I turn 50 today.
The reason I mention this is because I have seen a lot of people — mostly on LinkedIn — making dire prognostications that anyone over that age will never work in IT again if they're not currently in work, and that gave me pause for thought.
Given some of my previous comments about vibe coding, I found myself taking a different track and questioning some assumptions (and biases) over the last week and wanted to capture a bit more nuance around the topic.
Once upon a time I was paid to write code in exchange for coins, and I wasn't bad at it.
Then I got paid to lead and manage people who write code in exchange for coins, and it turned out that I wasn't bad at that either.
These days I am paid to lead and manage people who lead and manage people who write code in exchange for coins, so I guess that:
Given that I'm attempting to start writing stuff / blogging again, I thought I would share a couple of the daft personal projects that I have put together in recent years.
It's been 11 years since I last wrote about a potential mid-life crisis and career change, and as I'm now a mere month away from my 50th birthday it seemed like a good topic to revisit!
I have been thinking a lot about AI recently — probably because every other post on LinkedIn is some kind of regurgitated AI think-piece, and every unsolicited email at work seems to revolve around AI strategy — and what it means for our current working practices.
Today I (probably) invented a new technology term: Homepathic estimation
I wanted a clock for my office, and couldn't decide what I wanted, so I opted to make a slightly unusual one with a Raspberry Pi and an e-ink screen.
I had meant to write this exactly three weeks ago to coincide with both my two-year anniversary in my current role at Deltatre and also the anniversary of my last day working "as normal" in the London office, but then I had too much other stuff to do, so here we are – a bit less timely, but still…
It would be fair to say that the last year has been... unusual. We've all had to suddenly adapt to a "new normal", whatever that means!
It sometimes feels like plain old reality is getting a bit passé, with a myriad of new technologies promising to open up new worlds of possibilities, but what does it all mean and how does it all work here in the real world?
There has been a lot of chatter about how voice interfaces like Amazon Alexa or Google Home are going to “kill brands".