The blog home of Jeff Putz

Yes, I've devolved into writing listicles. Regardless, these thoughts and themes have been running rampant in my brain, and this will help purge them. So indulge me, for a moment.

The pros...

5: Release from syntax burdens. This is a huge win. I prefer C#, and with the changes that come every year, I don't always know what the most elegant way to write something is. Also, I often forget how to use delegates and events, but the machine can get it right the first time.

4: Import expertise that you don't have. First time needing to use that library, or even that language? The AI's got you covered. It even works figuring out build YAML and such.

3: Pairing partner that works for cheap. Pairing interactions go pretty well, you just have to keep prompting it to get where you know it has to be. It's like working with a junior developer, driving at the keyboard while you discuss things.

2: No documentation hunting. There's always a library or framework that has some feature that I don't understand. Now I don't have to go find the docs, I can just ask the robot.

1: Types faster than you can. This is especially true when you're working on something solo, and not on a team or in an enterprise. You know what good looks like, and you can describe it, go get an energy drink, and come back to exactly what you wanted.

The cons...

5: You have to trust and verify. I don't think this avoidable. You have to check the robot's work to make sure it isn't doing things that are security risks, or performance issues-in-waiting.

4: Coding isn't your biggest problem in the first place. I've been harping on this for weeks. It can generate code fast, yes, but coding by many estimates is 10-20% of the time spent in product development. The creativity and product requirements are the genesis of innovation. AI can't do that.

3: Trained on crappy code. Let's be realistic, most code in the wild isn't great, and that's what the robots trained on. So it's unsurprising when the machine comes up with some ugly code smells, like a nullable boolean. Why does it believe that a boolean with three states is a good idea?

2: Overconfidence. While this is better than it was a year ago, I'm surprised when it generates something that won't even build. When you tell it what to fix, it high fives you and congratulates you on being right. But it was so sure in the first place! Now put this in the hands of vibers, like lawyers or product managers, who don't know what to look for, and you've got trouble.

1: AI lacks context. It doesn't know what it doesn't know. For example, if a user should match the owner of a record fetched by an API, it doesn't know to check that unless you tell it to. Looping back to #4, so much time is spent describing the outcomes that you're after, whether you're a human developer or a machine.

Again, it's a fantastic tool that makes the work better, definitely more fun, but the hype is completely overblown. Software engineers enthusiastically love it, as they should, but a lot of leaders keep making benefit claims that aren't backed up by deep, peer-reviewed studies. Our time as leaders would be better spent figuring out how best to use this magical thing in a way that keeps advocating for better developers, because they're not going to be replaced. The anecdotes produced are usually special cases that don't reflect real-world development in the enterprise. As a reminder, that's typically aging code bases written by people who moved on years ago and left little to no documentation. AI can't supernaturally acquire the context that humans can't.

Let's stop treating the tool like a panacea, and work on figuring out how best to leverage it in real situations.

People thought my recent post about AI was simultaneously taking a fanboy position, as well as a poopy-pants skeptic position. So let me reiterate what I really meant: I think that it's a fantastic tool for developers, but coding was never the bottleneck in shipping software. Folks immediately jumped in to say "I get 10x productivity" as well as "It's all overstated." I was saying that the impact to the business was not what you think.

A retired business leader that I greatly admire (theme park nerds know) recently said that, "If you are in the hospitality business remember some meetings are more important than others," above an AI cartoon photo of him meeting kids at a theme park. Obviously he was pointing out that we need reminders that the things that influence and move the needle for the business are often not the things that we think. That's where I meant to go with that AI post.

While I continue to call for better data about AI impact on coding in a business context, instead of a developer context (hammer/nail problem), I'll offer my anecdote. Right before people really got into agentic coding, my most recent team shipped a great service, in production, in about two weeks. Sure, we were doing a gradual rollout, but we got to that point by ruthlessly limiting scope, challenging assumptions and getting to the core of the problem that we were trying to solve. Productivity was increased by those means. Two weeks later, user feedback suggested that we got it very wrong (by we, I mean my engineering team and product team). That was totally OK though, we pivoted and did something that delivered a ton of value. Over the next year we tweaked performance and observability, and discovered a bunch of edge cases that we had to account for.

Going back to that first iteration though, two weeks was a huge win. I was so proud of the team. We got it wrong, but our process of shipping and then adapting was so fast. The truth is that agentic coding would not have changed that outcome. Coding was never the bottleneck. Making a product, and innovating, requires user feedback and human judgment and wisdom. The robots can't do that yet, if they ever can.

Software engineering is so much more than coding. Product development is so much more than coding. If you want to eke out productivity gains, sure, AI tooling will help, but the bigger wins will always come from the process that includes your stakeholders, users and product partners. We can't frame productivity in coding alone. We must frame it in terms of outcomes and the overall process.

From a LinkedIn post I made...

My AI post yesterday blew up, in no small part because some folks didn't like what I had to say, or at least, didn't agree with it. That's cool, I enjoy some spirited debates. I stand by my statement that there isn't serious academic research about efficiencies gained, and no one really provided any. AI is very exciting, and a game changer, absolutely, but I don't think it's in the ways people claim. To be continued, certainly.

What I find fascinating about the discussion is how so many people are confident that their position is correct. Everyone has "AI" in their LinkedIn title (some funnier than others, wink), but who is really an expert? Two years ago, it was largely a novelty, according to surveys, and now everyone uses but doesn't entirely trust it, in the same surveys. Expertise, to me, means you've been doing something for many years, and as such, AI is the new blockchain. Remember when everyone had that in their profile title?

Putting aside AI for the moment, and seeing as how this is a social network for professional development and employment, I think it's important to consider how you present yourself. While expressing confidence and demonstrating knowledge is essential, it's equally important to show curiosity and humility. It's the difference between being curious and being an alpha dev.

A lack of curiosity, or even a sense of wonder, is to me an essential part of maturing, at any age. Culturally and politically, it seems like a lot of people lack curiosity, and that hasn't been good for society. A Google search combined with selection bias is not curiosity. It's certainly not critical thinking. When we double-down with certainty in the face of new information (or avoid the information entirely), we cease to be curious.

In software engineering terms, this manifests itself as the classic alpha dev. For these folks, it's not just important to be right, it's important to assert your correctness over others, and maybe even belittle them. Nobody likes those people, and we've all worked with them.

I admit that I can fall into this pattern, to an extent, but where I hope that I'm different is that I'm arguing for nuance. I am immediately skeptical of anyone who believes that they have The One Right Thing in any situation. People, companies, circumstances are different. Leadership involves understanding the nuance and tailoring the process to the scenario. One size rarely fits all.

So be curious, consider new information, and above all, leave room for nuance. To achieve the outcomes that you're after, be ready to accept that you may have been after the wrong outcomes.

I spent some time making AI write code for me today. I ran out of usage credits at one point, but they reset at 6 p.m. Where I find it works really well is when you build a few features in layers, showing what your conventions are in terms of structure. Once you have that, you can refer to those conventions, or codify them in your CLAUDE file, and then ask it to take bigger swings. On those big swings that take a few minutes, I lose though, because my ADHD can't take those sorts of breaks. I'll figure that out, hopefully.

All of this productivity happens because it's greenfield work. If I had to throw it at some of the monolithic nonsense I've encountered at various jobs, it would be less useful. Or at least, you would spend more time verifying things and writing tests (if that's even possible) instead of typing, which honestly is also good if you're trying to understand what it's doing. But everyone on LinkedIn is selling some reason that AI makes people "10x" or whatever, though they have only anecdotes to "prove" it. There hasn't been a lot of significant academic study about it, but what there has been tracks no to negative movement in productivity. Of course the folks selling something (or themselves) will tell you that you're doing it wrong. And hey, I've got another popular post about it. Tech bros don't like to be challenged.

Every time that I sit down and work with the robot, I'm still amazed, because it's like magic. Since I don't code for work, and it's more in streaks with my own projects, I tend to forget a lot about how a library or framework works. The machine is great at reminding me, explaining stuff and especially getting into things way outside of my knowledge.

AI will help people write better code, for sure, and somewhat faster, as folks understand how to direct it. In that latest LinkedIn post though, I point out that the coding part is relatively small in terms of what a developer does all day. It's not the force multiplier that people make it out to be. Or at least, there isn't data to support that claim.

There's a company out there, that I'm not even going to name, that scans the Internet looking for images that their clients claim a copyright on. When they find them, they send messages to the site owner and demand money from them. This is technically legal, even though it borders on extortion and harassment. A lot of people pay the money.

I'm not one of those people though. I got two such messages today, regarding forum posts. As any idiot with a web site knows, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, for all of its flaws, has a safe harbor provision for site operators that host user-generated content. So I essentially told them to go fuck themselves and read the law, in which case they indicated that the messages were automated, sorry, our bad.

They're a known copyright troll, and they do sometimes bend legal ethics and send lawyers after people. That would be a real waste of time for my LLC, because it doesn't have any money, even if the law was on their side.

Ugh, I'm generally pretty down on social media, and don't worry, it looks like spammers and algorithms are going to ruin the professional network in the long run too. But somehow, in the last month, I'm getting what the Internets consider "viral" attention, which is a pretty low bar for LinkedIn. I suspect my usage of it will practically stop if I can land a job, but for now, I don't mind the attention... if it helps.

At the four-week mark of non-employment, I've had a total of four leads, and various levels of discussion and interviews. One was a series of red flags that I politely declined further involvement, one was a good second interview that I was pretty excited about, but didn't get it, and two are still up in the air. What I have not done is blindly submit to jobs without knowing someone on the inside. I did this early last year, when I went through a brief period of wanting to do something else, and after 200-ish applications, it didn't go anywhere. So I'm sticking to what I can control. All of the above were initiated through my network. Two came to me, instead of me to them, through a contact.

A Google search says that "good" action on your posts starts around 1,000 views, or maybe 3,000, in some cases. Well, a post that I made late last year about QA is at 100,000 views, and counting. The follow-up is around 30,000. My post about getting booted from Facebook is over 35,000 so far. Just this month, my posts about getting RIF'd, what to do after getting RIF'd, and what to put on your resume, are all tracking for 20,000 so far. The rest made this month have been around 3,000 each, including one from yesterday that still has some momentum.

Apparently this isn't typical. Cool, but what do I win? I've had hundreds of profile views, some categorized as blurry-icon recruiters that I can learn the identities of if I pay for premium. It's hard to measure what the value of this is. I don't have a new job yet, so I'm not sure that it's particularly useful. But again, when I compare to my effort last year, I've had 100% more interview action than before, which was none.

What's already exhausting is that everyone has a hot take about AI that isn't rooted in any data or study. And yes, coding with AI agents is way more fun and takes a lot of the tediousness out of it, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't still require your expertise. I have more opinions on that, but I guess that'll be a future post. Maybe it'll get 100k views, too.

I imagine that one of the most jarring things about getting laid-off is that you no longer get up in the morning for the same reasons. Your "job" becomes looking for a job, with all of the rejection and judgment that seems to come with it. I'm sure that none of that is particularly good for your mental health.

Still, it's not unreasonable that we derive some amount of our identity from what we do. That makes sense, since we spend 40 of our waking hours doing the thing. There are at least two variables that I can think of that influence the level to which we identify with our work. The first is tenure, or how long we've worked at a particular place. That's certainly what I struggle with right now, because four years is a long time to spend with folks (why four years is "long" in tech deserves its own discussion). The other thing is the outcomes that we associate with the work. For makers, especially artists, this can totally throw the identity balance out of whack. If you're an actor, stage manager, musician, you're involved in things that deeply affect others.

Take all of that away, and suddenly you may find yourself lost during the day. That's OK. The outcomes may be thrilling, depending on what your line of work is, but really it's the people that make it special. As they say, when you're on deathbed, it won't be the work or the money that you remember, it'll be the people. To that end, especially if you're part of a large RIF, you have instant community. That's a good place to spend your time.

Something my therapists asks is, "If you could be doing anything right now, what would it be?" The truth is I don't know, and that's scary. My best shot is to continue doing the kind of work I did, as an engineering leader, but could I (or should I) be doing something else? Don't afraid to be bored, because it might lead you to new places.

I can confirm that with the temperature getting down into the 20's here in the greater Orange County area, that I am incompatible with cold. I do not care for it.

I woke up to a nasty surprise, because it was down to 65 indoors, which might as well be freezing for me. It turns out that these newer Nest thermostats have a setting in which it uses "alternate heat" below a certain threshold outside, which defaulted to 35. I don't know what that's supposed to do, but it meant that the heat pumps were not engaged, and the two units together were pulling like 10 kW doing nothing. When I got up at 8, we had already used 80 kWh of electricity, when a typical day is at worst 60 kWh all day, charging both cars. I changed the setting and it went back to heating properly. In fact, the heat pumps are actually pretty efficient, more so heating than cooling. The upstairs unit, which we replaced about a year ago, is two-stage and runs pretty low for heating and cooling.

HVAC aside, I find my body reverting to my Ohio ways in the cold. I want to hibernate, even when the sun is out. I just want to lay around.

On the plus side, it'll be 50 degrees warmer on Wednesday.

I saw an eye doctor today, for the first time ever. That's surprising because my parents both had glasses at a young age, so I somehow dodged that bullet.

Presbyopia, which typically sets in for most people in their early 40's, has been a problem for me for probably more than a year at this point. But also, it's unusual that I avoided it for so long, as it's considered a normal part of aging. Basically, my minimum focal distance increases throughout the day as my eyes tire. My distance vision is totally fine, 20/20. While I can hold my phone at a normal distance in the morning, by evening I need it about as far away as my arm will allow. In recent months, that's become more annoying, so I figured now's the time to do something about it. I only need a quarter [whatever the unit is] of correction, so even then, that's not bad.

Technology sure has come a long way though. Insurance won't cover it, but they have a machine now that can image the back of your eye in extreme detail, without having to dilate or any of the uncomfortable nonsense. They can even measure the pressure of your eyeball from a distance. Even measuring your head for glasses is done with little green dots clamped to a frame, and a tablet app. We live in the future.

Without employment, my eyes are getting a break from looking at screens all day, though that has never been a particular issue. I'm not doom scrolling either, having mostly reduced my social app use to checking Instagram twice a day. I'm still fairly addicted to the NYT Games, and like to read up on Ars Technica, but that's about it.

Middle age is so weird. I mean, technically your body starts to decline after your mid-20's, so this is hardly surprising. Hopefully the rest of me is continues to beat the odds until I'm good and old.

Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered by federal agents. The video is unambiguous regarding this conclusion. You can see it with your own eyes.

US law enforcement has never been entirely fair, as any person of color will tell you. What makes these killings unnerving isn't that one of them involved a white, hetero male (though that is shockingly novel), it's that every fed up to the president immediately labeled him a "domestic terrorist" without evidence, and despite the video that clearly shows he was shot at close range when he was clearly not a threat. This is then compounded by a justice department that appears unwilling to conduct an investigation, is hiding evidence from state and local agencies, and is unlikely to charge anyone with a crime.

The agents involved acted as judge, jury and executioner, without due process. Calling it a cascade of civil rights failures is an understatement.

Congress must act. If the spineless bastards aren't going to impeach the president, they can impeach the leadership of these federal agencies. They're not qualified to lead.

Simon was being nostalgic last night about his time crewing the Beetlejuice show last month. He couldn't really articulate why, but on further questioning, a lot of it had to do with being part of a group of people who put on the show. It was a sense of belonging and contributing to something bigger than any one person.

I have that in common with Simon, because I think that's what I get most out of work. It's pretty weird that I don't talk to my team everyday, though we do have a group chat that we occasionally check-in on. Even in remote situation, the truth is that there's a lot of social enablement in the workplace.

I do hope that Simon eventually gets another opportunity to work a show like that, and I hope that whatever work he eventually gets into, he gets to experience that kind of team environment. I know that making friends isn't easy for him (or for me, for that matter), but those situations can definitely open doors.

It's hard to believe that more than a week has passed since the great RIF. As I said the other day, it feels more real without the distractions I had before. I'm getting out of worry mode to an extent, but it's not natural. I've had some leads and screens, and two of them show some promise, I think. The job searching happens in bursts, by writing LinkedIn posts and hooking people up with contacts.

The larger context of what's going on in the world is an unwelcome burden. My response though has been to commit myself to helping people in whatever ways that I can. That has meant reviewing resumes and suggesting edits, and passing along leads that aren't for me to people who may be interested. I'm volunteering, which is a different kind of "job" that feels good. I am now and then writing a little code. Obviously, I'm also sharpening my pinball skills.

My biggest source of stress is financial, but not for any immediate risk. If we didn't have a mortgage for this McMansion, I could probably "soft retire," which is to say that I could do fun work and not have any real salary requirement. Medical is covered by Diana, so we're good there. I'm just waiting for things to settle so I can figure out how much runway I have. I was on a hot streak for stabilizing our long-term game, with the utmost discipline, and if I can keep that up for a few more years, it'll mean the difference between "adequate" and "very comfortable" when it's time to retire. I really don't even like that word, because honestly there's no universe where we sit around all day or take up golf or whatever. We'll always be doing something so as not to atrophy our bodies and brains.

I wish I could say that I had more energy for parenting, but I'm not there yet.

Right now, at this moment, my priority is getting "genius" on the NYT Spelling Bee.

Have you noticed that almost everyone in technology puts "AI" into their title now on LinkedIn? I saw one that said, "CTO, AI native." Not sure what that means exactly. If we're being analogous to other "native" usage, that would mean you don't know life without it, in which case, that CTO would be, what, 5 or 6-years-old? I kid, but all of the chest thumping, anecdotal and hyperbolic claims, and frankly people just selling something (or themselves) make me uneasy and skeptical. It reminds me of "wellness experts" on other socials. I think that a little humility is in order.

So I preface this as saying that this is only opinion, and my anecdote. I'll get to the academic research in a moment.

I believe that once you get the "right" interaction with AI, that it is a useful tool. I find it to be excellent for writing a lot of boring boiler plate code, and implementing stuff with libraries and frameworks that I'm not deeply familiar with. I don't have to wade through documentation or StackOverflow, I just ask it how something should be used. That stuff is downright fun, and feels like magic. I can definitely do more than I could without it, which feels like a productivity gain. Admittedly, some of that gain is just not having to rely on my ADHD brain to stay engaged. I really am having more fun that I have in a long time.

There are (at least) two caveats though. The first is that AI expresses confidence that isn't rooted in wisdom. To prove this point, I asked it about an architectural decision, and it suggested what I would consider an anti-pattern. In response, I intentionally gave it another anti-pattern that I said was better, and it said something like, "You're right, that's a much more [superlative] solution for your scenario." It definitely wasn't. Put that in the hands of a more junior developer. They can be super smart, but at that stage in their career, they don't have the same wisdom as a veteran. They may have a working solution, but anti-patterns don't make performance, security and durability problems go away.

The other thing is that context is ephemeral, if the AI has it at all. For example, I was working with a library to do video transcoding, which is far out of my realm of expertise. We went around with four implementations, none of which would have performed well, or would have been cheap, even though I expressed this as a requirement. But most importantly, it never considered that iPhones make QuickTime files by default, not generic mp4 files. When I pointed this out (with another "you're right" response), it forced an entirely new approach. I didn't know what I didn't know, and neither did the AI.

My point is that while the AI is quite good, it's not as good as what people claim it is. And tech bros always have reasons why that's on you, and not the AI. If it's me, then the tool isn't as good as they suggest it is. That's how my teenager responds when I call him out, he blames his shortcomings on us. While I saw huge improvement last year, it was more subtle this year. Maybe we'll see another leap, but we've also been told that self-driving was just a year away, for ten years.

Academically, it's a solid but mixed picture. The Becker et al. study last year concluded a negative productivity change, and that was a high quality study. Another study noted productivity gains among more junior developers, but another study observed less durable code with more churn. There was a 40% increase in secrets getting into code in another study. The Faros report last summer had the best metric: AI did not improve team velocity or correlate to better business outcomes.

I think folks are so hung up on what AI can do that they're not asking about the intended outcomes. As most non-naive people understand, the business outcomes are the only measure that really matters. If you built an app last weekend and it put you permanently on the beach this weekend, great, you're a unicorn. For now though, I think there should be more energy devoted to looking at outcomes, and working backward from there to make AI truly useful.

[I posted this to LinkedIn...]

A lot of my former colleagues are putting together resumes for the first time in years, or if they're less experienced, new one-pagers. There is a lot of advice, some of it bad, but as someone who has had to hire dozens of people over the years, let me tell you a bit about how I approached screening and calling folks. I've only had one that didn't work out, which I think is a pretty good track record. And I'm available, if you're interested. 😊

First off, the elephant in the room is AI. Recruiters are using it to filter, candidates are using it to game the system. The result is a lot of terrible matches. I only have one solution to that, and I'll get to it later. For now though, I'm not sure why recruiters, especially the newer ones, are relying on a tool that yields poor results.

Let me start with what I hope is obvious. Don't be a hyperbolic braggart. I saw a LinkedIn profile with the summary, and I swear this is real, "Helping dope companies reach their potential and slay competitors." Yikes. That would be an immediate hard pass for me, because it doesn't really say anything, and who really talks like that?

The biggest mistake is that people write their job descriptions into their resumes. Everyone knows what a Senior Software Engineer is, but what is it that *you* did? Look for the hard facts. For example, I suggested that a former member of my team use, "Built and maintained a service that handled more than 100 million transactions over a year, with zero downtime." As a hiring manager, I would see that and think, "This person gets performance and scale."

Be real and don't embellish. Anything you put in there is game for discussion in an interview. I can smell BS like swamp gas in Florida. Not everyone gets to work at enormous scale or write software for jets. That's not what I'm looking for anyway. Whatever your career stage is, I'm looking for a pattern of growth and learning, and a balance of humility and confidence in what you do know.

Oh, and don't worry about length. People don't print resumes anymore. Just make sure that at least those first two jobs are packed with accomplishments unique to you. That's all anyone is going to read anyway.

Above all, the single biggest factor in your success is your ability to network. This is far easier when you're looking at local, in-person work. But it works for remote gigs as well, and I think it's the only reasonable shot that you have over the AI problem. People come and go, and your network gets extensive. Respect, value and appreciate the people that you work with, and they will look out for you. They'll write some nice recommendations on LinkedIn for you, too. This is how you get to the top of the queue, and not just submit to a black hole of job descriptions.

Hang in there. These are certainly weird times, but don't panic. Hang on to your trusty towel.

The great RIF of 2026 happened a week ago today, but the reality of it is just now setting in. The truth is that I have been too busy to really worry about it, but yesterday, with all of that in the past, the worst of the negative feelings started creeping up. Last week, we had a show on Wednesday, then Diana's birthday activities on Saturday, and Monday we had a party for her coworkers (as one does when they work in the arts).

I haven't had time to really process it, aside from cranking out some encouraging words for my former colleagues on LinkedIn. Right now, probably the biggest feelings are around the social aspects of the job, which I did not deeply appreciate. It kind of makes sense though, after four years with the same team. We didn't always see eye to eye, but we delivered some great work as a team. We got to know each other, and we talked everyday.

Having a sense of belonging is important. When your little group is suddenly disbanded, that's not a great feeling. I've never really felt a sense of belonging in any context, but I did to an extent in my team. That's the thing I'm mourning the most, at the moment.

Actually, I was laid-off, but I don't want to make it about me. What I've noticed is that there are a lot of colleagues that have never been through this before. I have a bunch of times, and it feels like it's just a part of working for dotcoms. The two worst gaps I lived through were after 9/11 in 2001, and in 2009 as the great recession was ending. I spent six months out in both cases.

The first thing is to not panic. It probably feels like the most natural thing, but don't do that. Generally your job fills your brain with things to concern yourself about, maybe in stressful ways, but those are instantly gone. No more worrying about getting that TPS report done, or having to sit through another status meeting, or whatever used to burden you.

Sure, you have different problems now, but none of them will be solved today. Exhale, relax, go outside. If you don't live somewhere warm, maybe now is a good time to visit one. We all take vacations, but in the back of your mind, somewhere, you probably still have that job on your mind as you're out in the world. That's what makes this situation different. It's a forced sabbatical of sorts. Try to find the joy in that.

We all put work somewhere on an identity pendulum, and you might find that yours is out of whack. On one end, you're checked out and a job is just something to fill your time, and hopefully your pocket. At the other end, life is work and work is life, it defines you. Being on that end of the spectrum is not particularly healthy. On my first lay-off, 28 years, it crushed me because I thought my job defined me. It took a long while to unlearn that.

RIF's are almost never personal. They feel personal, but it's largely about spreadsheets and bottom lines. OK, so it's personal to you, but there isn't anyone celebrating your departure at HQ.

Take a little time, then make your job looking for a job. Network, meet people, figure out how to cut through the noise. Lean on your friends. You'll get through it.

I've written a lot in the last year about my contempt for the big tech platforms. But I'm also putting my money where my mouth is. I'm paying for stuff that skirts the platforms, because that's what I would ask folks to do for the sites that I run. Here are some things I'm already paying for.

• Nebula - This is a video streaming service that's owned by its publishers. Many have equivalent YouTube channels, where they get a fraction of the money and are beholden to whatever nonsense that Google throws at them. But they also can post whatever they want, without issue, on Nebula, and they typically release things there first, or longer versions of their video.
• Ars Technica - This has been a favorite tech news site for me for a very long time, probably two decades. The site is owned by Conde Nast, but importantly, it is their only 100% digital product. They offer the very best thing: Give them $25, you enjoy all of the site ad-free. I read it almost every weekday, so it's totally worth it. They do have very active forums, but I'm not particularly interested in those.
• Pinside - It's a pinball enthusiast site based in The Netherlands. It isn't the prettiest site, but it's independent, and I'm happy to throw a little money at them. The site is very active, and has a great database of machines.
• New York Times - I've been a subscriber for years. Journalism isn't cheap. And I'm addicted to the games.
• CoasterBuzz - Well, technically I'm not paying myself, but I am paying for the whole site with the shitty ad revenue.

My intention is to continue to be on the lookout for the niche things that I think are cool. Facebook is dead to me, as I am to it.

Five years ago today, people who would be later convicted of crimes assaulted the Capitol, as Congress was certifying the election that Joe Biden won. There was no conspiracy, no fraud, just the normal process that happens every four years. That one was a little unusual because of the pandemic, and some questionable laws were passed in various states that smelled like voter suppression, but it got done. The violence that day was not in anyway justified. I recorded my thoughts the day after.

After the investigations and prosecutions, Trump pardoned every last one of those convicted criminals. It was a slap in the face to the rule of law and the families of law enforcement personnel that were there that day. That's especially true for those that were injured, killed, or later committed suicide.

There were people like Lindsey Graham who said in the aftermath of the attack, "Count me out," but the spineless dweeb hangs out with Trump more than ever before. In fact, most of the party has been quiet for years. This do-nothing congress could be calling out every immoral, illegal and grifting move the president makes, but chooses not to. They could have put an end to all of this five years ago during the second impeachment, but chose not to.

I don't really write about politics as much as I used to, because it's become so absurd, and so detached from reality, that all I'm doing is making noise. But it doesn't mean that we're not, or shouldn't be calling out the people who can hold the criminals accountable. That starts with the indepent courts, and the oversight of congress.

There are cracks forming... I just hope something breaks before we get into even more serious trouble. The invasion and kidnapping of the leader of a sovereign nation, however bad he is, is not moving in the right direction.

I watch a lot of documentaries. I hate the faux-reality nonsense on network TV, and social media is tired. But I do enjoy a good doc on a great many things. I watched the one on HBO about the band Counting Crows, and there was a lot of talk about how fame can actually make you completely miserable. That seems counterintuitive, given the money that likely comes with the fame. But this story has been repeated forever in memoirs and docs and biographies.

That got me to thinking about all the different ways that this seems to play out. Rich people complain about an unbalanced life, with too much work, or pressures to maintain a certain lifestyle. People in oppressive work scenarios for very little money, oddly enough, face the same thing, without fancy cars. Then there are countless psychological issues, like abusive childhood, PTSD and mental illness, that make life hard. Don't forget countless relationships challenges, from divorce to raising children. There are so many things that can make it hard to be happy.

I forget who originally said it, but there is much wonder and beauty in the world, and despite how things seem, this is technically the best it has ever been. Given that, how could it be that everyone is so miserable?

A recurring theme in my therapy sessions is that there's this thing, and if I could just learn how to manage it, I would be so happy. While we try to figure those puzzles out, it's clear that there's always something. That's a daunting observation, that maybe life really is suffering, and the goal is to survive it. That's pretty dark. If I've developed any skill, it's to have my mind build up defenses against that sort of thinking.

Naturally, we compare our lives to those of others, and look for perspective about how things really are. Sometimes that's hard, because one can rarely empathize with a billionaire, for example. We can probably empathize with someone in deep poverty, but then we do so as a way to disqualify the legitimacy of our own struggles. That ain't healthy either.

I guess the point is that everyone has their shit. We'd all get along more if we recognized that, balanced against the privileges and opportunities we've had. Ultimately, we have to make our own happiness, but we don't need to make it harder for others.

“Art is political in the most profound sense, not as a weapon in the struggle, but as an instrument of understanding of the futility of struggle between those who share man’s faith.” -JFK

Everything about American politics is bizarre right now, and I have to wonder if we won't see enormous efforts in legislation to close the gaps in clearly illegal activity by the executive branch, eventually. But one of the most bizarre things is the commandeering of the Kennedy Center by Trump. Putting his name on it is not only illegal without an act of congress, but the institution is a living memorial to a dead president. It's horribly inappropriate and frankly disgusting. In a normal world, if you want your name on something at an arts venue, outside of the name itself, you write a check, or many checks.

But in thinking about art venues, art leaders, and frankly just the subject of so many art works, the focus is always on the human condition. Love, loss, struggle, hope, dread... it's all there. What is generally not there is hate and hostility toward others. Even comedy, which is an underrated art form, lands entirely in the realm of people who are advocates and lovers of humans. People call this "liberal," or worse, "woke," but I think they're just describing basic human respect and empathy. That hardly strikes me as negative.

The funny thing though is that people who want to lead are often the people most interested in power. Artists are often the last people interested in leadership. I'm not saying that there aren't people with relatively good intentions that seek public office, especially at more local levels, but history is definitely riddled with some of the worst people who seized power.

I'm sure that artists would get a lot of things wrong, but the funny thing is that they'd likely own up to it and correct for it. "Power people" probably think of that as weakness instead of maturation.

I know what isn't going well is the constant cycle of old men running things. We're losing all of our advantages as a nation. It's bad enough we don't have healthcare, but now the government has stopped funding all of the things that made us competitive, in science, technology, medicine, and yes, even the arts. It's an imperfect system, but historically it has made a world of difference. If you doubt that, look at where China spends its money, and then ponder why they're so dominant in everything on the world stage.

It's crazy how politicians get so wrapped up in ideologies instead of honest discourse that would lead to fiscal success. Even the lovers, romantics and idealists get it.