Good Software Is Anti-Fragile
Antifragility is a property of systems in which they increase in capability to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures. The concept was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book, Antifragile, and in technical papers.
The concept of antifragile is the opposite of the fragile! A fragile thing such as a package of wine glasses is easily broken when dropped but an antifragile object would benefit from such stress. So rather than marking such a box with "Handle with Care", it would be labelled "Please Mishandle" and the wine would get better with each drop (would be awesome wouldn't it).
My goal is to be anti-fragile in the work I do and in life. Unfortunately I was near-fatally hit by a car while cycling home from work in 2016. That has left me with chronic pain and acutely aware of how fragile life is.
The Purpose of This Site
The purpose of this site is four-fold:
- Keep track of lessons learned for a quicker/easier place to reference those lessons in the future. By writing the lessons down I hope to cement the knowledge and reduce time spent relearning.
- Record professional development for future reference.
- Keep track of professional development reading to cement knowledge and leverage.
- Build/control my online brand/identity.
Why the URL?
amorphousprojects.com
A few years ago I started a technology company. The 3 products planned were all related to insurance and risk management but eventually I wanted to develop many more ideas, not necessarily risk management specific. So, I called the company amorphous_projects because I felt that accurately described the plan for the company. Unfortunately I fell victim to perfectionism and was unable to release a MVP.
anti-fragile.io
I got really sick of trying to spell out amorphousprojects.com over the phone. So, I registered a shorter, easier to understand domain. I'm now, slowly, in the process of moving everything to the new domain.
I've gotten sick of data breaches (Cambridge Analytica) and right-wing, nut-job, idiots (Musk) screwing up social media so I generally stay away now. But, I still want a place to share jokes, ideas, interact with people, etc.
I genuinely believe social media/networking has some truly amazing value/advantages. You can find & ask for help, you can organize events, you can stay up-to-date with friends' lives, etc. Unfortunately capitalism has ruined all that and our personal data is now mined for sales & advertising opportunities and exploited for questionable gain.
So, I've created a WordPress category for social posts. This category is excluded form the blog feed (not treated as blog posts) but you can view the posts either by viewing the specific category or by coming back to this page. As with any WordPress post, you can comment on anything, just like any other social network. But, I own the data, you know there's no tracking pixels, and you'll never see an ad.
Want to subscribe and keep up with my social media posts? Easy, WordPress provides "subscribe by email" or you can add this link to your RSS feed reader.
Photos
I fancy myself a bit of a photographer, by no means in the professional sense of photography. I'm keen to collect life experiences, rather than money or things, since my near-fatal crash and photos allow me to collect & remember those experiences.