JeremyMorgan

This is exactly it. I'm also a volunteer for a small town, in a department that is decently funded. We have had the same two engines since 2009. We just (within the last month) received a new engine. It became extremely difficult to provide the level of service the community expects, and come up with money for a new engine. It's a major struggle.

Also something most folks don't know: about 70% of the firefighters in the US are volunteers. If you're in a big city you'll have 4 paid folks on an engine (maybe 3 and 1 intern) but as soon as you venture out of the city you'll see more engines 100% staffed by volunteers. And if you don't know the difference that's a good thing!

Fire departments run on budgets that would also shock you (how low they are).

Valid question, and I hear it all the time. Most of the time it's due to preparedness and staffing. By having those 4 people on a fully equipped engine, if something big (structure fire, vehicle extrication, rescue) happens, they can jump in and go with a vehicle full of tools. (provided the ambulance crew can take over).

Otherwise if they're in a car, they'd have to drive back through traffic to the station, move their gear to the new vehicle, and drive back to the scene. It can cost valuable time. Fire engines carry a surprisingly large amount of tools and equipment for a variety of purposes.

That being said, many larger departments are trying out "cars" (usually an SUV) with two people and a med bag to go to medical calls. While the engine/truck and crew stay at the station. This is fairly expensive with the new vehicle, equipment and extra staffing. However it is being done now with success in urban areas.

One of the things people often overlook don't talk about in this arguments is the manager's point of view and how it's contributing to the shakeups in this industry.

As a developer I'm bullish on coding agents and GenAI tools, because they can save you time and can augment your abilities. I've experienced it, and I've seen it enough already. I love them, and want to see them continue to be used.

I'm bearish on the idea that "vibe coding" can produce much of value, and people without any engineering background becoming wildly productive at building great software. I know I'm not alone. If you're a good problem solver who doesn't know how to code, this is your gateway. And you better learn what's happening with the code while you can to avoid creating a huge mess later on.

Developers argue about the quality of "vibe coded" stuff. There are good arguments on both sides. At some point I think we all agree that AI will be able generate high quality software faster than a human, someday. But today is not that day. Many will try to convince you that it is.

Within a few years we'll see massive problems from AI generated code, and it's for one simple reason:

Managers and other Bureaucrats do not care about the quality of the software.

Read it again if you have to. It's an uncomfortable idea, but it's true. They don't care about your flow. They don't care about how much you love to build quality things. They don't care if software is good or bad they care about closing tickets and creating features. Most of them don't care, and have never cared about the "craft".

If you're a master mason crafting amazing brickwork, you're exactly the same as some amateur grabbing some bricks from home depot and slapping a wall together. A wall is a wall. That's how the majority of managers view software development today. By the time that shoddy wall crumbles they'll be at another company anyway so it's someone else's problem.

When I talk about the software industry collapsing now, and in a few years we're mired with garbage software everywhere, this is why. These people in "leadership" are salivating at the idea of finally getting something for nothing. Paying a few interns to "vibe code" piles of software while they high five each other and laugh.

It will crash. The bubble will pop.

Developers: Keep your skills sharp and weather out the storm. In a few years you'll be in high demand once again. When those walls crumble, they will need people who what they're doing to repair it. Ask for fair compensation to do so.

Even if I'm wrong about all of this I'm keeping my skills sharp. You should too.

This isn't meant to be anti-management, but it's based on what I've seen. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

* And to the original point, In my experience the tools interrupt the "flow" but don't necessarily take the joy out of it. I cannot do suggestion/autocomplete because it breaks my flow. I love having a chat window with AI nearby when I get stuck or want to generate some boilerplate.

Disagree. Every language has quirks, and best practices.

Hello fellow Manning author! This book is fantastic. I remember reading through a lot of it a couple years back. Super helpful and it's one of those books you can pick up, grab a nugget or two of good info and come back later.

Now that I'm starting another big Go project I'm going to look at it again.

What I like most about this book is it feels like it's all "real world" stuff. You can tell the author has built a lot with Go and can save you time by telling you were the potholes are. Great stuff!

This is incredible. I'm gonna spend some time here.

And I love the design/UI.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

Your father's contributions are immeasurable. Just reading the word "QModem" gave me an instant flashback to my youth. QModem was my gateway to the outside world.

I grew up way out in the country. I was the 80s and I was pretty isolated from technology and didn't even know anyone who cared about it at first. I started tinkering with our home PC, and I finally purchased a modem and figured out how to connect to BBSs. This changed my life. I had many sleepless nights as teenager, connecting everywhere I could. QModem was like a fancy car that drove me anywhere I wanted to go.

I became obsessed with learning and tweaking things. AT commands, autoexec.bat, QModem scripting. Whatever I could figure out to get maximum performance and fast download speeds. Because of Qmodem, I could download games, text files, and even talk with other people. This moment in time defined my future. I knew right then what I wanted to do with my life.

I owe thanks to your father and what he built for my wonderful career, and 40 years of enjoying technology. Without something as easy to learn and reliable as QModem, who knows what path my life would have taken.

I got a C&D from them 20+ years ago for hosting a ROM site. That's fair enough. I complied. But this seems ridiculous. What if they're plugging an 8-BIT NES to an adapter and into a capture card?

The whole thing seems silly as I don't see it's costing them money. But it's their product they can do what they want.

I can't speak for the original author, but crafting a great blog post is fun. And, there are thousands of people a day who read my blog, but even if it were zero it would be the same.

The "polish" and working on it is part of craft, it's no different than carving something out of wood and not showing it to anyone. You still had fun creating the product and shaping it how you wanted.

I have no idea who this person is, but I loved reading this article. The author is clearly a better writer than me and managed cleanly assemble the reasons most of us do this.

I also run a blog and have since 1997. Didn't start seriously contributing until 2008 or so. It's a labor of love and I do it for many of the reasons stated here. Love to write, love to push myself to make things more "usable" for folks other than me. And it helps me check myself on certain topics (do I understand this enough to teach it to someone else?)

I have been hassled by some younger folks who say "blogging is dead" (can't argue with that) and it's a waste of time because it will never make me viral, rich, or famous (I knew that before I started). But I do it for me, and I still recommend other people do it as well. It's good for the soul.

This brings back some nostalgia for sure!

I was a BB customer and worked for Hollywood Video for quite a while, just as Netflix started taking over. It was sad.

There's a lot to be said about the "old school" way of movie rentals. Looking back and seeing Netflix and the other streaming options sprouting up, and the "cut the cord" movement.. it was neat. Until you look at where we are now. We're now paying and exponential amount of money for the same level of entertainment.

We all got swindled, and it's too late to do anything about it now.

This is true. While there is no explicit "pay to remove", if you have a premium account you have far more power to remove reviews you don't like.

Source: I know of a company that paid for a huge package, and routinely removed bad (true) reviews about said company. They loved it.

Exactly. With VS Code in existence, I'm not sure why they're wasting their time. This isn't a huge need for folks right now.

Exactly. Imagine if you had the resources to create your own CPU and SoC, selling it as a product then saying "stupid software developers" when nearly every application won't work properly on it.

When you put out new hardware and a new operating system and multiple pieces of software don't work that's hardly the developer's fault. Apple should be addressing these issues or rolling back to Rosetta more until the software developers can catch up.

Especially when you're charging premium prices for a machine that "just works".

Jeremy is a silly person.

Guilty as charged. I stated that because multiple variables are at play. New OS, plus new chipset. I don't know which is the culprit of most of these problems.

Author here.

Sorry, but your reply is really funny, even if it's a jab at me.

I outlined the reasons for the 4080, full knowing it's drastically less performance than the 4090. I balanced power usage, heat and noise vs how much performance I need.

Doesn't make your comment any less hilarious though.

I've wondered that myself. Either way it had to be returned.

I suspect the Onboard GPU being so new and different contributes to many of these problems.

Yeah, probably. I like OSX a lot, which influenced my original decision. But I don't require it like some do (IPhone developers for instance).

I made some assumptions about the AI chip and they were wrong. Article will hopefully prevent others from making the same assumptions.

Author here.

I strongly considered the 4090, at $500 more you get a lot more performance. (if you can find one). However it mostly came down to this:

1. I'd need a new power supply as well (need 4 PCIe Ports) 2. The power usage is drastically more (I care about this) 3. More heat and noise 4. I don't need the extra performance that much.

So yeah from a value perspective 4090 is a better bet for most people, but after careful consideration I went for the 4080. It's been fantastic so far.

If you're not using ChatGPT as a developer, soon you'll be outpaced by those who do.

This has been common practice for a long time. I worked for companies who did this in the 2000s. The majority of people will fall for it, and they certainly won't be viewing source on the website.

so if you're an Arch user, and a Vegan who does crossfit which one would you mention first?

Pop is my new favorite. I started using it at the urging of friends, and love it. I've written a couple reviews of it on my blog, as it's been my "daily driver" for my laptop for nearly a year.

I've been a Linux user since 1995/96, and a die hard Arch user for about 10 years. So why would I want a Linux distro that's super hands-off and easy to use?

It's incredibly stable. "Set it and forget it". If I want a bleeding edge version of software I can add it. It's performant, easy, and all my hardware works. It really just "stays out of my way" so I can get work done instead of tinkering. It's nice.

I still keep an Arch install around, but when I want to fire up a laptop and get to work without a single problem, Pop has been fantastic for it. I recommend it to new users, as well as old neckbeards like me.

At a previous organization I worked for they spent a LOT of money on Google ads. Same with Twitter and Facebook.

We noticed a lot of the traffic was junk. Fake clicks, from fake accounts. We ran extensive tests to determine the problem.

The conclusion: Just accept that most of the traffic is garbage and factor that in. The dashboards will tell you one thing, the truth is entirely separate. Actual click throughs from real people are far lower than what's reported.

Around 15-20% of traffic was "real". This organization was ok with paying 100% prices for 20% real traffic, which makes the cost per (real) click expensive but they were ok with it. Most small companies cannot adopt that thinking.

I don't know where the "fake" clicks come from but I suspect it's competitors trying to drive down your ad spend and reduce exposure. All of these companies have no interest in fixing the problem. Doing so would cost them money.

This is how all of my cards are. Can't cancel recurring payments unless it's fraud. They must issue a new card.

If there's hope for beating this dark pattern, it lies with banks/CC companies

Not in the least. But when someone (rightly) condemns 1/6 then throws out a veiled threat of violence to businesses who don't agree with him politically, the argument goes way out the window.

We need a lot less of "it's ok when WE do it" and a lot more "This is not ok for anyone".

Tribalism is destroying our country, and articles like this promote it.