This week's discussion was inspired by an article from Sandi Metz, which you can find here. It begins with a terrific line, defining the half-life of software as, "the amount of time required for half of an application's code to change so much that it becomes unrecognizable."
This topic also connected to a post we ran on the Stack Overflow blog this week, Sacrificial Architecture: learning from abandoned systems. The author, Mohamad Aladdin, suggest that one should "think of your code quality as if it will run forever, but adapt to change as if your code will be obsolete tomorrow."
Cal Newport is a computer scientist who also writes about productivity. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(08:24) – Deep work
(13:10) – Focus
(18:52) – Time blocking
(25:47) – Deadlines
(35:22) – Do less, do better, know why
(38:04) – Clubhouse
(52:07) – Burnout
(58:34) – Boredom
(1:06:19) – Quit social media for 30 days
(1:16:13) – Social media
(1:41:21) – How email destroyed our productivity at work
(1:51:07) – How we fix email
(1:58:09) – Over-optimization
(2:02:23) – When to use email and when not to
(2:10:06) – Podcasting
(2:14:42) – Alan Turing proving the impossible
(2:18:41) – Fragility of math in the face of randomness
(2:27:30) – Neural networks
(2:36:16) – What will the P=NP proof look like?
(2:39:55) – Is math discovered or invented?
(2:44:02) – Book publishing
(2:54:09) – Love
(2:57:30) – Death
(3:00:26) – Meaning of life
Brent Messer, Chief Information Officer for the City of Chattanooga joins the show to discuss the city’s selection into the G20 Global Smart Cities program. We also discuss their move to completely remove paper from their enterprise environment and what he went through when the pandemic first kicked-off.
Will Cathcart runs WhatsApp, the 2 billion user app that's the de facto tool for messaging and calling for many across the globe. Cathcart joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss Facebook's feud with Apple, its battle with Signal, its bungled privacy update, new laws in India that might force it to break encryption, the way it thinks about content moderation and advertising, and plenty more.
Digital crime-fighter Donal Keating revisits the podcast, but this time… it’s personal. *cue dramatic crime-fighting music* The Director of Innovation and Research of the Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) at Microsoft joins hosts Nic Fillingham and Natalia Godyla to regale us with the origin story of the DCU and his captivating career exploits. Whether it’s tales of his early days preventing Windows 98 counterfeits in Ireland or the many international law enforcement raids he’s participated in…there’s no shortage to Donal’s crime-fighting adventures.
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
The mission of Microsoft’s DCU and the techniques used to combat fraud
The events and needs that led to the creation of a forensic analytic lab at Microsoft
How counterfeiting and intellectual property crime have evolved over the years with advanced technology
What it’s like partnering with law enforcement to take down criminals around the world
Some Questions We Ask:
What does a day in the life of Donal look like in the DCU?
Was there ever a counterfeit example that shocked Donal at just how good it was?
With so many shifts in Donal’s work, what in his background has prepared him to stay on top of the changes?
What does a digital crime fighter do in their time off?
Matt Forniciari started his career at Amazon. First gig was on the availability team, but then he was tasked with emailing Jeff Bezo's directly about what was working & not working, which he rightfully so, says was stressful.
He spends a lot of time outdoors, reading, and mostly just away from tech. He is so immersed in tech during the day, that in his free time he prefers to do analog activities... and a lot of activities that require motion. In fact... he claims that his career after tech will be something like a park ranger, taking care of the outdoors.
While he was managing platforms for other companies - like Salesforce and Amazon - he was burning the midnight oil creating something to help build resiliency in your platform reliability. A solution based on the principles of chaos engineering.
Josh Barnett is an MMA fighter, catch wrestler, and a scholar of violence. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(08:29) – Nietzsche
(13:47) – Good and Evil
(28:59) – Joe Rogan library
(30:57) – Catch wrestling
(41:03) – Anarchy
(59:32) – Hitler and Stalin
(1:16:34) – Karl Gotch
(1:24:59) – Mike Tyson
(1:33:20) – Violent victory
(1:41:29) – Fedor Emelionenko
(1:43:50) – Greatest MMA fighters of all time
(1:53:47) – Early UFCs
(1:58:32) – Advice for young people
(2:02:24) – The value of competition
(2:05:02) – Blade Runner
(2:15:54) – Meaning of life
