Never easy, and also

You can learn a lot about a group by how they treat beginners. Pro-tip, if "beginner energy" reads as an insult that's a bad sign.

Approaching new programming or data skills has always been fraught. And it's *so weird* now. Is AI going to take all the jobs? Are there going to be more jobs than ever? Will we recognize what data + software work becomes in the next couple years? I can’t answer any of these big questions.

So why are you back?

I'm returning to writing regularly because one way to make beginning less weird is to begin some work in public.

I've read a ton of Randy Au's Counting Stuff and Vicki Boykis's Normcore Tech. They're both learning out loud in this space where it's tempting to pretend to have the answers.

So we're going on some journeys. I'll fight Rust's borrow checker, write some LLM architecture from scratch, and build some tools I hope makes learning easier for others.

And if you don't know or care about those particular tasks? I'll still provide a place where you can watch someone grapple with not knowing. Come along for the ride and we'll navigate this wildness together.

A data thing I liked

The Psychology of Software Teams by Dr. Cat Hicks

If you like software, data, or leaning consider this book required reading. Bonus: I had a blast talking with Cat a while back on how to think about psychology + software in the AI era.

A not-data thing I liked

Obsession is my movie of the year. If you’ve seen it you should watch Who Pays for the ‘Male Loneliness’ Problem? by Nightmare Masterclass