I'm currently in the midst of the last stretch of a client contract I've been on since February. It ends at the start of November but is definitely on the home stretch. That's always exciting because it means I get to tie off the ends and put that aside. I'm already looking towards the horizon with the early winter months in mind, seeing who I might be working with at that point.

I also have an internal project that just started. I can't really say much yet. But I expect it to be a good source of blog material if nothing else. Very excited about the whole thing and it lets me do a whole bunch of programming. So that's nice.

I really want to talk all about it. But I mustn't.

Podcast recommendation

To start out I think I should make a starting recommendation which doesn't require a whole lot of context on who I am, what I like and what I do. Changelog was one of the first podcasts I got into, they've kept adding some cools podcasts.

Checkout the Changelog network. The central Changelog podcast is often very good.

The now retired Request for Commits podcast is probably the least technically focused but also one of the best things they've done. Nadia is incredibly interesting to follow and her dives into open source sustainability gave me a lot of perspective a while back. Thoroughly recommended.

Recent reading

Recap of 'npm install funding'

Original post: Starting the experiment
Recap & shutdown: Post about ending the experiment
Discussion: Hacker News
Bonus: NPM bans terminal ad, Hacker News discussion

I feel for the guy. I saw no ill intent in this. He wanted to try a thing. I think it was tonedeaf to think ads would be accepted. I don't think he deserves the vitriol. I don't think he was trying to make a quick payday "by stripmining trust" as I saw someone mention.

But it is probably for the best that it was stopped. I can see how he conceived the idea and pushed on, it was just an experiment after all, probably with some support from his crew over at the Changelog. He's on JS Party. The Changelog, in several different podcasts, have been discussing the funding of open source for years now. Without more context he is just someone trying to make a quick buck. And a lot of people in the open source community are extremely averse to even basic advertising. I get that. I just hope he bounces back without issue. And I hope the human is all right. And I think the concern for sustainable open source is legitimate.

('npm install funding' is a very clever idea, as such)

Lessons from Stripe

Original post: Lessons from Stripe
Discussion: Hacker News

An interesting post from someone named Mark who've worked at Stripe. I think the optimism and ambition parts are incredibly important to forging a company culture where most employees care about what they are doing and feel good while working. I've been at a company where the CEO definitely grasped this and I still have a soft spot for that company. It was an amazing journey.

The recruiting bit is interesting. I don't think I've seen that kind of aggressive pro-active recruitment in action around our parts. But I think there a two venues that should both be emphasized more. One is the recruitment side which he describes, the other is teaching and mentorship. There are relatively fresh developers out there that businesses can afford. They just need training, mentorship and a chance to grow into the intermediate/senior everyone is trying to recruit.

Google and the black box of rejection

Original post: Banned from Google Ads for using Apple Card
Discussion: Hacker News

"We've confirmed that your account is in violation of our Google Ads policies. Since this decision is final, the account will not be reinstated. [..] Our support team will not be able to give you any more specifics on the suspension."

This is just one of a series I've seen recently where people get kicked out of a Google property for some vaguely specified policy reason. And they basically have no recourse. Because as we know, Google is not in the business of customer support for most of their services. I find this increasingly concerning.

Facebook scanning and copying your system libraries

Original tweet thread: Twitter
Discussion: Hacker News

What? No! Stop it. God damn it. I thought they'd been through a few beatings about privacy and would at least avoid getting caught with these weird fingers in strange places. This just seems like a completely ethically bankrupt corporate culture, I cannot fathom what the discussion while handing out tasks around this looks like.

Is Apple responding to criticism?

Statement about Siri privacy issue (apple.com)
Discussion: Hacker News

"As a result of our review, we realize we haven’t been fully living up to our high ideals, and for that we apologize."

Press release about more access to parts for independent repair
Discussion: Hacker News

This is good. Whatever the reason. The end result for consumers should be a positive.

Hacking the Sonos IKEA Symfonisk into a high quality speaker amp

From MAKE: Original article

Cool, I'd really like to try this.

A walk in Hong Kong

Blog post: A walk in Hong Kong
Discussion: Hacker News

I thought this was an interesting post about how protest can be done in a very suppressive environment and how things can be organized in a weirdly distributed and organic way. I'm intrigued by the hand signs thing. It all reads like Cory Doctorow activist utopia, which I like, but as far as I understand it, it is real.

Build: Raspberry Pi - full keyboard handheld

Build: Raspberry Pi, full keyboard handheld
Discussion: Hacker News

I haven't gone deep into it. But it looked quite interesting.

Thanks for reading, I'll try to contain my verbosity.
- Lars Wikman