In this episode: AI eschatology, assology, and a deep, intellectual commitment to hating mayonnaise. Tariff trouble, security panic, and NVIDIA shrugging off DeepSeek. Young voters shift rightward, no one agrees on ‘medium roast,’ and Hollywood still relies on glue to critique its own youth obsession.

Wastebook

• “immanetize the AI eschaton,” Charlie Stross.

• “The ass is a very strong symbol of how our body is not neutral in the public space. How our body is constantly scrutinized, has been shaped to please the man’s eyes, has been seen as a body part that was objectified, that was detached from the person who was simply bearing it.” Assology. See related boobology below.

• “This is the number one YouTube channel about hating mayonnaise.” Noah.

• “LLMs are good at the things that computers are bad at, and bad at the things that computers are good at,” Slides Benedict.

• “If I live, I must fully accept the game; I must have the most beautiful life. I don’t know why I am here, but since I remain here, I will construct a beautiful edifice.” A young Simone de Beauvoir.

Relative to your interests

• What is AI Middleware, and Why You Need It to Safely Deliver AI Applications - AI middleware is the glue that holds your AI-driven apps together, making sure models, data, and existing systems actually talk to each other instead of breaking everything. It saves developers from reinventing the wheel, adds security layers, and keeps AI projects from becoming yet another unmaintainable mess.

• Software development is… - “Software development is holistic.”

• Finding Energy to Learn & Build When Burnt Out - "How can [management] support you and your team, shield you and the team, and provide clear direction when they’re barely holding it together?

• Moving on from 18F. - when you no longer agree with your employer’s culture.

• How Liberty Mutual was able to jump into generative AI thanks to a clear data strategy and FinOps

Read by the robot

I don’t read everything, sometimes I have the robot read it for me. Beware that the robot sometimes makes things up. Summaries are for entertainment purposes only.

The CrowdStrike outage crashed 8.5 million devices, wiped out $5.4 billion, and forced IT leaders to admit that 84% had no real incident response plan. In response, Adaptavist found that 99.5% of companies are now hiring security personnel, diversifying vendors, and possibly sleeping in their data centers for luck.

Trump proposed a 25% tariff on imported semiconductors to force chipmakers back to the U.S., despite most advanced chips being made overseas. Corporate America may be souring on his policies, as erratic tariffs threaten supply chains. Financial analysts determined that economic indicators are surprisingly bad at predicting democratic collapse. Maybe we should blame video games again? The Atlantic reported that young voters have shifted rightward due to pandemic distrust, economic stagnation, and too much time online. Hopefully, those tariffs won’t make their damn video game consoles and vaporware-colored lights more expensive.

Related: NVIDIA’s share price is already within 1% of its pre-DeepSeek drop, showing that while the market can be extremely efficient, it’s not always efficient at thinking things through.

A UC Davis research center revealed that no one agrees on what a “medium roast” is, despite years of artisanal posturing. Kieran Healy warned that your iPhone knows more about your life than your best friend, your partner, or your mom—and it’s probably judging you for it. And all the fitness tracking in the world still wasn’t enough for the perfect boobs required for The Substance, a satire on Hollywood’s obsession with youth: “Unfortunately, there is no magic boob potion,” Margaret Qualley said, “so we had to glue those on.”

Conferences

Events I’ll either be speaking at or just attending.

VMUG NL, Den Bosch, March 12th, speaking. SREday London, March 27th to 28th, speaking. Monki Gras, London, March 27th to 28th, speaking. CF Day US, Palo Alto, CA, May 14th. NDC Oslo, May 21st to 23rd, speaking.

Discounts: 10% off SREDay London with the code LDN10.

Logoff

Off to get a haircut today. I hate getting haircuts, that’s why my hair and beard get wild.

Meanwhile, we’re one away from 900 subscribers. Tell you what, I’d you’re one of the first several new people to sign up, I’ll send you a bundle of my books.