Hey friends,

Did you hear about the weather?

It was all just sleet-talking 😎❄️

Thinking Too Hard 🤔

This week, I am reminded of Alex Komoroske’s excellent presentation: "Coordination Headwind: How Organizations are Like Slime Molds", which should be required reading when working with large organizations.

It can be really hard to plan something when you don’t know what you don’t know! The larger the organization, the more likely each step in a project will have “boulders of uncertainty” that require considerable effort to move out of the way. In these moments, it can be really frustrating to look back on the week and feel the lack of “progress”, even though a lot of work still happened!

I appreciate that Alex doesn’t leave it at just the problem definition, but gives us some ideas on how to proceed. Instead of shooting for the moon, sight off the moon and take a ‘roofshot’, or the next set of logical steps you can take towards the end goal. Eventually, with enough ‘roofshots’, you’ll make real progress towards the goal.

So navigate uncertainty and be like the slime mold! 🧫😎

Interesting Web Bits 🍜

Web Stuff

• Not only is jQuery still around, it just released v4, it's first major release in over a decade
• In contrast to what Ryan Dahl thinks, Stephan Schwab wrote about the world's desire to replace developers every decade or so, and why it hasn't worked. (Hint, it starts with a C and ends in OMPLEXITY)
• The Boring JavaScript Stack looks less boring and more 'stable'.
• "If you put the Apple icons in reverse it looks like the portfolio of someone getting really really good at icon design"... 🔥

Other Stuff

• Lara gives us some advice on how to empathetically assist someone in getting unstuck.

Weird, Watch, and Play

• 👽 Look at this fabulous isometric pixel art map of NYC!
• 🎮 Can you enclose this horse?
• 🎮 It's Snake, but spherical.
• 🎮 Man, it's been a long while since I took playing Go seriously, but someone made a squishy version as a teaching aid. It's pretty cute!