But what if they aren't worth more (as a dev, financially) than they think they are? They could be awful, but naively put in a ton of hours. Why do we assume people are worth more? Are we trying to make them feel better by making assumptions and potentially leading them horribly astray? Most people are supremely mediocre and there are just and many horrible devs as their are great ones.

I record audio vignettes all the time using iOS Voice Memos, opportunistically snapping 30 seconds or so, the same way one might snap a random photo with a phone. City noises, transport noises, in-situ music, birdsong, machinery, a bedtime story, hold music… all kinds of cool stuff. I haven’t found any better way to organize this collection than chronologically with a short title for each.

I’m also a big fan of Live Photos (remember Live Photos? Nobody talks about them any more), and the short burst of audio you get with each.

Looking and listening back at some of these, it’s the sound which brings the scene back to life. The sound feels alive, while photographs alone feel frozen and distant.

That track was almost impossible to get hold of back in the day. I had heard of it, but never heard it. After years of asking around in record stores I finally found a really scratchy sounding cassette tape (no doubt a pirated copy) in a German record shop in East Frisia the summer of 1985.

I read the book and can't remember anything about it except the first chapter where James describes an accident he was in. Tiny Habits, from the man who created Behavioural Science, is much more concrete, doable and memorable: https://tinyhabits.com/