Tech ramblings, inclusion, and natural bodybuilding.
So close! But not today! I've done this in practice, but couldn't put it together in the meet. This was definitely the meet to do it in, as they allow "touch and go." Video: Mekka getting so close to benching 500 lbs in a meet.
Finally putting it all together! I've hit 495 lbs so many times in my life, but always missed 500 lbs for silly reasons, before this lift. Now I just have to do this in a meet, so that it can be recorded for all time. Yes, there are a lot of people that can bench over 500 lbs. But no, there are not a lot of lifetime natural athletes that can do it. This is super heavy. Video: Mekka benching 500…
Happy Black History Month! But I don't want to talk about Black History. I want to talk about white US history. Once we get through learning all about white US history, we can get back to the Black history. A big problem in the US, is that Black people know a lot of US history that white people don't know. This is a problem, because it causes people to view the same situations with vastly…
Who gets to fail? This period of El*n "throw a plate of spaghetti against a wall and see what sticks" leadership illustrates what I've been saying: What a lot of people mistake for genius, is just permission to fail over and over again until eventually something kinda works. People from underrepresented backgrounds don't get that opportunity. There is no Black person or woman in tech that could…
This ties a lifetime PR for me. Grown man strength. Raw natural. No shirt, no PEDs. Yeah, there are people that lift more, but not many of them are also lifetime natural. Not hating on people that choose a different path. You do you. 495 lbs View this post on Instagram A post shared by mekka (@mekkatech)
One more year in the books. 445 solid lbs. 500 lbs is the goal for next year! 445 lbs View this post on Instagram Yay! #445lbs on the #benchpress to win the overall and the lb for lb (Wilkes) at the #exos #gfitgames . Bar speed was good! Maybe 450 lbs was there? 🤷🏿♂️ What do you think? At any rate, I'm happy with that lift. This puts me within 50 lbs of my lifetime PR (495lbs). Beast mode is…
Hey underrepresented folks in technical roles! Performance review season is upon us. I want to take a few moments to remind you about some practical tips that can help you be evaluated more fairly in this and future seasons. This tip is called " The Difficulty Anchor ." It can be a critical tool for you to be evaluated fairly. This works exactly the same for a new hire SWE, all the way up to…
My name is Mekka, and I’m an Engineering Director on Google Play. I’ve built inclusive engineering teams at start-ups, and large tech companies like Google. My current team of engineers is around 30% women, 10% black, and 10% Latinx. Half of the engineering managers are women. Our team is also inclusive on dimensions that are not visible: sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, country of…
Just uploading my old typical warmup for a heavy single at 405 lbs. Anything 405 and up counts as heavy. I don't warm up this way anymore, but this is what I used to do most of my life when working up to a heavy single. These days, I do more reps at lower weight, and focus more on bar speed. I can get from out of shape to being able to do 405 lbs fairly quickly. Getting from 405 to 495 took me…
This is heavy if you do it with the correct form. I like drop sets because it lets me fully fatigue the traps without having to go super heavy. I find I get decent strength in my traps by pre-fatiguing with very high rep sets before the drop sets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVbhjDJ9qic I do this at the end of the shoulder workout. 225 x 45 315 x 30 405 x 25 Drop set: 585 x 5, 495 x 5, 405 x 5…
I like to use the Hammer strength machine for decline bench press. I feel like the restricted range of motion is safer on my shoulders, and I can safely go heavy without a spotter. I say heavy, but I keep the rep range at 10+, as most gyms don't have 100 lb plates. I squeeze at the top to try to exhaust the muscle so I fail as close to 10 as possible. This was at the LA Fitness in Irvine, where I…
Now that my achilles is feeling better, I can do some overhead military press again. I like to do these with strict form until I get the feel back. I went up to 275 lbs, which was not bad for 1st day back. When I get to 315, I will start push-pressing to get more reps. I find it unnecessary to go over 315. I can get as big and strong as I need to be by adding a few sets at 315. I'll use the seated…
I was in LA for the weekend so decided to swing by Muscle Beach for a workout. It was Chest and Back day. I don't really go super heavy that much anymore, so just went up to 315 on flat banch. I got it 9 times with full range of motion and slow controlled reps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3InGAQNoqrI
The press has been kind so far. I'm impressed that they picked up some of the more customer friendly commerce details in the site. This was a lot of work and I'm super proud of the team that came together to build this. It's a greatly improved customer experience, and really showcases the products that are built with Google. Visit the Google Store . Responsive and optimized for mobile Material…
The security team at Google is good. Really good. Sometimes they find bugs in our programs that hackers could exploit. We fix these as fast as we can. Sometimes they find bugs in programs written by other companies. Google Security warns these other companies in private, then gives them 90 days to fix the bugs before they tell the world. If the 90 days passes and the company has still not fixed…
It's your content. Watch it where you want. Read the official blog post
There are developers in China. Like a lot. They build good stuff. http://android-developers.blogspot.sg/2014/11/chinese-developers-can-now-offer-paid.html
I was lucky enough to be asked to be a judge at the 2014 Howard University Hackathon sponsored by Google. It was a blast. At some point during every 24hr hackathon, energy gets looowww. You have to do so something to pick everyone up! Sometimes this is a run around the building, or group jumping jacks. Howard University and Hampton University set a new bar, with the "2am Turn-Up!" The main…
I still can't believe that when I arrived at Google, the Google Play website didn't even render correctly on mobile. (/images/assets/scrn-google-play-mobile-1.png) O hai mobile web users! Who likes pinching and zooming? Nobody! This is better. Thanks for noticing, Android Police. http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/05/23/the-google-play-store-finally-has-a-mobile-web-interface-take-a-look/
Some fun launches: Chromecast is now available in 11 more regions: Movies and Music All Access are now available 39 more places too: Congrats team!
Happy New Year everyone!