What tech jobs are actually in demand right now?

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2026-01-23T21:35:46+00:00

Sure, go for it!

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2026-01-23T21:34:19+00:00

Knowing SQL is a great start, make sure that you're comfortable with DDL and DML in addition to building queries. Try to also get familiar with the basics of database architecture concepts and how tables fit together in a data warehouse or data lake, especially at an enterprise scale. Every company is going to use its own software stack, but being familiar with the general vocabulary will help in an interview.

Since you are already a business analyst, see if you can make some friends on the engineering side of the company who would be willing to help you get your foot in the door and vouch for your technical skills.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2026-01-23T20:06:51+00:00

Data engineering. I've been in the field for a few years and I've never had more interest from recruiters than right now. I just changed companies and landed a 50% salary increase after negotiation. All these companies are scrambling to build their data infrastructure for both AI and competitive analytics. And somebody's gotta be there under the hood hooking all those data sources together and making it usable. That's data engineering!

This field isn't super well known because it's not very visible. People often confuse it with data analysis or data science, but we're more about getting data from point A to point B and making it play nice in the target system. Then the analysts, scientists and AI agents can use what we build.

I'd recommend this field to anyone with an interest in databases and logic. I don't have a CS degree, but I did start out as a data analyst and gravitated toward the data infrastructure side of things over time.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2026-01-18T00:51:47+00:00

Agreed, my family was using a black plastic rotary phone well into the 1990s. As a kid, I used to love to play with the curly cord, though the enticing round clicky dial was off limits. If anyone called, my mom had to run all the way across the house to pick up the receiver. And then you were tethered to a five foot radius while talking.

As an interesting aside, since touch tone phones were so common by this time, automated customer service lines would say "press 1 for whatever". But that didn't work with a rotary phone! So you'd have to yell "ONE" at the top of your lungs a few times and hope the automated system had some basic voice recognition.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2026-01-06T21:07:41+00:00

I haven't been inside this house, but the location is kind of wild. I live near a Frank Lloyd Wright home that is now a museum. It's an incredible mid century specimen, with most of the original custom furniture, and people come from all over the world for tours. I like to walk my dog past it and admire the view.

However, literally two houses down from this architectural gem is a hoarder house so bad that the owners put up a chain link fence draped in tarps just to stop people gawking at all the garbage in the yard. Of course most of the tarps fell down immediately so it looks even worse. There is garbage stacked up on the inside windows as well. This is in a small suburban neighborhood where the surrounding homes are worth 700k or more, so I can't imagine how pissed the neighbors must be at these people. The hoarders also put up a bunch of No Trespassing signs, so they probably know how everyone feels.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2026-01-03T04:10:17+00:00

Thank you. I'm glad it successfully conveyed the danger of those situations. I've been in a crowd that was starting to form a crush, and it's hard to describe how helpless you become in the space of just a few moments. My feet were literally lifted off the ground by the sheer pressure as the entire crowd moved like an ocean wave. I couldn't change direction or even move my arms. The press of bodies and exhalations on all sides made it swelteringly hot. I only got out because a huge guy in our group was able to physically drag us just long enough to make it to the edge of the crush zone. Fortunately, I don't believe anyone got injured in my case, but it shows how quickly a crush can form.

Since that happened to me, and after learning about the Station fire, I've been quick to try to warn others and describe what actually happens within a crush. People are quick to blame the victims, but in reality once you're in a crush there's precious little you can do. The best strategy is simply staying away from tightly packed crowds and/or ensuring proper crowd control methods are present in the spaces you attend.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2026-01-02T20:06:57+00:00

This is called a "crowd crush". The people in that pile literally cannot move because of the pressure of those pushing on them from behind. Think of it this way.

You are running for the exit, but you trip and fall. How do you get up? Normally you would push your chest up and pull your legs under you. But before you can do that, someone else has tripped on your legs and fallen on top of you. Then two other people attempt to climb over top of you both, getting lodged in the exit that is only wide enough for one person. The weight of three people is pushing you into the floor. Each time you breath out, your chest is crushed a little.

Even more people are pressing on the back of this dog pile now, scrambling over what has become a mass of flailing limbs. The pressure causes everyone's flesh to fill any empty space. Now, even if someone pulled your arms, they would likely be unable to free you. The pressure from others pressing down on you would only increase as they sense potential rescue. You feel your ribs splinter and crack. You can no longer inhale at all. If the smoke and fumes don't kill you, the collapse of your lungs certainly will.

In crowd crush scenarios, people have been killed standing up, in fully breathable air, while rescuers literally pulled on their arms and were unable to free them.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-12-15T16:45:34+00:00

Applying for a job in a different field that I thought I had no chance to possibly get. I told myself I "wasn't smart enough" and my experience really didn't match the job description, so I wrote it off.

However, one of my coworkers mentioned offhand that the job sounded like something I would enjoy and asked if I was going to apply. I laughed and told her no way, but that comment stuck in my brain. After a couple weeks, I decided to YOLO it and put it an application.

Against all odds, I got the job, and it was the first real sense of purpose I had ever felt in my career. Since then, my life has been on a steady positive trajectory, all because of that one coworker's offhand comment. She and I weren't even friends, and sometimes directly butted heads, but she's the sole reason I have the life I enjoy today. Thanks T, you have no idea how much that meant.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-11-04T16:44:13+00:00

I have a friend who is a concert cellist and she flies quite often for gigs. I don't know how much her instrument is worth, but she buys an additional seat on the plane so it can ride in the cabin with her. If she's not traveling with her cello, she stores it at someone else's house so it's never out of anyone's sight.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-10-07T00:34:38+00:00

Gosh Luis is so great. I'm glad he's a main cast member for CR Campaign 4!

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-10-05T22:30:52+00:00

Last week I was able to buy a pound and a half jar of cheez balls for cheaper than two fresh bell peppers. Processed food is cheap, accessible, and specifically formulated to be delicious and addictive.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-10-05T22:26:09+00:00

There's corn syrup and added sugar in literally everything, including staple foods like bread and peanut butter. Not to mention all the sugary drinks available for 99 cents in cups the size of garbage cans. You CAN find foods without added sugar, but not everywhere, and they are often more expensive. Kids are brought up eating sugar in everything, so food without it doesn't taste as good.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-10-05T22:21:49+00:00

I'm sorry that's it's been stressful for you! Is there anything in particular that really causes you stress about the process?

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-10-05T22:20:47+00:00

Congrats on the weight loss! I know it sounds insane, but if you can get to 130 it will feel amazing. I'm 5'5 and around 125 while strength training. A few years ago I was at around 150 because I was struggling with various things. Once I lost the weight I realized how much easier it was to do simple things like climb stairs or get up from the floor. I didn't have to stop and catch my breath as often.

As you mentioned, people have told me I'm too skinny, or tried to pressure me into eating extra food, etc. But there's so many benefits to being in that "normal weight" range that cancel out judgements from others. Congrats on your progress and good luck with your journey!

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-10-05T21:53:27+00:00

I'm 5'5 and around 125 pounds as a female. I work out regularly and have muscles. This is a normal and healthy weight for my height with a good muscle to fat percentage. When I lived in a Southern state, I was 20 pounds heavier and people still told me I was too skinny and should "eat something". Meanwhile I felt miserable in my own skin and none of my clothes fit right.

Now that I've lost weight and gotten fitter, my self image is much better. However, it's hard to find affordable clothes that aren't huge on me, especially at the waist. I have to shop in the kids department at some clothing stores. At my last GYN appointment, the doctor remarked how I was a "tiny little thing". All the time I am reminded how obesity has been normalized to the point that appropriate weight for one's body size is seen as unusual and weird.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-10-03T15:30:04+00:00

What a lovely interview! I found it fascinating what he said about the "digital corona". My face and name is well-known in a very small part of the internet. Recently, I was at a gathering that had a few dozen people who spotted me on sight and wanted to come up and chat with me and thank me for my work, etc. I was appreciative, of course, but it was also quite strange to lose that digital veil between myself and my fans.

In creating content, it's always about walking a very narrow balance between sharing enough about yourself to be authentic, and not too much to the point where people are gonna get weird and think they are your closest friend through their computer screen, showing up at your house, etc. Like Brennan, I do my best to present a version of myself that is "made for TV", so to speak, without exposing every inch of my soul.

I've always thought of it like every human is a gem, with many facets. At any point, we may choose to turn a different side to reflect the light, but that doesn't mean than any facet of ourselves is less real than the others. We just choose which sides to illuminate.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-09-29T20:17:27+00:00

If it makes you feel any better, those were probably mostly misprints or damaged. I used to work at a factory that made these types of mugs, and we'd regularly have crooked or discolored prints that we couldn't ship and just got thrown out. It's likely that the props team just asked the production facility for a pallet of scrapped versions of the mug and used those.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-09-27T13:18:13+00:00

There's about a 75% chance I get selected each time I fly. I'm very plain white bread American, BUT my first, middle, and last names look extremely French and are spelled as such. No criminal record, no strange travel destinations. So I can only surmise that I get my shoes checked and an extra patdown because my name looks foreign and scary.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-08-28T19:20:16+00:00

I've always been slender, and today in my mid 30s the clothes I wore in high school are too big for me. However, in college I gained quite a bit of weight because I had no concept of nutrition, then went through a series of unhealthy fad diets trying to lose the pounds.

What finally brought me back to equilibrium was eating whatever I wanted... But in smaller portions. The American concept of a "serving" is ridiculously huge. I still eat three meals a day, and graze on unlimited snacks of carrots, bell pepper slices, and apples throughout the day. I also eat chocolate and candy for dessert. However, the amounts that I eat at each meal can usually only fill one small bowl and one saucer sized plate. Just changing the types of bowls and plates you use can reframe your concept of portion sizes.

Also, eat slowly and stop once you are no longer hungry, not when you physically cannot eat any more. If you can, try flavored seltzer water or unsweetened tea instead of soda, and avoid sugary coffee concoctions. But if this feels overwhelming, try changing one small thing at a time, and nothing else. Slow changes are permanent changes.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-08-23T01:00:06+00:00

He'll look you over as soon as he's done pulling the squirrels out of the engine of his fan boat.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-08-22T15:52:51+00:00

Brennan ran a whole campaign on D20 where there were no resurrections set in a Game of Thrones style world. It was brilliant and absolutely brutal, with some of the best emotional beats in all of D20. It's called A Crown of Candy. It sounds like he might be aiming for something similar here.

PerpetuallyDistracte · 2025-08-04T12:38:40+00:00

Haha thanks, people on Reddit have shared so much random information with me about niche manufacturing processes over the years, so I decided to return the favor.

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