I was listening to NPR a few days ago and they were talking – in the context of Jimmy Carter’s passing – about the global community having to grapple with two different sides of the United States. The side that is incredibly generous and has contributed an enormous amount to the welfare of people throughout the world and the side that is a basically a bully that uses it’s vast power and influence as a means to further it’s own selfish interests.

Both of those things can certainly be true. The US has contributed a lot of positive things to the global community and at the same time, the US is effectively the most powerful and sophisticated empire in human history. Empires cannot maintain their power without oppression. Over the last 249 years, we have created some truly horrific disasters, at home and abroad, in the name of acquiring and maintaining power. That deserves criticism no matter who’s doing it.

There are a few things you can do that will help make everyone’s life easier.

First thing, ask engineering what can be done to reduce technical debt and then fight for it aggressively. This is often a hard sell to the product owners at first because it can increase the time it takes to produce new features, at least initially. In the long term, it will pay huge dividends to everyone involved.

When tech debt gets ignored on a new project, the timeline usually goes something like this:

• Project is barreling toward MVP at lightening speed. The Product owner said “move fast, break things” and engineering is delivering based on that mindset and everything seems to be going great.

• MVP is almost ready but uh oh! Now a new feature has been requested.

• “Move fast, break things” doesn’t allow time for code that is easily understandable or extendable to fit new use case scenarios so a huge chunk of the codebase has to be rewritten to accommodate the new feature.

• Wash, rinse, repeat.

Without a major change in design philosophy, the cycle tends to get worse over time with small features requiring more and more extensive refactoring and the number of regression bugs skyrocketing. Not to mention the code base is now a disorganized, smoldering pile of spaghetti that every dev loathes having to work on. Stakeholders are unhappy. Customers are unhappy. Engineers are unhappy. Everyone is unhappy.

Second thing, talk to some actual users, people who are NOT involved in the project, to get their feedback. As an engineer, I like working on projects that add value to someone’s life, or at least make their work day easier. I want the user experience to be positive. I want the features I’m working on to enhance that experience. I don’t want to waste my time working on features that are completely useless and will be rejected by the users as such just because some VP who doesn’t understand what the users want has a bright idea. I’ve experienced this a lot throughout my career and to some degree it’s curbed my interest in software engineering, simply because I feel like a lot of my time and effort were wasted on projects or features that were DOA.

I remember reading those books as a kid. They were pretty interesting if I remember correctly.

I will now proceed to spend the next three hours reciting a sample of the vast amount of useless information I have absorbed from Wikipedia.

I think you’ve got the right idea. Sears Roebuck built the building but it’s not about the company, which doesn’t exist anymore anyway. It’s an iconic Chicago landmark, a marvel of modern engineering, and one of the most recognizable buildings in the world. Just as impressive today as it was when it opened 52 years ago. Building naming rights change hands all the time but virtually none of them carry the history or status of Sears Tower.

On one hand, a name is just a name. On the other, a name can carry a lot of connotations. We live in a capitalistic society where even the moniker on a building has a price tag and skyscrapers are “disposable” if you have enough money. I think there’s some collective resentment to the idea that decades of history and “tradition” can be erased by writing a big enough check. Not to mention the fact that people don’t like change, in spite of the fact that everything around us is changing constantly. I suppose resentment over renaming such a well known landmark is easy for us to collectively resist as kind of a catharsis.

I came here specifically to comment this. Not even a Chicagoan but it will always be Sears Tower. I don’t give a shit who owns the naming rights.

The smallest dog yips the loudest.

You need to get yourself to the doctor where you can have a very honest discussion about how your feeling. Don’t worry about fixing everything right now. Just focus on this one thing. Different anti-depressants affect different people differently. They also take time, sometimes up to a couple weeks, to get dialed in. My psych put me in Vilozodone this past summer and it was a good three weeks before things started evening out. I’ve felt pretty good since then.

After you get on a good med regimen, focus on self care. What do/did you like to do for fun? I’ve spent a lot of time playing golf and fishing whenever I need a break but that’s what I like to do.

Depression is rough, man. It can drag you down like an anchor and make it feel like you can’t keep your head above the surface. It sucks the joy out of every part of you life. Start fighting and winning this battle and you’ll find that the other ones become easier.

False. The guy is way too skinny.

Source: Am overweight American.

Gravette, Arkansas, 20 minutes from my house, is a Hezbollah stronghold. Amazing. Who knew.

“Nuking Hurricanes” is way more interesting than “inflation.”

Makes total sense to me.

I bet you’re right. That’s one promise that I’m sure he would like to have forgotten as quickly as possible.

If it were any other US president it would certainly be newsworthy and incredibly alarming. But old Don, as we all know, is completely full of shit and just says things A.) because he’s a fucking idiot and B.) to distract from what he’s actually up to.

I’m not seeing the downside here.

He also had a drivers license. Basically state sponsored terrorism.

Y’all aren’t gonna believe this but the guy used electricity in various ways while planning the attack.

My wife and I always get a kick out of it when sports commentators say things that are just stupidly obvious. I think the best one so far was “if you want to win you gotta win.”

I think that was Joe Buck during a Jets game but I’m not positive.

I remember when Emma Watson turned 18, and there were websites that counted down to it. Same for Lindsay Lohan. It was so creepy, and also weirdly presented as ‘normal dude behavior’ back in the aughts. I’m glad that’s no longer acceptable. It always gave me the ick.

I’m with you there. Anyone who looks at a person and thinks “I can’t wait until they’re 18 and legally fuckable” needs to go spend some time seriously re-examining their life choices.

Younglings, if you’re reading this, rest assured, you look great, and I’m just an old twisted weirdo with specific tastes.

This is great btw. There are some awesome things that come with getting older. Maybe not hair loss or joint pain. Or the decline of your metabolism that happens in your early 20’s when you’ve finished growing.

You’re gonna lose the “cool” factor. You will. It’s inevitable. But you won’t care. I’m 35. I like myself now. I don’t give a shit what other people think of me and 99.9% of the time they’re not thinking about me at all. My 30’s have been my favorite decade so far. I would have thought you were crazy if you told 16 year old me that was gonna happen.

Looking forward to reliving the circumstances that led to the formation of the FDA. That’s gonna be fun times. /s