I’ve been an Android user since the original Motorola Droid was released back in 2009. However, last month I finally broke down and made the switch to iOS.
I didn’t buy new, though. Because I don’t like big phones, I found myself a refurbished iPhone 13 Mini. It’s perfect. Sure do wish Apple would acknowledge the ongoing market for small devices, but it seems they’re well and truly dead. Maybe I should get a second Mini as a backup, especially since I’m case-free?
We’re all pretty big Lord of the Rings fans in our house, both books and movies. A few months ago we rewatched Return of the King, and I was struck by a couple moments in the dénouement that are worth talking about.
The first is one I’ve loved for a while. The hobbits have returned to the Shire and are together enjoying some well-deserved ales. Their reflective mood is in stark contrast to the conviviality around them, in particular one fellow who is showing off a massive pumpkin he’s grown. Our heroes don’t seem to mind the attention he’s getting; they’re content to sit in silence, apart from the crowd, with nothing more than a toast and some knowing glances.
No one else in that pub understands the grave danger they, and the whole of Middle-earth, were in. No expressions of thanks will come to Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. But that’s okay. It’s how it’s supposed to be. Leaders make the sacrifices so that those in their care can enjoy their pumpkins, and they seek not the credit. Fellowship amongst a small circle of friends who know the story is enough.
But even within that circle, there’s layers to the levels of awareness. It wasn’t until this most recent viewing that I realized that only Sam knows the full story: that Frodo had fallen at the last to the power of the ring, and its destruction was only completed through earlier mercy shown to Gollum, and some luck.
What Sam chooses to do with this knowledge is worthy of especial praise. When the fellowship is reunited in Rivendell, joy and celebration surround Frodo. Even the wizard Gandalf smiles in approval. Sam is late to the party, but catches Frodo’s eye from across the room.
In that moment, I wonder if Frodo is briefly afraid that Sam will interrupt with a tale of how he had to carry Frodo the final stretch, and that Frodo essentially failed, claiming the ring as his own. It would be the truth. But Sam doesn’t do that, and his expression says he never will. It’s as if he said, “I know that you aren’t a perfect hero. That at the end you did things you’re not proud of, even to me. But you gave everything you had, and the job got done. That’s worth celebrating. Fear not, my friend. Some things are just between us.”
I’m not sure if this is canon, but I imagine no one else, not even Gandalf, ever learned what really went down on the slopes of Mount Doom. That too is okay, because Middle-earth survives regardless. And that’s what ultimately matters.
Nothing thrills quite like launch day, and this time, it was nearly literal. It’s been a privilege to have been involved in this work, and fun that I can (finally) talk about it in public. I mean, when it’s on the news that’s gotta mean something right? You can check it out right here if you’re so inclined.
Hopefully the above partly explains why I’ve been pretty quiet here. As I said last month: crunch time. It’s certainly not for lack of ideas; sitting on 95 draft posts as I type. Someday I’ll get through the backlog. Or not. But it’ll be okay regardless.
I don’t use that title lightly. Not sure how I’ve never heard of git worktrees before, but I’ll definitely be giving them a spin.
Speaking of git, I don’t normally do a lot of coding in my day job, but crunch time is crunch time:
If nothing else, it’s cathartic to stretch those muscles.
I’m continually surprised at how much resistance I can put up to learning a new technology when there’s a comfortable equivalent to fall back on, because once I’m finally forced to engage, and get over the initial inertia, I’m typically able to quickly pick up the new skill.
Today’s example: FastAPI. I went from zero to fully-functional serverless stack in an hour. That wasn’t so bad! I probably shouldn’t have wasted any time with my go-to HTTP framework when I was prototyping, though to be fair, their conceptual similarities made porting painless.
Learning to learn fast is a driver of exponential personal growth.
Last week I stumbled onto this presentation I made for a job interview I did nearly 11 years ago. Python generators are pretty cool! I also dig the vaguely LCARS styling, which was a built-in theme of Google Sheets.
Thought it’d be fun to share here. Enjoy!
(Oh, and in posting this I also learned how to ensure a consistent aspect ratio in CSS. Cool!)
Another gist for your holiday season: this one makes it easy to run a specific terraform version in Docker. Why might you want to do that? Well, for one, if you need a specific version (though tfenv can get that job done too).
My reason, though, was that I needed a version so old that a handful of plugins aren’t supported on Apple silicon. Docker with Rosetta to the rescue.
Happy holidays y’all!
I like Github gists. They’re perfect for long-term publishing of any code snippet you might want to refer to later, without the overhead of a formal repository. I’ve used them as backing storage for a number of blog posts as well, and will do so again today:
Need to bulk update the contact information across a set of domain names you own in Route 53? I got you. Need to do it across a whole slew of AWS accounts (or anything across a number of accounts)? No problem.
Happy scripting!
I’m sitting on a flight somewhere over the middle of the country on my way home after spending the Thanksgiving holiday with family in Ohio. Naturally it’s a time to be thinking about being thankful, both personally and professionally, a topic I’ve written about before.
That advice (say it often, say it aloud) is still true, but it’s incomplete. While expressing thanks to co-workers is necessary to being a good leader, it isn’t sufficient. Thankfulness must be shown through giving of time, empowerment, listening, and taking action when needed. Oh yeah, and through compensation too, if it’s within your power to influence. The expression “give thanks” is apropos: being thankful costs something.
When not backed by action, spoken words are empty at best, and counterproductive at worst. Might be better to say nothing if you’re not truly grateful.
Show and tell isn’t just for kindergarten and job interviews.
I’ve discovered a couple highly practical uses for GenAI this week relative to performance reviews.
In one case, I collected various stakeholder feedback for an individual on my team (using these questions from the other day) and used AI to extract common themes (both strengths and growth areas) that I could share without revealing who wrote what (which I’d promised in the hopes of getting more honest responses). It was also useful for me as a manager to see what emerged so we could review together.
In another, I took all the self-evaluations across a team and asked AI to identify and then summarize specific portions that would be relevant to pass along to the broader leadership group (e.g. feedback they had about the organization, common challenges that might be indicators of systemic problems). It’s a lot to ask of an executive to read these docs in their entirety, but there’s valuable insights to be gleaned. Building this summary was the best of both worlds.
Something my years at Amazon taught me is the usefulness of discussing performance in light of shared values. Our evaluation forms this year broke down questions along those lines (at my suggestion), but I’m now seeing it may be a bit too structured and artificially constraining. So next year I might see if we can keep the reflection questions a bit more open-ended, and then use AI tooling to align people’s responses to our specific guiding principles. Will that be effective? Not sure! But worth a try.
