After a relatively lively month or two at work (during which we still managed to get a pretty major feature and some nice quality of life stuff ready to ship), it felt like time to disconnect a bit.
That’s why other than writing some brief notes on The Adapter Pattern, I spent the bulk of this month deliberately not doing much that could be construed as “work” outside of my regular work hours.
Instead, I spent a lot of time getting things ready for the first Christmas in which I visited neither my own family nor my in-laws, spent a lot of time sitting on the sofa reading, and just generally relaxed.
The new year is knocking, so it’s time to shake the dust off and get back to it.
Things I Read
- Encapsulating Ruby on Rails views
- How to avoid alert fatigue
- A Promised Land - I’m about half way through this so far, and it’s an interesting behind-the-scenes view into Obama’s ascent to the presidency and some of the challenges faced up to and including the financial crisis that marked the beginning of his first term.
- So Good They Can’t Ignore You - Cal Newport (author of Deep Work) presents the point of view that what he calls the Passion Hypothesis, that a fulfilling career comes from following your dreams, is at best misleading and at worst dangerous. Instead, he describes how work satisfaction comes from building rare and valuable skills, and strategically cashing in those skills for greater autonomy and purpose in one’s work.
- A Thousand Splendid Suns - Set against the last few decades of Afghanistan’s history, this heartbreaking novel tells the story of the friendship between two women as their lives intersect.
