Hey everyone!
My current gig might be wrapping up soon, so it’s time for me to figure out what’s next.
If you or someone you know could use some help with software tools or systems — architecture, implementation, deployment, operations, data pipelines, CD, DX, etc — maybe get in touch? I’ve been doing this a while and I’m pretty flexible.
I’m open to short-term or long-term, part-time or full-time. I’m US-based (NYC area) and a US citizen.
General CV: http://aviflax.com/resume/
Energy-specific CV: http://aviflax.com/resume/energy/
Thanks in advance!
Why is the biggest TV ratings star in sports getting paid about the same as an office manager in a moderately successful company?
When I started making websites, “a designer who codes” wasn’t a big deal. After all, the only place to procure the obscure people who made websites was Craigslist. Finding “a designer who codes” seemed like the least odd thing you’d find.
The web was so new you’d always have the strangest concoction of disciplines amongst those who worked on it — an english major doing product, an actor writing API code, or a poet who moving pixels. I encountered all these and it wasn’t strange, it was _cool_
Hey everyone!
My current gig might be wrapping up soon, so it’s time for me to figure out what’s next.
If you or someone you know could use some help with software tools or systems — architecture, implementation, deployment, operations, data pipelines, CD, DX, etc — maybe get in touch? I’ve been doing this a while and I’m pretty flexible.
I’m open to short-term or long-term, part-time or full-time. I’m US-based (NYC area) and a US citizen.
General CV: http://aviflax.com/resume/
Energy-specific CV: http://aviflax.com/resume/energy/
Thanks in advance!
Fascinating video essay about a groundbreaking comics writer in Argentina in the mid 20th century. Hector German Oesterheld. Creator of Mort Cinder and the Eternaut.
Amazon just sent me a “your review is live” email for a review I submitted EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO.
All those rock star engineers, doing their rock star thing. 🤘
—Dad can we go to the Eclipse?
—No, we have Eclipse at home
At home:
On the most recent episode of the Batteries Included podcast (about electric vehicles) one of the hosts, Martyn Lee (also the host of the excellent EV News Daily) described a recent article about a survey showing that Tesla has a plummeting “consideration score” with potential customers, which is related to its CEO.
They Martyn asked listeners to comment on whether this matters to them.
My response:
WRT Tesla and Musk: I currently own 2 Teslas and I’ve owned a total of 4. Unless things change, these will be my last. They’re great products but I can’t support a company headed by someone so toxic who is stoking conflict and animosity. I used to be proud to drive my Teslas around but no longer.
I would love to see Tesla find a new CEO, sooner rather than later. (And not a figurehead as in X.) Until then I’m done with Tesla.
Fantastic, phenomenal, cogent, inspiring podcast interview:
Why Climate Change Isn’t the End of the World with Dr. Hannah Ritchie
(Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at Our World in Data)
low-traffic neighborhoods (limiting car access to allow more bicycles & pedestrians) yield health benefits estimated at 100x cost to build https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/08/health-gains-of-low-traffic-schemes-up-to-100-times-greater-than-costs-study-finds
via @cassidoo
"In 2022, cars killed 7,508 pedestrians, the equivalent of 18 fully-loaded Boeing 747s crashing with zero survivors. That means a pedestrian died roughly every 70 minutes, with no breaks in the tide of fatalities for weekends or holidays."
https://www.motor1.com/features/713936/pedestrian-deaths-emergency/
I was delighted recently to see this fantastic video essay about Wendy and Richard Pini, the creators of my all-time favorite comic book series, ElfQuest.
I knew in the abstract that they must have worked very hard to get the series out into the world, initially by self-publishing, but I wasn’t aware of all the trials and setbacks they faced and the intense dedication they had to their story and their art which helped them persevere — nor the massive impact they had on the comics industry along the way.
I came away with a renewed appreciation for the Pini’s and their work.
It’s also impressively well-made for such a young channel. Goes in depth and is well paced. Great editing.
Cool cargo e-bike at a local commuter rail station!
Looks like a Yuba Spicy Curry. I think they make a gravel-ready version of this too.
Proposal: We measure how good we are at being citizens of Earth by how we deal with our "rubbish". Do we consider it a valuable resource to be reused (mature approach, based on understanding planetary cycles), or do we just push it off to Away (childish denial). Current score: Could Do Better...
It’s wild to imagine going back in time say 30 years and telling my 16-year-old self that I was just sitting in a café and literally every person in there was using a portable computer.
I was driving somewhere just now and on a whim stopped by an EVGo station for a quick charge. I didn’t really need it but I thought I’d do a spot check on the reliability of their network. I’d been to this station once before and it hadn’t been a smooth experience.
This time I found I’d parked at a stall with a dead screen, so I plugged in the next stall over, since that screen was on. I’ve set up EVGo’s proprietary “autocharge” feature so it should have just started charging. But of course it didn’t. So with a sigh I opened up their app.
At first the app couldn’t find the station. That was fun. Eventually it did, and I saw this: ¾ of the stalls are offline, and the 1 working stall is in use.
These 3 stalls appear to have been offline for multiple days. EVGo has totally dropped the ball here.
My kid (11) is having braces installed and it turns out that neither of the dental plans I have for her will cover a single cent of the $7,000 cost.
I’m sick and tired of our shitty health care “system” here in the USA. I want to live in a society whose members take care of each other.
The new season of Extraordinary is hilarious so far. I have giggled twice and guffawed 1½ times in just the first episode.
This is useful:
“The industry paroxysm around AI feels like it’s all new, and exciting, and a little threatening, but I think that when you really dig into it, you’ll see that it’s an acceleration and intensification of things that we have already had, just faster and louder. It feels like a revolution because it’s widely available, not because it’s all that novel. It may change the world, but lots of things change the world, and the impact of the changes is determined by society, not the technology.”
from “How long has this been going on?” by Heidi Waterhouse
https://heidiwaterhouse.com/how-long-has-this-been-going-on/
I saw three Kia EV9s on the road today so far! Great stuff.
"Information Management: A Proposal" by Tim Berners-Lee, 12 March 1989 — https://www.w3.org/blog/2024/from-a-humble-beginning-35-years-ago-the-web-is-now-central-to-the-daily-lives-of-billions/