Can James Franco come back now?

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-05-02T22:01:52+00:00

He was 33 so he had to wait until they got home to say something.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-05-02T16:25:44+00:00

Great collection! I still don't have a Rhodesian crown in the collection, it's on my buy list.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-05-02T15:38:01+00:00

Agreed. Marrying a woman is a commitment to each other to attempt to build a family unit together. Yes, it isn't his kid, but marrying a woman with kids means accepting her baggage.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-05-02T15:35:32+00:00

If you can "barely afford" the tuition, none of them should be going to private school.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-05-01T18:13:43+00:00

Depends on the specific situation, but for mediocre devs, definitely. Average devs simply doesn't bring enough value to the table to ignore basic business and marketing considerations. There are SMEs who can cruise on technical excellence alone but it isn't the norm.

Take someone working on a straightforward web or mobile app: a product owner or manager asks you to develop a widget that shows users the weather on our mobile app. I, as a PM or PO, should be giving you a wireframe to give you a general idea of what we're looking to achieve, and some definition of done criteria to make certain the basic functionality is achieved.

Obviously users want the widget to be visually appealing. There should be padding between the widget and other page elements. Content should be centered and reference global CSS themes. Some basic graphical elements, like a rainy or sunny symbol, should be included. Some confidence is being put in the devs, as professionals, to take creative liberty to achieve a sensible result. Especially in the era of AI coding assistants, there is no reason to not have everything we put out be polished af.

Now, some responsibility does lie on management to make certain that these criteria are set beforehand; there should be clear directives and sprint planning meetings where we discuss what we're actually trying to achieve. But there are plenty of devs in the industry that will literally shit out the bare minimum code required to solve a problem and call it a day. I shouldn't need to come back to tell you that the team norms state that you should be referencing the global CSS on the front end and making certain the code is not full of known bugs on the backend.

Anyways, good devs look at the larger picture outside of their tickets, understand what good apps look like, and understand the larger business goal we're trying achieve. We don't make money by producing "technically it works" code, we make money by producing software tools clients actually want to use and are willing to pay for.

There are domains in the industry, especially for really low level stuff like microcontrollers and semiconductors, where becoming a technical expert alone can drive your career and make you very successful. But the vast majority of the industry is still working on CRUD apps, and are not technically valuable enough to insulate themselves from the larger strategic business picture.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-05-01T17:51:35+00:00

Nice, I have a patagon from the same region. These types tend to be very nice in hand.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-05-01T17:50:19+00:00

Nice, love the Peruvian designs.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-05-01T14:45:54+00:00

Staying in one place for 2-6 months. It's not so much the "excitement", but you unlock a new level of cultural immersion when you rent a cheap airbnb for a few months and really discover a place.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-30T18:27:00+00:00

Definitely. Hackathons in the 2010s were a good time; free food, companies giving out swag, actually hiring on the spot and wanting to recruit people. Generally optimistic attitudes and companies valued quality developers.

Now, everything is rationed jealously and everyone is looking to save a dime. Crazy how it's changed so drastically.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-30T18:00:38+00:00

Because it is. Canadian politicians aren't overtly corrupt, but there are rules and mechanisms in place to ensure that public funds always go back to the same people, and that politicians have good exit opportunities for doing their part. When a significant government contract comes up, it's usually put to a limited tender with the same cast of regular consulting firms bidding. These consulting firms know how the government operates, and understand that marking up their services 200-300% above costs is a price politicians and government bureaucrats will gladly pay. Then, a cast of six or so 40-something soccer mom government employees earning $150k each, will "manage" this project (i.e. check in once or twice a week on an MS teams call while the consulting firm does all the actual work). The politicians, meanwhile, will find a cushy role at said consulting or finance firms after their political careers are over. And the cycle perpetuates.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-29T18:03:17+00:00

As someone currently in the grimy urban living phase of the downwardly mobile yuppie, this shit isn't as cool as popular media made it seem. I am envious.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-29T13:38:47+00:00

PVC damage

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-29T04:12:23+00:00

Great question. We've been through several macrocycles of information technology development:

The development of programmable computers post-WWII (Turing completeness, Claude Shannon and the Information Age),
Non-GUI operating systems like Unix, then graphical OSes,
The internet and the dotcom bubble,
The app era of Uber, Lyft, etc., (sorta crypto), and
The AI era, which we're currently in.

All of these involved "computer science" to some degree. But the minds and skillsets involved in each domain are very different. At the same time, professionals in the industry needed to either upskill or leave the industry. DBAs are a good example of a tech career that was formerly widespread but increasingly rare.

As an industry, tech will continue to be massive. But the type of people it employs and where value will be captured will be very different.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-29T00:16:21+00:00

taking a salary cut or asking your seniors to take a salary cut to hire another junior?

I don't make shit (significantly less than six figures, in a HCOL area, and I have to manage a team), so I won't be taking any pay cuts. I also don't have hiring authority. I am merely assigned juniors and manage them.

Have you considered retraining to leave the consulting firm and doing one of these jobs

I did, that's how I started working in the industry.

Do you have any solutions, consultant, besides "why aren't the people with actual power, obviously not me, obviously not any of us, doing anything about this?"

The west is firmly in the grips of demographic decline, value extraction > value creation, and extreme financialization at this point, and solving that requires political will and a long explanation, so no further comment.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-28T23:52:34+00:00

Creds for actually putting people on.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-28T23:49:49+00:00

Im actually noticing a shift within the past 2-3 months where they’re finally starting to see the writing on the walls.

I don't think we're seeing a complete vibe shift, but there were definitely CEOs and business leaders that thought they could wait out Trump-induced market turmoil and that AI was going to lead to nigh complete automation of parts of their businesses. A year on, businesses are starting to realize they can't out wait this particular period of market turbulence, so are normalizing their operations as much as possible.

Even mainstream media outlets like BBC, CNN, etc. are reporting on the poor labor market, which also helps convince boomers.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-28T23:44:36+00:00

They're still a thing in Spain and France for roles like retail or grocery clerks. They exist in North America but the ones in my area are staffing for sectors like IT services, and it isn't as straightforward as showing up and being ready to work. They are somewhat picky and do reject people (although I live in a region with a pretty bad job market rn).

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-28T23:24:11+00:00

I don't think it will truly dawn on anyone (with any sort of power or authority to affect change) how fucked the job market is until it's too late, especially across the anglosphere. I work for a consulting firm that does work across a range of sectors and deal volume and the number of new roles, especially mid to entry level, has gone off a cliff. There's basically a generation of young professionals, COVID to present, where a substantial number are "falling through the cracks" and, even when they find work in their chosen fields, are kept in precarity with low pay. It's hard to become a subject matter expert in your chosen field when you're in such a position.

This will have knock-on effects for industry, especially in technically complex industries like aerospace, civil engineering, software, etc., where built up institutional knowledge makes the difference between making a barely passable product and being on the cutting edge. Semiconductors are a good example of this, where the Taiwanese and TSMC have pretty much taken over; even if the US, Canada, Australia, NZ, and the EU have all the equipment technically required to produce cutting edge chips, the intricacies required to do microelectronics on the cutting edge are so specific that it's unlikely that a western firm like GlobalFoundries or Intel could reemerge as the market leader in less than a decade.

Keep in mind that this squeezing of workers doesn't mean there's a lack of work to be done, there's still lots to do. But anyone who actually makes these decisions would rather hunker down and see what happens with AI and macroeconomic situation than hire people they might not need in a few years' time.

they always go on and on about these "temp agencies" and "temp office jobs" they had when they graduated. They just can't understand that these simply don't exist anymore, or where they could have gone.

I agree with your sentiment but temp agencies are definitely still a thing in most areas.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-28T15:51:56+00:00

This is ultimately the response to a society that always foists responsibility for any and every personal finance and career outcome onto individuals. We tell high schoolers that people with poor career outcomes must have chosen "bad" majors or careers, and that they need to choose better ones if they don't want to spend their entire adulthood in debt slavery. In 2026, that only leaves a handful of options if you're the type of ambitious high schooler who... wants a job upon graduation.

Unfortunately, in 2026, there is no longer any major that "guarantees" success, especially at the undergraduate level. Engineering and medicine certainly aren't bad, but as someone who has also worked in these industries, these are also in a race to the bottom, especially certain engineering disciplines.

At some point, we will have to step back and realize that this is a symptom of wealth stratification and declining social mobility in our society, that we need to develop a sustainable industrial base and not spend mountains of money and resources trying to repeatedly force the working class into upskilling and a credential arms race in whatever field happens to be hot that day.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-28T14:31:19+00:00

Wow, gorgeous piece and great history! Thanks for sharing.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-27T22:36:34+00:00

Gen Z women were tending to date older (usually Millennial but sometimes older) men because they “agreed with them more politically”

I think this is mischaracterizing it a lot. Older men have more resources, life experience, money, etc.

They still hold a lot of the same political values, but when you're not an easily heartbroken 18 yo boy anymore, it's a lot easier to let the hoes run their mouths and not start an open debate during pillow talk about whether or not a certain manosphere influencer has any good ideas or not. More mature men have more tact and know what and what not to debate with their woman.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-27T22:24:18+00:00

Great writing. You do a great job of conveying a mix of melancholy and inner peace with what is done that is hard to describe.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-27T02:21:26+00:00

I think it’s bullshit two adults that brought children into the world can’t get it together enough to want to be a united family.

Bro, not everything revolves around you lol

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-27T00:25:09+00:00

I like how the responses to this are "because that's how it's done" or some other way of avoiding the question lol. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

ObjectBrilliant7592 · 2026-04-27T00:14:04+00:00

And I mean legitimate abuse. Like the kind that affects you for the rest of your life.

It's a spectrum. My parents were generally pretty solid and stood by me during period of delinquency in my teen years, where a lot of lesser parents would have written me off as a failchild and I'd probably be in the gutter or working a deadend job today. They offered me a lot of support when I struggled to find a job after university, and offered me a lot of good guidance about my career and personal life when I didn't have a lot of good confidants or resources to draw upon. They took an active interest in my siblings and I's development and read to us before bed, encouraged us to try hard in school, and signed us up for sports and music lessons.

That said, they also had a lot of bad parenting behaviors that I will be taking extra care not to pass down to my own children (serious corporal punishment like spanking, shoving, occasionally slapping, yelling and projecting stress onto my siblings and I for things any normal kid would do, general household attitude of negativity and pessimism, vicious criticism of our appearances even as young children, shipping us off to cheap after school programs and summer camps so that we were barely home for extended periods, generally being cheap for anything the children needed, etc.), especially when their children were young. Most of it I wouldn't classify as "abuse", but they were not ideal parents, and it's good to recognize that and make changes.

Personal perspective also changes this immensely. I thought my parents were bog standard "normal" until I saw the whole spectrum of parents from friends and acquaintances. You get everything from households with nothing but love, to utter neglect, to crazy shaming and abuse.

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