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Hello All

Several great submissions from teammates this week. From building a strong user following, to color theory, to digital assistants, to version control, to curbing electronic device addictions, to software development practices, to self-improvement, and of course the Oxford Comma. All pose great ideas and messages, but the overall theme I see is the importance of detail & purposeful design. E.g. Why are be building this? How does this affect the user’s life? Does this save time, effort, and offer convenience? Etc etc… All great themes and critical thinking to incorporate in everything we do and build.

As always if you are reading something great and want to share, please send in your submissions. Have a great weekend!

M

1. Players Gonna Publish
“How Derek Jeter’s once-mocked startup became a sports media powerhouse.”
http://mashable.com/2017/03/02/derek-jeter-inside-players-tribune/

2. Safe on Taxis: Yellow cabs are less likely to crash than blue ones.
From Joe W: “Here is an interesting article about color.”
https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21718319-avoid-accidents-flag-down-bananamobile-yellow-cabs-are-less-likely-crash

3. Systems Smart Enough To Know When They’re Not Smart Enough
“Our answer machines have an over-confidence problem. Google, Alexa, and Siri often front that they’re providing a definitive answer to questions when they’re on shaky ground—or outright wrong.”
https://bigmedium.com/ideas/systems-smart-enough-to-know-theyre-not-smart-enough.html

4. We’ve Brought These Stupid ‘Internet of Things’ Hacks Upon Ourselves
From Tony: “Interesting and topical read.”
“Whether it’s poorly reported stories of hacked Samsung TVs, sadly hilarious tales of hacked teddy bears, or even more bizarre claims about wiretapped microwaves, real, fake, and overblown accounts of all the things that can happen with the devices we choose to connect to the internet dominate the news. We’ve brought this stupid future on ourselves.”
http://lifehacker.com/we-ve-brought-these-stupid-internet-of-things-hacks-u-1793313692

5. Semantic Versioning 2.0.0
From Kwan: “A lot of companies use it. Take away, first number in the version is a major functionality breaking version.”
“In the world of software management there exists a dread place called “dependency hell.” The bigger your system grows and the more packages you integrate into your software, the more likely you are to find yourself, one day, in this pit of despair.”
http://semver.org

6. Can getting rid of apps cure our phone addictions?
From Dan: “An interesting approach to reducing information overload.”
http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/3/14/14908020/siempo-mindful-phone-app-addiction-kickstarter-launch

7. The Mythical Man Month – Safari Online
From Kwan: “Technical Book Club: I’m going to cover the first chapter along with quick take away from other chapters. If anything it’s a good entertaining look at how software projects were run prior to the book’s publish date … 1975 and how far we have progressed since. The first 2 sentences on the wiki should resonate with any software professional.”
https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/mythical-man-month-the/0201835959/

Reminder that O’Reilly books are available for free online.
From Sanjay:
1. Go to https://www.safaribooksonline.com -> click Sign In -> Enter your FlightSafety email and click Sign In (you do not have to enter password).
2. You should be redirected to http://id.flightsafety.com -> Enter your credentials (Make sure you enter the domain).

8. Cockroach Theory- A beautiful speech by Sundar Pichai
“The cockroach theory for self-development.”
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cockroach-theory-beautiful-speech-sundar-pichai-brahmbhatt-cswe-

9. The Oxford Comma: Why You Should Use the Serial Comma
“I am a staunch believer in the serial comma . This image (courtesy of The Gloss) illustrates why.”
http://www.verbicidemagazine.com/2011/09/20/strippers-jfk-and-stalin-illustrate-why-you-should-use-the-serial-comma/