Categories
Business Humor

The eternal dance of the independent contractor

“The eternal dance of the independent contractor:” a painting from an old western paperback featuring two cowboys having a “High Noon” style showdown.

One cowboy says “What’s your rate?” and in response, the other says “What’s your budget?”

It’s funny because it’s true.

Categories
Humor Programming

What was your first debugger?

Mine isn’t even on this graphic! It was PRINT from good ol’ all-caps Microsoft BASIC with line numbers, which used to come built-in to what used to be called “home computers.”

Categories
Career Humor

The best one-on-one meeting story ever (or: Blind is WEIRD, man.)

I don’t care if it’s not real. I want it to be real!

I found the above post not on LinkedIn, but on Blind, the anonymous discussion board app for white-collar workers. Think of LinkedIn, but make it anonymous, angry, toxic, and total-compensation-obsessed.

The Blind app will kill your soul if you use it too often. It’s an ugly agglomeration of late-stage capitalist cynicism, career despair, envy-inducing discussions of total compensation, and occasionally a place for sexually frustrated tech bros to vent.

But like that lemonade they’ve been serving at Panera, while it’s toxic if you consume the full serving, Blind is useful for keeping you awake and aware if you keep your dosage small. As nasty as its content can get, if you:

  • Really want to get a sense of what’s going on in the business world,
  • Get the inside scoop on what it’s like inside a given company, or
  • Read some really unhinged stuff for poops and giggles…

…then you should download Blind and peruse it — very occasionally.

Here’s the text of the post:

Had an in-person 1-1 with my boss today. Was dreading this bc I hadn’t completed a task that was supposed to be done by the 1-1. —————————————————————-

I burst out in tears, and then boss comes over and gives me masculine pats on my shoulder. I don’t know why but I felt compelled to give him a hug, and HE RECIPROCATED!! Very warmly, in fact. We became locked in a double-man bear embrace, lol. Seems straight out of a bad tv drama, but it’s reality. We’re both guys too. (btw he’s really tall and muscular and manly)

He starts caressing my hair and rubbing the skin on my face, and at that moment, I felt something I’ve never had for any of my previous bosses. I’m in my early 30s; he’s in his late 30s, so age-wise, we’re not that far apart.

After about 5 minutes of being locked in this bear embrace, we both stand up and separate. He looks at me with a tenderness I’ve never seen before in his eyes.There was a spark

At that moment, I knew that everything was gonna be alright.

Categories
Artificial Intelligence Humor Reading Material

The best damned intro to a book on machine learning ever…

…appears in Vasily “vas3k” Zubarev’s Machine Learning for Everyone, which begins with:

Machine Learning is like sex in high school. Everyone is talking about it, a few know what to do, and only your teacher is doing it.

Categories
Career Humor

What researching a company on the “Blind” app feels like

“Noodles, this was Mr. Whiskers, our previous cat. Mr. Whiskers was very bad.
You’re a GOOD cat, aren’t you, Noodles?”

While you do your job search, you may want to get a sense of what it’s really like at a given company by looking them up in the Blind app. It’s not a bad idea, but remember that Blind’s users tend towards negativity. A lot of negativity.

As I wrote in an earlier post:

The Blind app will kill your soul if you use it too often. It’s an ugly agglomeration of late-stage capitalist cynicism, career despair, envy-inducing discussions of total compensation, and occasionally a place for sexually frustrated tech bros to vent.

But like that lemonade they’ve been serving at Panera, while it’s toxic if you consume the full serving, Blind is useful for keeping you awake and aware if you keep your dosage small. As nasty as its content can get, if you really want to get a sense of what’s going on in the business world or get the inside scoop on what it’s like inside a given company, you should download Blind and peruse it occasionally.

Categories
Career Humor

Laid off in 2024, part 17: The only social network that matters

Tuesday’s Facebook outage didn’t bother me in the slightest — in fact, I hadn’t visited it for most of that day. However, as someone who’s been recently laid off and looking for their next gig and as the force behind Tampa Bay’s tech blog, I most certainly was concerned by LinkedIn’s outage.

Also in this series…

Categories
Artificial Intelligence Humor

When you ask ChatGPT for a word that begins with “i”

Screenshot of ChatGPT conversation:

Me: I need a word that begins with "i" that is a synonym for speech or presentation

ChatGPT: A word that begins with "i" and is a synonym for speech or presentation is "address."

Me: "Address" doesn't begin with "i."

ChatGPT: Apologies for the oversight. A word that begins with "i" and is a synonym for speech or presentation is "oration."

Me: That doesn't begin with "i" either.

ChatGPT: You're right, my apologies for the oversight. A word that begins with "i" and is a synonym for speech or presentation is "interlocution."

Me: There you go. Nicely done.

Here’s your daily reminder that large language models don’t actually “understand” the world — at least not in the same way that we do. They’re stochastic parrots.