The entirety of October, the US government has been shut down. Starting in November, the republicans have decided to not fund SNAP, which feeds 42 million people in the US. If you are in Chicago, please consider donating to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, or find a local organization that is helping with food insecurity, especially as we enter the holiday season.

There is a lot more going on in the world, it constantly feels like a pressure on our daily lives. My goal is to take one step at a time, help in ways I can in the immediate time and make efforts to be the change I want to see in the world.

Posts

• Book Review: Product Driven

• The Quiet Side of Leadership: Listening, Observing, Deciding

• If It’s Worth Communicating, Do It Twice

• Making Feedback Land

Books

• 107 Days by Kamala Harris - A look back on her sprint to the election. A bit hard to read now that we are 9 months into the most historically awful presidency in our modern history.

• Product Driven by Matt Watson - A very easy to approach book for engineers to think more about the product outcomes. I wrote a review over here.

• Rock Star by Jennifer Jones - A memoir from Olympic curler Jen Jones. It was interesting to see from her point of view going through the COVID pandemic and competing in the winter Olympics. Pumped for 2026 Winter Olympics, especially watching the curling matches.

• Time Rider by AJ Hartley, Tom Delonge - A bit of a scifi thriller about time travel and real events. Its a bit all over the place, due to the time travel, but otherwise it was an enjoyable quick read.

• Beyond Words by Carl Safina - What a journey of a book. Watching elephants and wolves live through tragedy and triumph.

  “People have told me that a wolf looks right through you. But you know what I realize? That's because a wolf isn't interested in you. It's always hard for humans to accept that we're not the most important thing anyone's ever seen.”

Links

• Providing technical clarity to non-technical leaders - Sean dives into something I feel like we lose sight of too often, our job as technical leaders is to provide clarity, and communicate the to our partners.

• Your private data isn't as private as you think - big gulp. Privacy is a chief concern for me as we move into the age of AI. Once again, I think of how wonderful the concept of a decentralized data platform is the right thing we should move toward.

• Dont delegate thinking, delegate work - problem solving and codebase comprehension still remain the bottleneck, so this post talks about delegating the execution of the work, not the understanding of what youre doing. Also reminds me of the post AI is Dunning-Kruger as a service. AI giving false confidence but no real knowledge.

• How to think clearly in a world of noise - urging for simplicity, but also honesty and clarity. Kind of a think-y piece, but really thoughtful.

Other

• After deleting Instagram this month, my screen time has dropped to an avg of 3.75h per day - mostly taken up with scrolling my reeder feed, phone calls with family and friends or listening to audiobooks.

• Im still working on my API that collects and aggregates data about my day - music, movies, steps and more. Its getting to a place where its 80% automated and I am really liking adding new features on.

• Had a nice time taking the dog to a farm to get some pumpkins and cider. He enjoyed the hell out of the smells and corn on the ground.