Another rereading advocate: "I'm very much a rereader. I reread all the time. Books wait for you, and they blossom in the time between readings..." - Helen Oyeyemi, New Yorker interview In general, there is so much value in rereading, especially books that impacted us profoundly in the past.

It's a launch day at @redmonk.com! My colleague @monkchips.com, along with his lovely coauthors @kimmykimkimber.bsky.social @wiredferret.bsky.social & @azimman.bsky.social have released their Progressive Delivery book into the world! Let me tell you about their book! redmonk.com/rstephens/20...

The next #PapersInSystems discussion is Monday Dec 1, 1-2pm Eastern, Josh Reynolds will lead, and the paper is "The Architecture of Complexity" by Herbert Simon. More info/sign up (free of course): ti.to/bredemeyer/a...

One of my standards. Once you have the flavoring pastes, it's easy to make this using tofu (or eggs) and whatever vegetables you have in the fridge. thekoreanvegan.com/best-doenjan...

Join us in discussing this on Monday (Nov 3)?

definitely adding to Mount To Be Read

paging @briandorsey.bsky.social

paging @ruthmalan.bsky.social

“wish I’d found this 10 years ago”

“this was a really good read! i especially like the chaotic layout of the book 😂” Still chuckling because … not wrong haha. About my technical decisions chapbook www.linkedin.com/posts/bjorn-...

This meeting could have been a duel.

Papers in Systems virtual meetup on Monday! bsky.app/profile/ruth...

The problem with "you can just do things" is that other people can also just do things. You can get into an arms race of just doing things, or learn how to build shared intent. One of those approaches is masculine and exciting. The other one actually works. Guess which one AI tools encourage?

It is worth mentioning from time to time: “alumni” can take the same workshop again without paying again. We all learn so much from folk coming back and playing different roles in the co-created experience, bringing reflections and new avenues to explore, etc.

Innovation is a tricky subject. The art of innovation is not well studied, at least not by name In addition, multiple disciplines have research that overlaps significantly, but the integration lags behind by decades, making shared empirical research or identifying more global patterns difficult

Monday week (Nov 3): this one takes us to user innovation.

Next in #PapersInSystems: “User Driven Innovation: a condensed version of Eric Von Hippel's course,” curated by Bracken Mosbacker When: Mon Nov 3rd, 1–2pm Eastern Time (US/Canada) Notes with links to curated video segments: bracken.social/articles/use... Info/signup: ti.to/bredemeyer/u...

EVERYBODY GO READ THE AWS INCIDENT WRITE-UP! aws.amazon.com/message/1019...

You can't fix this by "increasing velocity" because that just makes things worse. (this is the prequel to the post above, there's a part 3 coming this week pulling together recent poastes from @ruthmalan.bsky.social @jarango.bsky.social and @eaton.fyi among other blueskies & from elsewhere)

We are deeply saddened by the loss of Greg Newby, who led Project Gutenberg ( @gutenberg.org ) with passion and purpose. Greg’s belief in free and open access to knowledge continues to inspire us and so many others working to preserve our shared culture online. gutenberg.org/about/newby....

I’m here for talks and a workshop at Lesley University tomorrow (10/23) which are both free and open to the public! My first time traveling in the US to do this sort of thing since February 2020… web.cvent.com/event/e9368c...

Next in #PapersInSystems: “User Driven Innovation: a condensed version of Eric Von Hippel's course,” curated by Bracken Mosbacker When: Mon Nov 3rd, 1–2pm Eastern Time (US/Canada) Notes with links to curated video segments: bracken.social/articles/use... Info/signup: ti.to/bredemeyer/u...

Hey systems nerds, these look cool.

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs - Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75% - Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60% - Social Sciences by 50–70% - History by 60% - Biology by 75% - The German department will lose all PhD seats - Sociology from six PhD students to zero

Systems zines! These are so darned cute (iissms)! Adventures in Systems (pdf: www.ruthmalan.com/Systems/2025...) BASIC from @danklyn.bsky.social (via understandinggroup.com/basic) What else you got?

@polgarp.bsky.social made a good post about this over on the purple website: we are adapting our discipline to fit the tools rather than vice versa, and it is killing us.

One day the industry will recognize the drawbacks of AI agents and nondeterministic automation, and rediscover the UNIX philosophy of chaining together small purpose built tools in a low cost and predictable way, otherwise known as shell scripts.

Our tooling is ever more powerful, so the traps of “going faster” needs a bigger slice of the attention pie!

There's a type of guy whose only contribution at work is sheer volume of outputs, whether or not they serve any purpose. AI tools ask us, "what if everyone could be that guy?" It would suck! A lot! Scaling up trash only makes more trash. Work that doesn't pave a road to a better system is waste.

Zine-aspiring people, this looks like a great list of resources! (cc @ruthmalan.bsky.social)

Come for THE ULTIMATE SYSTEM DESIGN RESOURCE stay for the WRY HUMOR www.linkedin.com/posts/ruth-m...

Some thoughts on destroying the illusion of perfection: incidentalcomics.substack.com/p/destroying...

I drew a connection between my thoughts on the importance of drawing badly & my anti-gen Ai statement - launched into an impassioned plea for why we need to struggle & make mistakes, in order to yield surprises - and how the decisions along the way shape you. I think they heard it...

Today - noon PT October 16! I’ll share my work, thoughts on thinking in comics, process, and we’ll end by drawing an abstract comic together! (And maybe have people post to here or somehow so I can see what people are making…)

Promptend developer.

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

*furiously takes notes, ignoring the reproachful gaze of Mount To Be Read*

I like this

This is very worthwhile if your schedule allows!

Years ago, someone who interviewed me for a job asked the question, "What is the thing you know you should care about but you don't, so someone else needs to?" I cannot remember what I said, but it's a fantastic question that I'm thinking about a lot in our current Age of Overwhelm.

The work is not about simplifying the system, but about designing the connective tissue that enables complex organizations to act with coherence. - John Cutler (cuttlefish. What is his bluesky?)

In each of these cases, those differences manifest themselves both in the design decision that shape the form and function of that system as well as the process and the organization of the team that creates it.

In a week! Still some seats on flash sale. Join us? See 👇 sample sections.

Talking image-text relations in class today - great opportunity to share Ibn Al-Rabin's seminal “Le Verbe Prophétique” alongside the always brilliant @tomgauld.bsky.social to demonstrate how the seemingly simple can be bewilderingly complex - things that can only be done in comics!!

Finished spread! The lives of different types of stars, the various ways they give back all they had taken in changed, and the new forms they give rise to! This took me some time to say the least! It's a lively place out there! On to the next spread (finale of this chapter!!) #Nostos #Unflattening 2

highly recommend @ruthmalan.bsky.social's Papers in Systems. We haven't updated the website in a minute, but our monthly virtual meetups have restarted after the summer break: papersin.systems/about

ahem 30tgrs.ffm.to/coldatnight-...

and don’t imagine me happy about this part ;)

People who work on big software systems, you need to read this set of branching convos/threads.

“Every model makes a choice about what is important, what categories we classify things in, what we see, what’s invisible, what’s valued, or even what’s valid.“ — @rebeccawb.bsky.social and @mathiasverraes.bsky.social from the paper we’re discussing on Monday, Oct 6 👇