Money doesn’t grow on trees, but trees grow in money. - Abraham Lincoln

I have a small garden for a hobby and mental health. I spent $30 on 2 bags of fucking DIRT yesterday. What am I doing? Dirt was $30!?!? I guess I can’t even afford dirt anymore. 😭

What if we kissed on the government watch list?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

(terms and conditions apply)

No no, I mean, how could they possibly ever know: A. That I wrote a thing. B. I did it within a timeframe. C. It should be theirs.

Etc.

Like, if made “Flappy Bird 2” this weekend and made money on it, how would they ever even know? I did it on my PC, on my time, in my home.

I guess only if I made mega money and they found out, but couldn’t I just say I wrote the game years ago, but just published it now, so it still isnt yours?

Just seems impossible to enforce.

I feel that. Can’t even leave and be at peace. Everyone’s always dragging you back to work.

Going outside and yelling at the clouds. For now.

Real.

Glad you have the ability to take that time with family, that is awesome!

Yeah, it really is rough right now. Fascist AI hellscape is accurate.

Am I the only husband that truly values and loves my wife’s brain and mind and intelligence and spirit and soul and kindness more than just a body?

Bodies are fleeting. Fall in love with the person, not the flesh-mech-suit.

The intelligence is stored in the boobs.

Automating my own job was what I did do for decades of my career, the problem is that SOMETHING changed in the past year or two. I don’t know what it is or was. AI speculation and fears? Late stage capitalism? The govt? The economy? All of it?

But it shifted pretty heavily from development and code and a desire from all aspects of the company of wanting automation and UIs and scheduled jobs and better reports and just… You know, the useful corporate crap. It used to be in constant demand It was “boring” because it was corporate pie charts and data, but it was still coding and problem solving and technical and engaged more than 2 brain cells. I enjoyed it. I was useful. It made sense. And it all shifted and is now meaningless bureaucratic corporate bullshit. I can’t tell if ANYTHING tangible is actually being done at the end of the day anymore. It feels like 100% fluff and no meat. Ya know? I don’t feel alone in that feeling either. I think a lot of us are feeling a weird and sudden disconnect.

What did you go to? Still in tech or did you go down the pipeline to gardening or become a cryptid in the local forest that scares people?

Weird coincidence, all my hobby code I’ve ever done at home is “drop database” and corrupt system files scripts. If they want them they can have them. 😈

I don’t get how anyone could EVER enforce a law or agreement or rule that says something I wrote at home on my device on my time is theirs. Don’t touch my files with your gross corporate fingers! Ahhh!

A harsh reality.

I have 3 decades of experience in programming. I started with QBasic on an IBM386. I learned what system files to not delete out of Windows or Linux. I went to university and learned Java and .Net and SQL. I’ve done web. I’ve done server admin. I’ve got decades of Windows and Linux and shell scripting and databases of every flavor and just… All of it.

What do I do lately at work? I fill out spreadsheets with information that already exists in 7 other spreadsheets, but we need this in THIS format for THIS VPs request. And I fill out status updates. And I go to meetings and listen for an hour as everyone talks about their status updates on projects I don’t even know anything about or care.

My manager asks us to make sure we are learning and using AI. Why? Well, the C and VP suites think we should be. Does it actually help or make anything better? Not really. But ok, fine.

And then the real irony kick in the balls. As we push literally everything in the company to be “Cloud This” and “Distributed That” and “AI more!” and “Be flexible !” … and they did the big RTO mandate last year. The fuck? You want everything to be remote and cloud and distributed and modern and agile, except employees must commute in and sit in this specific chair to join their video call meeting. And 3/5ths of my team is out of state and so exempt from the RTO mandate, including my supervisor. What the fucking fuck? I have to drive in and sit in a shitty cube while they get to kick back at home? Fuck that.

Decades of knowledge and experience and talent, and I fill out spreadsheets with duplicate information IN PERSON while coworkers get all the benefits of WFH and the same damn pay.

I don’t even know what my supervisor does except ask us “is XYZ done yet?” a couple times per week, that seems to be it, I don’t think they even know what we do tbh. They just sit at home and make sure all our check boxes get checked. But if you mention a single detail of a project beyond “done” or “not done” they get confused. Fucking hell.

And it hurts even more knowing the CEO makes 100x my pay + benefits + stock + who knows wtf else.

What are we doing?

Addon: Oh! And then there have been layoffs. And cutbacks. And hiring freeze. And no promotion or raises beyond a basic 2-4% yearly “cost of living” raise, even though the cost of living has fucking gone up like 300% in the past few years.

I haven’t actually programmed anything in so long. It’s depressing to be wasted pointless effort in a bureaucratic corporate nightmare.

No one would bother stealing cars anything, if all their basic needs were being met and they had a stable income that could afford a house and transportation and food and clothing and entertainment and hobbies.

Ok, maybe .000001% of the population would steal because it’s fun to them or some weird mental quirk, but no one would steal from necessity if we stopped forcing it to be a damn necessity.

You can’t systematically deny people EVERYTHING and steal their labor and steal their livlihoods and then also be surprised and upset when they steal back from you.

Current police only exists to keep the mega rich in power and to oppress minorities to do it. Nothing more. “Protect and Serve” is absolutely bullshit and we all know it. Yes, some police officers ARE good people and trying to do the right thing and aren’t complete asshat power tripping narcissistic bullies, but most are, and it is the systems and the training and the people in power that keep it all going like that to keep everyone in line.

At this point it’s 100x more likely for a random law-abiding citizen to be murdered by police from a misunderstanding than it is for them to be saved or protected from some “criminal” out to get them. 10000x more likely if they have an ounce of menalin in their skin.

Still have these.

I loved most of the games on that list. The entire 90s decade had so many incredible games. 98 was particularly a good year to be a gamer.

I think that counts as a sale still. PCs would buy bulk licenses or report back sale #s and pay some $ for the games they bundled and tossed in “for free” with the different computer bundles. They still kinda do that too, sometimes graphics cards or individual components even have “free” games or software.

So it still counted as a sale from their side. You just got it “free” as a bonus.

My PCs came with some phenomenal free disks over the years.

Wing Commander 2, Strike Commander (F-16 combat), Syndicate Plus, Ultima VII on a single CD was a really good one. I think that same PC also had Magic Carpet on CD as well. I treasure all those games.

I still have my OG Doom on like a stack of 4? 3.5 Floppy Disks from our 386 Windows 3.1 PC.

You are thinking too small.

I’m going to steal all the Walmart stores.

It’s even funnier when you are trapped inside it!