Relative to your interests

• How to Secure MCP Servers

• Modern Applications on VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 - When you want to build your own platform with Kubernetes.

• Moral Deskilling: why you spend more time on admin than your actual job - I think what this is saying is: when you build a system of work where the people doing the actual work (“workers”) do not have quality control over their work, you mistrust them. Therefore you need more managers to oversee them. The workers then stop caring about doing “good work,” because it is l, by design, no longer their responsibility. Also, it adds a lot of extra paperwork to audit them:

• How to increase your surface area for luck - “One distinguishing feature I’ve noticed among people who are unusually successful is that they just try a lot of stuff – socially, intellectually, professionally. It’s the rate of experimentation, the number of shots on goal, that provides the magic, not the percentage of successes, which might be very low at first.”

• The case for memes as a new form of comics

• Why is Rear Window so tense? - “The central critical question about Rear Window is: what makes it so compelling? For the first part of the film, nothing happens.”

• Don’t hide behind AI to trim your belly fat. Start redesigning your workforce - “What we are seeing is not just automation-led efficiency, it is a structural shakeout triggered by board pressures to cut costs, eliminate underperforming middle layers, and move away from legacy talent strategies. The corporate world has also experienced high-wage fatigue, where many staff have had significant wage growth, especially since the inflationary pandemic years, and it’s simply very expensive to maintain staff on these high salaries and other benefits.” Meanwhile:

• C-suite leaders attribute revenue, software development boosts to AI - “Executives credit increased AI use over the past year for bringing an estimated 44% bump in revenue, according to the report. Nearly 3 in 5 respondents said their organization experienced business growth thanks to software innovation over the last year.”

Wastebook

• How 'bout that 0.75% tip option on the payment terminal?

• It’s not that I forget that September exists, it’s that I forget where it is in the calendar. I always think October is the month after August. Imagine my delight when I discover - multiple times a week, often - that there’s a whole extra month before I need to start working on those slides.

• “My mind now is only retaining information that is directly applicable.” RotL, #589.

• “I discovered your typical existentialist: long, straight black hair, turtle neck jumper, black trousers, black coat, cigarette, pale face with a gentle smile”

• “Break a few eggs, cook an omelette…eventually.” Elon runs Intel. Sharp Tech, July 30th, 2025.

• "I know what Bo don’t know.' Hotstepper.

• One of the first authors to really take social media seriously: “His life had a legendary arc: married four times; drank hard; feuded with rivals; was wounded in the first world war; reported on the Omaha Beach landings in the second; ran with the bulls in Spain; and survived a plane crash in Africa.” Hemingway.

• “I did the whole trip with a single backpack, which I now find unimaginable. That perhaps reflects some deterioration of my capabilities. Most of all, I need to carry around more books these days, plus a laptop and iPad and various chargers.” 1988.

• “In-Car Productivity.” Hopefully not.

• “In Anchorage it was a city of one-way streets because it was part of the American experiments.” RotL #588.

• Also: “this is what you get for having stop lights that work.”

Logoff

Nothing to report this episode.