Things expats notice when they’re back in AmericaThe night of arrival, at Stiles Switch.We go back to Texas each year for Christmas. You see things differently when you’ve been away for a long time. Here’s some from this year:
Waymo everywhere, in Austin.
So much yoghurt.
Grown ass adults going to the store in full in pajamas. Still.
There’s a gadget for everything.
“Put a bow on it.”
UGGs, boots and:
Once again I’m logging in from Ibiza. I wouldn’t say I’ve gone native, but I’ve been here long enough to get it. This is not fierce, grind-it-out, Silicon Valley society; even Austin Texas, that wellspring of slackerdom, has a harsher work-ethic. This little Mediterranean island with some genuine Lotus-eater aspects to it – the island of the Lotus Eaters was supposed to be Djerba over in Tunisia.
According to the Odyssey, you sail there, you partake of the Lotus, you go kinda blotto and everything’s groovy. You’re not supposed to succumb to this sweet and easy life, of course. Captain Odysseus makes everybody get back on the boat and recommence rowing for Ithaca. A few hundred Greek verses later, every blue-collar guy is dead and only Captain Odysseus is left to manage his narrative.
Maybe staying in Lotus Land wasn’t such a bad idea for the working man…
Virtual machines still run the world
The above is from a recent IDC white paper.
Container use is growing. Even then, VMs still run everything. Most of those containers run in VMs:
IDC forecasts that 85% of containers will run in VMs in 2028. Meanwhile, there is a huge installed base of traditional applications in VMs that will be around for a very long time.
And:
nearly all public clouds continue to run their containers in VMs for reasons of multitenant isolation, scalability, and utilization maximization.
Software Defined Talk’s 2025 Year in Review - This week, we review our 2025 predictions, discuss the big stories, and speculate on 2026. Plus, Coté dives deep into the EU broth market.
Check out the traditional podcast version if you prefer that over video.
I liked Jana’s book The Octopus Organization, and there were so many more questions I had.
Garbage Chairs of Amsterdam, snowpocalypse edition
Garbage Chairs of Amsterdam, Austin edition.
Recently, in America
Enassholeification.
Consumer tech focuses on the process, enterprise tech on the outcome.