There’s a lot going at work now, employee wise. If you’re using a VMware email address to subscribe to this (there’s several handfuls of people who are), I’d suggest switching it over to a personal email address. BEST OF LUCK TO US ALL.
Meanwhile:
“Never ask me how I paid” is my version of “never tell me the odds.”
“Alfur, that was brilliant!” Alfur: “The important thing is: it worked!”
“There’s a point here, and it’s this: waiting for permission doesn’t work. Sometimes you just have to sit down and do the thing before the idea turns to ashes inside you.” Here.
“Who decided that the American public couldn’t handle “a soft and fitful luster”?” Here. You can’t use a PowerPoint as strategy glue. Just rip it out and write it off.
“Ate so many pies at a pie eating contest you can’t eat one specific pie ingredient ever again without vomiting.” EMO.
The State of Developer Ecosystem in 2023 Infographic - File under: I should probably read this.
There is no money in free software - There’s almost a taboo among open source minded people to say “there’s no money on open source.” But, you know, it’s mostly true. Sure, that phrase is a simplified version of “it’s very difficult to make a living with 100% open source products, let alone sustain reliable salaries of people working on it, blah, blah,” but all of that qualification still gets you the same result. // The answer is always the same, add in things that are not open source that you can well: (1) following the open core method and come up with a closed proprietary thing to see (either fully integrated builds that you support but do not give away freely, like Red Hat Linux), or closed source code that helps enterprises (usually it’s business users) run and manage the software better; (2) run a SaaS, again, a proprietary thing that your users/customers don’t have access to code wise, a unique thing that is available only to you and hard for users/customers to replication. On this second, the danger is that your competitors (mostly AWS) can do the same. The way you make money off open source to sell closed source code and/or a SaaS that runs your open source code.
Exploring GPTs: ChatGPT in a trench coat? - Yeah. The make your own GPT thing is weird and very unsatisfying. As a “developer,” what I really want to see is evidence that it’s doing something according to my instructions, using my info. Surely, there’s, like, a “developer log” they could show.
Impact of digital screen media activity on functional brain organization in late childhood: Evidence from the ABCD study - I think it says: stop freaking out about screen time, it’s fine. This is the kind of thing that we’ll never know as a culture until all those kids are older - did society get destroyed, or does it just keep doing on? That is, when these kids are the new adults running the world, they’ll be like, “so, did using my phone all my life make me an idiot?” I mean, it’s probably fine: comics and TV did not rot The Kid’s brains (nor Dungeons and Dragons make everyone Satanists). I was one of those The Kids, and here I am, able to use substack and decode business gobbledygook for a good monthly wage. The elders who don’t use the same technologies as The Kids are always on about how The Kids use the technology too much and are becoming stupid because of it. Type-writers are killing cursive, AMIRIGHT?
People ask me, they ask, “what do you do for Thanksgiving in Amsterdam?” We try, that’s what. It’s actually easy to get a turkey for Thanksgiving. We picked one up and were even told “happy Thanksgiving!” which is nice. Kim made the turkey this year and it was great! There was so much left over, and I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten most of it. Today I made broth (or stock…? …whatever) out of the left overs. Is turkey stock going to be good in things like couscous, soup, and such? Maybe chili. Who knows.
Here is the story of our turkey, from pick-up to sticking broth in the freezer:
I’m finally able to get back on the podcast tomorrow tonight after several weeks away. It’ll be nice to get back to that. We record around 10pm Amsterdam time/3pm Austin time: you can watch it streamed live, unedited in YouTube if you tune in around then.