3 min read

To save money, maybe you should skip breakfast

Eggs with little hand-draw faces on them. Some are nervous, others confused or laughing or scared.
Photo by Tengyart / Unsplash

Is a real headline in the WSJ. Do you ever find yourself just fucking disgusted with capitalism? A real human–presumably–thought it a perfectly sane thing to suggest that humans skip the most important meal of the day, arguably, because food corporations are probably price gouging you. Corporations are people too, bud. I mean, they don't eat breakfast or anything, but they're sure as shit going to charge for it. And why does a corporate "person" have more valid needs than a human person? Well, it's because of another perfectly "sane" thing suggested by the Supreme Court. And years later after this court decision, human beings around America woke up and got some coffee and started reading the WSJ, only to take in a completely asinine headline and barely give it any thought. Completely normal. It's fine. Eggs are $8.

The bad this week

I've been made aware of a product called Code Climate. I'm not going to link to them, but you can find them at https://codeclimate.com/. What does Code Climate do, you might ask? Well they offer super great insights about your engineering team! Metrics like "Pull Requests Merged".

A count of how many pull requests are merged over a period of time.

Why it matters: Each pull request represents a unit of work that has been perceived as having some value by the engineer who submitted it (e.g., implementing a feature, fixing a bug, or improving a part of the code base). Thus, a total count of merged pull requests can serve as a proxy for value delivered.

Lmfao. "But Zach, surely the managers using this fucking thing will take all of its insights with nuance and critical thinking, right?" Maybe. Maybe some of your managers? Maybe they don't. Maybe the critical thinking about the tool becomes less over time. Maybe it's a fucking horrible tool and the makers of this tool should feel fucking bad about it.

The good this week

I found a new YouTube channel that I like. I know that sounds so trite, but it really is difficult for me. I don't let YouTube track history and I'm critical of everything I take in, because well, it's YouTube. But this week, I was introduced to Michael Palmisano, a guitar teacher out of Baltimore, Maryland. I'll introduce you to the video that was introduced me, where he finally gets Radiohead for the first time.

Speaking of Radiohead, I found the Ok Computer OKNOTOK 1997-2017 vinyl record set on ebay, brand new. I remember when this came out and I did not have the dollars to purchase it. I do now, so uh. Just a fuckton more Radiohead records to get.

The Interesting

Two birds talking to each other.
The Backfire Effect

I was reminded of an Oatmeal comic called The Backfire Effect. Something that I need to keep in my mind all the time because I was never listened to as a child, and on top of that, I was traumatized by my parents attacking every fucking opinion I had if it didn't line up with their Christian beliefs. I have to keep it close to my heart even more now these days, as I don't really agree with my family on anything. I think it's a great read and I think you might enjoy it too.

Not the most personal newsletter this week, but I'm trying something different. If you like the newsletter, tell your friends and follow me on Mastodon. See you next week.