Alex shares things

Modern Java is a very different beast to what to learnt at uni.

Tom O'Reilly on what he could have done better. O'Reilly have had amazing impact for a company of now just 500 people.

  This post is about a discipline (or sometimes called function-based) org structure.  Like many management “principles”, org structures represent a pendulum that swings back and forth between...

And I love the ragging on Buffer. Joel G writes really well, but I hope he does something more meaningful next time.

What you can’t see, and what they can’t see, is that the successful tend to make it more probable that unlikely events will happen to them while trying to steer themselves into the positive side of randomness. They stick with it, remaining open to better opportunities that may require abandoning their current paths, and that’s something you can start doing right now without reading a single self-help proverb, maxim, or aphorism. Also, keep in mind that those who fail rarely get paid for advice on how not to fail, which is too bad because despite how it may seem, success boils down to serially avoiding catastrophic failure while routinely absorbing manageable damage.

It's a standard assumption in the West: As a society progresses, it eventually becomes a capitalist, multi-party democracy. Right? Eric X. Li, a Chinese investor and political scientist, begs to differ. In this provocative, boundary-pushing talk, he asks his audience to consider that there's more than one way to run a successful modern nation.

Fascinatingly personal insight into the the way many startups end.

Too much of the startup world focuses on the mechanics of starting a business.Whilst it'€™s good to move fast and stay lean, it'€™s time we made our businesses more human and in the process gave them a better chance of survival.

"I'd argue that the initial time spent implementing a feature is one of the least interesting data points to consider when weighing the cost and benefit of a feature."

Brett Victor on doing something that will still be relevant 100 years from now.

In today's world, web developers have it all: money, perks, freedom, respect. But is there value in what we do?

Anathem , Quicksilver , and Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson

Simon Sinek on how great leaders inspire action.

Part two is here.

Larry Lessig on how US democracy is broken, and how important it is to reclaim representativeness.

Brett Victor on developing tools for changing the way humans can think.

Brett Victor applies direct manipulation to data visualisation.