- Why Remote Work Can’t Be Stopped
We’ve been saying it’s the future of work for years. We can hire from anywhere around the world. If people are productive it shouldn’t matter when and where they work.To understand the issues, it’s helpful to look at a company that has always been almost entirely remote. Automattic, maker of WordPress, the content-management system that powers 28% of all websites, has 558 employees spread across more than 50 countries, up from 302 in December 2014.
Despite its growth, the company is getting rid of its custom-designed, light-filled, 14,250-square-foot office in a hip San Francisco neighborhood. On an average day, maybe five workers will show up, dwarfed by the cavernous space and nearly outnumbered by the ping-pong and foosball tables that mostly sit idle.
- How Donald Trump Shifted Kids-Cancer Charity Money Into His Business
…this maneuver would appear to have more in common with a drug cartel’s money-laundering operation than a charity’s best-practices textbook. That $100,000 in outside donations to the Donald J. Trump Foundation (remember: Trump himself didn’t give to his own foundation at this time) passed through the Eric Trump Foundation–and wound up in the coffers of Donald Trump’s private businesses.
- Bullet Journal
This looks fun, but I don’t think I’d be able to keep up with it. I use notes in the Bear app a lot. Having all of my notes sync between devices and always with me (on my iPhone) is invaluable. - Peak Performance book: How rest, breaks help athletes
The main point of the article isn’t even focussed on sports or exercising. Rest and balance is important in all aspects of life. - Free Arduino
Free as in Freedom.
- Amazon Is Killing My Sex Life
Am I a “brogrammer?” Don’t answer that. Since I don’t date, I don’t care. - IOC Cuts Weightlifting Spots For Tokyo By 25 Percent
Rough news for the growing sport. - Asking Girls and Boys, What Would Wonder Woman Do?
It was such a great movie on so many levels. - Taylor Swift embraces streaming, brings full catalog to Spotify and more
Took her long enough to realize streaming isn’t going away. - Why Apple’s HomeKit Announcement Is a Big Deal for Makers
Looking forward to giving this a spin, though I’m guessing it’ll be integrated into Home Assistant to make things easier. - Goodbye, Hello.
I’ve been using a Sense for several years now and enjoy the device and data it provides. I hope they’re able to find a buyer to keep the it running or open source the software so we can keep using our devices. - The Fighter Pull-up Program Revisited
Looks neat. Can probably be applied to other movements, like handstand push-ups. - When a company grows, but the office shrinks
Good post by Toni about why we are getting rid of our office/lounge space in San Francisco. At Automattic, we are always iterating. - Inside Adafruit, the Open-Source Manufacturing Maker Champions
I’m more and more impressed with Adafruit every day. I’ve already learned so much from the guides in their learning system and it continues to be a valuable resource for my electronics hobby.Ladyada’s 10 Lessons for Building Open Culture Companies at the end of the article share many values with our culture and beliefs at Automattic. - Boosted boards
The price, at $1,299-1,499, seems abitlot excessive. - Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs
Whoa. I’m surprised there is a difference and I’m also hesitant to believe there isn’t something else in the data. - Inductive Charging Is Not ‘Wireless’
I’ve been saying this for years!
Author: Nick Momrik
I'm searching for my first hole-in-one.
I enjoy being active and making things.
I work for Automattic.
Buick Open Champions
When Warwick Hills hosted the Buick Open, it was always a highlight of the summer. The tournament was great for the Flint area and got more people excited about the game of golf. As you can see from some of the champions, it also drew a lot of big name players.
Warwick Hills Hole #14
Warwick Hills Country Club hosted the Buick Open from 1958 to 1969 and from 1979 until 2009, when GM ended its sponsorship of the tournament. I attended 4 or 5 times and always had a lot of fun. When my buddy Alex texted me yesterday, inviting me to go play, I jumped at the chance and took today off work.
It was a great day for golf and the course was in just as good of shape as I remember from walking it when it was set up for the pros to play. The greens were some of the fastest I’ve ever played, especially if you were above the hole.
Whenever we attended the tournament I liked to walk to the back corner of the course because the crowds were smaller and you could get a lot closer to the players. The 14th hole was always one of my favorites to watch. It’s a short par 4 where the long hitters would try to drive the green.
For us, playing from the white tees, the hole was listed at 302 yards. I had to go for it. I hit it far enough, but pushed it right of the cart path as you can see below. There was a big bunker left of the tree, so I had to play to the right. Of course I bounced it off the cart path and all the way across the green. After a shitty chip shot I was left with about 15-20 feet. Drained the put for par and enjoyed my own moment on the 14th.
Review: My Golf Locker
I decided to try out a new service, My Golf Locker, which sends you golf clothing and accessories matching a schedule and budget you select in your account. It looked neat.
It was not.
Their terrible web site should have tipped me off. Whenever you log in or visit your account page, you get a popup informing you of your successful log in, even if you were already logged in! Click out to another page, then click to access your account… “You’ve successfully logged in!” Talk about annoying.
The service lets you browse items on the site and select something if you want it included in your next shipment. Problem was, another piece of the service, would email you each day reminding you of an item you liked. It did this even after a box, which included the item they were relentlessly reminding me about, had been shipped.
When I looked at the contents of that first box, it included the rain pants I had selected and only 1 other item. A Nike golf shirt for $110! I don’t know who pays that much for a shirt, but definitely not me! If it was guaranteed to take 10 strokes off my score I might consider it.
I ended up finding a similar pair of rain pants at the Under Armor outlet in Birch Run for much cheaper so I returned the entire box. When the refund showed up on my credit card, I closed my account.
Don’t waste your time or money on My Golf Locker.
CrossFit Programing: Are We Doing Too Much?
Following up on my post about Online CrossFit Programming, I wanted to write some thoughts about how affiliates program classes for the general population, like you or I.
CrossFit is meant to be a conditioning-biased exercise program. Look to this pyramind illustrating a theoretical hierarchy for the development of an athlete. It comes from Greg Glassman’s “What is Fitness”, which was published 15 years ago in the CrossFit Journal.
Nutrition is the most important and then it’s conditioning. Somewhere about 5 years ago CrossFit affiliates started to shift the importance and focus of their programming to be strength-biased. This probably had something to do with the rise in popularity of the CrossFit Games; people wanted to train like the elite Games athletes.
Since day 1 and still today, the WOD posted on CrossFit.com is only one workout. They don’t suggest performing a strength piece, a skill piece, and a conditioning piece every day like you see in almost every CrossFit affiliate around the world. If you attend a Level 1 seminar, during the programming lecture they don’t teach you how to jam pack an hour with as much exercising as you can. Sure some of the Main Site WODs are strength focused, as they should be, but the majority of days the workout is a conditioning based one. Are we causing ourselves to get injured more and limiting our potential as human beings by doing too much?
Here’s a great podcast episode with Ben Bergeron, who is one of the top coaches in the sport. He explains a lot on the topic and makes a lot of great points for conditioning-biased programming.
What do you think?
Once I finish up this Push Only program I’m following (about 4 more weeks), I might experiment with some conditioning-biased programming like CrossFit teaches us.
Buy a Circuit Playground, Give One to Girls Who Code
Adafruit and Digi-Key have teamed up to support a great cause, Girls Who Code.
We’re a national non-profit organization dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology.
For any purchase of a Circuit Playground Classic from Digi-Key, they’ll donate one to Girls Who Code.
At only $20 the Circuit Playground Classic is a really neat board, packed with goodies.
- ATmega32u4 Processor, running at 3.3V and 8MHz
- MicroUSB port for programming and debugging with Arduino IDE
- USB port can act like serial port, keyboard, mouse, joystick or MIDI
- 10 x mini NeoPixels, each one can display any color
- 1 x Motion sensor (LIS3DH triple-axis accelerometer with tap detection, free-fall detection)
- 1 x Temperature sensor (thermistor)
- 1 x Light sensor (phototransistor)
- 1 x Sound sensor (MEMS microphone)
- 1 x Mini speaker (magnetic buzzer)
- 2 x Push buttons, left and right
- 1 x Slide switch
- 8 x alligator-clip friendly input/output pins
Includes I2C, UART, and 4 pins that can do analog inputs/PWM output - All 8 pads can act as capacitive touch inputs
- Green “ON” LED so you know its powered
- Red “#13” LED for basic blinking
- Reset button
With so many features, Circuit Playground is a perfect board for someone learning to program. There are endless possibilities for fun projects. I ordered one to support the program. I’m hoping they’ll get some of the new Circuit Playground Express boards in stock and extend this promotion to those because I’ve been tempted to get my hands on one. If they do, I’ll gladly place another order.
CrossFit Programming Services
I’ve used a couple of online CrossFit programs this year that I’ve really liked. The first is Hybrid Performance Method. For about $35/month you can choose between 8 different programs and you can switch anytime you want with a few clicks in your profile. For a few months at the beginning of the year, a couple of friends and I were following the Hybrid WOD program to prepare for the CrossFit Open. It was hands down the hardest, but also the best programming I’ve followed. We averaged about 90 minutes in the gym, 5 days a week and saw big improvements in our fitness.
After I tweaked my back, I switched over to Hybrid Push-Only, which is all about the upper body and runs 4 days a week. It rarely takes me over an hour to finish the assigned work. I’m really loving it. Bench press is the main lift, but there is also a fair amount of overhead pressing, a ton of accessory work, and a day focused on pulling strength, mainly pull-up type movements. We’ll see if I can’t hit a 300 pound bench press at the end of 12 week program. I’ve been spacing out the 4 days a week so I can still go to a 2-3 CrossFit classes. I think I’m averaging about 9 days to get through a week of the program and am finishing up week 8.
The other program I’ve used this year is Performance Plus Programming. It’s focused around gymnastics type stuff and using movements to create stability and support. It runs $20/month, has 4 workouts per week, and almost never takes me more than 10 minutes to complete. The first month was focused on shoulders, which paired up really well with the Push-Only program. I need to loop back around and repeat that month of programming before I try out the core focused month.
Tiny Red Bugs
These buggers are all over my patio and they are a lot smaller than black ants. This video is zoomed in quite a bit.
Update: Apparently these are clover mites.
A Raspberry Pi HAT
I successfully built the second piece to a large project I’m working on. I’ve essentially built my own XL Raspberry Pi HAT (Hardware Attached on Top). Since I’m not following the specs, I shouldn’t really call it a HAT.
I’m not sure how, but once again I correctly connected everything on the first try. Either I’m extremely lucky, my attention to detail is paying off, or a combination of the two. I’m just waiting for some catastrophic failure to happen soon when I solder things the wrong way one of these days. Every one of my solder bridges worked. I did run continuity tests on all of the early bridges, which I’m sure was a big factor to my success.
Any guesses on what this board does? Leave your best guess in the comments. It’ll be at least a month before I share more details because I need to finish the entire project first.
Lazy Saturday
Laying out in the sun reading Steve Jobs.
