Location: UK (though have worked for US companies remotely coast to coast since 2008)
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: No, but will travel
Technologies: Ruby on Rails, Postgres, Aurora, Go, AWS, GCP, Terraform, Linux Sysadmin, heroku, Nginx.
Résumé/CV: https://willj.net/about/hire-me/january-2024-ian8ah/
Email: [email protected]
Hi, I'm Will Jessop, currently the now part time CTO of Impactive looking for new opportunities in Rails application scaling and performance or technical leadership. Technically I have a huge amount of experience in scaling and optimising Ruby on Rails applications, Postgres database performance and scalable application architecture. I also have a lot of experience managing a team of 19 people, mostly engineers. I'm product focussed, and among other successes re-orged the product pipeline at Impactive to improve delivery reliability and quality outcomes, while drastically improving staff morale.
I am using an Apple wireless keyboard (~2014? model, before they changed to thin keys) and I love it. I've used a load of keyboards in my time including some very good mechanical ones, and it's my favourite.
That's not "the point" of ebooks, it's just one attribute they have.
I'm well aware that you can fit lots of ebooks in one device, but so far I've not been particularly limited by the information density of regular books.
> I've put a lot of work and streamlining into not carrying a bag at all.
I mostly have to carry a laptop so getting rid of my bag isn't an option. When I do leave my bag at home I might put a slim book into my pocket (I've got "The old man and the sea" to read at some point) or I'll read the news on my phone, listen to music, or just sit and think.
I did streamline my wallet though. Thin nylon all-ett wallet, one card, some cash.
> How do you turn pages?
I mostly free my other hand (it's rare I'm doing something particularly involved with my "spare" hand while reading). This is mostly in the form of "put down my up of tea for a moment". If I'm in the kitchen I might put the book down on it's back and use the reading hand to turn the page while also holding it open.
It depends on the book. A few months ago I bought "Kitcen Confidential (Anthony Bourdain). Back then ISTR the ebook was similarly priced. Now it's way cheaper.
I can go on Amazon and find ebooks that are cheaper, the same price, and more expensive than the print versions.
Good for you that you get more value out of them. I won't pay more though, because I personally have less rights and convenience with ebooks.
There's also an element of being taken for a ride here. I can afford the $8 snickers bar from the minibar in the hotel, but I won't buy it because I feel like someone is taking the piss. Attempting to use their position to extort me.
Same for ebooks. When your costs are lower, but you're charging more, I'm not going to buy the book because though I can afford the book I feel like I'm being somehow extorted.
It was using Calibre. I may have different ideas about what is a PITA to you though. Whatever, the effort involved, + my other points didn't move the needle far enough for me to choose books.
That's rather subjective which is why I left most of this stuff out. Some people really like reading on a kindle or iPad, I don't particularly (the Kindle is "OK").
> Ebooks are lighter than their equivalent books
It depends on the book TBH. A lot will be heavier, many won't. The book I'm currently reading ("Medium Raw" by Anthony Bourdain) is 49g heavier than a kindle (the cheapest in the UK), which for me is effectively the same as 0g in terms of wether I will notice.
I am a relatively strong man, throwing a book or two into my bag doesn't make a difference to me.
Of course, if I were to carry my entire library around that would be a significantly different story :) But then I just pick books I want to read and take them, and if I change my mind later I do something else.
> easy to use one-handed
Never had a problem with this.
> fonts can be adjusted
Never wanted to do this.
> you can search within a book
I rarely want to do this, so it's not a particularly big deal when I can't.
> you have access with wifi to your entire library at any point in time without having to fill up a cramped apartment
I mentioned in another comment, I am lucky in that I don't have that issue where I live. The balance might be altered if I lived in a small Tokyo apartment (for instance) however.
> The objections that you give (1-4) are the ones that are fixable by hoisting the Jolly Roger.
I can buy ebooks and strip the DRM if I want, I tried it (on ebooks I legitimately bought) so I could make sure I always had the book. It was a PITA and didn't (for me) swing the pendulum enough to choose ebooks.
Regarding space, totally, and I realise I am fortunate that I live in a reasonably sized suburban house (at least in terms of space). If I lived in a house share, in SF or in Tokyo I might feel differently.
The one thing I would say is that I do have to dump books sometimes due to space. That's no bad thing, there's not a hell of a lot of books that I actually want to keep forever.
I don't buy ebooks, and this is just one reason. This is the complete list:
1. For some reason they cost a similar amount to print books
Sometimes a bit less, sometimes the same, sometimes more. Distributing a physical book means you have to print, handle, store, transport, store again, handle again and transport again (using a simplified model of the journey a book takes to the end user). That costs money, and it costs effectively $0 to get an ebook to a user. I don't see that saving being passed on to me, the consumer.
Not only that, you're generally paying for less than you get with a physical book in terms of rights and (IMO convenience)
2. You can't (or maybe you can) lend them freely.
Last I checked there were limits on lending with the kindle/amazon. Maybe that's changed, but I don't want to have to think about that, I just want to lend the book to someone.
3. You can't give them to someone.
Maybe this has changed since I last looked, but passing on the book to someone else and it now being "theirs" isn't possible. Again perhaps that's changed these days.
3. Cognitive overhead
Can I do this stuff? Can't I? How do I do it? I don't want to have to think about that. Last week I gave a book to my daughter by just putting it on her desk. It was easy.
4. Longevity
In 10 years will I still be able to access my books? 20? Yes, because they're over there, on a shelf.
If ebooks cost a fraction of what they cost today then I would totally consider them. It's a tradeoff. Right now ebooks don't swing the balance towards them.
I thought that initially, but then I considered that for users to be bulk unsubscribed then the link would surely have to be the same for every user, at which point the each user gets the same unsubscribe link, and then when they click on it it unsubscribes everyone.
This doesn't seem very likely, so I guess that a whole load of unique unsubscribe links got dumped into slack which started following them.
Hi, I'm Will Jessop, currently the now part time CTO of Impactive looking for new opportunities in Rails application scaling and performance or technical leadership. Technically I have a huge amount of experience in scaling and optimising Ruby on Rails applications, Postgres database performance and scalable application architecture. I also have a lot of experience managing a team of 19 people, mostly engineers. I'm product focussed, and among other successes re-orged the product pipeline at Impactive to improve delivery reliability and quality outcomes, while drastically improving staff morale.