Explaining the world one sketch at a time

Simplifying complex ideas through fun and insightful sketches. Explore topics from science, creativity, psychology, and more explained in pictures.

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Recent sketches

The cost of fixing bugs

Just as mistakes and the unexpected are part of life, bugs are part of software development. In general, the longer the time between when a bug was first introduced and when the bug is identified and fixed the more expensive it is in both time and money. It might go something like this: If you spot a bug as you're writing a new feature everything is fresh in your mind and it can sometimes take just a moment to fix. If a bug turns up later or perhaps soon after it's deployed you might have an idea of where it might be and track it down fairly quickly. If a lot of time has passed since a feature was worked on and a bug is spotted or tackled then it might take a fair bit of time to figure out how everything works again before you can fix it. And if a really long time has passed then, aside from the cost of interrupting what you are otherwise working on, it may not even be clear what was intended by the original code, probably written by others, and there's a fair chance more has been built on top of the buggy code making it more complex and a bigger task to tackle. The only way to solve it may be stepping through and figuring out behaviour slowly and steadily line-by-line. You could probably replace 'bugs' with 'code' 'problems' or 'mistakes' in most scenarios. Aside from it matching my experience, Joel Spolsky gives a nice explanation in his classic article The Joel Test.…Just as mistakes and the unexpected are part of life, bugs are part of software development. In general, the longer the time between when a bug was first introduced and when the bug is identified and fixed the more expensive it is in both time and money. It might go something like this: If you spot a bug as you're writing a new feature everything is fresh in your mind and it can sometimes take just a moment to fix. If a bug turns up later or perhaps soon after it's deployed you might have an idea of where it might be and track it down fairly quickly. If a lot of time has passed since a feature was worked on and a bug is spotted or tackled then it might take a fair bit of time to figure out how everything works again before you can fix it. And if a really long time has passed then, aside from the cost of interrupting what you are otherwise working on, it may not even be clear what was intended by the original code, probably written by others, and there's a fair chance more has been built on top of the buggy code making it more complex and a bigger task to tackle. The only way to solve it may be stepping through and figuring out behaviour slowly and steadily line-by-line. You could probably replace 'bugs' with 'code' 'problems' or 'mistakes' in most scenarios. Aside from it matching my experience, Joel Spolsky gives a nice explanation in his classic article The Joel Test.

26 Jun 2022

A drawing of 3 people resting on a cycle, one standing, one sitting, one lying down

Stand sit lie

It's an old cycling mantra for recovery: If you're standing, sit down. If you're sitting, lie down. It's something I like to keep in mind after a big workout, particularly on the legs — get the weight off them!…

19 Jun 2022

Extrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation is the carrot or the stick — when the motivation for doing something is an IF/THEN reward or punishment. We use extrinsic motivation all the time like paying people to come into work, or issuing speeding fines to make people slow down. It can work well for simple problems, basic compliance, and short-term results. However, when you need long-term behaviour change, when creativity is needed, or you're tackling complex problems, external rewards and the threat of punishments can even decrease performance and productivity. Rewards only go so far if you want to inspire a hit album, create the next Oscar-winning film, or create a breakthrough product. That is, for most of the important work we do in our lives, including I believe parenting, using extrinsic motivators of rewards or punishments is likely to be far less effective than tapping into intrinsic motivation — motivation that comes from inside ourselves. I like Dan Pink's Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose framework for intrinsic motivation. His TED talk on the Puzzle of Motivation is also a fun and interesting watch.…Extrinsic motivation is the carrot or the stick — when the motivation for doing something is an IF/THEN reward or punishment. We use extrinsic motivation all the time like paying people to come into work, or issuing speeding fines to make people slow down. It can work well for simple problems, basic compliance, and short-term results. However, when you need long-term behaviour change, when creativity is needed, or you're tackling complex problems, external rewards and the threat of punishments can even decrease performance and productivity. Rewards only go so far if you want to inspire a hit album, create the next Oscar-winning film, or create a breakthrough product. That is, for most of the important work we do in our lives, including I believe parenting, using extrinsic motivators of rewards or punishments is likely to be far less effective than tapping into intrinsic motivation — motivation that comes from inside ourselves. I like Dan Pink's Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose framework for intrinsic motivation. His TED talk on the Puzzle of Motivation is also a fun and interesting watch.

12 Jun 2022

A meeting with some in-person participants and one remote participant showing the disadvantages of each

Hybrid meetings

A hybrid meeting is when some participants are in-person, using shared equipment, and some are remote using their own. Generally speaking, hybrid meetings have a number of disadvantages you may have experienced and are best avoided if possible. Perhaps you've been on a call where everyone's laughing about something except the people joining remotely who have no idea what's going on. It can be pretty rubbish. For the in-person participants, it's easy to chat with the people in the room, but with just one person controlling the screen it can be hard to see details of any docs that are shared, and it's difficult to see the remote participants as clearly as those in the room. Those not driving also can't scan through docs at their own pace, or share a screen, or collaborate on a document. It's like having just one person with access to the whiteboard. The remote participants have it worse. Because the camera is likely not as good for the in-person participants the people are smaller and it's hard to see expressions or track who's talking. Some may be off-picture. Without seeing expressions, and with a delay even a tiny bit longer than being in-person it's much harder to find when to join in a conversation. The sound quality ƒrom the room will often also make it harder to hear some of the participants and because the shared mic won't be on mute there'll be background noise. Taken together these disadvantages make hybrid meetings best avoided where possible. Where possible, for the in-person meeting have everyone use their own equipment, joining the call on their own laptop so their video is clear and if not using headsets buy a high-quality speaker. Thanks to GitLab whose list — hybrid calls are annoying — made the disadvantages much clearer to me and led to better meetings at work.…A hybrid meeting is when some participants are in-person, using shared equipment, and some are remote using their own. Generally speaking, hybrid meetings have a number of disadvantages you may have experienced and are best avoided if possible. Perhaps you've been on a call where everyone's laughing about something except the people joining remotely who have no idea what's going on. It can be pretty rubbish. For the in-person participants, it's easy to chat with the people in the room, but with just one person controlling the screen it can be hard to see details of any docs that are shared, and it's difficult to see the remote participants as clearly as those in the room. Those not driving also can't scan through docs at their own pace, or share a screen, or collaborate on a document. It's like having just one person with access to the whiteboard. The remote participants have it worse. Because the camera is likely not as good for the in-person participants the people are smaller and it's hard to see expressions or track who's talking. Some may be off-picture. Without seeing expressions, and with a delay even a tiny bit longer than being in-person it's much harder to find when to join in a conversation. The sound quality ƒrom the room will often also make it harder to hear some of the participants and because the shared mic won't be on mute there'll be background noise. Taken together these disadvantages make hybrid meetings best avoided where possible. Where possible, for the in-person meeting have everyone use their own equipment, joining the call on their own laptop so their video is clear and if not using headsets buy a high-quality speaker. Thanks to GitLab whose list — hybrid calls are annoying — made the disadvantages much clearer to me and led to better meetings at work.

5 Jun 2022

Someone asks to cut in line at the photocopier with a lame reason - but the favour and reason combo mean the person mindlessly complies

Because

It's an old study now known as the photocopier study. The experiment had the experimenter try to cut in line at a copy machine at a University campus. The researchers found that when the ask was small — just 5 pages to copy — asking to cut in line with the rather circular reason of 'because I have to make some copies' was almost as successful as asking to cut in for the valid reason of 'because I'm in a rush', and both of them beat providing no reason at all. The effect disappeared with a larger ask of 20 pages. The theory was that with a small ask just providing any reason after the word 'because' may trigger an automatic script of 'Favour + Reason --> Comply' — if we don't really think about it we just see the pattern and act. Which suggests that a) if you have a small ask you might be better off providing a reason for it, no matter how small, and b) if we want to avoid acting mindlessly when people ask a favour it may benefit us to pay closer attention. The study was led by Ellen Langer who has since gone on to write a host of books on mindfulness. Also see narrative bias From: Langer, E. J., Blank, A., & Chanowitz, B. (1978). The mindlessness of ostensibly thoughtful action: The role of "placebic" information in interpersonal interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(6), 635–642.…It's an old study now known as the photocopier study. The experiment had the experimenter try to cut in line at a copy machine at a University campus. The researchers found that when the ask was small — just 5 pages to copy — asking to cut in line with the rather circular reason of 'because I have to make some copies' was almost as successful as asking to cut in for the valid reason of 'because I'm in a rush', and both of them beat providing no reason at all. The effect disappeared with a larger ask of 20 pages. The theory was that with a small ask just providing any reason after the word 'because' may trigger an automatic script of 'Favour + Reason --> Comply' — if we don't really think about it we just see the pattern and act. Which suggests that a) if you have a small ask you might be better off providing a reason for it, no matter how small, and b) if we want to avoid acting mindlessly when people ask a favour it may benefit us to pay closer attention. The study was led by Ellen Langer who has since gone on to write a host of books on mindfulness. Also see narrative bias From: Langer, E. J., Blank, A., & Chanowitz, B. (1978). The mindlessness of ostensibly thoughtful action: The role of "placebic" information in interpersonal interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(6), 635–642.

29 May 2022

The tyranny of small decisions

The tyranny of small decisions is the challenge we face when many individual decisions, when taken together, result in an outcome that is suboptimal or that the group as a whole doesn’t want. Say you’re at a restaurant with friends and early on there’s a plan to split the bill. Your thoughts of a cheap night evaporate with the knowledge that just getting a salad makes little difference if others are getting martinis and appetizers. Heck, if you’re paying for those anyway why not get a dessert? And so a group will often pay more when splitting the bill. It’s also an example of the tyranny of small decisions. Named in a paper by the Cornell economist Alfred E. Kahn, he also discussed the example of the passenger services on the Ithaca railroad. The many daily decisions of people choosing to drive or fly rather than travel by train ended with a train route that was no longer viable and closed, even though each person may have actually wanted to keep a train option. Similar ideas to the tyranny of small decisions include the tragedy of the commons, the Abilene paradox, and local optimisation.…The tyranny of small decisions is the challenge we face when many individual decisions, when taken together, result in an outcome that is suboptimal or that the group as a whole doesn’t want. Say you’re at a restaurant with friends and early on there’s a plan to split the bill. Your thoughts of a cheap night evaporate with the knowledge that just getting a salad makes little difference if others are getting martinis and appetizers. Heck, if you’re paying for those anyway why not get a dessert? And so a group will often pay more when splitting the bill. It’s also an example of the tyranny of small decisions. Named in a paper by the Cornell economist Alfred E. Kahn, he also discussed the example of the passenger services on the Ithaca railroad. The many daily decisions of people choosing to drive or fly rather than travel by train ended with a train route that was no longer viable and closed, even though each person may have actually wanted to keep a train option. Similar ideas to the tyranny of small decisions include the tragedy of the commons, the Abilene paradox, and local optimisation.

22 May 2022

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