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Join us on July 30 with Arthur Doler for the next episode of Rockin' The Code World with dotNetDave - a weekly show to learn & live Q&A focused on .NET and other programming technologies.
AGENDA
• Introduction
• Mental Health
• Naïve realism
• Using your internal dialogue in useful and productive ways
• Burnout
• Wrap up
GUEST SPEAKER
Arthur has been a software engineer for 18 years and has worked on things as exciting as analysis software for casinos and things as boring as banking websites. He is an advocate for talking openly about mental health and psychology in the technical world, and he spends a lot of time thinking about how we program and why we program, and about the tools, structures, cultures, and mental processes that help and hinder us from our goal of creating amazing things.
Guest Profile URL: https://twitter.com/ArthurDoler
C# Corner - Community of Software and Data Developers
https://www.c-sharpcorner.com
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0:30
We'll be right back
0:59
Thank you
1:29
Thank you
1:59
Hey, geeks. Welcome to another exciting episode of Rocking the Code World with Don Ed Dave
2:07
I'm David McCarter. I'm glad you're all here. I got another exciting episode for you today
2:13
And I'm really excited about bringing on my guest today. And, you know, I was just thinking about, you know, I usually start each show talking about the weather here
2:23
you know, here in San Diego and, you know, usually where my guest lives
2:30
And, you know, I've been noticing this week that, you know, at least in San Diego, we've had a, you know, really mild summer
2:36
So that's why I tweeted recently, because the rest of the country seems to be either burning up or flooded
2:44
So if anybody out there wants to come to San Diego, I'm here
2:49
I'll show you around this beautiful city I love living in. I've been living here ever since I've been 19 years old
2:54
and uh so come on join me especially those in america that wants to get away from the
3:01
you know the burning the fire the you know the flooding that's going around the nation right now
3:06
so come to san diego it's always nice here we live in a we live in a weather bubble as one of
3:13
my favorite comedians say uh it says and uh it's definitely true uh all right let's get going so
3:19
So today my special guest is Arthur Dohler. I'm really excited about talking with Arthur today because we're going to be switching subjects a bit and we're going to be talking about brain health
3:32
Because this is something that I feel that we don't really address very well in this industry, probably all industries, but especially this one
3:44
And so I kind of wanted to talk about the brain. I've always been fascinated with the brain
3:49
I definitely have not researched it like Arthur has. And I am reading a book from a neurologist
3:56
And one thing I was thinking about this morning is, you know
4:00
he's a pretty famous neurologist here in America. And he says we really don't know much about the brain at this point
4:08
He admits that as a neurologist, which I think is pretty cool. So in this show, we're going to try to tackle all that
4:14
So show 62, July 30th, almost the end of the month. Let's get going
4:20
So I want to give a shout out to my friends in the Ukraine
4:23
I really miss you all. And I feel so bad that you are still going through this terrible war in your country
4:33
And so I'm, you know, I start out each show to make sure that we all kind of remember the Ukraine
4:40
And if you can support them in any way, please do. They really need your help to get over this war
4:46
And, you know, they're going to need a lot of help in rebuilding
4:50
And, of course, I have selfish motives. You know, I want them to rebuild as fast as possible so I can go back there and speak
4:57
I went to the Ukraine in 2015. I loved it there. I've been trying to get back ever since
5:03
And so that's probably not going to happen for a while. But I really, really want to go back before I retire and speak
5:11
And if I retire, then I'll go there just for fun. But I'd rather go speak and, you know, learn more about the developers there because they're very different than they are in America, at least
5:23
All right. Next. Guess what, geeks? I went to my first concert in 986 days this week
5:33
I'm so excited. You wouldn't believe how excited I was on Tuesday to finally go back and go to a concert because you probably all know I love music
5:43
I love concerts. You know, in the past, I've gone to three concerts, you know, a week
5:48
You know, I used to go to concerts a lot. And these days, things have been slowing down or they're too expensive
5:56
And, you know, and then with COVID, you know, there was some really concerts for a while
5:59
And so I was so happy to go back. And so I actually went to see Billy Howardell
6:06
he's the leader and the creator of the very very famous band a perfect circle that features
6:13
the tool singer maynard james keaton on vocals and so billy's doing his own little tour right
6:21
now he released a cd recently he did a tour in europe and he came back to the states and
6:27
the last show was actually the show i saw so that's that's it for the tour and the really
6:34
cool thing is I'd like to share I got to meet Billy. You see
6:38
me and Billy on the left-hand side there. I got to meet him and
6:42
hang out with him a little bit and talk with him and ask him questions. It was really enlightening
6:49
One thing is I really appreciate famous rock stars that are completely humble. This guy
6:58
is down to earth. He's from New Jersey. He's totally down to earth. He answered any question
7:04
we wanted. He was talking to us just like we knew him. And I really like artists like that
7:12
especially somebody as on top of his game as Billy is. And he's even inspired me to change
7:20
some of my guitar patches in my guitar processing unit here at home that I be playing later today so it was a great show I loved it I loved meeting Billy I loved the people I met there and talked to while I was there at the venue And so I don have any
7:40
concert schedule. I think I might go to one next month, but I don't have the tickets yet. But I'm
7:46
trying to get back to going to concerts. But like I said, concerts these days are so expensive
7:51
And so I kind of have to pick which ones I go to, unfortunately
7:57
All right. So don't forget, August 19th, just like 20 days away or so, is the Code Quality and Performance Virtual Conference back on C Sharp Corner
8:10
Last year for this conference, we held this conference, a one-day conference for the first time last year
8:16
So far, we've had over 72,000 viewers of that conference. I'm so excited
8:22
So many people watch it and learn something from it. So C Sharp Corner and I, of course, with Simon, is bringing this back in 20 days
8:31
So please go register. We haven't picked the final sessions yet. So you still have like a couple hours or a couple days to get that in because Simon and I need to make that decision like today or in the next couple days
8:44
So don't forget August 19th, one-day virtual conference for free, of course
8:48
and where we're going to be focusing on code quality, something that more teams need to focus on
8:56
at least the teams that I review their code, definitely for sure
9:01
So very, very excited about that. I have a new article out on C Sharp Corner
9:08
Speaking about code quality, it's called Rock Your Code, XML Documentation of Code for Microsoft.net
9:14
I wrote this article because I just see less and less XML documentation
9:18
of code now, which I think is a bad trend. And so I basically laid out exactly how to do it with
9:26
all the, I explain in detail all the tags and everything better than Microsoft site does it
9:32
So I hope you give it a read and I hope you'll go back to your work on Monday and start doing this
9:39
because you might not want to do it now, but believe me, the developers in the future fixing
9:45
your code or adding features are going to really want you to do this now because this is really for
9:52
their future. It's not for the now. So I hope you give it a read. All right. With that, I want to
9:58
introduce Art Dohler, a senior software engineer, a community culture steward. Art has been a software
10:06
engineer for 18 years, has worked on things as exciting as ysis software for casinos
10:11
and things as boring as bank websites. Yeah, casinos I think would be more fun
10:17
He's an advocate for talking openly about mental health and psychology and the technical world
10:22
and has spent a lot of time thinking about how we program and why we program and about the tools, structures, cultures
10:29
mental processes that help us and hinder us from our goal in creating amazing things
10:35
And this is why I invited him on the show. So welcome, Art. Hey, thank you for having me
10:41
Yeah, how's it going? So, you know, this is Art and I were talking about this before the show
10:47
And, you know, mental health, you know, especially in art industry, isn't talked much, very much
10:55
And I wanted to bring Art on, you know, because he specializes in this
11:01
And I recently saw a video that he did at a conference
11:06
What conference was that? It was a Nebraska Code. Yeah, Nebraska Code
11:10
And you guys have to go check it out because it's one of the best conference sessions I've seen
11:18
It's so well done, so well presented. Thank you. And I'm, you know, really interested in the brain
11:25
And I think we all need to be interested in the brain so we can make it work better, so we can write better software, right
11:33
Yep. And me personally, you know, I want to make sure that, you know, we take care of our brains because unfortunately, you know, when we don't, we sometimes do things that are even worse for us to take, you know, that we think is taking care of the brain what's actually making it worse, like drinking, right
11:50
So that's one of the medications, you know, people use, especially in this industry to deal with things
11:57
And that's definitely not the way to do it. So anyway, so how are you doing
12:03
How's the weekend going for you? It's going all right so far. Kind of a break in the heat
12:07
It's been, you know, like a lot of places, 100-plus degree weather. And then we had a storm last week
12:13
So now it's been in the 80s until tomorrow when it will be 100-something again
12:17
Oh, geez. Man, I feel bad for all you guys in the mid and south of America right now
12:25
They're dealing with this. You know, my kids live in Texas. They're dealing with it, too
12:28
It's going to be over 100 there today. I think they've gone over
12:32
Texas typically does this in the summers they go like 90, 100 days
12:37
where it's not under 100 degrees so yeah it's pretty freaking hot there
12:44
not usually that bad yeah, yeah, yeah and I don't have to worry about that in San Diego
12:50
so much so that I don't even have air conditioning I don't need it living by the ocean so
12:55
well come out Anytime you want to come out, I'm here. You know, I'm, I, you know, I, I don't think I've said this publicly very much at all, but, you know, back in my twenties, I actually was a tour guide in San Diego
13:09
So I would drive rich people around and, you know, show them all the great places of San Diego
13:17
And so, you know, especially not only because of that experience, but, you know, especially since I've lived here, you know, most of my life, pretty much since I joined the Navy when I was 19, I pretty much know everything about San Diego
13:30
So I know where to go and I know where not to go. And I know where you get the best bang for your buck and still have fun
13:37
And, you know, one of my things is I try to avoid tourists. And so I know where to do that
13:41
you know tourists are kind of a pain in the butt during the summer and uh especially the ones from
13:47
Arizona so um we call them we call them zonies they come over here in the summer and uh they're
13:54
they're not easy to deal with sometimes so um anyway uh so uh so everybody please please make
14:02
sure you ask your questions you know author uh art is the uh you know expert on this today and
14:09
So please put your questions in the chat and we'll get them answered as quick as we can
14:14
But where would you like to start out? We have like, well, let me say the three subjects that you picked
14:20
And that's naive realism, using your internal dialogue in useful and productive ways
14:26
I need more of that. And burnout, I need more of that. So where would you like to start
14:31
Less of that, but hopefully. Well, I'd less burnout. Yeah. That's what I mean
14:36
Well, first, I want to say, because it's important for me to say that I'm not a psychologist
14:41
or a therapist in any way. Not a psychiatrist. I'm a software engineer
14:47
I've just spent time learning about this stuff because especially the more I get into software
14:53
the more I realize that it is I mean it a human endeavor at its heart right And right and so it creative yeah and it is inherently a creative task right if it was not creative it be a lot easier to write software
15:08
it would be right just be okay we'll go assemble the wall okay um everything you know it's different
15:15
every time even if it's the same software even if you're installing the same software it's different
15:19
from installation to installation. So all of that's a creative endeavor. And also on top of
15:26
that, the things we're building are for people, right? Even if we're building something that's a
15:31
huge complex, you know, data-driven ML system or whatever, at the end, people consuming it are
15:37
usually humans. So we have humans on both ends of it. So it's one of those things I've seen software
15:45
engineers, especially as they get to be senior and start to move toward that, like, you know, staff or principal level, they just have that crushing realization that like it, in the end
15:53
it doesn't matter how well you code sometimes. It matters how well you understand your own brain
15:59
and the brain of the people that are using your software. Exactly. That's how we deliver the
16:06
features that, you know, users really want, right? And something that I say a lot, I just released
16:12
an article a little while ago in C Sharp Corner talking about this is, you know, I, for most of my
16:18
you know, software life, you know, I feel that my job as a software engineer is to make someone
16:23
else's workflow better. Right. Yes. And, and, and that's my job. And if that, if I can succeed at
16:30
that, that gives me personal gratification. Right. And if I succeed, of course, the company makes
16:36
money and I get to keep my job. But to me, that's really secondary. You know, to me, it's the human
16:42
that loves the software, that's what I'm going for. And if I can improve their life or workflow
16:49
however it is, I've succeeded. Even if the software doesn't, I feel I've succeeded, right
16:56
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, software is a tool, right? Yeah. So to that end
17:02
I mean, if we can start talking about the first thing, which sounds like a philosophical term
17:06
but it's actually psychological. As you can know, like Cartesian dualism, But no, naive realism is this concept that we have that because you, well, let's start this way
17:18
There's a lot of your brain that you don't have access to. There's a lot of things going on that you can't really introspect into, that you can't quite assess
17:27
There's all kinds of reasons. You do things, you're not quite sure why, or you see other people do things and you can't really quite figure out why they're behaving the way they are
17:36
But your brain kind of papers over that for you. it like brushes a lot of that under the rug and naive realism is this mindset that the way that
17:45
you perceive the world is the way the world is that when you perceive something in the world
17:54
and you think about it and you say oh that is this and it behaves this way and i understand it in this
17:58
way that that's an objective truth um and that's not actually true for it you know at multiple
18:06
different levels. I mean, and going back to the brain thing, like, it's not just that there's
18:11
humans on either side of the coding equation. It's that literally everything you perceive
18:16
in the world is filtered through your brain. You know, you don't see the things you think you see
18:24
like the whole visual cortex has evolved to actually show you very little information
18:29
but to end up giving you the perception that you have a lot of visual information
18:35
so like um one of my perfect like favorite examples for this is uh do you know what saccades are
18:40
no i don't they're rapid eye movements you make so like when you flick your eyes around right
18:45
um your brain doesn't actually show you the movement during those right because you have
18:53
an inner you know uh an inner ear that if it conflicts with what's coming in from if this you
18:59
know the sense of what's coming from your inner ear that balance organ uh if it conflicts with
19:03
your visual stuff, you start to get nauseated. And so to get around this, the motion sickness
19:10
that you would constantly feel, your brain actually kind of edits out those rapid eye
19:14
movements that you make. And then what it does to give you the perception that you're perceiving
19:20
time coherently, it backdates information and then perceptually makes you think, oh, this happened
19:27
X number of times ago. So the perfect example of this, and this is something viewers can try at
19:33
home is if you've got like a clock that blinks every second or like a second hand that's ticking
19:38
or anything that's like, uh, you know, animated at a periodic nature, if you look away from it for a
19:44
while and then look back, you'll see it pause for a second. Like the first tip will take longer. The
19:51
first, you know, blink will take longer. And that's your brain basically going, okay, we're going to
19:57
take this visual moment and push it backward in the past perceptively. And which is a long-winded
20:03
way of saying, like, everything you see is mediated by your brain. And if you're in a situation where
20:11
you're feeling tired, feeling anxious, feeling depressed, any of those things, some kind of
20:16
negative state, right? Your brain actually is better at remembering states when you were like
20:21
that previously. And what that means is that you've got this perception of how the world is
20:30
so you can get trapped in these situations. Give me a second. I'm going to turn off that
20:34
auto movement. Sorry. Well, that kind of reminds me a bit of one of my favorite user experience
20:42
people is Mark Miller. I don't know if you know him. And I've known him for a long time. He works
20:48
for dive express and uh and his talks are really fascinating because he talks a lot about how the
20:55
brain perceives things to create great ui right and and and some of the things that you know i
21:01
always remember from his talks is that um you know you know sound and and and vision hits our brain
21:08
at different times right and our brain puts it together so we can we can understand it right
21:14
because you know sound travels at a different speed as light and so but our brain puts it
21:19
together and then he talks about things like you know it takes so long for if you stub your toe it
21:25
takes like two seconds for that pain to get up to your brain that's how slow it is from your
21:31
right foot right and uh so that's you know really interesting things that you need to think about
21:38
and the other thing i was thinking about when you were uh talking about that part was um
21:42
is the way we perceive things. And I think that reminded me of like my beginner days
21:50
And I'm not as good as I am when I was a younger developer
21:54
But one of the things that we have to do as software engineers
21:59
is realize that the world that we're writing for is not the world that we perceive
22:05
And we need to work hard at putting ourselves in our users' shoes
22:11
right because because the worst software that is created is by people not doing that right
22:18
and and and this is one of the reasons why when i go to places like my doctor office or or even the grocery store or something like that and i see them using software i talk to them about it ask them how they like it And rarely do I ever say hear anybody say they like it right I know
22:35
And it's because they didn't, because programmers wrote it, not, you know
22:40
they didn't have a hand in writing that software, right? And so, you know
22:44
programmers perceive things much differently than other people do, right? And then trigger naive realism
22:50
is everybody perceives things much differently from other people, right? There's all of these things that you hold for, you know, you take for granted about the world that you'll be able to compile software and run it and it will behave a certain way
23:03
And that, of course, you can't make a round trip from the database instantly
23:07
It's going to take a certain number of milliseconds for a go from this place to the other and back
23:11
Of course, it's going to take time for you to process that because this isn't it. You know, we're doing an NP hard problem here
23:16
So we're going to have to do some kind of iterative solution. And there are all of these things that you've built up and learned over the course of your career and just as a human in general that aren't the other people's experiences, right
23:28
They have an entirely different experience in their head and they're perceiving things differently and literally perceiving things differently
23:34
And so it's easy to say like, well, it's real hard to make a dropdown work sometimes the way that you need it to
23:40
But you've got to, I mean, this is probably one of the reasons that like user interviews are so important
23:46
and I'm have worked at places where they just like, yeah, you don't need the users
23:50
And it's like, okay. Most places I work with are like that
23:54
Yeah, I get it. I mean, it takes time and it takes energy and money, but it's also a, do you want to
24:00
build a thing that people want to use? Nobody, you're mean, especially in the medical field, nobody likes those systems
24:08
Yeah. um i mean i was at a i literally went last night to get some uh soda at a convenience store to grow
24:16
a gas station near my house and two of their three like point of sale terminals were down
24:21
and one of the guys is on the phone to this the tech support and the other is like trying to check
24:28
everybody out and there's a really long line because there's a really high lottery right now
24:32
everybody was buying tickets for the drawing uh it's like nobody enjoys that experience everybody
24:39
in that place was frustrated and angry and it's literally caused because something went wrong with
24:44
the software that someone wrote right and so it's easy to look at like a bug and say well
24:50
i can't reproduce it on my machine that's not worth fixing yeah uh you know you have to turn
24:57
around and think about that but it's the trick of naive realism is that it even gets deeper into
25:02
the sense of, so I am in a lot of ways a default software engineer, right? I am American, I'm white
25:11
I have a four-year technical degree, and I'm male. I have a certain perspective on things
25:20
and that, yeah, I have, it takes work to recognize that that isn't the right
25:26
that isn't the real world. My experience of the real world is not the real world
25:32
perfect case in point, I've been working on, we're starting to get back and do conferences and sponsor things at work. And I'm writing some guides for folks to go like, okay, here's how you
25:41
engage at a conference. Well, here's how you do, you know, talk, et cetera. And I was sitting there
25:47
thinking, and I'm like, I need to get one of my women coworkers to look at this because the rules
25:53
for networking as a woman, especially at things like an attendee party are very different sometimes
25:58
rules for a man, you know? Yeah. The stories I've heard from women at conferences are just really
26:04
bad. Yes. And so, yeah. Things like, oh yeah, you always keep your hand over your drink constantly
26:10
Right. Right. Things like that. I've heard worse stories than that, but yeah, it's
26:15
and we need to be cognizant of that. Right. You know? Right. But it's also, you can't
26:21
you can't expect your brain to hold multiple of those experiences in the world. Right. Right
26:27
There are certain things we can learn and certain things that you should learn to be aware of other people's experience and to, you know, to change your behavior, to be more accommodating to them, et cetera, to change things in the way you code, the way you work, to be a little more accommodating for everybody
26:45
But you can't expect yourself to have the same perspective as somebody who is a woman or who is a person of color, right
26:52
Like they're, they have a lifetime of what it's like in their head, just like you have a lifetime of what it's like to be you in your head
27:02
And you can't, this is why representation turns into being important on a team is because you can't just crib it
27:08
Like you can't go, oh, I know a couple of things so I can pretend to know
27:12
I mean, we were working on a financial application a while back and for a company local here in Omaha and we're building out the auth system
27:22
like their authentication stuff and had to ask the hard question. Okay. So, you know, typically
27:28
in a financial situation, if you're married, you have a joint account for things like, um
27:33
you know, your bank accounts, et cetera. Sometimes you'll have individuals, but this was like for wealth management, retirement stuff. And pretty clearly you have a joint account or at least
27:42
multiple accounts underneath one kind of umbrella account. Um, what happens if they get divorced
27:48
right what happens if it's really nasty divorce what happens if one person is you know engaging
27:55
in spousal abuse and gaslighting the other person and hiding all the finances from this person so
28:01
they can't log in and see it it's like right you know what email gets control over the account how
28:06
do we manage those situations and i'm still i'm not still not sure we did the best we could have
28:11
at it but we at least sat down and had the perspective to sit down and try and would not
28:18
have without having some perspective from team members on the team who were like, wait a minute
28:23
I've been divorced. Well, 50% in America, right, get divorced. So there's a lot of us that
28:28
you know, have perspective on what happens when that happens. Right. Right. So the naive realism also turns into a problem with, well, it enables this cognitive
28:41
bias called the fundamental attribution error. And for the viewers who aren't familiar
28:45
a cognitive bias is not like a logical fallacy and it's not like implicit bias which you might
28:53
have heard about which is kind of that bias baked in at the base brain or inside of your experience
28:58
a cognitive bias is kind of like if you think of your brain as like firmware a cognitive bias is
29:03
like where they take and made some uh shortcuts to make something happen faster or more cheaply
29:12
um so like it's like branch prediction inside of a cpu or whatever right where you're going well
29:18
this is we're going to make some guesses and most of the time a lot of the time it's going to be
29:23
right sometimes it will be very wrong uh and so a cognitive bias is these things where your brain
29:28
is kind of built more or less or evolved certainly to behave in certain ways in certain situations
29:36
And one of those things is the fundamental, fundamental attribution error. And what that is, is kind of the stuff we were talking about
29:46
It's this tendency that you have to, to see your entire situation
29:51
So if you, you know, you exist in the world and you see how you behave and you know all
29:55
the reasons why you behave, or at least you think you do, and it's
29:59
You say, all right, well, I did that, but that was like, okay, I cut that person off in traffic
30:04
But that was because I really needed to get to that exit and I'm late for my kid's baseball game and whatever
30:09
Right. You've got a story about why that happened in your head. But if somebody cuts you off in traffic, they're a jerk
30:16
Right. Right. You get really upset and bring out your gun and, you know
30:22
Well, hopefully not. Hopefully not. But that happens, you know. It does
30:27
It's crazy. Yeah, but it's this tendency we have to say, well, all of my behaviors are part of this narrative. I have reasons. They're justified. Everybody else's behaviors are because of intrinsic attributes. They're a jerk. They're lazy. They're not smart. Right
30:43
Right. And the reason for that is basically that it's impossible to hold another person in your head
30:49
Human beings are phenomenally complex. Right. And I mean, you know, in the words of my lord, I've forgotten the name
30:58
Like we contain multitudes. Right. Like we've got even in ourselves, multiple kind of versions of ourselves running
31:07
And it's there's no way your brain can manage holding. we can't hold, you know, I can't hold some software systems I work with in my head
31:15
There's no way I can hold an entire, another human being and everything that they contain
31:20
So that means that your brain kind of has to take shortcuts in order to think about other people
31:27
and to reason about how they're going to behave. Right. Right. We try to guess why they're doing
31:33
what they're doing based on our experiences, not their experiences. Right. And that's what
31:37
gets you in trouble, you know? Exactly. And I mean, so that turns into things like in retrospectives
31:43
right? It'll be a, if you're having a retro with your team as part of, you know, your normal agile
31:48
scrum process, and you're having, you're looking at why something happened the way it did, or even
31:54
going through like a postmortem, like having an actual incident happen. It's real easy with like
31:59
five whys to walk back and be like, well, why did this happen? Well, it happened because this system
32:04
failed well why did that system fail because the maintenance wasn't done well why wasn't the
32:07
maintenance done because bob didn't do it done we don't have to go any further like we found the
32:12
cause it was bob yeah you know and walk a step you know you walk a step back from that and go
32:19
well why did bob do it well bob didn't do it because he's lazy bob didn't do it because he's
32:24
haphazard and slipshod and doesn't do good work and not well bob is having his parents deal with
32:31
cancer right now. Right. There's no inundated with too much work. Right
32:35
It's yeah. That kind of reminds me of this book I'm, I'm, I'm, uh, reading, I'm close to being
32:40
done called the Phoenix project. And, uh, yeah, it's excellent. Excellent book
32:45
I wish they would turn it into like a mini series, tell you the truth. But, you know, a lot of that goes on, you know, in that, in that book that, you know
32:55
uh, you know, they had a catastrophic failure, right. And releasing their software. And, and they were blaming a lot of course, but then, you know, when they finally got over the blame game, they started, you know, at least the part I'm on now is they're, they're starting to figure out where it came from and why it happened. And, and, and, and, and one of the features of that book is it's all comes down to one guy, right? One guy had too much domain knowledge of that company, which most companies experience the exact same thing
33:27
Right. And and everything stops with him. And if he can't work on it, it doesn't get done. Right
33:34
And so that's kind of to me, kind of like the same thing is that you have to find out really what the issue is and why the issue is that way
33:43
Right. So, right. You know, and in this case, it's because, you know, he's the only one that seems to know for some reason
33:49
But but you're right. It could be because, you know, something else is going on in his life
33:54
we all have personal life lives right that affect our program affect our you know uh professional
34:00
career right and vice versa right and so yeah it's i think we're getting better at doing that
34:08
these days um but we of course have a long way to go before we can really be better be really better
34:16
at it so we don't cause so many issues right yeah i'm seeing us get better at it and a lot of what
34:22
What I'm seeing is people trying to recognize it, but not really bring like not center the emotional elements of it, which is kind of weird
34:31
It's like, well, we can. OK, you're dealing with something. So we'll our velocity will be a little lower this week and not, you know, you're dealing with something
34:39
So the velocity will be a little lower and you're going to be a little more anxious or upset in meetings
34:44
You're more prone to snap at somebody like there's not always an understanding or recognition of the emotional elements of it
34:52
it's like we can just kind of plan around it, which I don't think you can plan around humans
34:57
even in the best of days. No, especially for things, you know
35:02
that comes up like somebody ending up in the ER. I mean, you can't never plan around something like that, right
35:08
Even something, I mean, hell, you've got, I mean, I don't have kids, but I have coworkers who have kids
35:12
and they're little accident machines. And they're Petri dishes for viruses too, right
35:19
Right. I got sick so much after I had kids. Well, after they started going to school, I got sick so much, you know, because they brought every freaking thing in school back home to us
35:32
Right. Right. So it's, yeah, you've got an understanding of everybody else's existence and reality
35:39
The only way to kind of start dealing with naive realism is to cultivate a mindset that your way is not the only way
35:49
Right. Which is, I mean, by and large, a very useful mindset in general
35:55
At least I found it to be. Yeah. And that also, you know, we're talking about, you know, perceptions and things like that
36:02
For some reason, I'm not going to share this story publicly. But, you know, my son, you know, when he was like in fourth grade or so, he got into, you know, something happened at school with another kid
36:15
And, you know, my wife, my wife at the time and I, you know, got got there either on time or early because I tend to be early at things
36:25
And and so the parent, the other parents came in a little bit later and they just
36:30
As soon as they walked in, they started accusing us of all these things and they don't know one thing about us
36:37
Right. And and I said, wait a minute. No, no, don't. You can't say that because you don't know me
36:43
so can you stop doing that so we can have a productive conversation but they came in the room
36:50
already made up yep exactly how my wife and i taught my kid right as as adults right and they
36:58
were completely wrong 100 wrong oh yeah and yeah well i mean i'm i know i've had conversations in
37:04
my head before about people it's like or arguments really it's like okay i'm gonna have to have this
37:09
discussion and i'm gonna say this and they're gonna say that and i'm gonna say this and it never never happens that actually doesn't mean those aren't useful sure um you know having that dialogue
37:19
in your head can help you flesh the idea out can help you be more ready for the eventual conversation but it never going to go that way but it the what happens is this weird well okay The human brain it thrives on narratives right We don really understand
37:37
facts. We don't really understand anything. What we understand largely is narrative stories
37:44
And the drive for stories baked into us so much that there's this really great experiment. One
37:51
I got to dig up the name of it. The animation emotion study where they're showing this Heider and
38:05
excuse me, Heider and Simmel. It was in 1944. And they showed this animated short of a bunch of shapes moving around on a screen
38:14
And there's a big triangle and a small triangle and a little circle and then
38:18
kind of a big rectangle. and the shapes are moving around and the big triangles like going like this on the small
38:26
triangle and plays for about five minutes less than a couple minutes really and what is fascinating
38:34
about it is that after that you can actually ask people who watch it a question like well how did
38:40
the small circle feel when the big triangle was menacing the little triangle and they will have
38:45
an answer for it because it's, I mean, you can make the argument that, yeah, well, they put the
38:51
emotions in there and yeah, they did, but it's, we recognize story everywhere from even these really
38:59
simple representations. And we've been doing this since before we were humans, arguably
39:04
And so what happens is, is you wind up in a situation where you're a parent and you get
39:09
called to a school because of an incident with another kid and your kid and you're on the way to
39:16
the school and you're sitting there going why did this happen why you know i had to leave work i need
39:20
a reason why this existed and your brain is like here i've we've got some reasons we can make some
39:24
stuff up and it doesn't really do it based on any facts i mean if you have facts it will kind of add
39:31
them in, but largely it's this concept of whether it holds together. Right. Uh, and it's this weird
39:39
interplay between actually like the left side of the brain and the right side of the brain in the
39:43
typical brain layout, you know, the typical brain layout, the narrative, the linguistic side of your
39:48
brain is on the left-hand side. And a lot of like the logic and, um, you know, thinking about that
39:54
kind of stuff is on the left-hand side. And a lot of the emotional pieces are on the right. That's not always true and it's an oversimplification to say that it is but um what happens is this
40:05
weird interplay where like the left-hand side will come up with a narrative and kind of chuck it over to the right-hand side and the right-hand side will kind of smell test it for does that feel
40:11
right does this mesh with my experience of the world as they've gone has it's been so far like
40:18
if they had met you before they might have a better model in their head of who you are won't
40:23
be an accurate one but they'll be closer and they might have said okay well if i'm going to come in
40:26
this person's teaching their their it all wrong and to be like well no actually no david and he's
40:31
probably not doing that because he's a nice guy so they'll ditch that story and try to come up
40:36
with something else but in the absence of other information they're going to arrive at something
40:40
that says well you're an idiot because most of the people i deal with are idiots um which is
40:45
actually a reason to try to not have that mindset uh is it helps you arrive at some better narratives
40:52
but it's kind of goes into the second thing that we were starting to talk about about your
40:56
experiences. And the end result of all of this fundamental attribution error and the drive for
41:02
narrative in the brain is that it's kind of your job to be out there spreading your narrative
41:08
because nobody else can do it for you. Right. Especially not as good as you can
41:14
Absolutely. I mean, I have a talk that I give about mental health and I talk about a story
41:19
a tell a story about one of my old coworkers whose name was Josh. And Josh used to fall
41:24
asleep at work and it wasn't like just like cute on the desk it was like head back snoring like
41:29
dude what are you doing i worked at a place like that there was one guy that did that yeah he slept
41:34
most of the day yeah it wasn't most of the day but it was definitely like we'd catch him a couple
41:38
times a day periodically and we're all like dudes up late playing i think it was diablo 3 had just
41:44
come out or something like dudes up late playing video games come on what are you doing none of us
41:48
ever asked him like hey dude are you having a problem is there something wrong is there anything
41:52
we could do to help. We made up a story about what his behavior was. And then we just assumed
41:59
that it was true. We assumed, right? That word. And that's the one thing I was going to say that
42:05
one thing I've had to work on in more recent times is assumptions. And I've had to train myself that
42:14
every time I think of an assumption, I have to tell myself, it's probably not right. But this is
42:20
all I know. So I could, I should keep that in the back burner, but not let that drive, you know, my
42:26
my, my feeling or emotion because, because I don't know everything that that person is experiencing
42:33
So all I can do is assume, right. This happens a lot in relation, personal relationships, right
42:38
But many personal relationships I've had where, you know, I, I, I don't know if this makes sense
42:44
a lot of people, but I felt like I was dealing with somebody without a loaded gun, right? I didn't
42:51
have all the ammo I needed to properly view their side of things, right? And I continuously felt
42:59
frustrated because I couldn't figure it out because probably they weren't sharing it to me
43:04
So if they weren't sharing it to me, then all I can do is make assumptions, right
43:08
right which is not a good thing to do but that's the only thing we can do at least
43:14
well it's more to the point it's basically impossible to stop it right because your
43:20
brain's going to do it regardless and then you are going to behave off based off that assumption
43:26
even if you're sitting there telling yourself that you shouldn't be and then you just feel bad about
43:29
it um i mean again that's the brain takes shortcuts it does the model we have in our
43:36
heads is not the real world precisely because you can't model the real world and can't hold it there
43:42
um so it's i have a whole talk on uh it's called owning your experience it's about how to talk
43:50
about this stuff and how to try and express your experience in the world and to communicate it with
43:58
your co-workers um that one's not up on youtube but the basic gist is there's kind of two kinds
44:04
language that we talk about this stuff. And one of them, especially if it's mental health stuff
44:08
is very clinical, right? Like my official diagnoses are ADHD and generalized anxiety disorder
44:17
And I have potentially, I've been diagnosed in the past with depression. Various members of my
44:22
family have been diagnosed with things like bipolar. And it's, you know, I have the, when I
44:29
give the talk, I give like a whole seven minute talk about like, you know, art was born into a
44:33
family with all of these things. He grew up in a unstructured household. He experienced an aversion
44:40
toward authority because due to, you know, lack of engagement, et cetera, like this very clinical
44:45
detached language that we tend to use. And so we tend to, it's the only language that we have most
44:51
of the time And so we come into work and talk about these things about like oh I you know why can you fill out your timesheets Well I have ADHD That not a great story for folks Instead I can talk about it in an experiential way And I can say I you know
45:07
I can't fill out the timesheets because my brain just won't let me. And I'll say, well, why don't
45:13
you set a reminder? And I'll be, I do set a reminder and it shows up on my phone and I immediately dismiss it and go back to what I'm doing. And they're like, do the same thing
45:19
not do that? And it's like, no, it doesn't work that way. And, you know, it doesn't always work
45:27
but talking about it, using this experiential language, talking about what it's like for you
45:32
to exist, um, and helping it's to some extent, helping people or coaching people to work better
45:38
with you is really a good way to think about it because then you can say like, look, instead of
45:44
okay, I've had situations before where coworkers behave in ways that drive me up a wall
45:49
And I'm sure anybody who's worked in the industry long enough has similar, right
45:53
Anybody who's worked with another human in any industry. And the best thing you can do is to say things like, look, to center that emotional side of it, right
46:05
Because you can't just say, well, that's wrong and you should stop doing it
46:09
You want to do that. You want to have the, especially as engineers, right? We want to have this rational, logical reason for why it's wrong
46:16
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not going to work because in some cases you can't stop that
46:23
So what you have to do is turn around and say, look, this is driving me up a wall
46:27
What can we do to try and find something that does not drive me up a wall
46:32
And have the conversation about not blaming them for the behavior necessarily, but saying, look, this is part, you know, we have a relationship
46:42
And that's actually a good point. All of your coworkers, you have a relationship with your coworker
46:47
You were talking about personal relationships earlier. You have one of those with every coworker, even though they're at work
46:53
And maintaining and developing those relationships is arguably as important, if not more important, than maintaining some of our personal relationships
47:05
Yeah, yeah, I agree. Because. And how much time do we really spend doing that, right
47:10
Hardly any. Certainly not intentionally. focused on other things and you know that's why this is a bit off topic but you know it's been
47:20
at least for me it's been over 20 years since i've even been on a team building exercise
47:25
right and i think those yeah and because companies the least companies i work at don't do them
47:31
anymore and and uh i actually did one for this company you know over 20 years ago and it was
47:38
so successful, you know, that I was so happy that I did it. I kind of forced the company to do it
47:44
and, you know, pony up money to do it. And, and, and the other woman and I who arranged it made
47:50
sure it was fun and engaging. And we purposely, you know, mixed people from different teams in
47:57
the teams we were in, right? Because people tend to stay in their own team, right? Whether that's
48:03
at work or out in the world or race or whatever they did
48:07
And I wanted to break that. And I made everybody, you know, work with other people
48:12
with people from other teams. Right. And the one thing I remember from that experience is that, you know
48:19
the next Monday when we came into work, I noticed a difference between people. Right. Yeah. I, I could see it. Right
48:26
I'm not sure how long that lasted, but you know, the first day back from that
48:30
you know, I could really see the difference in people's eyes. right and i wish you know we would do more things like that you know these days but um
48:39
but yeah that's it's an important part like you know i feel like we got burned on some of those
48:45
where it was okay well you go do a high rope course with some other people all you all you
48:49
have to do is just go do the course and everybody will you know care more about each other and be a
48:53
better team that's not no no no no i i've heard so many team building exercises my friends have
48:59
been on i'm just going uh that makes no sense like i think one time the company uh their team
49:05
building exercise would take them to the baseball game i'm going okay that's not a team building
49:10
that's going out to a party basically right you want those moments too right sure sure those
49:18
moments can also be small like it doesn't have to be a huge event right you can do those things by
49:23
making sure you take some time and actually this is something we lost when everybody started to go
49:27
remote when the pandemic started and everybody just instantly is working from home. We lost those
49:33
five minutes before a meeting. We lost 10 minutes after a meeting. We lost all of these small
49:38
moments when you're having coffee and you're just chatting with somebody else. And I'm not
49:42
saying everybody has to go back into the office. No. But you've got to build those things into
49:49
something. You've got to be intentional about it. And having, you know, let's, my work does that
49:56
like uh once a summer we'll send everybody to the uh we have a triple a team here in omaha the
50:01
storm chasers um it's one of the royals farm teams i think and they'll uh we just send people there
50:07
because the park is like half a mile from our office yeah uh and that's absolutely part of it
50:13
but we also have done things like um escape rooms like virtual escape rooms together
50:18
and that's a great way to get people because you have a suddenly a goal right right you've got a
50:24
a thing that everybody has to work together to achieve. We just, for this Nebraska code, we had a booth and we were like, okay, what are we going to put in the booth
50:35
And I said, oh, we can do a JavaScript quiz. And my boss said, well, that's dumb
50:40
Do something better, basically. He praised it better, but it was like, eh, that's not exciting
50:46
Try something exciting. So we actually built a version of the board game operation, like a two foot by three foot version
50:54
about three feet off the ground on legs that ran off a couple of raspberry pies
51:00
And we used like OXO kitchen tongs to reach in and grab pieces that were you and each of these
51:07
things you were pulling like bad things out of code. People love that. Oh, that's awesome
51:12
Actually, I'd love to see that video of that. There I don't think we have a video
51:16
Um, but there's a couple of photos through my Twitter and in my LinkedIn for that we share
51:21
the company shared but um there'll be a making of video soon but the important part of that was
51:28
going with that was we spent about a week doing that um in and around our other projects and it
51:33
was about six people for about something like 200 hours across all of us plus you know like 500 bucks
51:40
for materials and printing and things like that um but what's fascinating is how much everybody gelled
51:47
as part of that how much a time period like you have a deadline and a thing to get done
51:57
and a couple people to do it that can really generate some connections with folks right that
52:03
can build teams connect them with that larger entity and so it doesn't i mean it's fascinating
52:10
it doesn't have to be like everybody goes off to a you know for a week to the thing those can work
52:14
great, but it can be something smaller that you're doing, something you can work in regular
52:19
hackathons, things like that too, right? Yeah. Well if you doing team building exercise you kind of remind me of someone at the beginning when you talking about this is that you know one thing that I unfortunately I think people do probably the more higher ups is you know they pick team building exercise that you know kind of like you were saying rope you saying something about rope or you know or let say that there a you know they going to do team building exercise where you going to do a you know an obstacle course and a certain amount of you know time and stuff
52:54
like that well you know to me that doesn't work because not everybody on your team has
52:59
number one wants to do it or isn't even capable of doing it right and so you you've got to pick
53:07
something that everybody can do easily right and and understand easily in your team and not
53:13
something that's so extreme that you know it turns people off right or makes them too competitive
53:20
that's the other thing you get people that are way too competitive and just kind of ruin the
53:24
whole experience for everybody right yeah it's if i will i mean i don't i try not to make absolute
53:30
statements but i will say if you are doing a team building exercise and it involves competition
53:35
inside of the team you're doing it wrong yeah yeah yeah you don't pit each other you know against
53:41
each other yeah yeah no that's not a good thing yeah well especially when uh i wish we had another
53:49
hour to talk about this stuff there's all of these uh what they call the minimum viable group
53:52
experiments, which sounds like it's talking about minimal viable products, but it's not
53:56
These are experiments that are basically designed to assess what does it take for a human to
54:03
start saying, well, you're the other and we're my team. And it turns out the answer is basically nothing
54:10
We will do this at the drop of a hat. They took a bunch of people and they had them take a test where they showed them a bunch
54:17
of dots and had them count them. And then they took the results of that, threw them away, and then flipped a coin and said, okay, you're either an overestimator or an underestimator
54:28
So half the group is now overestimators. Half the group is now underestimators. And it's completely random
54:33
It's based on nothing about these people at all. And then they said, okay, here is $5
54:39
And here is a overestimator and an underestimator. And you have to assign that $5 to those two people
54:46
You know nothing about them. They don't even exist. They're just made up names
54:51
And you have to decide where that money goes. And people started, based on that information, to assign more money to the people who were in the same group as them
55:02
Overestimator, underestimator, whichever they were, they assigned more money to that person
55:06
So it's like, these groups don't exist. They're not real. People don't exist and they're not real
55:12
and you're still treating everything like it's, this is, you know, like it's a zero sum game
55:18
and suddenly you have to give, you know, you want your team to win. What's even dumber is we'll do this
55:24
even when we will wait towards our team, even when doing so means that we get less
55:31
So like you get an option, both people get $2.50 or one gets $2 and one gets one
55:37
and we'll pick the one where it's two dollars and one even though but choosing the other option we
55:45
would get more like our group would get more yeah so it's competition is bad juju and you don't want
55:52
to screw with it in that context no no well you know we're almost out of time i can't believe we
55:58
barely scratched one topic and so uh we're really going to have to come back and talk get you back
56:05
on the show and talk about this more if you're willing to. I definitely want to have you come back
56:09
on because the one thing I did want to talk about, which seems to be really big
56:13
and a lot of people are talking about these days is like imposter syndrome, which
56:17
I know a lot of us suffer from, including myself. So I'd like to talk
56:23
about these other subjects, maybe that someday too. So I think we're going to have to
56:27
have you come back on multiple times. But I do want to get to a couple questions real quick
56:33
Hey, John, thanks for your comments. I'm glad you think this is a different point of view, which is kind of a point. And someone asked, I think creative things can be dangerous if you don't rest enough time. Yeah, I agree. Do you agree with that
56:51
Yeah, absolutely. You know, your brain, the prefrontal cortex takes energy, takes sugar, right? And if you spend too much time and energy on that, you feel exhausted, you feel tired. And especially if you're not feel like if you don't feel like the things you're doing are meaningful or worthwhile, that's an instant recipe for burnout
57:12
Yeah, yeah. Which we can get into at a later date. But it's 100% true
57:16
Yeah. And that kind of reminds me of, we're out of time, so I can't share the full story, but, you know, pretty much everything in my life is wrapped around creativity, right? It's either music or, you know, I'm an award-winning photographer, you know, I write software, create software, architect software, it's all creative stuff, right
57:37
and but you know and i think all of that feeds the other right and that's why i do i make sure
57:44
every week i do those other things so it'll help my programmer brain and and it all it's kind of
57:50
like an endless loop right but but you know with that statement i also will admit that you know
57:57
even before this show i take like a half hour break and just kind of mellow out and just think
58:02
just you know kind of just try to reset before the show starts and i even do the same thing
58:08
before i play guitar i try to make at least a half an hour before i play guitar to just kind of
58:13
chill out start thinking about what i'm going to be doing in a half hour you know so whatever's
58:18
else going on in the world i can you know try to focus in on what i'm about to do and you know
58:24
half hour or so and so that's that those are things that i do you know to try to rest my brain
58:30
even though I do like doing creative things all the time. And John wants to talk about imposter syndrome
58:38
I'm glad you said that, John. And how do we build teams this way
58:42
That's another whole show we can talk about. Yeah, how do we build teams that way
58:48
And like you were talking, Art, about the challenges. I haven't thought about this specifically
58:55
but the challenges of everybody, not everybody, but a lot of people working remote now we don't get those five minutes of bsing before a meeting
59:03
and or after a meeting or you know we're not sitting around in the lunch room you know talking
59:08
to each other and things like that anymore and so yeah you know short answer to that question like
59:14
the 30 second answer to that question is uh you need to balance the we had their tat uh
59:22
engineering tasks and social tasks we habitually focus on the engineering tasks that's what we put
59:28
in Jira, that's what we manage, that's what we think of as productivity. Social tasks are just
59:33
as important. Engaging with people, asking how they are, finding out more about them, working
59:38
with them in creative and interesting ways, and just hanging out together is also part of building
59:43
a team. So, sorry, that's a short, real tiny version of how to start building teams that are
59:49
more empathetic to each other. Yeah, and that reminded me also of something I wanted to say
59:54
say, but I forgot. And that was I remember one time, long time ago, I was at a like a Christmas
59:59
party or something like that at a Marriott, you know, not too far away from me
1:00:04
And, and, uh, you know, I remember, you know, one point at the party that, you know, there
1:00:10
were some people at the company that I felt were, uh, very hard to deal with real pain
1:00:15
in the butt. Right. And I, I couldn't figure out why they were like that
1:00:19
Right. Or, and sometimes I, I think, are they always like that
1:00:24
Right. Is this their normal mode of operation? Right. Even at home. Right
1:00:28
So, you know, I learned at that Christmas party, at least that, you know, when I got to meet people outside of work
1:00:34
Yeah, OK, everybody had a drink or two in them or something like that. But still, it enlightened me to who they really are as a person, not who they are as a worker
1:00:45
Right. And that helped me to understand them and deal with them in the future better because I was able to kind of get that from that party
1:00:53
because at least this person was like an administrative person or something like that
1:00:58
So I didn't really have any interaction with her on a daily basis
1:01:02
She wasn't part of my team, right? And so I rarely saw her, but the interactions I had with her were just real pain, right
1:01:10
And so that really opened up my eyes and helped me kind of understand her better
1:01:15
and other people at work too by doing those kind of things. You know, I being the introvert, I'm not really big into doing those kind of, you know, things at companies
1:01:28
But, you know, I think they are valuable, especially if you use them in the right way and not just go there to get drunk and party
1:01:35
Right. Yes. Yeah. Yes. It's it's not to me. That's not I mean, yeah, you're there to celebrate
1:01:42
It's Christmas time or whatever. But, you know, you're there with your company. And so there's other things you need to be working on than just having drinks
1:01:49
Right. Yeah. We do a thing every quarter where we pull in all of our remote people into Omaha, try and fly them in, travel, have them travel in and spend a week with them working with their teams in person
1:02:01
Yeah. And companies should do that. Right. Especially now that we're a lot of us are remote. Right
1:02:06
They should be doing that. And if a company does have an event, they should fly everybody in for that event and not exclude people just because they're remote
1:02:13
right they're still part of the team right it's well i gotta let you go because simon is going to
1:02:19
get mad at me we're over time but you're more than welcome to hang out afterwards and and talk about
1:02:23
the show uh how you thought about the show otherwise have a great weekend and uh i'm really
1:02:29
glad that you came on the show and definitely uh if you're willing to come back i definitely want
1:02:34
you to come back on the show because i think we we have at least four more shows that we need to do with you Absolutely And so the one thing I ask everybody at the end of every one of my sessions because life isn all about coding
1:02:48
What do you do for fun? This. No. Well, yeah. Learning about getting the brain could
1:02:57
Yeah. Learning about and teaching about this stuff is actually something that I really enjoy
1:03:02
So I speak at conferences for fun. It's more or less a hobby. not a cheap hobby but it's a hobby
1:03:07
I know but I also do woodworking play video games work on my house
1:03:15
garden a little a lot of a whole bunch of different things cool well that's great
1:03:20
and I hope you get to do some of that this weekend thank you
1:03:24
alright this has been an awesome show I can't wait to have you back
1:03:28
I can't wait for next time thank you Thank you. I'll see you next time we have you
1:03:35
Wow, that was a great session. Everybody let me know how you liked it
1:03:39
I know there's only a few people watching right now, probably. So all of you watching this recording, please email me
1:03:46
Let me know how you like this subject. If you really like it, I'm going to do more
1:03:50
Well, I'll probably do more anyway, but at least like you're okay with it
1:03:56
So that was a great session. I'm glad I picked Art to come on the show
1:04:00
That was a great pick. All right, I have a new Twitter poll going on right now
1:04:06
This is actually a third poll in a series of three. I'm asking people, this is the last one
1:04:14
asking which collection is fastest to go through if you're using a four loop, not a four each
1:04:21
So I've whittled everybody's answers down to list or array. So I hope you go to look me up on Twitter
1:04:29
real.net, Dave. And that's pinned to the top of my profile. And I hope you will do that because
1:04:37
I'm going to be using it in tweets and other things. So I appreciate it. All right. Come on
1:04:45
PowerPoint. You know, my new article about XML code commenting has a lot about that in there
1:04:52
but everything about that and a lot more, of course, is in my coding standards book
1:04:56
I hope you go pick it up on Amazon right now. Also, for Geek Humor, I was talking to someone about this this week, and I thought I'd get you guys to read this article I wrote a while ago
1:05:11
I decided to create a programmer superhero character. His name is Inspector Cody
1:05:17
And I wrote one article so far I have others that I want to do And this is the introduction to Inspector Cody and the city he lives in and the building he lives in and the bar he hangs out and
1:05:31
his super powers and things like that. So anyway, I hope you go. If you have a couple minutes
1:05:38
to read something maybe fun, I hope you go there. There's a QR code for it right there
1:05:42
or you can just go to that link right there. Also, as always, I hope you will help me help the kids in India
1:05:51
either by buying my Code Performance book, because 100% of my proceeds from my Code Performance book
1:05:58
goes to The Voice of Slum in India. Other ways you can help the kids in the slums
1:06:04
is either go to thevoiceofslum.org and help directly, or I've even created a GoFundMe page
1:06:11
that no one's put money in in a while. And I will, as soon as you put the money in
1:06:15
I will send it to the Voice of Slum. So I hope you will help me help the kids from India
1:06:21
because they really need our support. And we're software engineers. We can help people
1:06:27
So I hope you will help. All right. We're going to be taking a couple of weeks off
1:06:33
because Simon's busy with doing other things, but I am so excited to have one of my longtime friends on
1:06:40
And I can't believe I got him on and I'm so excited
1:06:45
Billy Hollis, I've known for a long, long, long time. And he's one of the top user experience people I know
1:06:53
Every session I see him, I see of his in person is riveting
1:06:59
And I'm going to have him on the show on August 13th
1:07:03
So I'm so happy about that. So I hope you will join me for that show because you won't regret watching that show
1:07:10
Believe me, you won't. Also, don't forget the Code Quality Conference on August 19th, 20 days away
1:07:18
Not only go register, but you have a couple of days left or so to submit a paper
1:07:24
We're going to be picking, Simon and I are going to be picking papers any minute now, I think
1:07:29
I don't know if I have to ask Simon. and but I can't wait to have this conference in 20 days and hope you can't wait either
1:07:38
Also, don't forget, you know, COVID is, you know, we kind of skirted in Southern California
1:07:45
or at least we kind of skirted re-implementing the mask mandate in Southern California
1:07:53
So, but we're still having COVID problems. I just actually got 10 COVID tests from the
1:07:59
government yesterday So I ready if I ever get COVID So far I haven got it yet I been really lucky Not lucky but I been working hard not to get it And so in the meantime one of the ways you can help your fellow humans
1:08:14
by donating blood at your local blood bank. You know, I say this at the end of every show
1:08:19
I'm donating next Sunday. Sundays are the day I donate. So as I always say, if I can donate, you can donate
1:08:27
If I can spend two hours on a machine donating plates and plasma, you can spend 30 minutes donating red blood cells
1:08:35
And that makes you feel better that you help your fellow human
1:08:39
And we all need that because someday you just might be in the hospital or the emergency room needing blood and wishing there wasn't a shortage
1:08:50
And of course, as always, make sure you email suggestions, including requests, who you want to be on the show
1:08:56
I will ask anybody except for maybe Bill Gates to come on the show
1:09:00
But you need to email me and let me know who you want on the show. And with that, I'll see you in a couple of weeks
1:09:26
Thank you
1:09:56
Thank you
1:10:26
Thank you
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