From The Ooze: Learning Frontend and Biz
Who doesnāt like updates about why they havenāt updated? Itās something only a 2000ish amateur blogger would do. Even worse itās something a person would do who lapsed on the idea of publish, publish, publish. One of the motivations behind writing was seeing ideas out there that only a moment ago existed as a flash of my own neurons. With billions of people obviously the idea of having an original idea out there is 99.9999% fantasy. Fantasy a level only Musk would have the incredulity to pursue. But, Iāve convinced myself to have no shame in this; never minding the 20+ articles Iām sitting on that all have some facet of being too facetious or too angsty. But, I was getting my shameless experience in other ways.
Ping ponging. Iāve been in the ooze. Primordial ooze. For a few months now. Iām not exactly sure why, but lately in the last week or so have felt like Iām coming out of it with new appendages. For weeks, Iāve been being as open and inexperienced as I can possibly be. Iāve learned French in the process; faux pas. Itās kinda whatever. Trying ideas is nothing but cringe. So get over it. In this panopticon and expectation of expression we need flash mobs, shit that reminds us of the jank of human experience. One of the first things I told my students is learning is cringy. There is no way to not look like an idiot when learning something new; so drop the pretenses. Instead of looking solely at the shadows on the walls stare into the fire that projects them.
Iām teaching a college class. Kinda surprisingly, theyāll let nearly anyone teach kids. Itās been great. I try to give them the experience I would have liked as a student. So far, thereās a chat application, a āgameā called Fall. Iām basically taking the class with them. As It should be, thereās always things I could learn or work on alongside them. I keep telling them programming is building on simple concepts with increasingly more layers of the same ideas, just a different context or perspective. Why talk when you can demo? Teaching from a social and economic take, needs work people.
Apple supposedly has 62B cash on hand. I have to pay for my parking pass. Something isnāt right. Our values are misplaced, opinions too catered to, education too incentivized. Regardless, I still love it. And no matter, āthe moment I left college was the moment I wanted to go backā. At least at one time, it was a place where the weird nerds reign supreme and American meritocracy plays pretend. Ultimately, citizen science is where itās at https://zenodo.org. Gatekeepers only fence themselves. If Wikipedia and the internet has show anything itās that people anonymously or in fleshy meat space can make observations and share those in a way that contributes to human experience and progression. My hope is that AI assisted research becomes the norm and citizen science hasnāt been relegated to old play with radiation kits.
Thank you to the people who have taken time in the last few weeks to chat. I really appreciate it. Iāve been a fish seeing if I have legs. Or more appropriately living drunken baby style. Trying to put an idea out there is confusing for sure. Thereās lot of confessing to having no idea what youāre doing. But, youāre inventing. Some of the worst conversations are the best. You get calluses on your fishy legs by the end of it. Iām convinced more than ever AI is alchemy at heart. Something to tread carefully with. Even the smartest Newtons among us have succumbed to it. Things seem plausible and that remaining 99% requires incantations. I just hope the megacorps can let up on the vision of replacement. They donāt even have to be opaque about the froth. What Iād really to see is tech become playful again, more creative. You can move fast. I think those that know know. It should inspire. It should finally make you stop putting off front end and start to realize that HTML and Javascript are an insane means to create documents. Iāve never been more confused at times than trying to get a page to do something interesting. Streaming events is cool though. Whatās even cooler, talking to product, marketers, recruiters, randoms, researchers, check writers and show them pictures of platypuses. Why, because you have an idea and vision you want to pursue.
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Did I scare you?
Happy Halloween