Chris Williams

34 Followers
170 Following
67 Posts
Made the jump and looking to follow other techies especially in aerospace and defense.
What I’ve been reading (and watching) this week ending 23 November 2025

Research study suggests speaking more languages might keep you younger | EurekAlert!

Medium

After a decade, @_Davidsmith and I have published the final episode of Under The Radar.

We're incredibly proud of our ten-year catalog of 30-minute discussions on development, marketing, monetization, work/life balance, and mental health for app developers.

We've heard from so many of you already (thanks!), and the show also brought incredible value to David and me, for both our businesses and our friendship.

We had a great run! Thanks for listening, everyone.

https://www.relay.fm/radar

Under the Radar - Relay

From development and design to marketing and support, Under the Radar is all about independent app development. It's rarely longer than 30 minutes.

Relay
Build 09/30: ETP Mini Notebook Printing Press Tour
https://dsriseah.com/journal/2025/1023/
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I check on the progress of The ETP 5885 Mini Notebook at the local commercial printer that makes them. This production run will be the last on Amazon Marketplace.

Yay our paper is out in Empirical Software Engineering!

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10664-025-10735-w

No silver bullets: Why understanding software cycle time is messy, not magic - Empirical Software Engineering

Understanding factors that influence software development velocity is crucial for engineering teams and organizations, yet empirical evidence at scale remains limited. A more robust understanding of the dynamics of cycle time may help practitioners avoid pitfalls in relying on velocity measures while evaluating software work. We analyze cycle time—a widely-used metric measuring time from ticket creation to completion—using a dataset of over 55,000 observations across 216 organizations. Through Bayesian hierarchical modeling that appropriately separates individual and organizational variation, we examine how coding time, task scoping, and collaboration patterns affect cycle time while characterizing its substantial variability across contexts. We find precise but modest associations between cycle time and factors including coding days per week, number of merged pull requests, and degree of collaboration. However, these effects are set against considerable unexplained variation both between and within individuals. Our findings suggest that while common workplace factors do influence cycle time in expected directions, any single observation provides limited signal about typical performance. This work demonstrates methods for analyzing complex operational metrics at scale while highlighting potential pitfalls in using such measurements to drive decision-making. We conclude that improving software delivery velocity likely requires systems-level thinking rather than individual-focused interventions.

SpringerLink
@dsri Hi DSri. I am looking back at the productivity tools you created years ago and have a question. By any chance did you experiment with a 6-minute increment version of the “The Emergent Task Timer”? I am looking for an old school way to track where my time is being spent and our time tracking system is one decimal place (.1 =6 mins). While my tasking is usually longer than that, I am looking for something that maps to that detail. Anyway, thanks for listening and I have always loved what you created. I still have some hardcopy ETP’s that I purchased back in the day.

This fall marks 15 years of Lawfare, and we’re celebrating the anniversary by gathering our community of readers, listeners, and contributors for an evening of reflection, recognition, and a look ahead.

RSVP now to join us!
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/we-re-celebrating-our-15th-anniversary

We’re Celebrating our 15th Anniversary

Join us for a special event on September 19.

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OPML export will be in the next update. Almost made it into yesterday's, but I wanted to do it better.

The previous app would generate the XML server-side. But what if my servers are all down, or there's some horrible disaster and my back-end service is gone, or you launch a very old version of the app on a very old device that can't communicate with the current API?

The new version will generate the OPML entirely on-device, even if it can't reach my servers.
https://hci.social/@tod/113194213129170569

𝗧𝗢𝗗 𝗠𝗔𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗡 :donate8dollars: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] Is OPML export ever coming back? Or are Overcast users not allowed to export their subscriptions any more?

🌱 hci.social
@jchyip great presentation at #ETLS #ETLS24. Liked the goals, mechanisms, and main goal breakdown.
@oxidecomputer @bcantrill Had a fun conversation with folks from Disney and others at the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit about Oxide’s offering.

Yeah, the Walz choice just looks smarter and smarter the more I look at it.

He will run on "family values", but the definition of family values in this case includes things like *protecting trans kids* & feeding school children.

This I am 100% on board for. Make the GOP say out loud that their "family values" are not related to the safety and happiness of kids. Make them say kids should go hungry. Frame protections for trans kids as just that: protections for children, & don't apologize.