What I've Been Reading (10)
Software Engineering, Game Dev, Security, Discord, Leadership, and Fun
If you’re only going to click one link, the Star Wars infographic is my favorite. It also will take you an hour to read.
Software Engineering
https://martinfowler.com/bliki/ConwaysLaw.html
Conway's Law: If your team is divided into core groups that communicate in limited, well-defined ways, there will be the same number of core systems that interact in similar limited and well-defined ways.
Game Dev
http://farawaytimes.blogspot.com/2023/02/how-to-make-good-small-games.html
You can have fun making and selling small games. A game doesn’t have to have a massive scope, complex animations, or an incredible length to be good.
https://lethain.com/monocle-studios/
Will Larson’s experience starting an iPhone gaming company (2008-2009) after graduating college. It failed, but lessons were learned.
Security
https://maxwelldulin.com/BlogPost?post=3971654656
SushiSwap was hacked. An address variable wasn’t properly validated, and attackers were able to drain funds that users had approved the contract to send. Oops.
https://dualuse.io/blog/harnessing-the-hive-mind/
Semgrep & Nuclei are uniquely powerful open-source tools. They continue to grow as hackers continue to add more and more rules. If you can build an open source community to write test cases, coverage increases. Duh.
Security solutions need to be easy, not get in the way, not add more work, and ideally, solve a problem developers have. Security tools must be better than frictionless: they should be useful.
https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2023/04/18/china-challenges-open-source-osint-social-media/
Performing open source research in China is… nontrivial. Services often require a +86 phone number to register. Acquiring a Chinese phone number requires sharing your identity with China, and may even require another person to vouch for you.
Discord
https://twitter.com/luciascarlet/status/1649383816249606148
Some hate it, but this new Discord layout… kinda good.
Leadership
https://www.benkuhn.net/newmgr/
Mistakes that new managers may make. Many of these are actionable even for non-managers. e.g. “How do you know what you are doing is useful when there is not immediate feedback?” His linked post on managing attention is also worth a skim (“evade obligations”).
https://lethain.com/hard-to-work-with/
“I’ve seen a staggering number of folks fail in an organization primarily because they want to hold others to a higher standard than their organization’s management is willing to enforce.”
Fun
Star Wars as an Infographic. Incredible. The making of page has an overview of the project. “All in all, it took me approximately 1000 hours.”
https://www.theawl.com/2011/11/a-conspiracy-of-hogs-the-mcrib-as-arbitrage/
LOL. It’s certainly got to be easier to sell the McRib when pork is cheap… Correlation? Or Causation?
https://neal.fun/space-elevator/
Elevator music. In space. It just keeps scrolling and scrolling (just like the Star Wars infographic…).