Colton J. McCurdy
Software. Reading. Running. Traveling. Photography.
What have I been up to?
2022-05-24 Skatepark Meeting with City Council
Met with city council to discuss our shared visions for the "tired" 20+ year-old skatepark in my hometown of Meadville, PAConversations With David Foster Wallace
figure out how fiction can engage a reader, much of whose sensibility has been formed by pop culture, without simply becoming more shit in the pop culture machine.
2022-04 SF Soma West Skatepark
I visited SF to meet co-workers for the first time since the pandemic. I love adventuring alone in new places, finding subjects for my photography. Skateparks have been a recent subject and while I was there, I was practicing olling.
NixOS Firecracker VM
I've been playing with Firecracker VMs for a bit now and have become my primary means for PoCing things. And I've been wanting to switch to NixOS, but haven't had the time to move my primary machine.
Skateboarding
At 27, I've started skating for the first time in my life. I've never snowboarded or surfed.
Homo Deus
Given our past record and our current values, we are likely to reach out for bliss, divinity and immortality – even if it kills us.
The Broom of the System
We are helpless and inefficacious as parts of a system until we recognize the existence of the system.
Photography Influences
The folks who inspire me.Photography Journey
Describes my journey from not knowing which first camera to buy and not knowing how to use autofocus to purchasing a 35mm film camera with no light meter.
How I Read
A tradeoff between effeciency, effectiveness and enjoyment. My process prioritizes effeciency of "re-reads" or referring to where I learned something and less about reading most efficiently.Sapiens
Brief, surface-level overview of the history and advancement of Homo Sapiens. Personally, I enjoyed the second half of the book more than the first.
Reboot
"If you bring forth what is in you, what is in you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is in you, what is in you will destroy you."
Enlightenment Now
"Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory."."In some ways the world has become less equal, but in more ways the world’s people have become better off." "...progress is not utopia" "…political tribalism is the most insidious form of irrationality today..."
Team Topologies
Team Topologies highlights human limitations regarding cognitive load and how this affects both system and organizational design. "Team-first thinking" is introduced as a foundational principle and is enabled via four fundamental team topologies -- stream-aligned, platform, enabling and complicated subsystem -- and three accompanying "interaction modes" — X-as-a-Service, facilitating and collaborating. It is acknowledged that proper team topologies should be dynamic and evolve — not be blatantly copied — alongside the company and won't be as successful if the local and wider company culture is lacking in areas such as trust, emotional safety, vision, funding and abiding to industry best practices.
Crying of Lot 49
Crying of Lot 49 tells a story of the power and vulnerability of our minds. An already paranoid woman looking for an escape becomes obsessed with and trapped by a conspiracy theory about an underground postal carrier. She continues to journey deep into seamless conspiracy.
Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest takes you on a challenging, type-2-fun, mental journey through the lives of a handful key individuals as they reflect on their pasts — mostly tough upbringings — and all-time-lows. Zooming out, a main theme is "addiction", but really more generally, dedicating our lives to something, either by choice or not — whether it be religion, sports, drugs, or work — and often struggling alone. This isolated dedication numbs us from the difficulties of life; we often latch tighter on to our addictions rather than have difficult conversations and listen and feel for others who are struggling around us.
Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It
Kamal talks about how he felt worthless after his company folded. It wasn't until his life was reduced to telling himself all day every day to "love himself" that he began to have positive feelings for himself. Basically, a story of "blind faith".