Tech — Work — Ramblings

by Mike Kalvas

Results: 10

  • Tech — Work — Ramblings

    2016-10-27 00:00

    #structure #microblog #tech #ramblings #work #blog

    This page serves as a simple index of all my blog posts. This list should be roughly equivalent to searching for the #blog tag.

    If you're looking for my shorter #microblog posts, see 202208270000 Microblog.

    Continue reading

  • The Silent Majority of Engineering

    A Bit of Perspective

    2021-05-01 00:00

    #ramblings #tech #blog #work

    Most engineers aren't using all the new shiny tools. Most are quietly coming to work every day, writing code in tried and true ways, and getting things done.

    I once heard a quote about software engineers. It went something like this:

    Most engineers aren't using all the new shiny tools. Most are quietly coming to work every day, writing code in tried and true ways, and getting things done.

    The sentiment has stuck with me. It's something that we don't think about all the time as developers.

    There's always something new and interesting to learn and try out. There are never ending amounts of opinions and preferences, ergonomics and design.

    It's good to keep up to date. It's good to be a lifelong learner.

    But what happens when we need to get something done reliably and predictably?

    We don't use all the new shiny tools.

    We quietly come to work every day, write code in tried and true ways, and get things done.

  • Idea Gardening

    An Organic Process for Developing Thought

    2021-09-15 00:00

    #ramblings #blog

    Idea gardening is the practice of sitting on ideas so that they can germinate on the back burner of your mind.

    TODO: remove in favor of the old regular zettel 202109090947 Idea gardening

    The Idea Garden

    We plant ideas, consciously or not, deep in the depths of our mind. The place is dark, quiet, and damp, heavy with the breath of life.

    There they sit in a timeless state, slowly spreading their tendrils, taking root, nourishing themselves on the fertile soil of id.

    Sometimes they tangle with other ideas, competing for nourishment or becoming indivisibly fused.

    Sometimes they shrink, wither, and decay becoming part of the soil they took root in. Here they'll feed others. Or maybe their seeds will sprout again.

    Sometimes they grow in a streak of tenuous height, bursting into the light. If they aren't plucked, their strength wanes and they sink back down to try once more.

    And sometimes — very rarely — they grow strong and big. They form pillars between the soil and the sky, connecting deep intuition and emotion to the brilliant light of human intelligence.

    This is the harvest of an idea garden and we reap the bounty.

  • Working in Public

    A Way To Be More Open

    2021-07-15 00:00

    #blog #work #ramblings

    Finished things don't spring up out of the ground in their final state — people have to work hard on them. This is my way of pulling back the curtain on how I work.

    Working in public is the idea that we should all share more of our work in progress. Finished things don't spring up out of the ground in their final state — people have to work hard on them. So working in public is an attempt to show that hard work. Or at least the time and effort that go into things, even if it's just a slow burn over some period of time.

    Why would I want to work in public?

    This is my way of pulling back the curtain on how I work. It's something that I feel is important and wish that there was more of on the internet.

    The internet is such a big, corporate, impersonal, hate-filled mess, but there was a time when it wasn't and it could be cozy again. I consider mkalvas.com to be my version of a cozy little digital garden, safe from the ads, tracking, and noise of the rest of it. I don't know if anyone visits this site and I don't really care.

    Another reason to work in public is that I believe that writing (more broadly doing) provides a final generative step in knowledge creation and retention). So anything that I can do to lower the barrier and promote more writing (code and words) is a good thing. One simple thing that can lower that barrier is to allow myself to be more comfortable with unfinished, unpolished things. I find that saying "this isn't done enough to go on the site" results in less doing in the first place.

    Continue reading

  • Cleaning Out the Skeletons

    An Effort to Put My Best Foot Forward

    2016-12-01 00:00

    #blog #ramblings

    Growing up at the start of social media has its downsides. Today I talk about cleaning up my online presence.

    Cultivating a professional online presence is something that I've been casually working towards this year. In fact, I mentioned in a previous post that one of the main reasons that I started this blog was to further that goal.

    In my mind, there are two important steps along the way to building something I'm proud of: cleaning out low-quality content from the past and adding new high-quality content going forward.

    Out With the Old

    Now begins the painstaking task of combing through every old post, tweet, status update, etc. that I've ever posted. If you've ever been a teenager, you probably know the kind of things that I'm sweeping under the rug here: teen angst, vaguely subtextual nonsense, humble brags, and any of the other cardinal sins of social media.

    I've never publicly acknowledged it before, but for a while in college, I was lost. I didn't know what I wanted with my life, I wasn't happy with myself or the things I was doing. I felt depressed and anxious every day. I put a lot of my worth in other people. Many of my core values and perceptions of the world were changing for the better and I was experiencing growing pains. As you can imagine, I posted some things that I'm not proud of. I also posted a lot of things that bring back painful memories as I look back on them today.

    Continue reading

  • My Brand New Blog

    An Exercise in Futility?

    2016-10-28 00:00

    #ramblings #blog

    Maybe it's the infinite hubris of a millennial or maybe its just that I doubt anyone will actually read this, but I found a few reasons to convince myself to do it anyway.

    I thought about that question a lot before building this. Most blogs are out of date, under-maintained, new year's resolution-esque things that wither and die after a few entries. Why create something that has a high likelihood of being abandoned? Beyond that, how could I possibly think that anything I have to say is worth writing about? Maybe it's the infinite hubris of a millennial or maybe its just that I doubt anyone will actually read this, but I found a few reasons to convince myself to do it anyway.

    I'm Already Writing Anyway

    I've been in the habit of keeping a journal for a long time. I keep it for a lot of reasons: it helps me think aloud, it helps me recap my days, weeks, months, years, it teaches me about myself, it gives me perspective on why things did or didn't break my way. However, a journal, at least how I write mine, doesn't work well for giving a single topic more attention. I still write about topics that interest me, but diving in and exploring those topics fully isn't something that fits in a medium whose primary purpose is to record and reflect. A blog, on the other hand, is the perfect medium to write in-depth on a single topic. A blog also gives me the flexibility to write about any topic that's currently interesting me.

    Continue reading

  • Shades of Self

    A Look at Who We Are

    2018-05-01 00:00

    #blog #ramblings

    A rambling, philosophical look at how we exist as distinctly separate individuals in different situations.

    I was in an unusual debate at work the other day. I took a stance that was odd for me which led to some introspection. Why did I debate for a position that I wouldn't typically support? I felt that I was disingenuous or dishonest towards my co-workers, but is that true? Is it possible for me to maintain different perspectives on the same subject depending on the context of the debate? If so, can I do that without being self-serving or hypocritical?

    I believe that it's not only possible to maintain these different levels of self without being unethical, but also that most people probably do it every day without even realizing it. I've identified five different levels of my self that I express based on where I am, what I'm doing, and who I'm with. In my head, I picture these as a pyramid where the topmost level is the most restricted, manicured, public version of ourselves and the bottom is the most personal, intimate version.

    Professional Public

    We start at the top of the pyramid with our most carefully crafted public identities. This is the persona that we show during an interview or formal meeting. I like to call it the Professional Public self. It's the level that we feel most comfortable with the world seeing. It's where we put the information that we want people to see and know about us: our professional accomplishments and things we're proud of.

    Continue reading

  • Gestalt Principles of Design

    A Crash Course on the Whole

    2020-06-15 00:00

    #work #blog #ramblings

    Today we're looking at 'die Gestalt', the result of early 20th century studies in psychology that described how humans perceive the world, and how it can help us make outstanding user interfaces.

    Visual representation of Gestalt principles using a stylized version of the literal word Gestalt

    Gestalt Psychology

    Gestalt (ɡəˈʃtælt) feminine noun: 1. An organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.

    Around the turn of the century, German and Austrian psychologists were investigating the human mind's ability to perceive the world around it. Even though we're confronted with a world filled with exceptions and strange sights, we can somehow sort it all out. How do we come to form a meaningful, consistent perception of reality based on the chaotic conditions around us?

    The prevailing conclusion of this school of psychology is that when perceiving the world, the mind sees eine Gestalt — or a "global whole" — instead of a collection of individual parts. The mind also has the ability to organize these wholes into even larger wholes. For instance, the mind can recognize a hat or a person as a whole object instead of a collection of lines and curves, but our mind can also perceive a larger whole of a person wearing a hat instead of seeing two smaller unrelated objects near each other. According to one of the founders of Gestalt psychology, Kurt Koffka,

    Continue reading

  • 2019 Work Reads

    A Slew of Short Book Reviews

    2020-07-01 00:00

    #blog #work #ramblings

    My professional reads from last year, rated and reviewed.

    Curved library bookshelf wall

    Overview

    I like to read. I read a lot about a lot of things, but I would say that I devote maybe 40% of my reading time to things that I'd consider “professionally oriented”. These are books, articles, blog posts, white papers, etc. that I probably wouldn't read if I didn't have a job. They aren't all directly related to my job, but they all make me better in some way.

    So here's a list of professional books I read in 2019 (roughly in chronological order) along with a rating out of five possible stars and the two second summary of why you should or shouldn't read them. Spoiler — they weren't all winners.

    Clean Code

    by Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin

    A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

    Rating: 3/5

    A slightly dated look at how code can be simple and maintainable. There are some good gems that can be extracted for programmers of any language or experience level. A bit long to read all the way through and considerably better in paper format as opposed to e-book because of the code blocks. Definitely worth a look if you're a day-to-day coder.

    Continue reading

  • Microblog

    2022-08-27 00:00

    #structure #microblog #blog

    This page serves as a simple index of all my microblog posts. This list should be roughly equivalent to searching for the #microblog tag.

    If you're looking for my longer #blog posts see 201610270000 Tech — Work — Ramblings.