📚Uprooted by @naominovik.bsky.social Well-crafted dark fairy tale, compelling setting, interesting magic system. The main character is irritatingly dense (and the Dragon irritatingly taciturn), but eventually figures things out. Felt novel, but comfortable. Enchanting, even. Loved it. #booksky

Your intellectual fly is open bcantrill.dtrace.org/2025/12/05/y...

I wrote a post diving into Marketing Platform Engineering, which is the "craft of building the systems and workflows that enable marketing teams to work at their best", described by @aurooba.com. If you're an engineer working to support marketing (or a marketer supported by engineers), read it.

📚Spy School: Blackout by Stuart Gibbs If you liked the previous 12 Spy School books, you'll like this one. As usual, action and mystery with a lot of humor. I liked the Komodo dragons. (Excellent middle-grade series. Might be good for reluctant readers, especially boys.) #booksky

📚Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid Library reading challenge for September was "book set in the decade you were born". Fast, enjoyable read. Family history and how it impacts the present. Gossipy but raw, alternating celebrity glamour and real consequences of bad decisions. #booksky

📚Deep Dive by @ronwaltersbooks.bsky.social, random library pickup. Fast-paced, well-constructed sci-fi thriller. Much more interesting than I expected given the synopsis says the protagonist "find[s] himself trapped" in virtual reality. Fun read, clever premise, and just a little creepy. #booksky

"Weeks of coding can save you minutes of thinking." It's true! I wrote an article exploring how the models you choose can make software easier—or harder to build and maintain. And yes, there's a case study of a bad model I chose. Also includes advice on picking better models.

This is a fun talk, with lots of good lessons on becoming a more effective engineer. I took away several good reminders and a few new thoughts, and I've been doing this for a couple decades. Ross is a really good engineer, and a kind and wise human as well. Worth watching!

📚The Engineering Executive's Primer by @lethain.com. A bit dry, but actionable and just as advertised. Good "start here" for lots of topics, and covers high-level mindset. Useful starter manual + handbook for those stepping into (or curious about) exec roles. #booksky

I learned something about sed today! I knew you could delete a range of line numbers: sed '2,5d' I didn't realize you could use patterns, too: sed '/#Start/,/#End/d' (If you don't know what sed is, and why this is cool, that's okay. In short, it edits text without user interaction.)

I wrote an article about an unreasonably useful question you can ask: "How do you know?" Not challenging, but examining. And ways to become more certain. “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” - Mark Twain

It’s Fat Bear Week! 🐻 Go and “vote for the bear you believe best exemplifies fatness and success in brown bears.” #fatbearweek

Yeah I can read about something but how can I _really_ learn what it is? This was the question that struck me during a morning walk and this piece is an attempt to answer it. ilonaborsos.com/en/posts/jak...

Heard this arrangement of "The Times They Are A-Changin'" at a choir concert last spring. It's beautiful.

If you assign a deadline, give a reason. Deadlines drive behavior, and if you don't share the reason for a deadline, you might be driving the wrong behavior.

📚 "This is Lean, Resolving the Efficiency Paradox" by Niklas Modig and Pär Åhlström. Slim book, concisely defines "Lean" beyond "what Toyota does". Encourages deliberate choices and ongoing improvement. Excellent read, despite some (translation?) clunkiness in wording. #booksky #lean #agile

📚Radio Free Vermont by @billmckibben.bsky.social A craft beer tour of Vermont hidden inside a climate fiction tale of backwoods local government, community, potential (inadvertent) secession, and biathlon. Quirky, silly, fun to read, yet thought-provoking. Good for fans of Parks & Rec or NPR. 🎙️

Had way too many tabs. I still have way too many tabs, but now at least they're organized. Window 1: email, two current-but-small projects (~15) Window 2: to-read (~100) Window 3: job search (and a few related to marketing my manager coaching biz, ~10) Separating contexts to help my brain. 🧠

"If you're remote, ramble." Never tried having a personal ramblings channel for each team member like @stephango.com suggests. But I have noticed remote teams are more effective the more they share—and yes, ramble—in public. It avoids isolation and keeps the humans connected.

Here's a great list of ideas if you feel like you're too engrossed in that little glass rectangle in your pocket (or...the one you're staring at RIGHT NOW 😜). Bonus idea: a friend of mine has started inviting people to have lunch at his house. "Come on over, let's make some sandwiches."

I’m just cheering for a good 🏈 game…wait. No. That’s a complete lie. I’m cheering for the Cyclones to beat the Hawkeyes. Go State! 🌪️🌪️🌪️ #cyclones #cyhawk 🦡

📚"Murder by Memory" by @oliviawaite.com, random library pickup. It's a cozy murder mystery novella set on an interstellar ship. New bodies are available to passengers when needed—so how (and why?) did this murder happen? Fun premise, interesting setting, well constructed, quick read. #booksky

Finally wrote that little shell script to automate that slightly tedious manual step in a task I do a few times a week. It's already worth it. That task is so much less annoying now.

📚I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle Charming fantasy tale of a beautiful princess, handsome prince, a dragon exterminator, dragons, and an evil wizard. Funny yet deep, subversion of the genre yet conventional. Hints of a big world, but tight and focused. Very enjoyable read! #booksky

Cross-country running is the only high school sport I’m aware of that results in athletes and spectators being sweaty and tired for the same reasons. 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃

📚Exit Strategy by Charlton Pettus. Tough situation ➡️ despair ➡️ disappearing. Then things start to get wild. Page-turner, fast-paced thriller, but lots of graphic icky/gory/cruel stuff. Some plot gaps, some unresolved issues, and some of the characters were not well constructed. #booksky

📚August = Biography Month at MPL. My basketball-loving son handed me the bio of his favorite player: Giannis by Mirin Fader (@mirinfader.bsky.social). Great research, thorough, very readable. Covers hardships and highs equally well. Spoiler: Giannis becomes a good basketball player. 🏀 #booksky

If your team has difficulty communicating—or remembering—the communication/collaboration maturity model in this article from @another.rodeo is worth a read.

📚Interstellar Megachef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan (@lavanya.bsky.social). Despite the sprinkle donut on the cover, a fairly heavy read. Good for foodie technocritics interested in sociology, probably. Enjoyed it. Loved the ambiguity and "anything could happen" feel of the ending. #booksky

This feels like a spot of good news www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

📚 Hum by Helen Phillips @helencphillips.bsky.social (second opinion; my wife read it for a grad class and disliked it) Perceptive and likely prescient dystopian novel about humans, tech, and who the tech serves. Thought-provoking, worth a read. BUT very unsure if I liked or enjoyed it. 😵‍💫 #booksky

The full schedule for LoopConf (London, 25th September) is now out. I'm sharing a stage with some amazing people. I'm also working on some fun things for my talk - which is almost going to be a mini conference-within-a-conference! You can get £50 off a ticket with code “ROSS50”. www.loopconf.com

📚 Space Oddity by Catherynne Valente (@catvalente.bsky.social), sequel to Space Opera. Liked Opera? You'll like this. Must read Opera first. Oddity explores the absurd galaxy and its species. Weird, confusing, absolutely beautiful ending. 🦡 And a badger named Douglas. 🦡 Very enjoyable. #booksky

📚 "The Point" by John Dixon, random library grab. Rebellious teenager with mutant powers ends up at secret West Point training program in lieu of jail, then...crisis! Quick read, exciting enough, a bit formulaic at times. (Seemed a bit of a YA take on The Rook by O'Malley.) #booksky

📚 There's a sequel to "How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse"! Picked up "How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge" by K. Eason (@svartjagr.bsky.social). Much different feel from the original, but still an enjoyable read. Book 1 took place over months (and years). Book 2, a day or so. #booksky

Wrote about something my gym knows about managing work that I see ignored by a shocking number of managers. TL;DR: Keeping people busy is not as good as "follow the work" and focusing on priorities.

📚📚📚Three Jennifer Lynn Barnes books, Hawthorne universe. - The Grandest Game - Games Untold (I was told I needed to read it here "because of Prague") - Glorious Rivals Grandest Game and Glorious rivals: solid Hawthorne books. Games Untold: short stories. Uneven but fun. #booksky

PSA: Store-bought pita bread can start to mold inside, and it can be hard to see. If it’s near or past the sell-by date, it’s worth checking for interior mold before you get too excited about your lunch idea.

Space Opera by Catherynne Valente (@catvalente.bsky.social), random library grab because of the absurd disco-ball-Saturn cover. 📚 To prove we humans are sentient, we need to not come in last in an interstellar Eurovision-style contest. Weird, wordy, fun, Hitchhiker's Guide-style. #booksky

"How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse" by K. Eason (@svartjagr.bsky.social‬), random library pickup. Large-scale political maneuvering, treachery, and interpersonal maneuvering. Plus a clever take on computer hacking (minor aspect, ok for non-geeks!). Really enjoyable read. #booksky

I get why companies use noreply email addresses. I really do. But I wonder what that’s doing to our sense of (dis)connection. Our sense that it’s all transactional and about me. Our feeling of being alone. Instead of Mr Jones at the corner store, it’s [email protected]. Impersonal.

"This Will Be Fun" by E.B. Asher, random library pickup. 📚📚 Quirky, fun, cozy. Definitely not a "real" fantasy novel, but an oddly-inspirational exploration of friendship and what it means to live life instead of expectations. Definitely silly, but I'm glad I read it. #booksky

The distinction between disposable code and durable code is insightful, and so is the notion that disposable code can eventually become durable code. Also has stuff about AI-assisted coding. 😄 Recommended reading.

Side project! I built a Stream Deck plugin to control Zoom. Then I made a video about it. Not as polished as MuteDeck, but a fun project to create. GitHub link: github.com/mattschouten...

July's genre at my public library: horror. Grabbed "The Soul Stealer" by Graham Masterton from the 📚 table. It's horror, so lots of bad things happen. Kept my interest reasonably well despite the awful and some flaws. Short summary: badly behaved Hollywood dudes x Native American magic. #booksky

📚"I'm Starting to Worry About This Big Black Box of Doom" by Jason Pargin, random library pickup. Dark humor, ridiculous premise, insightful commentary about social media and "truth". Pace was uneven, but start and end were both good. How hard could a cross-country road trip be? #booksky

Working on some audio processing code. If I need a variable name for the instantaneous amplitude of a sample, how bad is it if I go with "samplitude"?

A thought experiment: you're hiring. A candidate walks in that can produce 10x what a good employee can produce in a week—in a single hour. But if they work more than an hour a week, productivity goes negative. Do you hire them? How much do you pay them? And how much do you expect them to work?

📚Chilling Effect by @valerievaldes.bsky.social 📚- random library pickup. Kidnapping, organized crime, an amorous fish-faced emperor, plot twists, wisecracks, strong female space captain. Very Firefly feel. Quirky, fast-paced, will read the sequel. A few slow parts, overall quite fun. #booksky

📚The Village Library Demon Hunter's Society by CM Waggoner 📚 Starts slow. Gets ridiculous. Decidedly non-literary, and lots of fun. A 63-year old librarian realizes she's solved way too many murders for her small town, and goes looking to figure out why. Excellent big reveal at the end. #booksky