Is someone hiding in plain sight? Who made that last commit? Why am I programming in Go?! — Is someone hiding in plain sight? Who made that last commit? Why am I programming in Go?! You’ll meet many different kinds of people in the grand game of software engineering, many of them will be pleasant, some of them will be pretty unpleasant, and a minority of them just…

Interview busywork at its very best. — Interview busywork at its very best. Many companies often invite a leaving employee to what they, somewhat darkly, refer to as an ‘exit’ interview during their notice period. This is often framed as a way in which the company in question can learn how to improve itself, internally, from its…

An inevitable consequence of feeding frenzies in the modern world. — An inevitable consequence of feeding frenzies in the modern world. The modern world is often trumpeted to be all about innovation, about finding solutions to real and meaningful problems — yet it’s becoming more and more commonplace that those novel solutions tend to accelerate toward a self-defeating feeding frenzy that…

The answer is, of course, yes — but it’s the very people who should be encouraging them that are standing in the way. — The answer is, of course, yes — but it’s the very people who should be encouraging them that are standing in the way. A short missive complaining about what I see as profiteering in the EV charging sector through incompatible system and excessive charges (no pun intended) — something that…

Why are initiatives to improve my wellbeing all taking place on my time? — Why are initiatives to improve my wellbeing all taking place on my time? It’s no secret that a great number of incentives are used in order for management, and increasingly HR, to subtly, and psychologically, control the technical worker drones under their notional command. Whether it’s the offering of the…

5 Simple suggestions to help you succeed at interview, after a bit of the usual comedy preamble, naturally. — 5 Simple suggestions to help you succeed at interview, after a bit of the usual comedy preamble, naturally. A Broken System It’s no secret that’s I’m no fan of coding tests during the interview process, nor is it that I’m entirely unimpressed with pretty much the entirely of the software engineering interviewing pipeline…

What possible technological advance could free us from imprisonment in a whole multiverse simulation? — What possible technological advance could free us from imprisonment in a whole multiverse simulation? It is a possibility that the universe around us, and most likely around it, is a very comprehensive, detailed, and complex simulation that requires quite a lot of high performance cores, memory, and energy to run¹.

To avoid being neck deep, or worse, in paperclips should we be focussing on emulating humanity as well? — To avoid being neck deep, or worse, in paperclips should we be focussing on emulating humanity as well? One of the primary issues consistently discussed up when considering the emergence of an artificial intelligence (AI) concerns its reward function and how the system goes about maximising it.