If we properly re-characterized our military procurement system as the federal money-distribution, political-delaying, and accountability-avoidance system, we’d all be raving about what a success we have on our hands here. Because it’s great at all of those things. That is what the politicians and the bureaucrats want it to be. They might not admit it, but that is exactly the way they have designed the system, and they are getting exactly what they pay for.
Advice for big, daunting projects: do something right away. When a major project lands in your lap, perhaps with a deadline weeks or months away, make it your business to take some kind of concrete action on it as soon as you can, even if you won’t get to the majority of the work until later.
I’ve found this works really well. For me, this typically means writing a short, clear sentence about the objective of the project. Too often we launch into busy work before confirming what we’re actually trying to achieve.
So let me repeat the maxim we should all be living by: do not expect a moral stand from a corporation.
This can be both true and disappointing, as Dan Moren is clear to write.
🎵Delightfully strange music from Patrick Watson on Uh Oh
Finished reading: The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami is a dystopian view of where we’re headed with data-driven algorithms. I enjoyed the story, despite the scary implications 📚
An interesting series of articles in Quanta Magazine on climate science: How We Came To Know Earth. Such an important field of research and remarkable how much has been learned, though still lots of uncertainty.
Finished reading: Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a really good first contact with aliens story 📚
Finished reading: Pines by Blake Crouch is an exciting start to the series. I appreciated the Twin Peaks vibes 📚
Spotted on today’s run: a dog library for sticks
Amazing that Quirks and Quarks has been going for 50 years! I’ve been listening for close to 40 years, starting with a small transistor radio when I was a kid and then was my first podcast subscription (before that was even a real thing).
Finished reading: The 51st State Votes by Justin Ling is a good overview of what happened in Canada’s recent, strange election campaign 📚
🏃♂️ Well, there’s a week that hasn’t gone to plan. Try again next week!
Finished reading: The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman is great fun: humour, adventure, and imagination, as a thief tries to rescue a queen 📚
🏃♂️ I’ve done this route dozens of times, but always counter clockwise. This was the first time clockwise and it is interesting how different the route seems when going in the opposite direction.
Finished reading: I’ll confess that I skipped through parts of Foreign Bodies by Simon Schama. I appreciated the message of the book that vaccination has always been controversial and only diligent science with careful public health communication have been persuasive. I just found the details of the book too overwhelming: so many names, dates, and locations to keep track of, which I wasn’t up for 📚
Finished reading: City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer is an imaginative, richly detailed, and difficult book to read. I appreciated the world building and overall strangeness, but the lack of plot and central characters made for a challenging read 📚
🚴 After very little riding over the past two months, nice to be back on the bike again. Starting up a new season of training
