January/February links

Happy March!

You'll probably notice more links than usual about tech stuff below. Things will probably trend that direction on this newsletter for a while. The reason is that I want to build more things myself, and that desire is manifesting as a focus on software engineering.

Writing has been a creative outlet for me for a long time. A practice to make me feel more "hands-on" with something. Brewing beer is like that for me, too. I think these hobbies are a reaction to the fact that my job in technology so far has always been a step removed from the actual building of things.

Traditionally, product management is about defining the why and what with respect to a piece of software, more so than the how, which is the domain of designers and engineers. But I'm interested in all of these pieces; I'd like to bring more of "the build" into my day-to-day. And, jeez, it feels really good to be writing some code again.

But it's a funny time to be any kind of specialist in the world of technology. On the one hand, I think everyone to some degree feels a background anxiety about the rapid progress of AI-driven automation vis-a-vis LLMs. Reddit is full of "Is AI going to take my job" talk. A lot of the Substacks and podcasts I follow are discussing it.

On the other hand, this is probably the best time to learn anything in the history of humanity. You have an all-knowing tutor/therapist/mentor in your pocket at all times with GPT, Claude, Gemini, or any of the others. While I don't let GPT code for me, because I'm trying to learn new things and I think struggling through it is the only way, I will drill on concepts with it relentlessly until I understand the principles at work. It's like a choose-your-own adventure textbook. It makes me wonder what future colleges have beyond being research institutions to add to GPT's knowledge base. Depositing known information into students' brains can just all happen with a robot now. Classroom learning, which goes at a group pace, either too slow or too fast for a given individual, seems mighty antiquated.

It's all still so uncertain and that makes people nervous. We've started to see a lot of evolution in the tooling and practices of roles like engineering, but companies are still hiring a lot of engineers. So when, if ever, are we going to see mass unemployment among knowledge workers? Is any type of job safe?

I think dwelling on these questions for too long will make you go insane, because there is only conjecture at this point. I'm not going to pretend to have a good answer, but I guess I do have an abiding optimism that I, and most other people, will just manage through it, whatever happens to our industry.

I want to deal with reality as it comes. What's real right now is that I can learn at a much higher speed and do significantly more than just a few short years ago. I therefore think I should do more to maintain and grow a valuable skillset, but also because it's fun and enriching.

I've included some good pieces below that offer more specific commentary on what the immediate future will likely hold. They're pretty uplifting!

From the past couple months

My stuff:

• Bike touring through the United Kingdom, Part Two (Link)
• Bike touring through the United Kingdom, Part Three (Link)

On craft and finishing projects (Link)

How AI-assisted coding will change software engineering (Link)

Related: The End of Programming as We Know It. Via my pal Nic B. (Link)

50 years of travel tips. I had good fun reading through these and seeing which ones I'd already figured out for myself. (Link)

Suggestions for how to stop living your life on autopilot. I finished this on a run and felt all inspired to do whatever it is I'm doing now. (Link)

How to like everything more. (Link)

Cool ideas to try with a Raspberry Pi. (Video)

Jevon's Paradox. Interesting to think about with respect to AI's impact on knowledge work. (Link)

A website builder that let you turn almost any jumble of files in a Dropbox folder into a working site. Via my pal Joe W. (Link)

The Complete History of the Wars of the Roses. After writing a bit more about England and thinking back on all my castle-hopping, it made me want to revisit the Middle Ages. This is a great one. (Video)

Why JavaScript is insane. An oldie but a goodie. Via my friend Nic B. (Link)

The Holy Grail layout in web design. I hadn't heard of this before, but it's everywhere. (Link)

A nice guide to Flexbox CSS. (Link)

Cool site dedicated to Nokia's product designs over time. (Link)

AI prototyping for product managers. (Link)

Very intuitive deep-dive into how transformer models like GPT work. (Video)

A website that makes you look like a hacker to anyone watching over your shoulder. (Link)