Checking in on the infinite workday

This week’s Software Defined Talk episode:

This week, we cover Apple’s WWDC updates—from containerization to Foundation Models—and the Linux Foundation’s new FAIR Package Manager. Plus, we crown the best SDT Uber rider. Take a listen, make sure to subscribe. Also available in YouTube if you like that kind of thing.

Relative to your interests

• Use Cases for VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA in VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 - Overview of the VMware private AI stack. Private cloud is a big deal and seems to be growing in popularity among large enterprises, especially ones outside of the US. If you’re using AI in those cases, this probably good stuff for you. Related:

• Private Cloud’s Comeback: Driving the Enterprise IT Reset

• Broadcom VMware hardens vDefend, drops Tanzu branding in VCF - The Tanzu Kubernetes stuff is renamed and now part of VCF: ”The Tanzu brand for the Kubernetes services within VCF is no more…. The VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service and Tanzu Kubernetes were rebranded in early March as the VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) and vSphere Kubernetes release (VKr), respectively. The Tanzu branding remains for the VMware Tanzu Platform, a DevOps platform that unifies management of Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry infrastructure.” // This is from April, 2025. But, I don’t think that news got out too broadly…

• As Consumers Turn To Agentic AI Use Cases, Businesses Must Adapt Or Be Left Behind - ”Domain-specific agents will be rejected. Several consumer-facing businesses are building their own proprietary ‘shopping agents.’ But the power of consumer agents lies in access to holistic consumer data. A personal agent will always outperform a domain-specific corporate agent in gathering deep client insight, driving far superior personalization and curation." // Enterprise AI productivity accrues to the individual more than the organization.

• Let’s talk about conversion optimisation and how we’re approaching it - Some web page marketing hacks (not exactly “dark patterns,” more like “twilight patterns”) and general funnel management tips with digital channels.

• Start small, win big: How to choose the right AI use cases - It may be the basics of any IT project, but you know what they say about common sense: the problem is it’s uncommonly applied.

• Is this your brain on ChatGPT?

• Fatteh for Brunch, Cook’s Illustrated - looks tasty!

Wastebook

• What are you working on at the moment and why is it important?

• The “couch co-op experience.” Sunderfolk.

• “McDonald’s is wildly popular with every group of Americans, uniting every demographic in the US – it crosses economic class, race, gender, urban versus rural – with the single exception of the highly educated, especially academics. They alone as a group have moral issues with it, and while they might use it, they do so grudgingly, usually to appease crying kids or for a rest stop on a long trip.” // Those pesky highly educated!

• Also: “This man is not insane, just biking around the US.”

• And, finally: “suffering from spreadsheet brain.”

• “navigate disruptive technical paradigms”

• #hopecore

• “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.” Groucho Marx

Logoff

John Willis' the history of generative AI came out on June 6th. It’s called Rebels of Reason: The Long Road from Aristotle to ChatGPT and AI's Heroes Who Kept the Faith. I've talked with him about it for the past two or so years, it should be sweeping and interesting (like his Deming book). Check it out!

The video stuff in Midjourney is pretty good. Here’s one of the original pictures I made, sometime ago, now in video form:

Prompt: DVD screengrab of an office worker sneaking out of the office, a large cubical farm with zombie workers, in the style of Dario Argento, Vibrant color scheme, Expressionistic lighting, dynamic camera angle, surreal set, 35mm