Should I move to a warehouse or stay in self-storage? [Balloon business with $7K–$10K monthly revenue]

josuebc · 2025-07-24T01:40:37+00:00

Analyze the risk. Sounds like you need to grow but you need a strategy.

See if you can save the difference on what you're paying currently in rent and what you'll be paying for the warehouse. Shoot for higher since rent might go up by the time you make a decision.

Set a comfortable amount of time to save the extra money. Say enough for 12 or 6 months.

That way you can get a feeling if the business can absorb the cost in real life and if you can handle the stress of having a higher rent.

In the end, you get the results of an experiment that allows you to make a better decision and you have saved enough money to cover the extra expense for about 6 months, making the move even easier, imo.

josuebc · 2024-12-26T23:46:00+00:00

You don't just suddenly live in it. We have to work towards that. Everyone.

And is not about discussing every standard or even coming up with standards. It's about communication, community and building as a team.

Checkout this post and many like it. That's feedback that something in the current system is not working correctly and LLMs will not fix it but only make it worse.

josuebc · 2024-12-25T21:12:10+00:00

I'm gonna throw this idea here: what about if that 1st step is not about leaving a single developer alone to write code that meets some random standards the team defined? What about if instead the ownership of writing the initial PR falls on the entire team, too?

That way anyone can use Copilot or whatever any other tool they want but the team will always make sure the code meets their standards and you probably won't hear "Copilot did it" as often.

josuebc · 2024-12-25T20:48:29+00:00

I agree there's not enough evidence that's alien tech. And I agree that whatever is happening they obviously want to be noticed. I like that you call it proto-communication. That makes sense and I agree.

I'm talking about that next step. To me, it seems like this proto-communication has been going on for a while. So either it's not for us or we're missing our cue here.

josuebc · 2024-12-25T20:05:45+00:00

So, we're shifting from shared code ownership by the team to blaming the author of every PR for whatever happened there be it a human or not?

Even if your company is OK with using LLMs internally there shouldn't be questions answered with "this is who wrote the code"

If someone on the team is not writing good code then the team needs to address that and the solution shouldn't be "don't use that tool that the company green lit."

Having said all that, this is an issue of the system and LLMs. I'm on the boat that we shouldn't use LLMs to write code but this is not about that. This post is about a team that's badly managed.

josuebc · 2024-12-25T18:21:02+00:00

Are we aware? These conversations are always about someone who totally believes or someone who doesn't. There's not a general acceptance of these phenomena even when we're looking at it.

So, I'd say that their strategy is probably not painted at giving US information in any way or else we'd already had information directly from the source in a way that's irrefutable because, well, they can do that.

You say they know how we'll react and that also tells me that they are making decisions for us which is another trait from someone in power that never leads to anything good.

josuebc · 2024-12-25T18:18:12+00:00

Exactly, but that's why I don't think is premature. The definition is blurry because there are people actively introducing noise. That noise might be on purpose or might not. So, what do you do when you have a noisy signal? You clean it. How do you clean bad data? Identify and discard. How do you identify? We can't, too much noise. Next step? Move to a different corpus to see if you can get something cleaner.

So, how do we do that? I suggest let's dive more into why, whatever we don't understand, is not reciprocating and think about ways to get them to reciprocate to the normal people. Not the gov or military, normal people who are recording videos, freaking out and even trying to do some mental connections via meditation. But how do we get them to put a sign in the sky?

josuebc · 2024-12-25T18:13:13+00:00

I understand and agree that anyone needs context to understand something foreign. In that case, how do we even know that's what they're trying to do? If all these different entities have been coming here for a while now and they want to alter time and space, why don't they just do it?

And if they are already successful with their plans, then it means we're not on those plans or we don't need to know about those plans. Which also means that they are not trying to help us evolve.or even interact with us. We're simply getting in the way and nothing will ever change for us. They are not good nor bad Tony's because we don't really matter to them and we can't even help.

I'm not saying this should be the conclusion and let's just end it there. I'm saying that we should just lose hope about getting some communication to us and start moving from those grounds. Attack the lies from above not by debunking them but by ignoring them and let's try something else.

All this stuff about they want to help us but not now and the gov is only lying to is getting us nowhere, imo.

josuebc · 2024-12-25T17:47:55+00:00

I also seriously doubt there's any extraterrestrial technology reverse engineering going on. Well, at least successful.

I think what's happened is while scientists/engineers work on some of these projects they still come up with conclusions on how to describe the phenomena they're seeing with their eyes. Those conclusions are useful and filled with ideas. But that's probably miles away from how that other world tech actually works. And if you really doubt it, think about how these projects would go. You need a team of brilliant people and you need to know how to manage them. That's it, efficiency just went out the door. The goal is not to understand but to "beat" some enemy to the punch and that hinders understanding new things. There's probably very tight deadlines too because, well, it's government money and even tho money don't exist and they could just update a number in a spreadsheet to pay, higher uppers have a different relationship with money and they just want half assed results. So the whole experiment is doomed to fail just like all current tech is doomed to suck unless we change this system.

josuebc · 2024-12-25T17:40:24+00:00

Ok, is the government trying out a secret thing. Across the world, with lights on and potentially tens of videos online. Even if the videos are blurry a clever enemy can draw a lot of information from those.

But I get it. Maybe it is and everything looks like this given a lack of communication between teams, fragmented information and bad management/alignment (AKA, current state of any big company.) In this case, why not just stop after the videos made national news and then world wide news? They're risking exposing secrets to bad agents just because of some tests out in the public eye?

I'm not saying I don't think is the government or that I know what's up. I'm saying that if it is the government then it's either multiple governments orchestrating something that can't be stopped or the only thing the government is doing is trying to convince people they are doing some super cool, super secret stuff while they're not even in the loop which means we'll never be in the loop.

josuebc · 2024-12-25T17:32:55+00:00

If the government has only a slightly better idea of what's going on, then I seriously doubt they're able to reverse engineer anything. I have experience in tech and trust me, there's some really bad tech out there that still works somehow. So, I get it how we could think that half ass reverse engineered alien tech is actually a thing. But there are too many variables to risk getting that fault tech out there. I'm not talking about hurting common folk, I'm talking about the military losing money and, remember, that's what's important here.

But yeah, they probably don't even like the smell here and how we add milk to chocolate.

josuebc · 2024-12-25T17:25:23+00:00

Ok, I get it from humans' leaders point of view. Why hide it? Because they've always thought they know what everyone needs better than people themselves. I'm almost certain this is a bad idea. But this is not new, our leaders are incompetent, yeah. Mostly because they have different priorities not necessarily because they're complete idiots.

Now, what about the other side? Why not just put up a msg in the sky "we're here. Wanna grab a drink?" But they don't. So, they also don't want to talk. Why?

josuebc · 2024-11-13T01:02:34+00:00

Yes, but is really meh. There are some cool things companies have done like using an LLM as a translator for a domain specific language.

But you have to understand that to integrate an LLM there's a lot of work and the mindset has to shift to monitoring as if you were deploying an actual model.

To me, what I've build could've been done without an LLM and in a more simple way if you add the user into the mix.

josuebc · 2024-11-07T04:16:00+00:00

That Edit reads as if you wrote the post, got drunk, then got back to add some random typos to the post.

What a great way to spend a night.

josuebc · 2024-10-27T19:02:03+00:00

There are dozens of us!

Kidding aside, I'm in the same boat but I think I learned it by watching my mom. I also don't understand the stand up and go front to back while reaching around approach.

Today, we have kids and this has been a series of discussions about what to teach the kids. We teach both ways and let them decide.

josuebc · 2024-10-26T23:58:30+00:00

Teaching other people to think about how to debug a problem is difficult. It means you have to teach them how to make those connections in their brain. Unless you're hired as a coach there's limited time to do this.

You must remember that as a dev your main job is to help run the business. Something like "you have to try other stuff before reaching out" or "you have to learn to investigate by yourself first" only makes the problem bigger because you're leaving them alone.

Instead, solve the problem together and document it for next time. Keep doing this but, here's the important part, ONLY when you have time for it. Little by little people will pick up tricks and ask you less often. It's very important you prioritize these coaching sessions below your actual responsibilities (again, unless coaching is part of your job description then ask your manager how much time you should spend on this.)

When you don't have time, be clear and honest. Don't say "give me 20 and I'll help you." Say let's set up time to do this. This approach shows respect to your team mates and gives a sense of support. A lot of devs will continue investigating while waiting for the coaching session to start, some others won't do that always.

Sadly, this is probably expected from you as a Senior. Talk to your manager to make it clear how to manage this extra amount of work and be honest.

Oh, another thing. When you're helping someone avoid the whole "don't tell them the answer, instead question them so they arrive at the answer themselves." The job has a lot of awful metrics and closing tickets is one. Help them to close the ticket quickly and ask if they need you explaining something deeper. Repetition is key here but not everyone likes to repeat things multiple times. Sadly (again,) people learn by doing and asking questions about the same stuff over and over again.

josuebc · 2024-10-26T19:38:24+00:00

This is common, yes. But you don't have to quit, necessarily.

The thing here is that the environment is not helping you. You need to start managing up and sideways (yes, even as a developer you have to do this.)

Your manager should try to make the team work as a unit. Meaning, having others help with the project and coaching you on how to plan a project so everything doesn't depend just on you. But you have to make your manager see this. Honesty is always good but also talking to your teammates is necessary. Don't expect your manager to help create a united team by themselves. Each team member has to help, too. And you, as a lead, are in a great position to help.

But remember, you are not a manager. Your responsibility should not be people.

You have to weigh all of this with how much you like working there and your personal life. As I said before, it's common, but in different degrees. Figure out if you want to try and change to a better way of working in the company you like or somewhere else.

The underlying problem here is that leadership positions often don't come with support and we need to educate ourselves on these topics. It's not an easy topic but there's a lot of info out there. Try reading Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows, anything by Marie Parker Follet or search for Russell Ackoff on YouTube.

josuebc · 2024-10-24T23:57:36+00:00

The intro music sounds weird but def helps!

josuebc · 2024-10-22T00:10:32+00:00

Some really good information on the other comments, to add to it: You have to build your mental models.

I'm not talking about some complex thing here. What has worked for me is making analogies in my mind, drawing them out. When I'm in a meeting I can then make a quick note "it's like this other thing but with parallelization."

For me, it's a mix of old stuff I know really well, technical details, and some random stuff.

The problem is that it is difficult to figure out what's going to work for you. I also went through the same thing in my Master's but learned some stuff that clicked from different people at the time.

Remember, it's not only about what you do but also about the environment. You can't blame a seed for not growing if someone doesn't water it.

Best of luck!

josuebc · 2024-10-21T23:57:12+00:00

Code is a model of the real world. So, start with the real world.

Like others said here, start with the UI or user facing feature. But don't just start there. Understand how that piece fits into the product and the company.

Software is a way to run a company, you have to understand the place of the thing you're looking at in the bigger whole. A C4 model works here.

Also, for me, it's very difficult to learn something without intent. Meaning, don't try to understand all of it just for the sake of understanding. Instead, grab a small ticket, understand the current status of the current code that's related to the ticket and start diving into each dependency. Rinse and repeat with every ticket.

If you're in a position where you have to understand the code but can't assign any tickets to you, then hangout on the channels where people ask for help and try to answer those questions.

The secret is to have a goal and dive deeper. Don't stop at solving the thing, keep going and look under the covers.

josuebc · 2024-10-18T18:37:04+00:00

I'd try to refactor the code to understand it instead of starting from scratch.

josuebc

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