I write code for Humans & text for Robots
Are you Human?
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There’s a scene in The Naked Gun where Frank Drebin stumbles through a hospital, unknowingly disconnecting a patient’s oxygen to plug in a popcorn maker. What makes it work isn’t just the gag. It’s the surgical precision behind the chaos. Every pratfall was storyboarded. Every prop was measured. The joke only lands because its creators treated lunacy like a science.
There are few people that influenced me like no other on the web. When I discovered Joel Spolsky, I read a couple posts, then went back in time and started reading his blog chronologically. There was 8 years worth of material for me to go through. I clicked on links and discovered Jeff Atwood along the way. Here again, I read the blog chronologically. Today, we get one post a year from them if we’re lucky. But then again, the world has moved away from blogs.
The main problem with hype is that it keeps us from appreciating what we already have. It’s always about the next big thing. Something revolutionary just over the horizon. But while we’re busy chasing the future, we overlook the real progress happening right under our noses.
As a software engineer, my favorite part of any project is when I finally get to write code. Creating a new project, setting up the folder structure, installing dependencies—it’s like opening a fresh notebook on the first day of school. Even encountering bugs and fixing them feels like solving a puzzle. If planning the project is talking the talk, building a prototype is walking the walk.
The barrier of entry for owning a website is lower than ever. For the price of a Starbucks coffee, you can rent a server and host whatever you want online. Yet it’s surprising how many developers shy away from building their own sites. They often fixate on replicating the enterprise-grade tech stacks they use at work, Kubernetes clusters, CI/CD pipelines, cloud orchestration, and dismiss personal projects as unrealistic. But sometimes, the most successful websites aren’t built by rule-followers. They’re built by people like Ron.
The moment I laughed, I knew I blew it. I was not going to pass this job interview. Not because I couldn’t answer the question, but because the interviewer sneered while asking about my experience with Silverlight, Microsoft’s long-dead answer to Flash. He warned me to “expect lower pay” due to my lack of expertise.
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It was 7am when my phone rang. Instead of an alarm, it was my recruiter disturbing me from a pleasant dream. It was too early for a phone call or to be caught off guard, so I did not answer. I went to take a shower and get ready for the day. On my way to work, I listened to the voice mail she had left.
As a Linux user, I can't help but spend most of my time on the command line. Not that the GUI is not efficient, but there are things that are simply faster to do with the keyboard.
Not too long ago, I made a living working as a contractor where I would hop from project to project. Some were short term where I would work for a week and quickly deliver my service. Others lasted a couple months where I would make enough money to take some time off. I preferred the short ones because they allowed me to charge a much higher rate for a quick job. Not only I felt like my own boss, but I also felt like I didn't have to work too hard to make a decent living. My highest rates were still reasonable, and I always delivered high quality service. That was until I landed a gig with a large company.
a book by Ibrahim Diallo
After the explosive reception of my story, The Machine Fired Me, I set out to write a book to tell the before and after.
I started as a minimum wage laborer in Los Angeles and I set out to reach the top of the echelon in Silicon Valley. Every time I made a step forward, I was greeted with the harsh changing reality of the modern work space.
Getting fired is no longer reserved to those who mess up. Instead, it's a popular company strategy to decrease expenses and increase productivity.
Every little corner has a story. Sometimes a camera tells the story and a picture is worth a thousand words.
There are professional photographers and then there is me who happens to have a camera on my phone. Here's to what came out.
