Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

is an important and challenging book. It is important because it deals with 80% of the toughest interpersonal aspects of a professional working environment that will pay off dividends in every aspect of both your career and the health of the organization. It is challenging because it explains everything by example. I don’t blame them. They tackle tough philosophical issues and make them approachable and even actionable. This book is at least life, professional life changing. Give it a chance. If you read it once, try it again in a three years. You will find that the book has changed as much as you have.

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High

is the solution to 80% of the less intense communication issues in both a professional and personal relationship. This book is concise and a valuable use of your time. Only share with someone that “they could have handled it better” when you can say “and here is how”. This book is the “how” part.

So, you've got a problem? That's good!

So, you’ve got a problem? That’s good! Why? Because repeated victories over your problems are the rungs on your ladder of success. With each victory, you grow in wisdom, stature and experience. You become a better, bigger, more successful person each time you meet a problem and tackle and conquer it with a positive mental attitude.

– W. Clement Stone

Screencasting Practice & Feedback: 00003

Plan

  • Demonstrate lessons-learned about alternate input methods and redefinition of the Emacs interpretation of modifier keys
  • Utilize a lower-third instead of text-boxes
  • Talk louder

Execution

Preparation

  • Pretend you are going to a job-interview, or on a date, that is recorded for everyone to see, forever
    • Perform all personal preparations that you normally would for example
      • Brush your teeth
  • Applied Revlon PhotoReady Prime + Anti Shine Balm Clear
  • Lights and camera and microphone
    • Set them up
    • Tested them
    • Hooked up camera and turned it on
    • Adjusted white balance
    • Set left light pointed at me; right light pointed at ceiling
    • Adjust left light to give face warmth (versus ghost appearance)
    • Microphone is on and input volume maxed out
  • Turn off HVAC
  • Mute Phone and Pushbullet
  • Close other applications
  • Verify microphone woks
  • Verify recording on correct monitor
  • Write rough script
  • Pour glass of water

Execution

  • Showed off Emacs mug and encouraged FSF support

Screencasting Practice & Feedback: 00002

Plan

  • Demonstrate how I like to quote content in Org-Mode
  • Learn how to use call-outs and text-boxes
  • Learn how to ad-lib content
  • Scripted out location of content and video-recording of presenter to make sense of what is appearing on the screen and where
  • Learn how to use content-music

Execution

  • Made video top right 100% of the top right corner
    • This means scaling it by 50%
  • Remove the dropshadow from the video
    • The video stood out enough already
  • Amplified volume by 200%
  • Added callouts interesting content
  • Added watermwark, 25% scale, 25% opacity, 10 key-presses from bottom and right edge
  • Include the word Screencast in announcement to distinguish between screencast and blog post
  • 6h of effort for 7m of content
  • Posted manually on Reddit
  • Blog published to social sites

Outcome & Feedback

  • Wrote a script; didn’t pay attention to it enough
  • After re-recording it six times, said I would never re-record it again. Instead made corrections using text-boxes positioned over my face.
  • Light was OK
  • Speaking volume was too quiet; content volume was too loud
  • Skin was shiny
  • Looping the banner and jingle at the end was a mistake
  • The 3m monologue about Braille displays was interesting to me and perhaps no one else so don’t include that. 3m is a long time.
  • Use a lower-third intead of text boxes
  • Redditers commented that a blog post would have been more concise and faster. What is the best of both worlds?

Screencasting Practice & Feedback: 00001

Plan

  • Develop a jingle and banner to introduce the videos
  • Learn how to use ScreenFlow on smallest project possible
  • Learn how to publish and monetize on YouTube
  • Learn how to define closed-caption content

Outcome & Feedback

  • YouTube
    • Easy and pleasant process
    • Signing up takes 30m or so
    • Publishing the video offers 20-30 configuration options
  • Forgot to develop a watermark for the videos
  • Closed-captioning is tedious and time-consuming
  • Screenflow project is large; be sure to keep it on a large disk
  • Glad to have worked in a simple project like this to get some practice with Screenflow. It took some trial and error to grok the power of layers in practice.
  • Volume wasn’t loud enough
  • Transitions were OK; can see some blockiness because of how I layered the background

(Screencast) The Best Emacs Modifier Key Setup for OS X

Here is an easy way to use both Emacs and OS X modifier keys when you are inside Emacs:

Toggle the right-option and function key to switch between using them inside Emacs and using them for OS X.

Addendum: <2016-06-08 Wed 08:22>

I used Karabiner to make ENTER send LEFT CONTROL when chorded. I used OS X to make CAPS LOCK be CONTROL. I didn’t change OPTION and COMMAND. I made this change because Emacs couldn’t ignore the key-event when it was coming from Karabiner.

Here is the code: 

(help/on-osx
 (setq mac-control-modifier 'control)
 (setq mac-right-control-modifier 'left)
 (setq mac-command-modifier 'meta)
 (setq mac-right-command-modifier 'left)
 (setq mac-option-modifier 'super)
 (setq mac-right-option-modifier 'left)
 (setq mac-function-modifier 'hyper)
 (defun help/toggle-mac-right-option-modifier ()
   "Toggle between passing option modifier either to Emacs or OS X."
   (interactive)
   (let ((old-ropt mac-right-option-modifier))
     (setq mac-right-option-modifier
           (if (eq mac-right-option-modifier 'left)
               'none
             'left))
     (message "Toggled `mac-right-option-modifier' from %s to %s."
              old-ropt
              mac-right-option-modifier)))
 (defun help/toggle-mac-function-modifier ()
   "Toggle between passing function modifier either to Emacs or OS X."
   (interactive)
   (let ((old-func mac-function-modifier))
     (setq mac-function-modifier
           (if (eq mac-function-modifier 'hyper)
               'none
             'hyper))
     (message "Toggled `mac-function-modifier' from %s to %s."
              old-func
              mac-function-modifier))))