Episode 2 - $13,000 toilets, Risk Management & Having Fun in Climbing and Software Development
Episode 2 - $13k toilets, podcasts,
👋 Happy Thursday!
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Before Google+ shut down, I referenced this article all the time, when people assumed that there was ever a single person who "was good at computers" or "understood lots of different things about technology".
This reposted article soundly refutes that idea, that any single person can be knowledgeable about more than a tiny sliver of the technology we all use every day: https://josh.works/dizzying-but-invisible-depth
My wife and I have a Tushy Bidet. It's lovely. We moved recently, so I was trying to install it on our new toilet. The brackets don't fit, so I contacted the Tushy support team, asked for their recommendation. They have extension brackets, and asked what make/model our toilet is.
The toilet itself doesn't say, so I found myself looking at Kohler's website. I think we have a Betello toilet. But right next to that toilet, on their product listing page, is a $13,000 toilet!!!
Anyway, Tushy is great. Great installation guides. (I'm totally not affiliated with them, I don't make money if you buy their bidet.)
Housing and Urbanism 🏡🏫🚋🛣
Here are some pictures from Golden, CO:
These pictures are all of a very specific spot of downtown Golden:
I want to help "set the stage" as it were, for what we'll talk about next time:
These are obviously some of the most beautiful buildings in Golden, and if they burned down tomorrow, it would be impossible to rebuild them in their current form.
I'll explain why, next time.
👩💻 Software Development
I was on GreaterThanCode podcast today (I'll let you know when the episode is published, in the next few weeks).
We talked about psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety, and engagement of the human spirit across many domains, predominately in rock climbing and software development.
I've been a rock climber for, oh, fifteen years now.
I've spent a fair bit of time teaching climbing-related skills to adults and children for most of that time, too, while working at one of the largest climbing gym operators in the nation. (Earth Treks Rockville, circa 2010-2012)
The skills I was teaching and using were the kinds of skills where if you make a certain kind of mistake, you or someone you care for will almost certainly die or be severely injured.
For those of you familiar with climbing, I dealt with:
- Advanced belaying/confident leading for sport climbing, for climbers pushing into 5.11, 5.12, 5.13, etc. (I.E. it's expected that the climber push themselves, hard, and fall quite a lot, in sometimes spectacular ways.)
- Traditional anchor-building to protect parties doing multi-pitch climbing (think "staying safe while climbing a piece of rock hundreds to thousands of feet tall".)
- Doing both at the same time. 😀
For example, here's a photo I took while belaying up my partner, on a climbing trip in Mexico back in 2016, while climbing Space Boyz.
We started by the buildings with with holes in them (from falling rock!).
The more I reflect on it, the same tools we used to stay safe (and not only "stay safe", but "have an absolute blast climbing thousands of feet a day") apply directly to software development teams also staying safe, and having fun while doing it.
It's been a while since I thought about climbing and climbing accidents as it relates to teams of software developers doing reliable, "good" work, in a way that treats all involved parties with dignity. Turns out there is LOTS of overlap, and the principles drawn from the former are quite applicable to the latter.
Anyway, more on this soon, when the episode gets published.
⁉️ Questions and Requests
If someone wanted to build another block of buildings like what we see in beautiful downtown Golden, do you think they'd be able to?
Are you a climber? If so, what are your goals in climbing?
Until next time,
- Josh