Back at AWS
Quick update. I’m back at AWS in a new role, in a different organization.
Read MorePeople, Process, Product, Customer, and how people fit in organizations
My best work has been in places that are process-customer, but I’ve done well in process-product as well. I have not done well in people-dominated organizations.
Read MoreIn praise of simple tools
I write using Emacs and LaTeX. I’ll grudgingly copy and paste to other formats because the organization demands it but I do better work with the simpler tool. Some people prefer to use Vim. They are Wrong, but less wrong than people who use Google Docs, Quip, or (angels and ministers of grace defend us!) Microsoft Word.
Read MoreBroadly vs. Locally-useful skills
Early on, I programmed on mainframes in COBOL… I’m sure I could do it again. But I’d be tossing away some highly valuable, broadly-applicable and current AWS skills. Want me to to that? As a spiritual pilgrim once said to a penguin: “cough up some dough, mac.”
Read MoreGet up, dress up, show up, never give up… and be replaced by a robot
Never giving up at the things you were told to do was the essence of work in the industrial age. Giving up quickly on things that are more trouble than they’re worth is what it takes to be successful today.
Read MoreRosh Hashana (New Year) Update
It’s been a busy year with a lot of changes, both Covid-related and otherwise. As is my custom, here’s my update for this circle around the sun.
Read MoreHow I got hired at AWS
Being yourself matters as much as anything.
And be nice to the airline staff. They can really make or break your life.
Read MoreWhat the fuck are you doing there?
“Hey man,” I said in my native New York tongue, “You’re not gonna believe this, but I’m calling from Frankfurt…”
“What the FUCK are you doing there?”
It was a pretty good question.
Read MoreNo Undoing
The joy of photography for me was never in the finished product, and certainly not the moment of capturing the image on film. The joy was in that painstaking work that it took to bring my vision of what the negative could be, into being on paper.
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