Dating is expensive, that's all I'm sayin', big G.

Ouch. I feel bad for the young people who got bait-and-switched here. With older techies leaving the industry in droves due to culture changes, you'd think companies would be wise to invest in them. Or maybe they don't know that senior developers grow from junior ones?

I am, perhaps unsurprisingly, digging the idea of a search engine for which I (and not the advertiser) am the customer, and where the engine's incentive is to make me happy rather than urge me to buy something. Will probably check out Kagi soon.

(((Hug)))

Thanks for the kind words, Liz! I think of you as the real legend here -- and you're still in the fray, working to make the entire industry better and more humane, which I deeply respect. Your note reminds me how hard we all tried though, and how much of a feeling of kinship there was in the trying.

"New Googler" == Noogler. They're still called that today!

My recollection is that most Googlers weren't jerks about it though -- to the extent that anyone "felt entitled" to the perks, which mostly we didn't, people felt that sharing more with employees was great for everyone and that other companies should be doing it too. Maybe someday...

Some of the comments are already going toward "the poor Big Tech babies lost their perks", of course, and that's understandable. Experiencing some of the earlier days *did* expand our Overton windows by showing us a different model for sharing profits with employees.

I'm glad that Kate quoted me discussing the broken promises Google made regarding AI, and the ethical concerns I had when performance management and promotions became other than purely merit-based.

#3 all day long!

wow, the art on this one is so so beautiful. (And the content so sad...) Alcohol has never made me feel better when I'm down, and at this point in life I'm pretty sure that was a blessing.

Look for "3-strand end bar" for one piece of that puzzle!

Not only is climate change destabilizing to basically every nation, and likely to put pressure on democratic institutions as climate-related migration increases, but (at least in the US), branches of the military are already deeply involved in relevant, affected areas like rivers and water supply.

This isn't *my* new and different idea, but I read a book called "Climate Change and the Nation State" which made a very good case for getting the militaries of the world involved and concerned.

This is on my shelf and likely to be my next paper book. Glad to hear it's a fun one!

Having now read Playground by Richard Powers, I'm actively annoyed that this won the Booker prize. I read it for a book club at work, and as a result I looked up Booker Prize winners... it turns out I didn't like them. From now on the Booker will be a strike *against* any book I haven't read yet.