Prediction
Mathieu van der Poel is not having his best last 12 months. Sure, there were a few big wins: Dwars door Vlaanderen, a stage win in the Giro d’Italia, the Grand Prix de Wallonie and of course the epic sprint battle to win De Ronde van Vlaanderen. Clearly not a pannekoek.
Yet, the Tour de France was not a success. He crashed severely in the Olympic Game mountain bike race. He sabotaged himself at the World Championship in Australia. And he has been falling short during the cyclocross season to beat Wout van Aert.
Wout van Aert however has been riding another banner year: Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, E3 Saxo Bank Classic, Paris-Nice stage win, Criterium du Dauphine wins, an amazing Tour de France for himself (stage wins and the green jersey) and for the team (yellow jersey). Great cyclocross wins against Mathieu van der Poel and Tom Pidcock.
Wout has been growing steadily over the past years, whereas Mathieu has stagnated. So what’s been going on?
My theory is that is boils down to the team. Wout has been surrounded by a great Jumbo-Visma team with a scientific sport approach and where the team prevails over the individual.
On the other hand, Alpecin-Fenix team from MvdP, has been fighting above its weight class for several years. They are a small wonder of a team. Yet, they can not compete with the likes of Ineos or Jumbo in budget and staff. Combine that with the fact that Mathieu is their primadonna star, who can dictate his individual desires over the team goals.
Mathieu needs a change, a reset.
The news that Jumbo supermarkets are not doing so well in Belgium may just bring that.
It is not a secret that Jumbo-Visma wants to build the best team with Dutch riders, just like Rabobank many years ago. They already invested in a younger generation to train the next Dutch Tour winner. With Dylan Van Baarle, Jumbo added a big Classic rider to their ranks this year. Van Baarle came in second in De Ronde this year and won Paris-Roubaix.
My prediction is that Mathieu will join Jumbo-Visma in the coming 1-2 years, and that Wout van Aert will jump to Quickstep. Jumbo wants that all Dutch team. Patrick Lefevre needs the Classics wins in spring.
December 30, 2022
It has been two weeks since my last doomscrolling session. I am on a Twitter detox.
Twitter Detox by Dall-E
Daily I would spend on aggregate one hour scrolling through my Twitter feed, being amazed, laughing, and getting annoyed. And yet, I believed I was learning, staying up to date with the tech world, and gathering “information”. After all, the folks I followed were journalists, tech leaders, thought leaders, contrarians, and a few jokesters.
I would also share my brilliant thoughts and insights. I was engaged with the public town square.
The fun ended when my Twitter feed became mostly about Twitter and Elon Musk. The outfall from Elonjet and the hypocrisy from first amendment absolutist Musk was the proverbial drop. I am not quitting Twitter. I still hold hope. I am taking a break. I deleted the application from my iPad and my iPhone.
As with many detox sessions, the immediate results feel amazing. I recuperated some time to read a book or do something productive. Every once in a while you need to leave the town square and go on vacation.
Luckily, I could end with a high note:
December 30, 2022
Thank You!
What started as a desire to ride my bicycle with others has evolved into something much bigger. Last year, I joined the South Bay Blaze on rides in the Los Gatos and Woodside mountains. The South Bay Blaze is a bicycling group designed to provide strength and support to all those training for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s AIDS/LifeCycle ride: 545 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles in support of services and people with HIV and AIDS.
I rode many times across Mount Eden, Kennedy Road, and to the top of Alpine. Oh, did I suffer! I stopped for water at Robert’s market a plenty and know every bump of Foothill Express Way. We went all the way South to Morgan Hill and to the top of Alum Rock park. Jamie led us on so many nice roads.
But June 2022 was already booked for me with a trip to Belgium. I missed out on an epic 2022 AIDS LifeCycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
As if I needed more inspiration, the ALC 2022 SBB video pushed me over the top. I committed for the ALC ride in 2023!
I joined the SBB Hot Summer Street training rides and continued on the 30-milers in the fall. I am ready for the spring training rides. I will be ready to ride all of the Lake Tahoe perimeter, our final ride before heading to the main course.
With the help of many donors, I am also already well on my way to “punch my ticket” to LA. Fundraising is new to me. So thank you, thank you, thank you! I have a small bit to go. So if you want to contribute to a great cause, check out https://giving.aidslifecycle.org/participant/JanVanBruaene.
I am finishing 2022 with over 1600 miles in the saddle and over 54,000 ft in elevation gain. Let’s toast to many more miles in 2023!
December 29, 2022
ALC2023
Literary Fiction Has All Kinds of Benefits in the Workplace
One of my favorite interview questions is to talk about a recent book you have read. When hiring, I am looking for a curious mind and someone who is always learning.
The answers often surprise me. I often hope to hear something in the realm of management, business, or technology.
After listening to a recent episode of the Securities podcast, I am expanding beyond the obvious fields.
In the podcast, New York City professor Anne-Lisa Cohen, talks about the benefits from reading literary fiction. Non fiction is all about acquisition of knowledge. It is formulaic and often follows simple structure. Literary fiction on the other hand forces us to follow a more complex narrative. It makes us take the perspective of others, sometimes less favorable actors. Those two elements, being more open minded and lowering the need for simplicity, make us better decision makers.
Professor Cohen also mentions about the exposure to literature on the need to closure. People who have a high need for closure, want to make a decision quickly, based upon a few data points. On the others hand, a low need for closure is related to contemplating alternate viewpoints and sifting through information. Literary fiction leads to lower need for closure.
So Kafka, both Apache and Franz, are great answers to the question about a recent book you’ve read.
December 19, 2022
Argentina Campeon Mundial
Like an Argentine tango, this world cup final was an emotional rollercoaster in 5 parts. The final and penalty part resulted in a third star for Argentina and Lionel Messi got his world cup!
Winning a world cup any other way would not have been very Argentinean. It needed drama, tears, yelling and lots of singing. All of it played out in our living room this early morning. And surely our neighbors must have heard it too. I was waiting for the knock on the front door from SJPD any moment.
The Whatsapp messages, audios, and videos we are receiving from my in-laws in Buenos Aires, San Luis, and Mendoza are amazing. The country needed this more actually winning at soccer. This was so much more than a game.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CmKk7Jig33k/?igshid=NTdlMDg3MTY=
And even though, it was still a soccer game. It was an amazing game. Traditionally world cup finals disappoint. They are boring with two teams playing not to lose. Not this time: this was the best world cup final ever!
Argentina came to win. They brought energy and great passing. Angel Di Maria was a brilliant move by Scaloni, on the left no less. The defense never let France’s TGV, Mbappe, leave the station. Messi and de Paul were commanded the attack. Julian was fighting for every ball in the front. Man of the match for me is a tie: Alexis McAllister and Dibu Martinez.
But, forget poetic descriptions of the game, its ups and downs, …
Argentina es Campeon del Mundo Carajo!!!
Muchaaaaaaachos, ahora nos volvimos a ilusionar …
December 18, 2022
ChatGPT Is Magic, and Sometimes Still Confused
Open.ai released ChatGPT (chat.openai.com) a few days ago. Based upon GPT 3.5 machine learning technology and honing its craft using pre-2022 data, it is a chatbot. It is an amazing chatbot. It remembers what you said earlier in the conversation, and even can get snarky about it: “As I mentioned earlier,”.
The ChatGPT applications and examples have been astonishing: from simple Q&A, to creating datasets, generating software, writing essays, and so much more. Twitter user @datachaz does a great job providing examples.
Some have compared the release to the first detonation of a nuclear bomb. Yet, most people haven’t realized it went off. Surely the folks at Google have taken notice.
ChatGPT is only a prototype and has some limitations. For example, it can not look up things on the internet. It is limited to pre-2022 data - mostly.
After being dazzled by its magic, I was however surprised it initially struggled with the following question.
What’s the largest Spanish speaking country?
The largest Spanish-speaking country is Mexico. It has a total area of about 1.9 million square kilometers …
That struck me as odd. Surely Argentina is bigger.
What Spanish speaking country is the largest in square kilometers?
In terms of square kilometers, the largest Spanish-speaking country is Argentina. It has a total area of about 2.8 million square kilometers, making it the eighth largest country in the world. …
I thought so. How can it be this wrong on a basic wikipedia style question?
It became obvious that ChatGPT struggled with the nuance related to “largest”. Is it referring to the population or geographic size?
Later in the day, the answer to my first question had evolved, and now referred to the population.
What’s the largest Spanish speaking country?
The largest Spanish-speaking country is Mexico. It has a population of more than 126 million people and is the 11th most populous country in the world. Spain, the country where Spanish originated, is the second largest Spanish-speaking country. It has a population of around 47 million people.
That makes sense now.
Still, I can tell it continues to struggle.
What Spanish speaking country is the largest in square kilometers?
In terms of square kilometers, the largest Spanish-speaking country is Argentina. It has a total area of about 2.8 million square kilometers, making it the eighth largest country in the world. Spain is the second largest Spanish-speaking country in terms of square kilometers, with a total area of about 505,000 square kilometers. Mexico is the third largest, with an area of about 1.9 million square kilometers.
Spain is not the second largest Spanish-speaking country in terms of square kilometers. Yet it is so in terms of population.
Lastly, after I pulled up your jaw from the floor, I wonder what it takes to create and run this system. I haven’t found much about it thus far. Yet, it is an important factor to consider when thinking about the real near term impact to Silicon Valley.
I had learned that lesson from Andy Bechtolsheim. We were in an auditorium on the Santa Clara Sun campus, and had just listened to the technological advances network accelerator cards provided. Then uber-nerd Andy took the floor and walked us through the calculation about the economic feasibility: the cost of a processor, the cost of a network accelerator card, the price of the server, etc. It quickly became clear that while the technology was amazing, that the price point made those expensive network accelerator cards only worthwhile for very nice applications, and not worth adding by default to a Sun server.
It seems like Google is wondering the same here. 
December 8, 2022
Write Your Status Reports As a Mini Story
Writing status reports is hard. Too often we write them from the author’s point of view, and do not consider the reader who may not be familiar with all the details.
- Fixed Jira issues PROD-123, PROD-465, and TEST-967.
- The Chalupa feature works.
- Met with product management about the Flying Pigs project.
- Helped support with BigCo support issue.
This list reads like a snapshot a person checked off from their to-do list. They do not provide an update on how things are going. The context is missing, as is the conclusion. The true story is an exercise for the reader to craft.
I had to take time away from working on the Blaster project to resolve some urgent issues in production. The system is now stable, and I plan to go back to Blaster next week. For more details on the issues we solved, see PROD-123, PROD-465 and TEST-967. The main project schedule accounted for some product interruptions. We are still on track to meet the schedule.
Rather than write a list of bullet items, write mini stories. Write a paragraph or two. Describe the outcome and impact to the product, to the team, or to the company. Explain why we should care. Include any new risks that popped up, or risks that got eliminated. Bonus points: include what you learned, or even better, if you messed up.
Elon Musk’s aggressive text message to the former Twitter CEO, Parag Agrawal, “What did you get done this week?”, resonates daily in my mind. Answering that question practically writes your status report.
November 13, 2022
I Committed to Riding the 2023 AIDS/Lifecycle
Last year, I met the South Bay Blaze team, who every year train for the AIDS Lifecycle weeklong ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
As I learned about the cause, the good the organization does with the funds they raise, and the ride itself, I decided to sign up for the 2023 ride.
After a little break with graduations, travel and vacations in May, I’ve been riding quite regularly over the summer. I changed my diet and even put alcohol back in the cupboard for a few months. I am getting in fighting shape for this ride.
The scariest part is the fundraising. I have never done it. As I get my head around it, I am realizing I should have taken on some sort of fundraising much earlier. It makes you think about the people you haven’t been in touch with as much. Regardless, it will be challenge to get to the $3,500. I am getting warmed up.
Follow my journey on Strava, Twitter, or Instagram.
Donations are very welcome. Perhaps even your employer may match them.
October 30, 2022
ALC2023
When looking at new presentation tools, one requirements rises to the top: make it easier to create and tell a story so that the audience will remember it.
“Great stories happen to those who can tell them” - Ira Glass
In my search for better tools, I have been focusing on a few items:
- During the creation process, allow me to keep the story line easily visible. I don’t want to be distracted by the slide design.
- Make it easy to add images, videos, tables and graphs.
- Fast editing, updating, and collaborating
- Affordable - especially during the initial 6 months, during which you truly will be testing the new application.
There are a number of applications I started to look at.
In the past, I looked at Prezi and Beautiful.ai. More recently, I kicked the tires of Slides.com and Tome. Both are recent entries vying to dethrone PowerPoint and Google Slides.
These applications are generally great. Some do keep the focus on the storyline - no more death by PowerPoint bullets. Yet, the presentation creation process all happens in a UI-heavy web application. The interface doesn’t lend you to write and develop the story. They are all about designing slides, and assume you have the story clear.
Then, I discovered a set of tools under the umbrella Presentation as Code. These tools focus on creating the story line first, often in a basic text file or Markdown file. You can then add stylistic elements that the tool uses to visualize the slide. One tool even doesn’t allow you to muck much with the visuals so you keep the focus on the story. It is a more minimalistic view on presentation. The tool wants to make sure that regardless of the device you use, the best visual is presented.
The two applications I have been experimenting with are:
- Obsidian Advanced Slides Plugin. I use Obsidian as my digital notebook and second brain. The plugin takes a text file, part of the Obsidian Vault, and renders it into a presentation.
- iA Presenter. Presenter allow you to import an existing text file or start from scratch. You then continue developing the story, before it gets rendered into slides.
In both applications, you write your story in a Markdown format. You write the headlines, as well as the speaker notes in the same file. Reading this text file, it is easier to understand the plot and main points. It is also very easy to make changes to the content.
Obsidian Advanced Slides plugin allows for much visual customization. For example, it was easy to add stylist elements to build the slide, or to highlight some text on the slide, or to add a background image.
iA Presenter provides less control to the user on how the slide will be rendered. Yet, the visuals are beautiful and the tool has several great templates built in. Information Architects (iA) are known to care about the visual design quite a bit. Their other application, iA Writer, remains an amazingly looking Markdown editor. “Export to PDF” seemed to work better as well with iA Presenter.
It is hard to compare both, since one is an open source project of few volunteers, and the other is developed by a software company. I intend to continue use both (even though I need to make a few tweaks in the Markdown to interchange between them - I will likely pick one for each presentation).
Presentation as Code is gaining momentum. There are more applications and open source projects adopting it. I am a fan. It is fast, simple, and still gives you a great set of visuals to tell the story.
October 30, 2022
The Real Winner Will Be … Reddit
In the world of social apps, there are two kinds. The first kind is all about sharing media: Youtube, Snapchat, TikTok, BeReal. It is popular among the youngsters. It is all about being popular.
The second kind of social apps is about sharing opinion. This group includes Twitter, Facebook, Parler, Gettr, Gab, and Truth Social. This group will look a lot different in the coming months.
When Elon Musk will take the helm at Twitter, expect a lot of changes. A large number of employees will have to seek new employment. Expect drastic updates to the Twitter rules and moderation guidelines. Twitter may come out of it much different, financially healthier, or it could evolve to the fringes.
Kanye West buying Parler is merely a distraction. It is also a cash infusion for a patient on life support. I doubt it will become a mainstream platform.
Also Truth Social is in financial turmoil. Don’t expect any real money from Trump. It will probably hang around until the next presidential election.
I consider Gettr or Gab too much on the fringe.
That leaves a great opportunity for Reddit. Reddit is not a traditional social application, with its endless stream of posts. Scrolling through the stream is referred to as doomscrolling. Reddit is a curated and organized set of areas of interest. It will take a bit to get used to. Yet, it will see an influx from the other social applications and become more widely used.
October 23, 2022