Anchored in people

I feel professionally and creatively a bit unmoored. So much of what I do has been restrained by knowing how much effort there would be in writing the code and I could also get happily lost in writing the code and not care that my experiment never became something. Ever since I started properly experimenting with having LLMs perform technical work for me that has become very different. And I think as the speed of LLMs increase and if they manage to find the right pricing structures eventually .. I think the status quo is more similar to this than what it was before. It's unsettling. It is in some ways exciting. I like making stuff and getting stuff to happen. I also despise all the companies involved. The incentives are fucked and while it will both help and hurt people it will mostly make the world more exhausting.

The joy comes back to people. Even on the technical side, even with LLMs in the mix, there is sheer joy in seeing people bring up new hardware. Experiment with new ideas. Take their first steps into Nerves or discover the joys of using Ash. I still adore the ecosystem slurry I am in. Thankfully.

On the personal side the joy is in helping one of my in-laws set up a slide for their kids. Shovel sand for a literal physical sandbox. The joy of being repeatedly tackled by my 4-year old. The excitement about my daughter starting school (ish) and trying karate next week.

It is all about the people. And what we care about together.

I enjoy the machines and the tech and the new 3D printer but they are all better when they fit into something.

Conferences for me have been a way to connect the technical with the embodied physical stuff. Chatting intensely with someone online is exciting but it is often even more so in person.

The only thing I've been missing at these conferences are chances to sit down properly and hack on stuff as a group. This was why I did the first Underjord.pre_hack/1 before a Code BEAM once in Stockholm. First time I met Frank Hunleth. I love doing the thing along with the talking about the thing. Especially when it is the stuff I'm passionately interested in and not just day job stuff. Though that can be cool too.

And this is how Goatmire grew a two-day workshop thing. Some of the sessions will be loose and informal. Some will be very hacky and experimental. Some will go towards lecture. Depends on scale, subject matter and the presenter and what they want to do. Up front I don't know how it will all work out. We'll probably learn a lot of stuff from it. But I trust the people hosting the sessions to do a good job. I'm not worried about that at all. And I'm not super worried that it will conceptually work out because people are very good at elasticity, plasticity and adaptation in these circumstances. Where that is much harder online and also trickier for a "talk" style presentation.

I don't really get to do Goatmire the way that other people do because I'm organizing it. But I enjoy my role so not tears for me. However, a cool and odd side-effect is that a tiny thing has formed where I expect to enjoy the people + tech + passionate effort at an even smaller scale.

I can't say much about it but in preparation for Goatmire we have a bunch of practical stuff to do. So some people will show up early, spend a bunch of days at my place and getting things ready. I look forward to this a lot. You can see traces of what we are up to in the schedule I think. But you'll have to be there if you want to really see what it is all about.

Our entire profession is in spin and I've no idea how it lands. I just know that it'll be important to deal with it together with people you like.

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading.