At its worst, a product manager relationship is like an unhealthy family: driven by condescension, emotional manipulation, lies, and mistrust. This isn’t because product managers are bad people! It’s because the structure of the relationship creates conflict. Both sides must make commitments (about the technical system or goals of the organization) that are (a) often wrong, and that (b) the other side is unable to independently verify. To avoid the trap, both sides have to be generous, willing to trust each other in their areas of expertise, and most importantly competent.

Every time I post a new behavioral experiment, or share a personal resolution of some kind, I get a few emails telling me not to be so strict with myself.

They always say something like “It’s not good to be so hard on yourself!” or “We shouldn’t be forcing ourselves to do things!”

This is a common thing to hear in our improvement-focused culture. I used to think it was a reasonable caution, but now I think it’s generally bad advice.

It seems well-meaning in most cases—people sometimes do go overboard with exercise, frugality, and personal efficiency. But I think it’s much more common for people to go under-board in some or all of those areas, and you can bet the person giving you a hard time is one of them.

We often hear about the importance of “balance” in our self-improvement efforts. But what exactly are we balancing? Good behaviors and bad ones? Are we looking for lives that are equal parts wisdom and recklessness?

Can you imagine someone saying “I don’t think we should force ourselves to brush our teeth every day. You have to live a little!”

About compound interest

The Color Theory Behind Industrial Seafoam Green

Pretty pictures! Reminds of Merveilles' seafoam green and of Soviet half-wall-tall colouring. Due to the latter, this colour also bears additional doomer connotations.

I wonder if this colour could work well in computer UIs? Does it work the same on glowing screens?

Финансовый дзен мониторинг: наблюдение за курсами доллара, евро и нефти. Медитация. Релаксация.

Моя знакомая Ульяна рассказывает про опыт с БАР

The concept of feature flags is simple – it’s essentially just an if. This makes it a very powerful concept!

Жетбрейнсы рассказывают о концепции фича-флагов

How do you know what hourly rate you are worth? What factors should be taken into account? Here are my criteria.

Есть фееричное по своей глупости выражение: на правду не обижаются. Это верно: обижаются не на правду, а на бестактность, грубость, фамильярность, непрошенное мнение и все то, что сопутствует правде.

Если собеседник обижается на правду, стоит подумать, как лучше ее донести и вообще — стоит ли ее доносить.

Rule of thumb: index for equality first—then for ranges.

If you want a single piece of advice to reduce your bug count, it’s this:
Re-read your code frequently. After writing a few lines of code (3 to 6 lines, a short block within a function), re-read them. That habit will save you more time than any other simple change you can make.