I just finished reading Neil Postman’s book last week. This is an absolute must-read for everyone. I can’t own a lot of hardcopy books because of space, but this is going to become one of them.

Fully agreed. One of the significant contradictions of democracy in the US is that it was largely shaped by various forms of illegal civil disobedience against entrenched power structures. Such civil disobedience is retrospectively seen as justified, committed by people who are retrospectively seen as heroes. But each successive generation is demanded to believe that any further civil disobedience is unreasonable.

Just a small selection of a long history of US civil disobedience:

• Boston Tea Party
• Great Railroad Strike
• Haymarket aaffair
• Battle of Blair Mountain - largest armed insurrection in America since the Civil War
• Selma to Montgomery Marches

There is a lot we get to take for granted from our comfortable, privileged perches built with the blood and tears of those who would perform civil disobedience.

I had a bunch of Linux-loving, anti-ad, tinfoil hat employees in the early 00s. They tried to convince me of how bad things will become. It turns out that their tinfoil hats weren’t nearly thick enough.

How long before so much of daily life is governed by such algorithms, models, dark patterns? “Oh, you didn’t pay rapt attention to the entire chain of ads. Guess your car is going to have to break down this week and your egg prices will go up 25% at every grocery store.”

The idea of using computers to aid in medical diagnosis is older than you are, probably older than you and me put together. The field is called Medical Decision Support (MDS). The Department of Defense invested heavily in MDS, and last I knew, MDS was a key component in Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application.

Medical knowledge is collated by accomplished medical specialists, often surgeons and/or professors. The knowledge is weighted and encoded into modules using a specialized computer language. An engine runs a given module based on initial questions, then drops or engages modules based on how the questions/answers progress. Various tests are performed along the way, e.g. Bakody Sign for a cervical radiculopathy. At the end, the software spits out something like:

• 5/5 indications for C4/C5 nerve impingement
• 1/8 indications for COPD
• 8/10 indications for douchebaggery
• suggest the [X, Y, Z] for further testing

The same company (PKC) that first developed MDS was founded by the guy who also developed the Problem-Oriented Medical Record, an early form of EMR and an efficient means to quantify medical diagnoses. I worked for him at PKC and wrote the IIS version of the engine. You can see a deeply neutered version of the software at Sharecare (I think they now call it AskMD).

Based on what I’ve seen, most homebuilders don’t understand how to build a house. :D

One that is UL listed. Don’t set your place on fire. I normally live on a sailboat, which tends to be a difficult place to line-dry clothing. A compressor dehumidifier will make short work of even dripping wet clothes.

Let’s not forget the mission-critical wangjangling.

Just got laid off, as did ~10% of expensive employees in the company. I was notified on Monday with Friday being my last day. I had complete access to production systems right up until I logged out today (okay, stupid on their part, but I’m not going to fuck with my surviving teammates). My severance package is ridiculous, like take the next six months off and think about life levels of generous. Three months of health insurance. All of my accrued PTO. And a commensurate portion of my long term rewards package, even though my contract says early separation means I get nothing.

So, while the majority of companies are soulless, soul-sucking black holes of greed, there are exceptions out there. Hm… in my experience, the exceptions all seem to be privately held AND not owned by some other shitty holding company.

While I owe nothing to any corp, my professional reputation and the regard of my teammates mean everything to me. I got this job because the hiring manager was a former teammate elsewhere. Not screwing over these work relationships is how I’m going to land just fine. I have a long list of C-suite, managers, and teammates upon whom I can rely for referrals and job opportunities.

Is being pleasant and professional always going to work in your favor? Fuck no. But pissing in the well of good will always works against you.