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I started Developer Tea in 2015 to help engineers find clarity, perspective, and purpose in regular short bursts of high-value content.

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Prefer Traction Over Motivation
Distraction is not simply something that takes over your attention.
Published: 1/28/2021
The Paradox of Transcendence
Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.
Published: 10/23/2020
Using Docker for Gatsby local development
After fighting a bit with my work-issued computer not wanting to build my Gatsby site, I finally decided to bite the bullet and build out a Docker image.
Published: 10/19/2020
Thinking Machine
## My perpetual goal is to build a better thinking machine.
Published: 9/22/2020
Patterns for Long-Term Remote Work
Talking about remote work is en vogue right now, and rightfully so.
Published: 3/12/2020
How Remote First Companies are Antifragile
Modern workplaces are being forced to respond with caution as COVID-19 spreads worldwide.
Published: 3/6/2020
Be Careful Taking Shortcuts
Shortcuts are a special kind of tricky.
Published: 3/5/2020
What I Learned About Software Development in Flight School
I don't talk about it online often, but I've had my pilot's license for a few years now.
Published: 5/30/2019
A year of changes
I turned 30 on Saturday.
Published: 12/31/2018
Collaborative AI Learning Environments: Show Me What I'm Saying
Open-ended responses require synthesis and are uncomfortable territory for students early in the learning process.
Published: 6/13/2018
Come Down Off the Ledge
It seems that we have more opportunities to delete things than we realize.
Published: 5/7/2018
The Problems We Have With Problems
In my time as a developer and leader of other developers, I've focused a lot of my effort on understanding how people diagnose and solve problems.
Published: 3/17/2018
Podcast Feed Limited by Feedburner
The last two episodes of Developer Tea haven't shown any downloads, so naturally I reached out to Simplecast to get an answer.
Published: 5/8/2017
Running Long One-Off Rails Console Commands Detached on Heroku
Ever wanted to run some kind of one-off thing without pushing up a rake task? I came across this today and needed to clear out some database records.
Published: 5/3/2017
Contagious
I just got over what we are pretty sure was the [norovirus](https://www.cdc.gov/norovirus/).
Published: 1/30/2017
What To Learn As a Brand New Developer in 2017
If you are getting into software development, my recommendation for 2017 is that you learn JavaScript (the ES6 variety).
Published: 1/11/2017
Twenty-Eight Years
Year twenty-eight has been, to say the least, eventful.
Published: 12/29/2016
Small Anchors Make a Big Difference
When people talk about their origin stories, there's one thread that seems to be relatively common, give or take a few creators.
Published: 8/29/2015
How to Be a Great Beginner (Talk)
Last month, I had the opportunity to speak at the Chattanooga Developer's lunch.
Published: 6/6/2015
The Infinite Toolset, Craftsmanship, and Developer Sanity
I've been using the metaphor of blacksmith and cobbler recently in discussions about craftsmanship.
Published: 2/8/2015
Talk: Creative DNA
I recently did a talk on some of the concepts in the book I'm working on.
Published: 11/7/2014
Re: Voice Interfaces
Dustin Curtis wrote a fantastic article discussing the shortcomings of voice interfaces.
Published: 9/16/2014
Steal these iWatch App Ideas
I want you to steal my ideas.
Published: 9/8/2014
Why Developers Underestimate: One Reason That Will Change the Way You See Projects Forever
I, like many developers and tech consultants, am a chronic underestimator.
Published: 8/27/2014
Quick Tip: Serve Parse Files via HTTPS
Trying to serve your Parse files via SSL/HTTPS? You’ll notice that you can’t force it, and Parse doesn’t support this via their file URL scheme.
Published: 8/22/2014
The Path to Productivity: 7 Hacks, Principles, and Patterns
Share this article on Twitter Productivity is such a huge focus in our lives.
Published: 8/11/2014
7 Tips for Hyper-productive Wunderlist-ing
_Update: Looks like Wunderlist was bought by Microsoft, so maybe take this all with a grain of salt._ I’m loving the newest version of Wunderlist.
Published: 8/8/2014
Announcing Hacking the Impossible – The Developer’s Guide to Working with Visionaries
## Update: I've abandoned this project for now.
Published: 7/9/2014
Steal these Startup Ideas: Collection Two
As I’ve said before in collection one of this series, ideas are everywhere.
Published: 7/7/2014
Make Me Work for It: Challenge Psychology
Fifth-degree black belt.
Published: 6/19/2014
Create Small Things
> Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
Published: 6/16/2014
Getting Past Writer’s Block: Break the Rules
One thing I’ve been able to do in my writing career is… well, write.
Published: 6/9/2014
Feature Requests vs. Business Problems
I recently encountered an interesting situation with a client.
Published: 5/8/2014
Design Decision Guidelines: Trendability vs. Usability
When you make a design decision, understand that there is no single more important guideline to follow than an equal balance of your own intention and the consumer’s situation.
Published: 3/17/2014
The Internet of Places: The Context of Things
The Internet of Things is absolutely upon us.
Published: 2/25/2014
The Terror of Facebook and the Endless Social Network
They died.
Published: 1/27/2014
Steal these Startup Ideas: Collection One
I want you to steal these ideas.
Published: 1/23/2014
The Anatomy of Surprise and Delight
A chance to surprise and delight someone by doing something a little exceptional goes a long way because it provides a smack of awesome humanity upside the head.
Published: 1/14/2014
Nonchalant Arrogance, Intellect, and Caring About Your Work
I recently encountered a demeanor that I couldn’t quite place.
Published: 1/12/2014
I’m Using Buffer to Segment My Working Day, and it’s Awesome
I have a lot of different responsibilities on a day-to-day basis.
Published: 1/12/2014
The war of privacy is coming in 2014
What will you do when you have the opportunity to trade your privacy as a currency? Of course, it’s not a sustainable model, but that’s not the point.
Published: 12/23/2013
How We Adopted an Agency-wide Grunt Workflow
tldr; When adopting tools, do so to eliminate waste.
Published: 12/2/2013
My Solution for Quantified Self: Prompted Data Aggregation
The quantified self is really quite a hot topic.
Published: 10/30/2013
Developer Tea was a part of Spec and is hosted by Jonathan Cutrell, engineering manager at Guild Education.