Recent content in EmergeSource on emergesource
Cool stuff I read this week: software, orgs, weird internet. 
 https://www.chrisgregori.dev/opinion/code-is-cheap-now-software-isnt 
 https://www.ablg.io/blog/no-management-needed 
 https://creepylink.com 
 https://lalitm.com/post/why-senior-engineers-let-bad-projects-fail/ 
 https://www.seangoedecke.com/predators/
I really like this article. Even if you never operate this way, the exercise will give you amazing redeploy readiness when disaster strikes. 
 https://lukasniessen.medium.com/ephemeral-infrastructure-why-short-lived-is-a-good-thing-2cf26afd75ef
I was glad to see that the good guys including Superman have returned to being unconflicted. In this one, the people of Metropolis and the world are confused and filled with moral amibguity. A fitting cautionary reflection. Great fast pacing and twisty flying camera shots made it feel like riding a rollercoaster. Standout performaces go to Mister Terrific and Eve Teschmacher . The Teschmacher…
However Briefly has been launched on Product Hunt! 
 https://www.producthunt.com/posts/however-briefly
However Briefly 
 I created However Briefly several years ago so I could have a personal news timeline. I wanted to be able to briefly catch up with my interests from my phone and avoid any doom-scrolling or rabbit hole adventures. 
 I was inspired by the minimal style of Hacker News. I can quickly scan for stories that interest me and decide without images or clickbait if I want to pursue…
Great new album from Kim Deal called Nobody Loves you more .
 
When the horns come crashing in for the first time in the title track, my face lit up with a smile and I couldn’t help but thinking way to go Kim Deal! '. 
 Horns, guitars, base grooves, and those aloha style melodies that Kim is uncanny at took me somewhere else while I was doing the dishes this morning. 
 For…
A minor redesign of emergesource.com. Changes include: 
 
 The call to action on the homepage is now more direct. 
 The fonts are more readable and business like and less l33t hack0ry. 
 Pricing and service cards stand out more. 
 Expanded Service details. 
 Both Light and dark mode are now honored depending on your system preference. 

2024, Cal Newport
2019, Alberto Savoia 
 Great book on figuring out product market fit. Alberto shares with us his system of “pretotyping” (instead of prototyping) to figure out if your idea can survive in the market before you waste too much time on it. I love how his examples are funny. You follow along learning his techniques while having a lot of fun at the same time. 
 Notes: 
 Make…
2014, David Graeber 
 An expansive book about the history of money from the anthropological perspective.
There is a lot to unpack here, but the gist of it is how the concept of debt has shaped our societies and behaviours through the evolution of human civilization.
2018, Stephen Harper 
 I tried to read this book a few years ago when it was first released but If I’m honest it kept putting me to sleep. 
 Perhaps my interest in the subject matter has grown considerably due to the current political chaos in Canada because when I tried it again at the end of 2024 I couldn’t put it down. 
 Harper preaches balance with a (lower case c)…
One thing I need to remind myself of is to take a break when stuck. 
 It’s a simple hack that’s super easy to forget when I’m a couple of hours into a coding session. I’m consistently guilty of ignoring my own advice and I’m thankful to have a wife who reminds me when she senses I’m getting frustrated. 
 Coding like many cognitively complex tasks…
“Canadians are generally indistinguishable from the Americans, and the surest way of telling the two apart is to make the observation to a Canadian.” 
 –Richard Starnes 1965
Here are some notes I made for myself while exploring using Sendgrid with Digital Ocean DNS. 
 
 
 Proceed with reduced complexity 
 I wasted over an hour and almost destroyed a keyboard while testing the mail server. I quadruple checked my perfect settings and debugged with telnet to no avail until I realized it was my own stupid fault all along.
Do yourself a favour and make…
I’ve made the case before that cicd should be a sprint zero activity. Here is a good article & video making that same case for observability. 
 https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/2024/09/25/observability-as-a-day-zero-operation/
2019, Ryan Holiday 
 This is the second Ryan Holiday book I’ve gone through recently alongside Discipline is Destiny .
I’m really starting to enjoy Ryan’s writing style. Holiday provides us with well researched examples of historical figures living out the psychological principles he presents to us.
It makes for a really enjoyable combination of self help and history.…
Here is a great article about testing and deployment strategies used at Uber. 
 https://news.alvaroduran.com/p/cringey-but-true-how-uber-tests-payments 
 I can really appreciate this story as someone who has done this despite facing criticism from both engineers and management alike. 
 Production issues will arise regardless of how awesome your testing environments are. If you can…
“I know that I know nothing” – Socretes 
 In 2023 we lost one of our elder statesmen Henry Kissinger . As polarizing as he may be, Kissinger served his country in every capacity he was called to dutifully his entire life. It’s important to note that during his influence the ultimate catastrophe never materialized. In World Order well into his 90’s, Henry leaves us…
The Almanac of Naval Ravikant isn’t really a book. Rather a collection of thoughts and tweets from tech entrepreneur Naval Ravikant . Naval has been a very successful venture hacker so we can stipulate that he knows a thing or two about a thing or two. The book is divided into 3 main sections; health, wealth and happiness. There is some great insight here and I think this book is worth a…
https://newatlas.com/music/stratocaster-70-fender-factory/

 One thing that people always ask me for is book recommendations. To help me remember what I’ve read I decided to log the books I liked enough to actually finish. Consider it a a seal of approval based on attention. I get most of my books from the Toronto Public Library and they conveniently had my reading data for the past couple of years to seed my log. If you are interested in what…
In Surrounded by Idiots , Thomas Erikson presents the DISC personality theory . According to DISC theory there are four main personality types we all exhibit. This isn’t to pigeon hole anyone since it’s a spectrum with most people being 80% one personality type and 20% another. The DISC behaviours Erikson explains, are deeply ingrained in human psyche as he references observations…

 Principles. We all have them, but how often do we spend thinking about them? Or even better, writing them down? 
 As I found myself evolving as a tech leader, I realized I needed to make some adjustments to the way I approached my work. I had to shift away from technical details and more towards strategic thinking. I’m sure this is a common situation leaders find themselves in, but…

 This post is a long time coming, but last year I had the pleasure of talking to the great Robby Russell of oh-my-zsh fame for his maintainable podcast . 
 Robby is a great interviewer and quickly made me comfortable and forget we were recording. 
 If you like what you hear and want to learn more; check out my new Mentoring Program . I can help you put the techniques I talk about into…
Referenced in my engineering principles post.