Monthly I am going to give an overall update on things I’ve been doing. Posts, books, links, and more.

It’s been quite a month. It’s been a pretty jarring couple of months, actually.

The fight for equality and justice are at the forefront. With incredible protests over the last several weeks, all across the world, after a police officer in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd on camera, with no remorse. This injustice happens every single day and now is the time it stops. Black Lives Matter, full stop.

Please donate to organizations that are helping eliminate this injustice and inequality. If you work in a larger organization, chances are they have a donation matching program. Utilize it! There are so many places worth donating to. Where to Donate for Black Lives Matter: 137 Places and Funds | The Strategist | New York Magazine

Some donations I’ve made have gone to the following:

• Association for enterprise opportunity

• Rising Tide Capital

• Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives Micro Finance Group

• Women’s Opportunities Resource Center

• National Urban League

• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

• Equal Justice Initiative

• Repairers of the Breach

• BYP100 Education Fund

• Black Vision Collective

• Black Lives Matter Global Network

• My Block My Hood My City

If you can’t donate money or time, uplift Black voices on twitter, instagram and facebook. Retweet makers, shine a light on those doing great work in the world who might not otherwise get the opportunity. Raise awareness of Black owned businesses. Raise awareness about the injustices and inequality by boosting the voices of our Black communities.

Posts

I wrote 3 posts this month, as I relaunched my blog.

• Look Ma,I’m Blogging Again

• Breakdown of Stack Overflow’s 2020 Developer Survey Results

• Adding Tailwindcss to Laravel 7

Books

I have found it really hard to focus on books lately. I did manage to finish Cross-Cultural Design and learned a lot about the importance of research before putting pen to paper.

I also picked up another book from A Book Apart, Expressive Design Systems which is a great introduction into why taking the time to develop a design system can speed up your work and drive consistency with your brand and across teams.

Links

• I’ve been really enjoying the Chicago Techies Podcast which features folks from around Chicago sharing their stories in tech.

• A no-frills way to see the spread of COVID-19 in the US broken down by state with details of shelter in place and reopening dates Rt: Effective Reproduction Number

Other

I have been craving bacon jam since my favorite pizza shop shut down in March, and I happened upon a YouTube show for grilling and they were making bacon jam. So I followed the recipe and damn it tuned out good. It’s not difficult to make but it does take a little bit of time to sweat down the bacon and onions, but it is worth it.