Archives for March 2024

I was put on to this excellent video of Tony Hawk landing his final ever Ollie 540 by Ira Glass via the This American Life podcast.

For those who aren’t familiar with Tony Hawk, he’s widely regarded as the G.O.A.T of skateboarding. He was the first to land a 900, which is a two-and-a-half-revolution aerial spin, and has been the most recognisable face in the sport during his multi-decade career.

Three years ago, Hawk was trying to land an Ollie 540 one last time—which is a move where the skater completes one-and-a-half rotations without touching the board with their hands.

Hawk is seen trying, and trying, and trying, and failing, and failing, and failing. He just can’t land the trick. But he keeps going. Falling hard on the surface of the halfpipe, and slipping off into camera equipment.

Finally, Hawk lands the move, kicks his board into the air, and falls to his knees. He’s almost in tears. He admits he feels sad because it’s the last time he’ll land the trick. The pursuit is what has been driving him his whole career, and the finality of knowing he won’t attempt another Ollie 540 was relief and anguish at the same time.

It’s a brilliant moment, and an amazing insight into the mind of a fiercely ambitious competitor.

Today I learned about the first pancake rule: the first pancake usually doesn’t turn out right.

And that’s okay, because it sets the stage for the second, and third, and fourth pancakes.

I’ve noticed this rule is true for pancakes, and almost any project that requires creative experimentation.

So don’t stress too much about the first pancake.

I’m not talking about quality nor preparation method.

In our house, a tea is better when it isn’t asked for. It’s got a unique I-thought-of-you flavour.

If a tea has been asked for, it’s good, but not on the same level as its spontaneous counterpart.

Jason Fried, co-founder of 37 Signals, has a unique product development principle that I really like: build the wacky thing first.

When teams are in the early stages of new product experimentation, when the stakes are low, and the experience is mainly in a sandbox for early adopters, there’s clear rationale for building the wacky thing first.

If we default to the conservative, constrained, or timid option from the start, it’s unlikely we’ll have the courage to try the wacky idea later. Users will acclimatise to the tame baseline, and it’ll be more difficult to break those expectations in the future.

However, if we start with the wacky idea, we’ll likely learn more from being bolder and more aggressive in the first version of our product, and we leave the door open to scale back the experience to a less wacky version later.

There’s greater optionality and upside that comes with building the wacky thing first, but it takes commitment, conviction, and a willingness to look a little silly to do it.

The average? The median? The max? The min? The percentile? The standard deviation?

The problem is that there’s always a charitable message to be found when you cut the dataset in a certain way.

The hard part is having the discipline to stick to an objective measure even when the output looks dire.

If you’ve ever done squats as part of a strength training programme, you’ll know the importance of keeping within your limits.

Go too heavy, too quickly, and at the bottom of the repetition you’ll get caught. You won’t be able to return to a standing position, and you’ll need to let the bar fall behind you to the floor or the safety racks.

There are many benefits to squatting, but operating that close to our max weight adds a significant number of physical risks. It’s much better to go lighter and to do more repetitions.

This concept applies far beyond squatting to almost any difficult activity or endeavour.

When playing darts, beginners aim for the bullseye.

But there’s a thin strip at the edge of the board where triple are available. A player can earn more points than a bullseye, but there is also more risk. There is also a chance of ending up with no points.

It should come as no surprise though that the pros play at the edge. They’re conditioned to the risk, and relentlessly pursue the reward.

Where do you choose to aim for the bullseye? And where do you play to the edge?

No matter how long we work in an industry, we can still learn new things—even things that are seemingly basic!

In a post earlier this week I confused bits for bytes. Despite working in tech for almost a decade, I’ve never had to work at the scale of a bit before, so I’m giving myself a break here. But if you want to dig into it, or need a refresher, try here.

One part about writing in public is not going back and changing the past via the edit button. The reason I don’t use the edit button is because it’s a lesson in how to handle real life challenges. For most mistakes, we can’t just hit the edit button and perform revisionist history. So sure, little grammatical errors can be fixed retrospectively, but at the post level, the bigger picture is about about embracing mistakes and learning for next time.

Cultivating this mindset on the small things prepares our minds for bigger challenges and mistakes.

H/T to Sri for spotting my error and letting me know about it!

Most people write goals for who they are now, for where their organisations are today, and for how people around them expect to perform and grow.

But what if we wrote our goals assuming a certain level of personal and organisational growth. I think this little bit of extra optimism and vision will result in more ambitious goals, and a better visualisation of what could be.

And I think that little bit extra counts for something.

When I was a kid—about 12 years old—broadband had data limits, and the default offer was 1 gigabyte per month.

When my family upgraded from dial-up to broadband, this felt like a huge amount of data—and more importantly, speed!

Today I just organised the broadband for our new flat. There are no data limits anymore, and the package’s network download speed is 1 gigabyte per second.

In the space of 20 years, we’ve gone from my family’s entire bandwidth allowance for a month, now being used in a single second.

I think that’s pretty cool.

For whatever project we’re currently working, we need to figure out if we’re baking or cooking.

Baking requires precision. You need to follow the steps exactly. That means the right quantities, ingredients, temperatures, and timings.

Cooking, on the other hand, is more improv. You can substitute, adapt, add, experiment, and taste along the way.

Both lead to great tasting outcomes, but get there in different ways.

Problems are everywhere.

In our jobs. In our relationships with friends and family. In our hobbies. In life admin.

We can’t solve them all though. There aren’t enough hours in a day.

So we need to choose the problems worth turning up for.

The rest can wait.

Seeing the sun in London at 5pm in March means the end of winter is coming, and we’ll soon be welcoming spring and summer.

I love when this day arrives each year. Although it’s not marked by a date or an occasion, it’s a very peasant surprise, and a realisation that the worst of the winter is behind us.

It hints at warmer days to come, and long sunny evenings with friends.

I inevitably end up writing a post about this day each year. But after a long winter, I feel it’s well deserved.

I was sitting at a traffic light today, and cars were backed up for at least 50 metres on each side of the road waiting for the lights to turn green.

Up ahead and in the distance, I heard the sound of an ambulance approaching. I saw its lights reflecting off cars and buildings before it arrived at the backed-up line of cars.

The traffic lights in front of me turned green, but no car moved. All of us remained in place, allowing the ambulance to use both sides of the road to weave through and get past the gridlock with ease.

Systems are typically designed with order being the base case or day-to-day expectation. But when there is an emergency and the system is under stress, it only works when everyone knows the rules. And crucially, when everyone know how to implement the rules in unison.

I was on the train to Birmingham earlier today, and as the train passed through a bunch of towns just outside London, the carriage filled up with football fans. Specifically fans of the Wolverhampton Wolves, who were on their way to the FA Cup Quarter Final happening later that day.

It was like being dropped into another world. They talked enthusiastically about player transfers, manager performance, and budget constraints. They debated the pros and cons of their team’s current strategy; offering ideas for how it could be better. They compared themselves to other teams, and tried to figure out why some teams were succeeding and others failing. They chatted with friends and strangers alike with openness and a hopeful energy for the game ahead.

Once we pulled into Birmingham, the fans peeled off in one direction, and I in another. But for a brief moment on that train, I got a fascinating glimpse into the world of a Wolves fan, and I get why people return week after week, year after year, to support their club.