Yesterday’s weather

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I learned about this nice principle from agile software development. Basically, that when thinking about how much you’ll get done next week, what you got done this week is a good proxy. Sure this week was different because you had that external presentation and an offsite, a bug to fix on live and Amy was sick. But the reality is things will interrupt you next week too. Just like the weather, what happened before is a good first guess at what will happen next.

Published 8 Mar 2014

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The Destiny Instinct

Lake-effect snow

What is Rubberducking? Example explanation: a developer talks through their problem with the “therapist” rubber duck on their desk, only to discover the insight they need. Often useful for debugging.

What is Rubberducking? An Explanation of the Rubber Duck Debugging Technique

The destiny instinct is the mistaken belief that people, countries, cultures, or religions can't change. But even slow change can lead to large changes over time. Change tends to happen slowly in large, complex things like people, countries, religions, or cultures. And because the change is small, we might think they’re not changing at all. Our instinct may be that they can’t, in fact, change because of their innate characteristics. But the destiny instinct misleads us. Small change adds up to big changes over enough time. And while things may not seem to change in a week or a month, or a year, when you look back over decades, huge changes can happen. Changes in poverty, life expectancy, economies, women’s rights, or attitudes to homosexuality — things that may have seemed at one time that they were hardly changing at all — have all transformed when we look back over sufficient time. Change that may not have seemed like it was adding up to much is still change. Read more from the Roslings: Culture, nations, and religions are not rocks — they’re always changing. And, at a time of the year perfect for reflection, here are four ways to control our destiny instinct from Gapminder: Keep track of gradual improvements. A small change every year can translate to a huge change over decades. Update your knowledge. Some knowledge goes out of date quickly. Technology, countries, societies, cultures, and religions are constantly changing. Talk to Grandpa/Grandma. If you want to be reminded of how values have changed, think about your grandparents’ values and how they differ from yours. Collect examples of cultural change. Challenge the idea that today’s culture must also have been yesterday’s and will also be tomorrow’s. Also, see Stewart Brand’s Pace layers.…The destiny instinct is the mistaken belief that people, countries, cultures, or religions can't change. But even slow change can lead to large changes over time. Change tends to happen slowly in large, complex things like people, countries, religions, or cultures. And because the change is small, we might think they’re not changing at all. Our instinct may be that they can’t, in fact, change because of their innate characteristics. But the destiny instinct misleads us. Small change adds up to big changes over enough time. And while things may not seem to change in a week or a month, or a year, when you look back over decades, huge changes can happen. Changes in poverty, life expectancy, economies, women’s rights, or attitudes to homosexuality — things that may have seemed at one time that they were hardly changing at all — have all transformed when we look back over sufficient time. Change that may not have seemed like it was adding up to much is still change. Read more from the Roslings: Culture, nations, and religions are not rocks — they’re always changing. And, at a time of the year perfect for reflection, here are four ways to control our destiny instinct from Gapminder: Keep track of gradual improvements. A small change every year can translate to a huge change over decades. Update your knowledge. Some knowledge goes out of date quickly. Technology, countries, societies, cultures, and religions are constantly changing. Talk to Grandpa/Grandma. If you want to be reminded of how values have changed, think about your grandparents’ values and how they differ from yours. Collect examples of cultural change. Challenge the idea that today’s culture must also have been yesterday’s and will also be tomorrow’s. Also, see Stewart Brand’s Pace layers.

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