RIP to a real one.

The Soul of a New Machine may be the best technology book written, but House was a beautifully-crafted and deeply humanist book. Funny too!

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/books/tracy-kidder-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.V1A.Q-jg.JJqQwhmKtnD2&smid=nytcore-ios-share

It's clear that AI assisted coding is dividing developers (welcome to the culture wars!). I've seen a few blog posts now that talk about how some people just "love the craft", "delight in making something just right, like knitting", etc, as opposed to people who just "want to make it work". As if that explains the divide.

How about this, some people resent the notion of being a babysitter to a stochastic token machine, hastening their own cognitive decline. Some people resent paying rent to a handful of US companies, all coming directly out of the TESCREAL human extinction cult, to be able to write software. Some people resent the "worse is better" steady decline of software quality over the past two decades, now supercharged. Some people resent that the hegemonic computing ecosystem is entirely shaped by the logic of venture capital. Some people hate that the digital commons is walled off and sold back to us. Oh and I guess some people also don't like the thought of making coding several orders of magnitude more energy intensive during a climate emergency.

But sure, no, it's really because we mourn the loss of our hobby.

This isn't your normal "looking for work" post.

I've decided to shut my business and do more volunteer / community work.

If you know of an organisation which could use a board member with strong digital skills, extensive experience in open source and open standards, or cybersecurity please let me know.

Nothing full time. Personal recommendations preferred. Feel free to share.

Happy 45th Birthday to the Sinclair ZX81!

Release Date: March 5, 1981