sarks_nz's comments

Distribution of art (particularly digital) is a recent phenomenon. Prior to that, art in human history was one-off. Are we just going back to that time?

Similarly with music, prior to recording tech, live performance was where it was at.

You could look at the digital era as a weird blip in art history.

Yep. They forget there are all sorts of "families" and some are very dysfunctional.

I'm working on a Tournament Manager for Pickleball at http://pickleballtourneypro.pages.dev because the current incumbent is very difficult for non-technical people (aka volunteers) to use, and super expensive (10-15% of tournament revenue).

Lot of fun ideas, and hopefully will get used by a large variety of volunteers.

I did Kyokushin karate to Shodan. The board we broke were solid pine boards. They are definitely not "cut". My technique was a little off, and I wrecked my knuckles for months. They ended up permanently moved.

So maybe all karate isn't equal.

My only advice is (to quote Arnold Schwarzenegger) is to be useful. To yourself, your wife, family, pets, friends, job (people), hobby groups, community.

Produce things/knowledge using your skills (present and future skills) that others need/want but can't produce for themselves.

"Having kids is the greatest thing you will ever do" is a binary "True" in a probabilistic world, so almost guaranteed to be wrong for a large number of cases.

Having kids is not for everyone, and even for those people who have them, as probabilities dictate, might be the worst thing you will ever do and everything in between.

This is my experience too. I hadn't been rejected from a job since starting work in the late 90s. Significant experience from coding (which I still do) to startup exec level. Multiple "it came down to you and one other" situations.

Jobs are in short supply, applicants are numerous. Most interviews are also with managers 10 years younger than I am which may be a compounding factor. That's not an issue for me, but I think it's easier for them to hire someone of a similar age.

I just got "Slay the Spire", a deck-building, casual, rogue-like and it's awesome. Can play a little or a lot at a sitting :-)

Nick Bostrom proposed the "Vulnerable World Hypothesis" which (amongst other things) says that a technology as powerful and accessible as AI requires mass surveillance to stop bad actors using it as a weapon.

https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf

It's disturbing, but also hard (for me) to refute.

+1

I love Siri with Apple Maps in New Zealand /s

Me: "Siri, give me directions to vaguely ethnic sounding café" where café is about 2km away.

Siri: "Getting directions to other cafe in London/Europe/Tajikistan".

So theres no line of code that says "If found location if >2000kms away with no direct land route and/or crosses multiple continents, it might not be the right one"

Google Maps and voice works pretty flawlessly.

"Let’s go to bed and try again tomorrow" sounds like the epitome of being human to me. My new mantra.

In New Zealand, Apple Maps is the worst kind of useless, especially when paired with Siri. The Dumb and Dumber of the tech world.

If I ask directions for a cafe within a 5km radius, either of these scenarios will occur: 1. Siri won't understand. Eg: Shelly Bay Bakery -> Directions to Shelly Bay. 2. Siri will understand and direct me to a cafe approximately 10,000 kms away, and then refuse to find me a suitable route.

Google Maps just works.

Long time laptop user. 2012 macbooks were solid. Just worked, never thought about them much.

The 2017-18 macbook pros (touchbar) were complete rubbish. Everything was rubbish. Keyboards. Heat. Battery. Processors.

The M1s are gods gift to developers. By far the best laptop I've used, and I don't see how anyone else can catch up

I found microservices had the benefit of increasing release cadence and decreasing merge conflicts.

Are there complications? Sure. Are they manageable? Relatively easily with correct tooling. Do microservices (with container management) allow you better use of your expensive cloud resources? That was our experience, and a primary motivator.

I also feel they increase developer autonomy, which is very valuable IMO.

re: finances. Stick 79% into index funds, 10% in bonds/bank deposits and 1% in cash . Donate a little to buskers et al, things that make you feel good.

Then forget about it. You don't have to _do_ anything with it. Don't go down the "I should do something with my money" rabbit-hole. You can do that much later if you want. I'm not wealthy, but know people who are, and while they pay people to manage it pretty much comes out to that formula. Plus gold.

Then, complete your studies.

Then, you have the existential crisis that we all have, so don't think you're alone in this. Or that you have to solve it in the next few years.

"What should I do with my life?". I.e., what is important to you? A hard question!

Read books. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a good place to start.

Read hacker news etc to find out interesting things that are going on.

Plan a budget trip (eg: bikepacking, hiking etc).

Don't buy expensive shit.

etc. All this is simply a way of saying that you need to make 30/40/50/60/90/100+ year old you proud. So do those things. And don't do those things that would make those guys ashamed.

This statement assumes the only bad outcome from COVID is death.

Thanks for the article. Curious how you ensure dev outputs match up with other (external) deadlines, for example, the sales/marketing teams firing up a promotion of your new functionality.

How do you incentivise devs to hit those timeframes?

Thanks for that. I'm talking about the difference between hitting the deadline on Monday versus Friday. How to incentivise that? ie, do half an hour more work for a week, or skip the table-tennis when someone asks, etc.

As a developer, I was into making sure I hit my goals, and at work to work. As a manager I do struggle with how to emphasise that ownership of product, quality, time. Why should developers care about hitting Monday with effort, instead of coasting to Friday?

How to make developers want to hit their deadlines with quality? Startup land.

There was no feedback loop that rewarded developers to meet the estimates. Stock options weren't an option, and I didn't want them to do a sloppy job just to hit the 'deadline'.