At my company we have a “thoughtful communication” guide[1] that addresses Slack and other communication tools. The simple rule for Slack is it’s for ephemeral or urgent communication only. All “conversation” material essentially routes through email and it works great. Takes some getting used to but our Slack instance is very, very relaxed. Most employees silence all Slack notifications and are encouraged to do so to (try our best to) preserve focus.
> The simple rule for Slack is it’s for ephemeral or urgent communication only. [...] Most employees silence all Slack notifications and are encouraged to do so [...]
How do urgent combine with silencing notifications?
Honest question, it seems I am missing something from the context here.
Fair question and good point. Our Slack isn’t absolutely quiet - we do have a channel for coordinating on customer issues (meets our urgent and ephemeral criteria) and it might be that some matters are raised by other processes outside of Slack but Slack itself is a good fit for in-the-moment collaboration. But in short we aren’t absolutists, it’s a mix of a few specific channels for certain contexts, channel-specific muting, and updating one’s Slack status - all under the guidance that Slack immediate responsiveness is not generally expected but more the exception. It sounds like a lot as I write that, but as a broader cultural norm within the company it does (so far!) support itself.
That said, I’ll pass your question on to the team as feedback, we should make the answer more clear.
The default setup for Slack (I think) dings you on any traffic in any channel. This is insane. Dinging on a direct message or a mention in a channel is a lot more reasonable and basically mimics the behavior of IRC.
Tangential, but for those interested in large-scale neutrino physics projects check out the successor to Japan’s Super-Kamiokande experiment, Hyper-Kamiomande: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-Kamiokande
Hard-hitting piece, tho not a cancer survivor myself my father is. As his ambassador of sorts to the rest of my extended family I recognize the unsolicited opinion tsunami the author describes.
However, the part that really caught my eye was the reference to David Spiegel and positive mindset research (or lack thereof). By pure coincidence, I had recently come across the self hypnosis topic via the Huberman Lab medical podcast. One app mentioned was Reveri, created by David Spiegel’s lab. I looked up the science references in the “about” section and found a 1983 and a 2000 paper reference. Seems a bit flimsy to me, but am wondering if there are not any more noteworthy publications to cite over the last ~40 years?
I stumbled across this documentary and found it captivating. Great coverage of a really ambitious, challenging goal and teamwork over the years. Really inspiring stuff across the board!
I studied physics as an undergrad and then went on to get a PhD from UW (Seattle), which has required courses for physics education that all graduate students must take. With ~10 years of physics study/practice/teaching, I think the one meta lesson I've carried with me is it's not about which book or which method, but rather the marathon process of ongoing exploration, which is often fueled by genuine interest and joy in exploring the subject. Exploration here applies to the subject itself in spirit, but in reality means exploring the resources to gather perspective and understanding.
The above probably sounds obvious (sorry!), but a lot of learning recommendation seems to focus on "the best" resource, which in my older years strikes me as kind of odd. In the grander scheme of studying something in earnest, time spent with any one book will not be the determiner of success. That's not to say there are no great books or resources, but rather if something is hard or not making sense you should try to approach the topic from another angle: read the chapter on the same topic from another text, or a few others, find some alternative lectures online, etc -- these days the resource list is near limitless... So, start somewhere, don't worry too much about how you start, and keep going!
A lot of the above opinion was motivated by a kind of serendipitous conversation I had with a physics professor. I returned to that convo often enough that I finally decided to write it down last year. Pardon the self plug, but intent was to help share a learning perspective: https://medium.com/@kevinconnolly/effort-neglect-and-the-sec...
'The Second Textbook' is a nice perspective which resonates with me. In my experience I've found the need for as many textbooks as I can get my paws on - each book usually handles one or other topic better than others, or gives me that extra angle that helps my understanding.
Yeah, and there is path dependence in learning, too! The Feynman lectures are quite deep and insightful, but because of that probably good to circle back to at different times, as an example.
But the real kicker for me was just breaking through the impression that “understanding” is a function of rereading, getting stuck, and focusing on one explanation as if parsing the syntax of some author’s statement was how you got information and understanding of a subject. My general rule now is to simply read different explanations. That, imo, is how you develop pedagogical awareness, too, as you then begin to see what authors are not saying in their attempt to convey a subject.
Part of Michael Lewis’s book, _The Fifth Risk_, features Kathy Sullivan and her life story. The focus of her story in the book is mostly about her work for NOAA, in the context of Trump’s administration, but gives a fun overview of her path to becoming an astronaut, too. Overall, a fast read and a generally inspiring view into the scientific and engineering work done by many people and various departments of the US government.
I really enjoyed Thomas Sowell’s _Basic Economics_. It’s a fun read that covers a variety of economic concepts with logical analyses in a narrative format.
Additional recommendation: _Talking to my daughter about the economy_, by Yanis Varoufakis. It’s a slender, engaging read that explores the history of economics and works its way to some modern day questions. In general, while learning I think it’s important to keep things fun, and I thought this was a fun read. Once these books get you warmed up with some concepts and footing you can take that fun curiosity and apply it to digging deeper.
I agree, this is a great book. Just about anything by Sowell is worth reading, but _Basic Economics_ and _Economic Facts and Fallacies_ are good starting points.
Also consider _Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics _ by Henry Hazlitt. It's coming from a strong Austrian school perspective, which some object to, but at a minimum by reading it you will be presented with ideas that are worth considering and debating.
This is a bit of a personal plug, but as for examining trends of funding and startup activity in the “AI” realm, I wrote up a brief summary of some CB insights investment data earlier this year [1]. I thought it was interesting to examine the difference between investment activity and entrepreneur activity, as there is always some inherent information asymmetry between entrepreneurs and investors. Not a deep analysis, but a few basic charts :)
[1] https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/company/thoughtful-communicatio...