Author: Daniel Andrews

Sanding the Rough Edges of iPadOS

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I recently bought an 11″ iPad Pro to “replace” my aging 2015 MacBook Pro. My work has provided me with a 15” MacBook Pro that’s only about a year old, so there’s no reason for me to buy a new laptop for myself right now – especially when I’m working from home every day anyway. […]

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The Deathly Tragedy of American Exceptionalism

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From Robert Reich:

With 4.25 percent of the world population, America has the tragic distinction of accounting for about 30 percent of pandemic deaths so far.

Some folks have tried to downplay the extremely high death count numbers in the US by looking at infection rate per 1000 – which does show that some countries like Spain are seeing more infections than we are. However, our death numbers are staggering. I think some of that is attributable to a poor testing strategy – you can have “invisible” infections but it’s much harder to hide deaths. There’s probably some blame to go around for our healthcare system as well, that puts poor folks at a disadvantage relative to those with money.

Our inept leaders and broken unemployment system have handicapped our recovery as well.

We saw some good news last week, relatively speaking, with 2.5 million jobs added but I fear the road to recovery is going to be bumpy.

A detailed timeline of all the ways Trump failed to respond to the coronavirus

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From Cameron Peters at Vox:

In fact, there are many reasons the US death toll is so high, including a national response plagued by delays at the federal level, wishful thinking by President Trump, the sidelining of experts, a pointed White House campaign to place the blame for the Trump administration’s shortcomings on others, and time wasted chasing down false hopes based on poor science.

[…]

Throughout the pandemic, however, much of the Trump administration’s spin — regarding Trump’s own response, China’s role, and more — has been misleading, if not outright untrue. Here’s what Trump and the federal government have — and have not — done to respond to the virus.

A sobering blow-by-blow breakdown of the Trump administration’s failed response to the Covid-19 pandemic. No rational person can blame any leader for allowing the disease to land on their shores – this is a truly global outbreak. However, the absolute lack of action, leadership, planning and coordination once we started to understand what was happening is inexcusable.

On a related note, I think this sort of breakdown is a helpful way to put Trump administration’s incompetence into context. I don’t know about you but at a certain point all of the scandal and drama of the past 3.5 years becomes a bit of a blur at some point.

Apple Plans to Announce Move to Its Own Mac Chips at WWDC

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From Mark Gurman at Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is preparing to announce a shift to its own main processors in Mac computers, replacing chips from Intel Corp., as early as this month at its annual developer conference, according to people familiar with the plans.

The new processors will be based on the same technology used in Apple-designed iPhone and iPad chips. However, future Macs will still run the macOS operating system rather than the iOS software on mobile devices from the company. Bloomberg News reported on Apple’s effort to move away from Intel earlier this year, and in 2018.

Apple’s chip-development group, led by Johny Srouji, decided to make the switch after Intel’s annual chip performance gains slowed. Apple engineers worried that sticking to Intel’s road map would delay or derail some future Macs, according to people familiar with the effort.

This has been rumored for what seems like years now, but it appears to be finally happening. This will be a huge shift, and I’m excited to see what the transition plan looks like. I’d imagine we’ll see it first hit the “consumer” lines and work out from there. A couple of questions that come to mind for me are:

  • How will this affect things like virtualization software?
  • What about cross-platform software and games? My Steam library was already decimated by the 32bit to 64bit transition. I’d imagine an ARM transition will finish it off.
  • Will iPad Pros be a test device during the transition?
  • What are the tradeoffs going to be? What are the gains going to look like?

Really excited to see what we learn in a few short weeks!

WWDC20 still lacks a schedule

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With WWDC 2020 just 2 weeks away, I was kind of surprised to check out the developer site today to see the same announcement landing page that we saw a month or so ago. I’m still very curious to see what this year’s virtual conference looks like as I could imagine a hybrid model being […]

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Asynchronous Communication: The Real Reason Remote Workers Are More Productive

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From The Doist blog:

The trend toward near-constant communication means that the average knowledge worker must organize their workday around multiple meetings, with the time in between spent doing their work half-distractedly with one eye on email and Slack.

I love working remotely because I get to spend more time with family, avoid nasty commute times, get more rest and in a non-pandemic world, spend more time with friends. In addition, I can optimize my day around the rest of my life for the most part to run errands or do things around the house when it makes the most sense to do so.

What I don’t love is being on video calls from 8-5 every day. It leaves no room for any meaningful work outside of business hours, which slowly robs myself and others of their newly-gained additional free time. I think most companies are still trying to recreate all of the ceremonies, processes and expectations of the physical office. What this fails to do is take advantage of the massive productivity gains teams can get from working more asynchronously. If trust levels are high and you work in an environment that’s focused more on results than punching the clock, teams can really crank through work and still maintain a high level of communication.

I recently heard a really interesting episode of Sam Harris’ podcast where he spoke with the founder of Automattic about their history as remote first. There’s a lot of interesting tidbits in there about how companies transition from first trying to replicate their office environment and eventually move towards “enlightenment” – where almost all communication is async and open.

The main tips are to lean into note-taking when you are in meetings to ensure high levels of alignment, handle what you can in slack or email and in higher quality communication than standups in Zoom. On the teams that I work with that have leaned into these practices, I’ve found way more time to focus on making my team better instead of running on the meeting treadmill.

Seven years later, I bought a new Macbook. For the first time, I don’t love it

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From Carlos Fenollosa:

This computer is bittersweet.

I’m happy that I can finally perform tasks which were severely limited on my previous laptop. But this has nothing to do with the design of the product, it is just due to the fact that the internals are more modern.

Maybe loving your work tools is a privilege that only computer nerds have. Do taxi drivers love their cars? Do baristas love their coffee machines? Do gardeners love their leaf blowers? Do surgeons love their scalpels?

A comprehensive review with lots to love about the new machine, but the lows are low. While the performance, speakers, screen and build quality are exceptional as always, he points out a lot of issues with the ports, software, and the webcam quality’s complete lack of progress in the past 7 years. I’ve also heard a number of different versions of this quote over the years:

I would have paid extra money to not have a touchbar on my macbook.

I think that on balance, people are just more negative about technology these days but it’s also worth pointing out that our expectations are higher now as we depend on these devices for our livelihoods more than we did a decade ago. I appreciate experimentation and pushing the boundaries of tech but most Apple customers would prefer “it just works” to “thin, light, experimentation”.

How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

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From President Barack Obama:

So the bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both. We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.

He’s right. Voting out national officials is important and something we should be striving for but the place to make a real difference in the fight to reform police departments and our entire criminal justice system is at the local level. I also love this point:

the more specific we can make demands for criminal justice and police reform, the harder it will be for elected officials to just offer lip service to the cause and then fall back into business as usual once protests have gone away.

All too often, these sorts of protests turn into a culture war distraction instead of a catalyst for a discussion on the specific issues. Let’s not allow cable news and social media to distract from the reforms that are needed. Of course, Obama wouldn’t be Obama without thinking this angle through already. He’s linked to a really great (153 page!) plain-English set of resources you can consult when trying to advocate for change in your local community. Additional resources were posted on the Obama foundation website as well.

The bottom line is, police officers in many communities do not see the folks they’re supposed to be protecting and serving as one of them. They’re insulated from their communities, often don’t look like the demographics they serve, and are outfit like warriors due to military surplus programs. No wonder they treat criminals, especially black ones, the way they do.

A lot of cities in the south are sprawling and so concepts like community policing are not deeply ingrained at the level that they should be. But even if they aren’t walking a block or two and interacting with the community, there are other ways they can get involved and make a difference in breaking down barriers between themselves and their community. Turn the corner on that and roll back the programs that allow local police departments to be outfit like they’re going into battle and we might be on the right path.