The headline: Trying to stay above water.

This year really kicked off with a violent occupation of armed forces in Minneapolis being overtaken ramping up and murdering people in the streets with no remorse or consequences. It’s certainly hard to keep focus on work when everyday it feels like the boogyman is lurking just around the corner. Help by donating to your local ACLU, finding local community groups, know your rights and longer term, donating to and advocating for your local politicians that are standing up against what is looking more and more like a fascist take over of the US. Be there for your neighbors.

Posts

• 2025 Review

• Upgrading to Statamic 6

Books That Stuck

• Fall and Rise by Mitchell Zuckoff - A somber book, piecing together the tragedies of 9/11 from different perspectives. Its been in my TBR

• Nexus by Yuval Noah Haraki - I expected this book to be good, but it exceeded my expectations. Going from telling stories and gathering information to building AI and removing humans from the decision making process. Review coming soon.

• A Lonely Broadcast by Kel Byron - A fast read, good pacing and interesting but familiar scifi concept. What lurks in the fog? A radio tower and some societal rejects - makes for a great fun book. Looking forward to reading the next in the series.

• Engineering Management for the Rest of Us by Sarah Drasner - One of those books that seems like the other “how to be a manager“ books on the shelf, but the way this is written is simple, actionable and learnable nuggets for new managers and oldies alike. Review coming soon.

Signals I’m Noticing

On privacy, what you can do and what you should be paying attention to.

• Who Owns Your Data?

• Tracking Phones In Your Neighborhood

• Your Email Is The Glue That’s Merging Your Identities. Break It Before tT Hardens.

On leadership during review season.

• The Seasons of Leadership

• The Compensation Commandments

AI is here, but you are still relevant. How engineers can use AI as a tool.

• AI Can Write Your Code. It Can’t Do Your Job.

• Continuous AI in software engineering

Life Lately

• Its been super cold this month, temps below zero and the wind chill in the -20s. So I’ve spent a lot more time reading, listening to music and trying to recharge my batteries from the work load this month.

• Found some great female led punk bands

  • swim school - Green Eyes(Want it all)

  • WAXX - HANDS

  • Weekend Friends - Tough Luck (Bleed Me Out)

  • prewn - Commotion

  • Sincere Engineer - Inside My Head

  • And so many more.. just ask me for some recs.

• Joined a curling club and as every 4 years I am pumped for the Winter Olympics. But there have been some exciting games played at the Scotties and Crown Royal Player's Championship.

One Thing to Carry Forward

I bought a bunch of books about voice user experience, so I expect to dive deeper in how people use their voice to interact with computers, and how those computers respond.s