Oh my, was I looking forward to the first track day of the season. I made some changes to the car setup in the spring, more specifically, added the Gruppe-S UEL headers (should’ve done it sooner), and camber bolts for setting negative camber on the front wheels. I also bought a tire set specifically for track days. Unfortunately, not everything went as I hoped.
Continue reading “Track Day: Grobnik 2020/7”Drift Practice: Racegasmic 2020/6
It’s been a long break because of COVID-19 but June was then full of automotive fun, from twisties to drifting. After a few sessions, I started to get a nice rhytm and can almost connect the whole track in one direction.
Continue reading “Drift Practice: Racegasmic 2020/6”Drift Practice: Racegasmic 2019/9
Racegasmic is a drift track in Ljubljana and it’s one of the few, very welcomed, places where enthusiasts can play with cars in Slovenia.
It’s on a track used by driving schools over the week, moonlighting as a drift track on Saturdays. You can also rent drift-prepared cars there which is what I’ve done yesterday.
Continue reading “Drift Practice: Racegasmic 2019/9”Track Day: Grobnik 2019/9
When the season started I was hoping I’ll be able to get in a few more sessions than last year. But as luck would have it, I’ve missed two over the summer, and this one was the first one after early August. Car track days are definitely secondary for the organizers, as it seems they had almost daily track days for motorbikes over the summer. Which is really a shame since car track days are always full, even when they give us a weird time. As it happened this time – Thursday later afternoon, from 17 to 20.
Continue reading “Track Day: Grobnik 2019/9”Track Day: Grobnik 2019/5
Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side for this session. We’ve had some dry minutes, but also pouring rain which meant that the track was wet the whole time.
The new tires I fitted for this season, the Cup 2, definitely do not feel at home on the wet. I’ve had to catch the car at least three times and had no chance of keeping up with FWD Type-R Civics which are usually clocking around the same time.
Continue reading “Track Day: Grobnik 2019/5”Track Day: Grobnik 2019/4
Grobnik is a racetrack located two hours away from me, near Rijeka, Croatia. I’ve started going to track days regularly last year when they renovated the track with new asphalt. It was also in the first year when I owned a car worth driving to the racetrack. 🙂
Book: The Manager’s Path, Camille Fournier
Review
Without a doubt one of the best books on management. A must-read if you’re in technology, even if you don’t come from a technical background (like I don’t). The
tl;dr
Have 1-on-1 meetings. Trust your team. Mentor new hires. Create a safe environment for disagreement. Managers need to make your life easier. Don’t compromise on culture fit, especially with managers. Senior leaders are dedicated first and foremost to the business and its success, and secondly to the success of their departments as a whole. Disagreements that happen in the context of the leadership team don’t exist to the wider team.
Continue reading “Book: The Manager’s Path, Camille Fournier”Book: The Lean Startup, Eric Ries
Review
This is a legendary startup book that somehow evaded me for a long time. I was still aware of the general ideas, however, reading it sooner would probably help me avoid a basic mistake we made in one of our latests projects. I love the concept of Validated Learning and are already working on implementing it into our processes.
Highly recommended.
tl ;dr
Run experiments to learn if something is working. Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop. Build the MVP (either a product or a single feature), Measure the effect on customers, Learn if it’s value-creating or wasteful. Use cohort analysis for measurements. Always work in small batches.
Continue reading “Book: The Lean Startup, Eric Ries”Book: Work Rules!, Laszlo Bock
Review
A great book on Google’s completely different style of management. Unfortunately, I’ve heard and read enough about Google of late that I know this doesn’t apply anymore. That said, if we take
tl;dr
Take power and authority over employees away from managers. Decisions by peer groups, committees, or teams. Every human being wants to find meaning in his or her work. Transparency is one of the cornerstones of Google’s culture. Restricting information should be a conscious effort, and you’d better have a good reason for doing so.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Work Rules!
Voice means giving employees a real say in how the company is run. Two things that should be completely separate: performance evaluation and people development.
Continue reading “Book: Work Rules!, Laszlo Bock”Book: The Permanent Portfolio, Craig Rowland
Review
This is a modern interpretation of the book Fail-Safe Investing by Harry Browne. It’s the same concept but with modern examples. This is a fantastic book and an investment strategy I use myself. Highly recommended.
tl ;dr
25 percent each: stocks, bonds, gold, cash (short-term bonds)
The Permanent Portfolio
The Permanent Portfolio is a strategy to embrace uncertainty in the markets. The main goal is to prevent major losses. Surprisingly, backtests also show that