Hustle. Don't Live to Hustle Though.
Jonathon Stark wrote something recently about developers and prospecting. He’s one of the many people who I follow and study in the world of self-employment and contracting. To be honest, despite my stance on money and capitalism; this whole thing is something I have to do until I figure out a sustainable method for keeping my life going. Maybe it’s just the wrong kind? Eh.
I’m going to plug my boy Ishmael’s course on freelancing - it’s been A1 so far and it reminds me of all of the mistakes I made when I first starting freelancing seriously a few years ago and helps me prevent new ones as I go about it now.
I get no perks for this by the way - I just want y’all to win. Your worth is more than “loyalty” to a company with a pseudo-agenda. Like legit - if your company operates in ignorance of its immediately local community - they’re upholding systems that aren’t for the people at all.
Break out.
Something I’ve been working on more is being a “tech whisperer”. This is (more or less) hearing someone describe something and me attempt to decompose it into potential tools that one might use to replicate the feature that they’d be describing. This is partly for work but also for empowering users (power or not) to remove potential attack vectors for those aiming to take advantage of one’s lack of knowledge. Lance Ulanoff did something like this to help people out.
Events
The only ones worth noting are the Labor Day Parade happening in Brooklyn this year as well as AfroPunk 2018. I’ll be at both with one of them having a surprise of sorts. Some people call me bi-coastal. I think it’s true! If your calendar’s open and you want to hang, never hesitate to reach out - I’d love to talk.
Links, Links, Links!
Some jazz I’ve been peeping recently across the Web. So it looks like Epic Games, the folks behind that (annoying!) game Fortnite is aiming to bring themselves to Android. But they’re going about it in an aggressively different (and potentially dangerous) route. CNET wrote about it. Also, there’s a tech company that has a tool to monitor how many people are currently in the bathroom? This is actually something I’d want everywhere. Like a count of who’s waiting and who’s in there (but nothing more - I don’t need to know anything else, lol). Lastly, if you’re like me, you know that the US government defines and outlines everything that they do and use (usually - try submitting a FOIA request!). There’s a site that lists all of the specifications available. Also, I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m still debating how I’ll rework my personal website. This post has some stuff that I’d be interested in.