🌲🎬 Inventing on Principle

A conference talk from 2012. I have watched it every January since 2021, the way other people rewatch a film at Christmas. This year on Saturday the 18th, after climbing, with Jonas sawing a shelf for the cat in the next room.

Two talks in one:

• The first half is demos. His claim is that people who make things need to see what they are doing while they do it. He changes a number in some code and the picture of a tree changes as he drags. He scrubs backwards through time in a small game. He shows an algorithm with its values written beside each line. None of it is about programming, really. It is about the gap between making a change and finding out what it did.
• The second half is the reason I come back. He says he works this way because he holds a principle, something specific enough to tell him what is wrong with the world and what to do on a Monday, and that a life can be organised around one. He is careful to say it is a choice and not the only one.

What I argue with every year: a principle is easier to hold when you choose your own problems. Most of mine arrive in a planning meeting. That argument finally became a note in September: 💎 Important problems are chosen and not assigned.

Times watched: 5

Concepts & Permanent Notes: 💎 Writing is how I find out whether I understand · ⚓ Say the plain thing · 🧭 Craft