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hn30000

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The only business book I’ve read is that one about management by the CEO of Intel (I forget the name). It helped me a lot with my first big corporate client because until then I had only worked at startups and small businesses. I literally didn’t understand what the purpose of meetings was, etc. Anyway, I haven’t been compelled to pick up any other business books as most of the popular ones seem like self/help books.

CS department at my alma mater was very, very theoretical and we were encouraged to just write code in text editors. After that I got into programming for CAD software which had rudimentary editors as well. Basically I just memorized a bunch of stuff and always had a second monitor with the docs open. These days I use autocomplete but I still largely code the same way, and for better or worse I’m set in my ways — at least when I’m using libraries I’m familiar with. If I’m messing around with something completely new then sure, I’ll make extensive use of autocomplete.

Some good posts here. Another term to look into is auralization (often discussed in reference to room acoustics). I have done some research into architectural acoustics and real-time audio rendering tools and am happy to discuss further (though it is a big field and I definitely don’t know it all), anyone reading this should feel free to shoot me a message.

I consult for manufacturers and fabrication shops. In my experience there aren’t really centralized repositories of info for this stuff like there is in tech. It took me a while to get my head around it, and many years of talking to people and visiting their facilities, to realize that knowledge just doesn’t seem to be organized the same way in manufacturing as it is in tech. Most of the good stuff I’ve learned through conversations with guys running these facilities, not through some central knowledge base. I’d love to be proven wrong though if someone has a good set of resources out these...

I pretty much never read the jacket copy until I’ve finished the book. It’s not so much about spoilers as it is about falling into a normative interpretation of the text.

If you keep a list on your phone of interesting-sounding authors and comb used book stores you’ll rarely run out of options.

The jacket copy for Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice is far and away the best I’ve ever read — not surprising that he wrote it himself.

I work in architecture and went to school for it. The only reasonable definition of design thinking that I’ve heard is “a way of thinking that considers the affordances of a design decision across multiple scales or perspectives.”

For instance, you need a floor plate of the second floor of a building to be a bit bigger to accommodate a certain type of room. So you make the second floor cantilever over the entrance, thereby also providing the functionality of an awning that protects people from rain while they wait for the bus. This is a bit of a silly example because the cantilever adds cost etc but that’s the general idea. Identifying opportunities that are “win-win,” might be a crude way to say it.

In my experience this is a particular mode of thinking that some people are clearly better at, and those people tend to be the superstar designers. Whether it can be taught or not is a bit of an open question.

Any other definition I’ve heard for “design thinking” doesn’t really make sense to me, but that might just reflect my background.

I don’t buy a lot of their other products but IMO the fine woodworking stuff always hits the mark. It’s not about brand for me, it’s about quality. Their gear also saved me hundreds of hours when model-making in architecture grad school. Have never regretted a purchase.

Tokyo has so much going on that you can pretty much follow your own highly niche interests and have a good time there. No need to get bogged down in people’s “takes” on how to do it right.

Sometimes things are messy in the early days. Are things getting out of control at this particular company? Hard to say. If you want to push for change be polite and persistent and focus on one or two key changes to the workflow. Not everything at once. Or if you can’t stand working this way you could jump to a more mature startup.

So many things to try. Many good suggestions already. A couple more:

I meet with an adhd coach, he essentially plans my week for me. The plan often falls apart after the first 2-3 days but it is enough to keep my life from falling off the rails. Something to consider.

I see in some of your other comments that you have a caffeine sensitivity — I do too; I started diluting coffee to something like 1:50 and taking 2-3 sips in the morning. Otherwise I get in a stress spiral all day.