It's the start of Summer (or Winter in the Southern Hemisphere). Unusually for June it even feels like Summer in San Francisco today. Rendered in Catfood Earth (Windows, Android).

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Photo of a Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillar, it has a black body with brilliant orange spikes.

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State

50: Yes - makes it harder so suspend a legislator but provides a more impactful sanction when this does happen. I don't think legislators should be suspended unless the circumstances are extreme. 

San Francisco

A: Yes - mostly hospital and fire station upgrades.

B: No - I like parks, but the city should decide how much to allocate to them. I generally don't like measures that carve out specific areas for funding.

C: I have no idea. Abstain. I don't have the time to untangle this one.

D: Yes, clearly more oversight of lethal force by SFPD is needed.

E: Yes, brings San Francisco sick leave in line with State rules.

AA: No, regressive per-parcel tax. Should be funded in a better way.

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When to Rob a Bank by Steven D. Levitt

3/5

I didn't realize this was just a collection of blog posts! There are some good ones for sure (my favorite is the evisceration of Good to Great for the exact same reasons that I hate that book). But it's just some blog posts and they're mostly too short and not fleshed out.

 

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True by Richard Dawkins

2/5

I'm not really sure what the point of this book is. I guess Dawkins is trying to bring people round to believing in science and so the main device used in the book is to mock religions and myths for a while before sketching in a light summary (very light for the non-Biology sections) of some area of science. If you're in it for the science then you're going to be mostly disappointing. If you're not of a scientific bent then you're going to be alienated by the heavy handed myth bashing and so I don't think you're going to be in a positive frame of mind to listen to what Dawkins has to say when you get the science bit. Not recommended for either audience.

 

Three Tales from the Laundry Files by Charles Stross

3/5

 

The Mind Club by Daniel M. Wegner

3/5

The central theme of this book is some research about how people feel about different kinds of minds. At it's heart it's a Harvard Business Review style quadrant analysis with the two dimensions being doing and feeling (and doers doing things to feelers). This isn't nearly as interesting (or difficult) as actually trying to understand different minds. This is touched on briefly and mainly via that experiment where people report that they made a decision half a second after their body started doing the thing that they decided to do. Which is fascinating and hard to explain but it's only really a detour here. The meat of the book is how people feel about dogs and dead people and gods. There are some interesting anecdotes and the book is saved by the good humor and gentle snarkiness of at least one of the authors.

 

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Today is the last day to comment on the latest version of the dog management plan for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. I've just squeaked in under the wire. My main concern is that the National Park Service is sneaking in provisions that will allow them to further restrict access over time. The specific pros and cons of the rules for each site are less important than preserving the GGNRA as a recreation resource for everyone over time. I'm not a militant dog person - I think that there should be dog free beaches for people who prefer to not have dogs around for instance. Much of what is in the plan is reasonable. I just don't trust the NPS to stop here.

If you agree check saveoffleash.com to see what you can do to help push back on this.

Here's my full response to the NPS:

Dear National Park Service

I am writing to provide my feedback on the latest version of the proposed rule changes for dog walking in the Golden Gate National Recreation area (RIN: 1024-AE16). I also commented extensively on the first and second round and so will limit myself here to a few key points.

My primary concern with the new rules is the provision for the superintendent to further limit or remove access based on the following language:

"If primary management actions do not sufficiently address the problem, the superintendent would implement secondary management actions. Examples of secondary management actions may include, but are not limited to increased buffer zones, and additional use restrictions (e.g. limiting the number of dogs off-leash at any one time with one dog walker, requiring tags or permits for accessing Voice and Sight Control Areas, or short or long-term, dog walking area closures)."

I feel that the tone of the proposed rule changes suggests that the National Park Service would just prefer to have the same set of regulations system wide and shut down off leash access to the GGNRA. Regardless of how reasonable or unreasonable the new rules are initially it feels like excuses will be found to whittle down access over time. Enforcement should be limited to individuals who violate the rules and not to shutting down access for everyone. I cannot support the rule changes while it contains this provision.

My family lives in San Francisco and we regularly visit Fort Funston, Crissy Field, Rodeo Beach and Hill 88 (Marin Headlands) with our well behaved dog. We occasionally visit Ocean Beach, Sweeney Ridge and other GGNRA locations.

Given our use of the GGNRA I feel that the plan has improved considerably compared with the previous two versions. My chief remaining concern is the Sand Ladder trail at Fort Funston. Unless you are contemplating improvements to the trail I do not feel that this is safe for on leash walking and it should be maintained as an off leash trail for the safety of dogs and walkers alike.

In the Marin Headlands we often walk the loop up the Coastal Trail to Hill 88 returning to Rodeo Beach via Wolf Ridge and the Miwok Trail. The proposed leashed access to a portion of the Coastal Trail and Old Bunker Road is much shorter. I would love to still be able to hike the Hill 88 route with our dog (preferably off leash, but on leash would be better than nothing).

Sincerely

Robert Ellison

(Tracking number 1k0-8pu0-jdnh)

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10 minute single-frame timelapse.

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Screw Holacracy, I have an idea that will revolutionize business and drive the next wave of global productivity gains. It’s a simple question of fixing meetings.

My dream week is one where I have two miserable days with back to back meetings and forget lunch, there isn’t even enough time to grab a coffee. Sound miserable? The upside is three uninterrupted days where I can cruise through a ridiculous amount of work.

My real week - meetings dotted throughout each day with half hour breaks in between. And many of these meetings will involve eighteen people shoehorned into a closet because someone booked the big room for a 1:1.

We need a meeting defragmenter.

Let go of picking a time and a room. Just say who you need to meet with and for how long. The meeting defragmenter will pick the best room and group all meetings as close together as possible with a five minute break in between.

Your company can decide if you prefer to load mornings or afternoons, or maybe Mondays and Thursdays. You can set core hours for each team.

Information workers take around twenty minutes to enter a state of flow which is where you need to be to write great code, conduct awe-inspiring analysis or generally do anything of value to your company. A half hour gap in between meetings is just enough time to get back to your desk, dismiss unwelcome interruptions, start to get into a state of mind to tackle some real work and then realize it’s time for another meeting.

Giving more people more blocks of useful time would be an incalculable benefit to their mental health, their businesses and the global economy. This one simple tool could change the world.

As usual if any of my billionaire investor readers are interested, call me.

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An Echo knockoff and rapturous applause for variable font size in a messaging app. Not much innovation so far this year.

The horrific trend in Inbox and now Allo is machine learning auto reply so you can send something canned and inauthentic instead of actually speaking with people. Zombie Robs might approve but I'm far from convinced.

Updated 2016-05-18 14:12:

Android N looks super cool and I can't wait. The #1 productivity enhancement I'd like to see though is copy and paste icons that look like copy and paste. I do not have a clue currently.

Updated 2016-05-18 14:24:

No headset.

Updated 2016-05-18 14:40:

Android Studio is very nice. Eclipse was painful. I actually like Android Studio more than Xamarin which is saying a lot for a C# leaning person.

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