JB

I just started reading Cal Newport’s Deep Work and I’ve found myself nodding along in agreement through the introduction and first two chapters. His description of the environment needed for intense, concentrated study reminded me of a time I went through a period of deep work, one that is unfortunately difficult to replicate.

Eighteen years ago I was on my second six-month deployment to the Mediterranean on the USS Platte, an auxiliary oiler. It took us two weeks to cross the Atlantic back then, and once in the Med we would spend anywhere from one to three weeks underway between port visits. Everyone in the Navy has a job, and for the first three years I was in the Navy my job was Machinery Repairman, abbreviated “MR”. Along with your job designation, everyone in the Navy has a rate, and my rate at the time was E3, also called “Fireman”, so my title at the time was MRFN Buys.¹

I desperately wanted to make Petty Officer Third Class (E4), the next promotion level. The first three promotions (E1 through E3) are given as soon as you serve the requisite amount of time. The subsequent promotions require testing and a complex scoring system that ranks your performance through reviews. The Navy will have only a certain number of slots open for E4 in each rate (job), so sometimes even if you ace the test, you won’t be promoted because of the “needs of the Navy”. Machinery Repairman was one of those jobs that was saturated at the time. I had taken the semiannual test twice, and twice had not made petty officer third class.

I really wanted to make third. Higher rate meant better pay, and I was newly married with a baby on the way. Working in engineering meant that I spent a lot of my time working in the fire room, where the boilers and other high-pressure steam system equipment lived. It was always hot, I mean really hot, and there was no natural light. We worked in blue overalls with the sleeves rolled up, we took readings on the equipment on a regular schedule, smoked and hoped nothing would break. Sometimes, depending on what else was going on around the ship, we might have to split our shifts on watch down to six and six; six hours on watch, six hours off, and one of those six hours off we had to spend doing our main jobs. So for up to eighteen hours a day I was hot, sweaty, and covered in grease. To be honest, most of the time the rotation wasn’t quite that bad, but from time to time it would be.

When I’d wash my hands and face and head up to the mess decks for lunch or dinner, I’d meet up with some of the guys who had been on the ship for as long as I had who had made rate already and worked in Radio. They’d come down in their crisp, clean dungarees, shiny boondockers with a mirror polish, and complain about how cold it was in Radio. During one of these lunches I decided to cross-rate. The Navy has a system where you can apply to take the E4 test of a different rate. I made up my mind to cross-rate to Radioman, then, I reasoned, I could make rate and get out of the pit.

Cross-rating isn’t easy though. I had to learn an entirely new field of work, and I had to keep up with my existing responsibilities. I filled out all the requisite paperwork, got approval, and started to study. I got ahold of the Radioman 3 & 2 and a thick spiral-ringed notebook and started carrying them with me on watch in the pit. Between times when I had to take readings on the equipment, I focused all of my energy into learning everything I could about the rate, devouring the book while learning about wave propagation and transmitter and receiver theory. I talked some of the senior petty officers into letting me spend some of the time between watches or after my regular job was over up in Radio getting hands-on experience. I had two sets of uniforms in my rack, one for the pit, and one for Radio. I kept this up for weeks.

By the time the test came around, I not only scored high enough to make RM3 (Radioman, Petty Officer Third Class), I blew the test out of the water. The period of intense, focused effort resulted in a major change in my life. After I made RM3 the Navy combined the RM and DP (data processing) rates, creating the new Information Technician rate, who dealt with all of the ship and shore based communications and computer systems. Becoming a Radioman changed my career path from a machinist to what has evolved into devops. It was hard, but my life is immeasurably better because of the work I put in.

After making E4, I turned my attention to the Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist. I spent the rest of the deployment learning about every facet of the ships operation, from the bridge to the engine room, from the main steam cycle to semaphores. I absolutely loved it. My last few months on the ship were the best. Learning how to apply myself diligently to achieve goals is a skill I wish I would have learned earlier in life, but once I did learn it I’ve been able to call on it when I need to. It can be difficult to isolate myself from distractions and focus as a remote knowledge worker in 2016, but I’ve never forgot the lessons of the pit. Hard work, sweat, and diligent, concentrated effort are the keys to success.

Overcast is moving to an ad-supported business model.

Ads are the great compromise: money needs to come from somewhere, and the vast majority of people choose free-with-ads over direct payment. Ads need not be a bad thing: when implemented respectfully, all parties can get what they want.

Overcast is the best podcast client I’ve used. Smart Speed and Voice Boost are fantastic features that Marco clearly put a lot of work into, so I hope he finds a business model that is sustainable enough to convince him to keep working on the app. Being able to say that though has taken some thought and introspection.

I’m envious of Marco’s success. He’s played all his cards right and he’s designed the life he wants to lead; he deserves the success he’s gained. ATP is my favorite podcast, and I used Instapaper almost religiously for years. He’s very good at what he decides to do, so I don’t think it’s any mystery at all that he is where he is.

And yet… and yet… like so many others in this community, I’ve struggled to come up with even one idea with staying power. I’ve released too soon, my ideas weren’t very good, or my execution flawed. As I look at turning 40 in a few short months, I’m finding it harder than ever not to grow bitter at how some make it, but most do not. It’s an unfair, harsh, and unforgiving world out there, and if you weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth it’s unlikely you’ll ever know life without struggle.

Unlikely, but not impossible. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.

I’ve watched Shawn Blanc grow from a part-time blogger¹ to a self-help coach, running three separate sites and recording online courses. Making enough money in a week to last for a year. Again, he’s smart, he’s found his niche, and he’s worked hard. It’s just not the natural human emotion to feel good about others succeeding where you have not. It takes effort.

Manton Reece talked about this a bit in his post “A great developer can come from anywhere”:

Daniel Jalkut and I had Marco as a special guest on Core Intuition 200 not just because he’s a friend but also because he so well represents the goal that many of us have and our listeners have — to start our own company, to find success not just one time but again and again, and to have as thoughtful an approach as possible in the craft of software development.

I’m tempted to quote the entire article. Manton makes the case that while some people dismiss Marco’s approach to testing as a privilege he enjoys as a byproduct of his success, this concept is poison to the community. Saying “that’s fine for Marco, but it wouldn’t work for the average guy” is giving yourself an excuse not to work as hard or push as hard as needed to make it. It’s important to remember that Marco’s success came after years of mostly anonymous work. And of course, success breeds success, he’s been able to build off of one to make a success of the next.

Manton ends his post by saying:

I’ll never accept the implied negativity in the “that’s fine for Marco” argument. I’ll never accept that we should be jealous of another developer’s success instead of inspired by it to do our best work.

My first reaction to the Overcast announcement was to post a quick tweet about not wanting to help finance Marco’s next Tesla, but that would have come from a place of jealousy and bitterness, not inspiration. Instead, I’m going to go back to my notebook, my collection of ideas, and look over it again.

9to5 Mac in reference to “courage” from the September Apple event:

It’s likely a reference to a comment by Steve Jobs when he was asked to explain another controversial omission of an established standard: the lack of support for Flash in the iPhone and iPad …

The video of Jobs makes a good point, and comes across better than Schiller did.

Another keynote came and went yesterday, and there was nothing I could do after it was over. I couldn’t order the new iPhone 7, or upgrade my current iPhone to iOS 10. I couldn’t buy the new Apple Watch, and even the new iWork collaborative editing features are in new versions “coming soon”. When I tried to download the new Mario game, the App Store let me know I’d be notified when it was available. After everything was announced yesterday, today I’m wondering what the point of having the event when they did was.

There was once a time when you could download new apps or operating systems as soon as the keynote was over. I specifically remember Steve saying more than once “… and it’s available today”. For the past few years we haven’t been getting that. At best the new features are coming in a couple of weeks, or at worst at some undefined time, presumably so far in the future that they can’t nail down a specific date.

It’s good to ship products when they are ready and not at an arbitrary keynote date, but Apple used to be better at coordinating those times to all coincide. By not having anything available on day one, Apple misses out on the consumer excitement it generates by having these events in the first place. At least, I’m not as excited today as I was yesterday. After they keynote was over if I had the ability to order a new Series Two Apple Watch, I almost certainly would have. After giving it a day to think it over, now I’m not as convinced that I need one. I’ll probably wait for the first few reviews to come in and see how much of an upgrade it is.

Perhaps this is another sign of Apple’s confidence and maturity as a massive global corporation. It’s possible that the internal workings of scheduling all the moving parts is impossible to line up correctly. It used to be we only had the one platform and one operating system, the Mac and OS X.¹ Now we have the Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and Apple TV; macOS, iOS, tvOS, and watchOS, as well as iCloud to tie everything together, and the multiple services Apple provides. Now add the complexities of global shipping and coordinating their retail stores around the world, and I can start to make out why it might not all line up the same as it used to.

However, it doesn’t change the fact that the event came and went, and after it was over there was nothing I could do but read about what’s coming.

iPhone 7

I upgrade every two years on the “S” cycle, so on the off years, like this one, I get a glimpse of what’s coming when I do decide to upgrade. Overall the new iPhone seems like a great upgrade. I think they’ve taken appropriate steps to mitigate the uproar over removing the headphone jack by both including an adapter and setting a reasonable price for replacements. I’ve got at least another year with my current iPhone 6S, so by the time I’m ready to upgrade the story won’t be a story anymore.

More concerning is removing the physical home button and replacing it with a 3D Touch area. This is one of those things that I really hope works well, but since I haven’t been impressed with 3D Touch on the 6S, I’m skeptical of how well it’ll work for the most-used button on the phone. How fast will it respond to double-clicking for the app switcher? The exiting 3D Touch app switcher, where you press on the side of the phone is terrible, I never know if I’m about to damage my phone or what amount of pressure to apply. I find it unreliable enough that I don’t use it. Again, hopefully by the 7S model this will be resolved. Better camera, better color, faster CPU, all good things.

AirPods

I already lost them in the couch. Then another pair went through the wash. I’ll probably not be getting these.

Apple Watch Series 2

I wear a fitbit most days, but I run with my phone strapped to my arm, tracking my runs with the Nike+ Run Club app. When the Apple Watch was first announced being able to run without my phone was the first thing that came to mind, but the hardware wasn’t ready yet. The Watch didn’t have the ability to accurately track distance without GPS, so it still needed to be paired with the phone, which defeated the purpose for what I wanted it for. Now that GPS has finally been added I’m seriously thinking about getting one to replace my fitbit as a personal fitness coach and tracker, but I’m going to want to hear how it works for a few other people first.

That the watch is waterproof now is nice, but not a big deal for me. Sometimes I run in the rain, and not having to worry about my phone getting wet would be nice, but I haven’t swam for a few years. I suppose if I ever start training for a triathlon it’ll come in handy.

I use Nike’s apps, and have for about 1640 miles, but that Nike-branded Apple Watch was just plain ugly. No way I’m putting down any money for that band. The pure white Nike band looks acceptable, but still not as nice as the black sport band.

Assorted Nuts

The enhancements to iWork would have been more interesting to me a few years ago when I was in grad school. I had to write a few collaborative papers, and the only way to do it at the time was Google Docs, but I would have much rather worked in Pages. Of course, I still probably would have had to use Google Docs because the other students I worked with weren’t on Macs.

The Mario game looks like fun, I’ll buy it when it comes out, but what I’m really looking forward to is a proper Zelda adventure. We’ll see how far Nintendo’s commitment to iOS goes.

I could have done without Tim Cook singing, but the skit was fine. Better than previous attempts have been.

I quipped on Twitter that Phil Schiller reminded me of the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz when he started talking about courage. It does take some amount of courage to “push the human race forward”, and if Apple has to do it one port at a time, then I’m on board for the ride. I just think they could have found a better way to come across, a better way to convey their reasoning and the purpose behind the change. I’m not going to miss the port, as long as I’ve got headphones I’m fine, but I use either a bluetooth speaker or the built in speakers more often than the headphones, especially now that I’m not driving to work every day and listening to podcasts in the car.

Yesterday’s announcements were about what was expected, Mario being the notable exception. There was not a lot for me, personally, to get excited about. I’m in the market for a new Mac, so I’m hoping for a refresh next month. Then maybe I’ll get excited.

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We will make Vesper for iOS, Vesper for Mac, and Vesper’s JavaScript sync service open source on my personal GitHub account. This code will also be provided as historical artifacts: they’re not intended as active projects. They’re also not intended as examples of how to write apps these days.

I applaud the team’s decisions to open source the Vesper code base, especially the syncing component that Brent put so much work into. Perhaps, like the ill-fated Letters.app, Vesper’s demise will give way to new applications that may fare better.

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I don’t know how the executives at Mylan sleep at night.

I do. On gigantic mattresses stuffed with money. This is why the Libertarian ideal of a society free from government interference won’t work. The corporation will take ever advantage they legally can to gain as much profit as possible.

Link

On a more philosophical level, this journey has served to remind me again of how terribly delicate is the fabric of civilization, of the vigilance required to protect it and of the slow and painstaking work of mending it once it has been torn. This is hardly an original thought; it is a lesson we were supposed to have learned after Nazi Germany, after Bosnia and Rwanda. Perhaps it is a lesson we need to constantly relearn.

Incredible work by Scott Anderson at the New York Times. Take a day or two and read the entire thing. For those of us living in peace and prosperity, where the biggest problem we have to face is paying an extra dollar for a cappuccino, we need to remember that evil is always waiting at the gates. There are always those who would throw the world into chaos. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

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Being an athlete is simple – all you have to do is strive.

I enjoyed this set of videos from Strava.

Link

And yet, the Americans were . . . wow. They were amazing. What else could you say? Part of the pleasure was appreciating the team’s depth. Yes, Simone Biles is the greatest gymnast in history—she was even before she won her first Olympic gold last night—but she has astonishingly talented teammates. Laurie Hernandez doesn’t just look like she was drawn by a cartoonist; every leap seemed accompanied by a thought bubble filled with exclamation points. Aly Raisman tumbled with a regal quality that was absent even four years ago, when she won gold in the floor exercise. She seemed to stick her landings by fiat.

Dominating.

She’s focussing on the two-hundred-metre freestyle to qualify for the Olympics, but she admitted a soft spot for the butterfly. “It’s really hard,” she said. “This is why I love it.”

An amazing and inspirational story. It is far too easy to forget the human stories of the refugee crisis stemming from the Syrian civil war. These are real people with lives and dreams that were thrown into disarray when their country was torn apart.