Officially disguised as a Canadian
Recently I retired from my full-time role at Microsoft. Owing to my position in the SQL Server community (something I will forever be grateful for), Brent Ozar created a YouTube video that addressed a question he received after writing about my departure in his weekly newsletter, and on LinkedIn. Specifically, someone questioned my pronouns. SinceContinue reading On performativity and virtue signalling
A few years ago I took a new job at Microsoft, working as a Senior Content Developer, and as of this writing I own all the SQL Server content in Microsoft Docs. Not bad. After the release of ChatGPT in 2022, it was only a matter of time before large language models (LLMs) spelled theContinue reading Goodbye, Microsoft
I don’t remember where I saw this, but I still want to share it with you. There’s something happening in the world. It might be an event, a group of people, a company, a product. It’s something that you wouldn’t ordinarily participate in. Therefore… It’s not for you. If it’s not for you, ignore it.Continue reading Here’s how we get through it
Remember what it feels like to write words, to write code, that you come up with on your own. Don’t lose sight of that. Don’t forget. Don’t let the new toys convince you they’ve “got this”. It’s not that they’re lying: they just make words appear in a certain order that looks like they do.Continue reading Your job is to think
Dolly Parton died today, aged 80. The inimitable and irreplaceable Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean was exactly the kind of person we needed in her 80 years on the planet, and the world will be poorer without her. Go be with Carl.
The ethics of LLM use can be reduced to “don’t use it and not expect to get found out”
Apple’s MacBooks and iPads, and Microsoft’s Surfaces, have blurred the lines between “computer” and “personal electronic device”, so I feel like we’ve forgotten about those things on our desks at work with Dell or HP written on them. Desktop computers, sometimes called towers, are sensitive snowflakes, with very narrow margins for error. That’s why redundancyContinue reading Computer care
Fuck Volvo
Recently one of the websites I maintain, which runs WordPress, had not been updated in a while. When I checked, it said the usual: Update WordPress Another update is currently in progress. As you can imagine, there wasn’t another update in progress. Anyone who uses a search engine lately will see hundreds, if not thousands,Continue reading WordPress upgrade failure? Check your AUTO_INCREMENT settings
According to Variety, Vimeo is going private: Bending Spoons, based in Milan, Italy, has acquired a number of digital technology businesses, including Evernote, Issuu, Meetup, Remini, StreamYard, Splice and WeTransfer. The company claims its products are currently used by more than 300 million people each month. After Vimeo said they would double their subscription price,Continue reading I closed my Vimeo account