Programming insights to Storytelling, it's all here.
Companies are struggling to find developers. It's one of these things you are not sure if people are saying this to brag or they are genuinely having a problem. I ask because on the other side, developers are also having a hard time getting hired. Junior developers say no one wants to hire juniors because all jobs require many years of experience. Experienced developers say they can't get jobs quick enough because companies don't want to pay a lot for experienced programmers.
Everyone and their grandma will be able to drag and drop a few functions with fun emoticons to create fully functional applications. This is not the future, it is happening right now. But the underlying technology will become so big and complex that no one person will understand the whole of it.
I've bought multiple phone cases over the past 10 years. For each case I bought, I was a satisfied customer. Yet after doing some digging I realized that I have never bought twice from the same vendor. "Why not?" You might ask. Because I bought them on Amazon.
It's hard for me to talk about user privacy on this blog when I have Google Analytics measuring everything you do on the website. I've tried to move away from it in the past and use the self-hosted open-source alternative but it quickly failed. When I received a burst of traffic, the server on which it was hosted crashed. I'm still looking for a self-hosted solution but in the meanwhile, I will do what I can to limit tracking by respecting users that specifically ask not to be tracked.
Recently I was reading an article that stated that human conversation is limited to a maximum of 4 people. Add more people to the group and they slowly break into smaller groups.
The ultimate experience on YouTube is to have you watch an infinite amount of videos. If you ask Susan Wojcicki (YouTube's CEO), if her goal is to have the maximum number of people glued to the YouTube app in perpetuity, of course her answer will be no, and she will not be lying. We all know that spending an excessive amount of time in front of a screen is not a healthy behavior. But the fact is, this is exactly what the algorithm that serves you your next video is trying to do. And if it succeeds in doing it's job, you will watch videos in perpetuity.
If anything is clear since I wrote the last article about the machine firing me, it's that most people wanted to read more. They cruised my blog, trying to find more to read but I seldom tell stories. Instead I talk about JavaScript, CDNs, and PHP. Things that are more practical then interesting. It seems accidental that I even wrote a story this time, but it's not. I have been working on story like format with more failures than successes.
During the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), I spend most of the day on YouTube looking for new game trailers. It's exciting to watch upcoming games and the cool new graphics. Yes, I am a sucker for graphics. I also like to watch these videos in the highest quality possible and hopefully without any ads. Trailers are already ads so I would like to watch my ads without pre-rolling ads please.
I have spent an unhealthy amount of time in front of a device scrolling and scrolling. Every second there is more content to consume. There is a funny video, a meme, a political rant, an inspiring quote, a funny video, a meme, a political rant, an inspiring quote and it goes on and on in a loop. From time to time I break the loop and turn to a long interesting article that tickles my intellect. I read and feel smarter. Then I look for another article to give me more of that same substance, but I can't get more.
"Can I have some chewing gum?" I asked. "Perdon?" she answered. "Chewing gum" I repeated. She looked at me confused. I was giving up but she was still looking at me, as if she was trying to make the effort to understand me.
