Distillations About

10/20/2017

  • It’s been a long time since the last entry. I honestly wonder if anyone reads these anymore. I’ve poured my efforts into more well-formed posts these days, but I miss the contrast of this vulnerable enclave I’ve carved out.
  • A bit delayed on writing down this thought. But, earlier in the fall when people would ask how my summer went, I could honestly say it was the best one yet. I don’t mean that in some sort of flowery nostalgic way. Looking back on my private journal entries from those months, each week just got better and better. It was dense with leaps of faith, look-back memories with close friends, concerts, fitness, and so much more. Thankful.
  • Companies and teams I’m excited about these days (aside from Peloton):
    • Chorus
    • Headspace
    • watchOS, Health, and Activity teams at Apple (very underrated at the moment)
    • Patreon
    • Studio
    • Strava
  • Been thinking a lot about Niraj’s tweet the other day about remembering that time is zero-sum. Replacing “I don’t have time for X” with “I don’t want to make time for X” is powerful.
  • Stumbled across an old Jason Somer’s post that hits home with regard to why we’re often open to sharing early versions of code, but not writing. Reminded me of an old thread w/ Sravanti (I had deleted the root tweet, but it questioned why more writers don’t share early drafts).
  • Simler’s post on “organic” versus “mechanic“ thinking was stellar. By extension, it made me wonder about this split with regard to purely abstract domains like mathematics. By construction, it’s mechanical (i.e. sub-fields stem from varying sets of axioms). However, the fact that are propositions we can never prove and still-standing mysteries like the distribution of primes exist is fascinating. It’s amazing that a human-made, mechanical system has pockets of unreachability and mystery that feel organic.
  • Writing this entry on a calm Friday night in. Attending an illustration class (h/t Kate), housewarming, and will have some time to start an early draft of an upcoming tech talk (!!!) tomorrow. But, I’ll likely procrastinate by writing something else. I’ve been itching to get to a longer essay I’ve wanted to write on “emotional ranges”, which will be my first post with illustrations and somehow loops in Jaccard indices. The outline I have for it is busting at the seams.