Jul 30, 2023·edited Jul 30, 2023Liked by Thorsten Ball
Geocities baby! My favorite part of that era was Under Construction gifs. Because I didn't have a reason to have a website, but boy it was fun to build them. Thanks for this. I love nostalgia.
As a software engineer, my first instinct was of total denial: money should be able to "buy" better software. As it turns out, reflecting about it, we can think that what money "buys" in terms of quality might be not even visible to the user, so I can see your point now. The recent developments in AI and LLMs made this even more correct.
My only suggestion here is not to forget what a privilege it is to have access to computers and be well versed in technology. Many people are still excluded from it.
Then the other aspect I keep thinking of: you can play in the big leagues, with the best of the best, by sitting at home and programming even on a cheap computer -- can you do that as an architect? as a marketer? as a musician? as a writer? There's varying degrees of "you can do this at home" in various professions and I think software is at one end of the scale. Although there are things -- AI, LLMs, expensive GPUs, scale -- that I'm ignoring here, but I also don't think they change the fundamental thought that much.
Geocities baby! My favorite part of that era was Under Construction gifs. Because I didn't have a reason to have a website, but boy it was fun to build them. Thanks for this. I love nostalgia.
I like how you share the things you think about.
I also started a newsletter inspired by people like you.
Sometimes I also use the style of yours.
Keep up!
As a software engineer, my first instinct was of total denial: money should be able to "buy" better software. As it turns out, reflecting about it, we can think that what money "buys" in terms of quality might be not even visible to the user, so I can see your point now. The recent developments in AI and LLMs made this even more correct.
My only suggestion here is not to forget what a privilege it is to have access to computers and be well versed in technology. Many people are still excluded from it.
Yup, I agree with the instinct. What I wrote above could be 3 times as long, I imagine, because there's a lot of nuance.
This tweet thread goes into some of it, I think: https://twitter.com/trafnar/status/1570881763626602499
Then the other aspect I keep thinking of: you can play in the big leagues, with the best of the best, by sitting at home and programming even on a cheap computer -- can you do that as an architect? as a marketer? as a musician? as a writer? There's varying degrees of "you can do this at home" in various professions and I think software is at one end of the scale. Although there are things -- AI, LLMs, expensive GPUs, scale -- that I'm ignoring here, but I also don't think they change the fundamental thought that much.