Cat Hicks

@grimalkina.bsky.social

15060 Followers 1925 Following

Author of The Psychology of Software Teams: https://www.drcathicks.com/#book she/her 🏳️‍🌈 Catharsis: https://catharsisinsight.com/ Host at: https://www.changetechnically.fyi/

A photo of a small enamel charm that's a white die where the dots are hearts, dangling from a gold chain
A screenshot of a mastodon post that shows a slide with an image of Cat's book page. Text says @grimalkina 's book just mentioned at carol willing's #pyOhio keynote "single best book I read in the last 5 years"
AI overview via Chrome saying that no vaccines do not cause autism with links to retraction and fraud of the original claim
Scenario 2: A side effect escalates and needs intervention What the evidence says about likelihood: Grade ≥3 events occurred in roughly 30–45% across real-world and perioperative data (higher in the newest before-surgery trial). Skin grade 3–4 ~13%; high-grade blood sugar ~5.7%; neuropathy tends to build cumulatively over cycles. Early signs to catch: Rash spreading/worsening rather than settling; numbness or weakness that's new or progressing; blood sugar creeping up on labs; persistent new diarrhea or fatigue (possible immune-related effect from pembrolizumab). How early action changes outcomes: Caught early, these are typically managed with a dose hold, dose reduction, topical/systemic steroids, or supportive care — often letting treatment continue. Catching drift early is the whole point of watching. What monitoring catches it: Lab trends + your logged observations of the specific changes above.
search terms used for this scenario
Two honest boundaries up front, so they don't surprise you later: I won't recommend for or against EV, and I won't weigh in on dose changes — those are the oncology team's call. What I can do well here is help you build a clear picture of what to watch for, how strong the evidence behind the safety profile actually is, and what specific, well-timed questions to bring to their next appointment. We can also do this in pieces — answer what's easy now, and we can pick up the rest later. Here's the inventory. The most important thing to know about EV is that its risk profile is very regimen- and person-specific, so a handful of these answers will genuinely change what I search for and what I tell you to watch. Answer what you can, skip what doesn't apply or you don't know.
Let's use the informed-patient skill to help me understand what to watch for as the caregiver for someone on EV chemo for their bladder cancer. I'm concerned about adverse reactions, and their specific risks (run the patient inventory and I will tell you their details). I'd like you to run a literature review especially because this treatment is relatively new, and I need to assess the strength of the research on patients and the safety profile here and what we can do to minimize adverse effects throughout the chemo
astronaut gun meme that says "wait all data is socially constructed"/"always has been"
results on EV
I am helping someone going through chemo. They have bladder cancer. Their chemo is called something that sounded like "EV" and they are having a really bad skin reaction. How do I know if this is serious? This is an important question and I want to get the details right, so let me confirm the current clinical guidance.Identified medication risks and delineated emergency warning signs for caregiverIdentified medication risks and delineated emergency warning signs for caregiver"EV" is almost certainly enfortumab vedotin (brand name Padcev), which is one of the main drugs used for advanced bladder cancer. Skin reactions are its most well-known side effect, and this matters: enfortumab vedotin can cause severe and fatal cutaneous adverse reactions including Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), which occur predominantly during the first cycle of treatment, but may occur later. The drug carries an FDA boxed warning specifically for this, so a bad skin reaction on EV is something to take seriously rather than wait out. PADCEV The reassuring context: most skin reactions on this drug are mild — itching, dryness, a maculopapular (flat-and-bumpy) rash — and manageable. The problem is that a minority progress to something dangerous, and the early hours matter, because the main treatment is
more links and lists
I'm in Seattle and we're struggling with the coffee which tends to be kind of too dark for my stomach and I miss coffee like verve coffee in San Francisco, what coffee should I go look for? Verve's whole thing is bright, clean, light-to-medium roasts — the opposite of Seattle's old-guard dark-roast reputation (the Starbucks/Vivace lineage that probably explains the too-dark, too-harsh cups you've been getting). The good news is Seattle has a strong light-roast scene now; you just have to look past the classic names. Here's what to seek out.
Edited by Steven Pinker
A photo of an atmospheric grey morning on a rocky beach where a small woman crouches to take a photo of a white dog. Waves and rocks are in the frame
Two signs say no cell phones and no audio or video recording without express permission
a screenshot of the kobo ebook platform shows the psychology of software teams (preorder) is at the top of the list of "bestsellers" in "computers ebooks"
Ham et al. (2018) and Ham, Lang, Seybert, and Wang (2017) employed an alternative unobtrusive measure of CEO narcissism by measuring the size and contents of a CEO’s signature in SEC filings (2 of 42 articles). Their rationale posits that a larger signature represents the grandiose nature of a narcissist. To validate the measure, Ham et al. used student samples in a laboratory setting. While the main advantage of the measure is that it captures a behavior under the direct control of the CEO (i.e., his or her signature), the measure may not fully capture narcissism’s multifaceted nature. Ham et al. also provided external validation by correlating the measure with employee ratings of CEO narcissism, as obtained by O’Reilly et al. (2014). As this is a newer measure, it has seen limited use to date.
Narcissism. In the interest of maximizing data availability and minimizing social desirability and self-deception biases, we measured CEO narcissism unobtrusively (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007, Grijalva et al., 2020). Consistent with prior research on CEO narcissism (e.g., Cragun et al., 2020, Ham et al., 2017, Ham et al., 2018, O’Reilly et al., 2014), we collected four unobtrusive indicators of CEO narcissism and created a composite index: (1) the prominence of the CEO’s photograph in the company’s annual report; (2) the CEO’s signature size; (3) the CEO’s cash compensation divided by that of the second-highest paid executive in the firm; and (4) the CEO’s non-cash compensation divided by that of the second-highest-paid executive in the firm (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007, Ham et al., 2017). These formative indicators reflect CEOs’ tendencies to be portrayed as special and superior—both in centering their images and identities in company communications and in displaying entitlement to pay themselves more than others (e.g., Oesterle et al., 2016, Rijsenbilt and Commandeur, 2013). Of the 318 CEOs, 259 CEOs had available data for all four indicators. To ensure the most accurate representation of where each CEO fell in the population, we standardized each narcissism indicator using all available data.2 Our results were consistent in magnitude and direction when we standardized the data after removing CEOs with missing data from the sample.
A screenshot of the Amazon listing for the Psychology of Software Teams shows it as a "top new release" in software project management
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A brown paper bag with hand drawn silly graph sketches on it showing multiple relationships between individuals and approaches to statistically analyzing them
Two survey items that ask How much do you align your identity to your job? and Do you feel comfortable being your authentic self at work? with five likert-style answer choices
Learning Pressure shown in percentages, South Korea and Mainland China say improving technical skills is the most challenging job aspect at higher percentages than United States and United Kingdom
A photo shows two stacks of stickers in little mesh bags, one with Cat's book cover that says developers deserve science and one with a hand drawn illustration of little brains in jars that says developers are more than brains in jars
a screenshot of Cat's github repo for the learning-opportunities skill which now has 1.4k stars
A pile of bookmarks that say The Psychology of Software Teams on one side, and Developers Deserve Science on the other side, with an illustration of mountains and ridge plots
A sticker shows a tiny book cover of the Psychology of Software Teams on a terracotta background, and white text reads Developers Deserve Science
A picture of Cat taking a selfie in a mirror that shows the side of an orange flightsuit style jumpsuit with a white stripe on the side and a white ankle tie. Her hair is in princess leia-style buns
An extremely long ass description of the career and research of Steinberger where his spouse is not mentioned
a screenshot from google scholar shows 112,000 results for developer personality traits
A screenshot of a paper reads: A Cumulative Culture Theory for Developer Problem-Solving by Catherine Hicks, Developer Success Lab and Ana Hevesi, Uploop. Underneath their names, a quote reads “If, however, one avoids the linear, progressive, Time’s- (killing)-arrow mode of the Techno-Heroic, and redefines technology and science as primarily cultural carrier bag rather than weapon of domination...”- Ursula Le Guin, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
A screenshot of an academic research article titled Feminizing the Mobile: Gender Scripting of Mobiles in North American by Leslie Regan Shade. The first paragraph claims that the telephone is a particularly illustrative example of how communication technologies have been gendered through their social uses
Telephone Tammy a 90s doll that can talk on the phone with you
A Barbie themes phone with a fake video window showing a picture of Barbie
Yet these findings need not be cause for pessimism. Rather, they point toward a clear design imperative: AI systems should optimize for long-term human capability and autonomy, a goal that cannot be achieved by surface-level interventions
A promotional image from the movie Colossal, with Anne Hathaway and a monster behind her making the same gesture. In the movie, she plays a character who gradually realizes her actions control a large monster that is wreaking havoc on the world
A chapter subheading in an all caps, red book typeface reads reads: The future of developer problem-solving: diverse thinking, good scaffolds, and social learning
These results support the Tri-System Theory notion that external motivational cues and timely diagnostic feedback can help shift participants from cognitive surrender (System 3 dominance) toward more override and deliberative (re)engagement (see Figure 1).
Participants rewarded for accuracy and given immediate item-level feedback were significantly more accurate, particularly in cases when AI recommendations may have led them astray (i.e., AI-Faulty trials). Incentives + Feedback reduced following of incorrect AI advice and increased override behavior, indicating that participants actively monitored and corrected System 3 outputs when motivated to do so (incentives) and able to course correct (feedback).
When available, participants used the chat on 52.0% of trials(Control: 53.9%; Time Pressure: 49.9%).
A chapter subheading that reads: check yourself before you wreck yourself when it comes to claims about developer problem-solving
A screenshot of a repo description that says A Claude Code skill for deliberate skill development during AI-assisted coding. It shows 702 stars and 31 forks
A book titled Bitcoin Bros: masculinity, cryptocurrency and the future of men by Dan Cassino. The cover shows a stylized playing card with the image of a king and Bitcoin symbols. The book is held up against orange flowers
A meme image shows orcs from lord of the rings. Text reads: the age of sweeping devex benchmarks is over. the time of the personalized experiment has come
There's a new kind of coding I call "vibe coding", where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists. It's possible because the LLMs (e.g. Cursor Composer w Sonnet) are getting too good. Also I just talk to Composer with SuperWhisper so I barely even touch the keyboard. I ask for the dumbest things like "decrease the padding on the sidebar by half" because I'm too lazy to find it. I "Accept All" always, I don't read the diffs anymore. When I get error messages I just copy paste them in with no comment, usually that fixes it. The code grows beyond my usual comprehension, I'd have to really read through it for a while. Sometimes the LLMs can't fix a bug so I just work around it or ask for random changes until it goes away. It's not too bad for throwaway weekend projects, but still quite amusing. I'm building a project or webapp, but it's not really coding - I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works.
a meme image from Mean Girls shows Regina George leaning forward. Text reads: so you agree, it's hard to avoid theory of mind metaphors in casual speech
**The Sewing Domain Model**: The app has two "stash" resources (Patterns, Fabric) and one planning resource (Projects). Projects link to both stashes via `ProjectPattern` and `ProjectFabric` join models that carry extra data (selected size, yardage used). Measurements and Adjustments are separate concerns used in the Fit Compare tool.
A screenshot of a portion of a zotero folder that shows seventeen entries, with The Structure of Instrinsic Motivation at the top. The rest list many topics around motivation and self-efficacy
It was completely wrong about what had been implemented, but it made me reason about the code to explain to it why it was wrong, which meant I had to learn something.
A screenshot from Cat's email shows the subject line: Production of The Psychology of Software Teams
A photo of a very cute foxlike creature with amber eyes and a white face with black markings, from a reddit thread. The title is: Boris the domesticated silver fox is working at Canid Education and Conservation Center
A screenshot of Cat in a TikTok video speaking in front of a news article. Engagement metrics show 553 likes with 40 comments and 7411 views