the majority of customers don’t call you.” Businesses have largely been detached from consumers, interacting only when the customer pursues a purchase. This no longer should be the case, as businesses now have the tools to actively engage in conversation with their customers and meet them halfway.
Social Media brings conversations into the open, and allows businesses to be aware of what people are saying. They then need to actively engage in these conversations and be involved in the dialogue. In doing so, businesses will learn more about the community and share more about themselves. In short, they must learn to be transparent.
Becoming a Better Writer
I just ordered Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style,” 50th anniversary edition. I don’t have the book yet, but the purchase inspired me to pay more attention to writing. Hopefully this can be someplace where I can practice writing, incorporating new ideas and polishing my prose. No high hopes yet, as I don’t often continue such things for long, but we’ll see how it goes :)
Thelonius Monk’s advice to saxophonist Steve Lacy (1960)
Found here first
Dinner for 2
I was at a restaurant last night and saw a couple having dinner together. At a few points, the guy was texting on his phone and the girl was looking really bored. Boo on him.
And then once he finished he left his phone sitting open on the table. I guess he was expecting replies? Maybe that sort of thing is commonplace now, but I still think it’s rude.