Edition 1
Inaugural edition of Muya's Newsletter - let's see how it goes!
In this first edition, we’ll touch on some amazing music, some new tech, some cool articles, some podcast episodes and a newsletter whose content I’ve been enjoying.
Let’s go!
🎵 And the beat goes…
Urban Chill - Kenyan (Spotify Playlist by Scadden Orina) - this playlist contains some laid back tracks from Kenyan artists, especially nice for those evenings you’re looking to chill out and ease out from the day. My favourites in this one (so many, might as well be a playlist on its own):
• Jahera - Lisa Oduor-Noah
• That Nana - Teon Gibbs, Karun, Makadi
• Yes I Do - Caleb Awiti, Arabi
• Come Over - The Nest Collective
• Didn’t Have You - Sage, Didge
• Girl Nextdoor - Sauti Sol, Tiwa Savage
• Kiroko - Ayrosh (manages to highlight police brutality even in a romantic song context)
• Mwana Wa Gorofa - Nabalayo
• Pesa - The Nest CollectiveKenyan Jazz (Spotify Playlist by Scadden Orina) - another one chockfull of amazing Kenyan music. I’m a fan of jazz - so this one stuck with me.
C.F.A Music - Franck Biyong - not a new song, but I just came across it recently. I’m a huuuge fan of Franck Biyong, so finding this gem was 😍
Make Believe - Karun, Blinky Bill - this one is also in the Urban Chill playlist, but deserves its own mention
Nameless Re-Invented (2006 - 2014) - Nameless - a collection of classics by Nameless, one of Kenya’s most revered artists. Nostalgic vibes all around.
🤖 For the love of tech!
Caddy Web Server - a web server that’s written in Go! I’m really looking forward to experimenting with this (it doesn’t always have to be Apache / Nginx, right?)
Cocoon - you know how sometimes you want to share something with your close friends / family, but don’t want to be part of the Meta-verse? Well, Cocoon promises to be that. It needs you to be able to convince your people to move off the current platforms, but once that’s done, I think it could be pretty cool. I’m willing to pay for social media if I can get a semblance of privacy.
*privacy not included by Mozilla - Speaking of privacy, ever wondered just how good your headphones are with handling your data? What about your toys (both kinds 😉)? Mozilla have this amazing tool that allows you to check on the “privacy rating” of different apps / hardware, allowing you to make shop for more privacy respecting products.
🎧 Listen to This: Podcasts
A small note about my relationship with podcasts: I’ve never been a fan.
In my lifetime, there are only 2 that I can say I’ve thoroughly enjoyed listening to; the first, I was looking for a community around a very specific shared interest; the second, a close friend strongly encouraged (read: almost forced) me to listen to one episode, and I got hooked.
I never know what to do while listening to a podcast; if it’s too educational, then I’d want to sit down and explore, take notes, etc while I’m listening; but then when I’m sitting down at a desk, a podcast is the last thing I want to be listening to.
The episode I’m recommending today is from the second podcast, Malcom Gladwell’s Revisionist History.
Revisionist History - The Tortoise and the Hare
The episode talks about rewarding those who are able to complete a specific task quickly, vs. those who are able to do a better job if given more time (it compares chess players (tortoises) against people who take the US Law School Admission Test (LSAT) exam (hares)).
The episode goes into more specific detail, but the gist of it is that you get very different results if you put time pressure when someone is doing a task.
For example, the students who came out on top during exams when there was a 2 hour time limit vs. a 4 hour time limit was completely different, with those having more time having performed better.
This got me thinking about what a team would want to optimize for when hiring engineers, and what they'd be losing out on based on the time limits (3 hr vs. 6 hour vs. 3 days);
e.g. when hiring, is a team primarily looking for engineers who do well under pressure, or is it looking for engineers who do well generally, but also reliable under pressure.
I’d love to hear what you think about this!
📚 Something to Read
A short analogy on Feedback & Unit Tests - what do unit tests have to do with the feedback you get (e.g. from your manager). The author explores the relationship between the TDD pattern of moving tests from red to green, and receiving both positive and negative feedback, all being a system of trust.
GOOD DAYS, BAD DAYS, IMPOSSIBLE DAYS - a quick reality check on just how much you have going on, and that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed, especially with the pandemic going on.
How to Salvage a Disastrous Day in Your Covid-19 Quarantine - still on the effect of the pandemic on our lives - you’re not superhuman, you can’t be expected to be operating at 100% all the time. Some tips on how to get back up from a bad day.
What they don’t tell you when you translate your app - found this to be incredibly relatable. Remember that there are always so many considerations to keep in mind when you’re globalizing OR internationalizing your app. Some things to keep in mind!
Learn Go by Building a Bus Service (Tutorial) - of course I had to sneak in a Go tutorial in here. I really enjoyed following this tutorial, which introduced different patterns / approaches that one can take when building apps (the design patterns don’t only apply to Go)
Subscribe to This
A newsletter recommending another newsletter… how meta!
Decode Fintech by PayStack - this brilliant newsletter curates some of the best fintech-related news from across Africa. I really love its succinct nature. Also, the jobs section has really amazing open roles!
And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed this edition, or at least found 1 useful thing.
Until next time, stay safe! Bye!