Launchpad
The inept child, links are jokes, and old cartoons made new. Also: new Garbage Chairs of Amsterdam.
The Bad Child
For the most part, I think of therapy as gaslighting. The work (usually in my experience, at least) is about two things (1) making you accept the situation you’re in, and, (2) making changes in how you act and think. The part where you’re encouraged to talk more and “let people” in is a third thing. All of these have a common theme: it’s your fault, because you’re doing it wrong.
I know this is…ironically!…the wrong for me to think about it. (Hahahah…and then we’re back to me being wrong, but that’s wrong, I should not think like that about thinking like that…oh no…we’re caught in a rhetoric-vortex).
Anyhow, this a good take on therapy as gaslighting:
And in between therapy sessions, when the walls crack or you smell smoke, both you and your spouse blame YOU for it. You’re the identified patient. You’re not working hard enough, you’re too broken to surrender to love, you’re a bad kid. That’s when all of your systems revert to their default settings, the ones that say:
You should work harder. You should listen more. You should be less selfish.
This is why the whole framing of “self-improvement” and living your best life tends to backfire for so many people: because trying to BE BETTER is not always the most useful path forward. It’s a return to the rigid strategies of some sad, distant past.
As the rest of the advice brushes up against, there is a forth therapeutic thought-technology: maybe it’s OK to be a “bad kid” if that means feeling better. Put another way, imagine being someone who “doesn’t care what other people think, it’s [a] super power.”
I remain skeptical.
Speaking of…
Re-finding Polly from suck.com is such a treat. I don’t think I ever read her back then, well, maybe. But it’s more the delightful nostalgia of suck.com and the feel of a Gen-X voice; and of course to see how that voice has seasoned after all these years and experienced. I’m remembering now that I fantasied about being a suck.com writer. It seemed like The Goal. That magazine must have been a huge influence on me.
For example, this is a core part of my style:
Cavanaugh pointed out that one particular lasting legacy of Suck’s is the idea of using a link as a rhetorical effect. “People still used italics to make a point in a sentence back then,” he said, explaining that the site was one of the first to use a link to let readers know what it was writers were discussing, or to point to a joke. “That was what knocked my socks off about Suck right away, was the idea that oh, the link is this funny thing.”
“I think one of the things Suck did was recognize the ability of, if you have a link, if you’re writing on the web, you can assume people will catch up with you,” said Cox. “You can assume there’s a body of knowledge you share, and everyone is in on the joke.”
My content
Software Defined Talk Episode 400: Prompt Engineering - This week we discuss Cloud Earnings, ChatGPT Prompts and the OpenTelemetry controversy. Plus, thoughts on refrigerating eggs…
The more kubernetes you use, the more frequently you release software - The CNCF has a new kubernetes survey out and it has some interesting findings. We discuss several of them and our takes on them. Also, fresh back from cfmgmtcamp in Ghent, Coté talks about a new entrant in the configuration and release management space, System Initiative.
Wastebook
“thirty million persons governed by entrenched assholes.” Here.
“As the adage goes, ‘you ship your org chart,’” said one current employee. “It’s chaos here right now, so we’re shipping chaos.” Here.
Relevant to your interests
Microsoft’s OpenAI Powered Teams Premium and Viva Sales: What Customers Need to Know - AI stuff in Outlook to help sales people: “These new capabilities include Intelligent Recap, an AI powered tool that automatically generates helpful resources like: Meeting notes; Recommended tasks; Personalized meeting highlights; Meeting Chapters; AI-powered translations from 40 different languages.”
The Astonishing Transformation of Austin - Thorough. Also, good, brief history of the early days of tech in Austin, all the way back to MCC!
Writing, Riffs & Relationships - Write non-perfect, complete brainstorming/“just thinking out loud” pieces and send them to people. It’s still marketing, but more focused on small groups, and, thus, “outcomes.” You could imagine making a factory here where inside sales people had a big database of such riffs, and other raw content, and could use an AI to create natural-sounding riffs for the ISRs to email out.
Logoff
I was never a big Duck Tails fan. Sometimes my mom would have to drop me off early at school, like an hour before the official time. Along with three or so other people, I sat in a cold room with a TV. Duck Tails was often on, and also that one where they’re going to take over the world everyday. These were never my type of cartoon. I liked GI Joe, more realistic ones I guess.
One of my daughter’s has discovers the new Duck Tails cartoon and seems to really dig it. She also likes Mickey Mouse, which is a new thing in our family.
This is all to say: that Launchpad guy is pretty great.