Take a train

No more Elon?

It's absolutely mind-boggling to think of all the tech-related advancements that have occurred over the last, oh, fifty years. And while we do poke fun at the technical abilities (or lack thereof) of the geriatrics in our lives, we've really got to hand it to them: There's been a lot to keep up with. While my 93-year-old grandmother impresses me with her knowledge of how to email, the truth is that there are definitely elderly people who are both more and less technologically advanced than she…

Happy Sunday, programmers! I may not be one of you, but I understand your struggle. One of my best friends in college was a computer science major , so I know exactly what it's like! Just kidding! I know I could not have lived the life that he did. I was sitting pretty getting a simple little liberal arts degree while this man had to stay up for 48 hours at a time to finish a singular project . Most of the time, he was just a cool bisexual stoner who just happened to be a STEM kid as well. But…

I do not envy anyone who has to fire others. Letting somebody down easy is a skill I simply don't have. Every time I've broken up with someone, I have done it clunkily and a bit insensitively, which is really not ideal for delivering bad news . You need to tell the other person what's happening directly, but not too directly. You need to be empathetic first and informative second. You need to make sure they cry after you fire them instead of when they're in the room with you. It's a tricky bala…

Being a relatively new programmer is like living in two completely different worlds. Non-programmers think you are the absolute dog's meow. They act like you cured cancer, achieved world peace, and are worth 20 billion dollars. That kind of validation for choosing a well-paying career path can feel good, but it wears off soon enough when you're around senior programmers . You feel like the most useless ant at the picnic basket when you're with guys who've been doing it for years. In that room,…

The insane ways that tech companies treat their employees never cease to amaze me. This past Friday, workers at Google in NYC found out whether they were getting laid off with a borderline dystopian method. Workers lined up early to test their employee badges. If they scanned it and the light turned green, they didn't lose their job. If the light turned red, they were laid off. Of course, Google didn't intend to act like an evil government in a young adult novel. They sent emails the night befo…

Like taxis, but worse

One of the coolest things about being a programmer is the lack of formality. People laughed at Mark Zuckerberg in the 2000s for enabling a culture where everyone wore a t-shirt and sweatpants to work. These days, it's not even a second thought that tech workers are not dressing up in a suit and tie. As somebody who works in an artsy-fartsy industry, I openly enable coders and programmers wearing their pajamas to work. We've got to stick together in this world and fight against the rules and reg…

It seems like artificial intelligence is coming to replace everything these days. So many news sources are reporting on AI being able to solve complex coding problems or write whole essays. Allegedly it can create art too, but all of the robot art I've seen has like seven weird phantom knuckles, so I'm not entirely buying it's art proficient. Luckily, we're not at the point where AI can really replace us yet. It's advanced, but it's not that advanced yet. AlphaCode, a new artificial intelligenc…

In this world, you get what you pay for.

Twitter Blue has arrived

This year for Halloween, there are so many ways to dress up as programming concepts. Of course, you could take the easy way out and just dress like a programmer. Get some sweatpants on, put some black makeup under your eyes to make you look even more tired, and you're good to go. You could also go as a 404 error . Wear a white T-Shirt and write “Error 404 Costume Not Found” on it. You could even go as some of the most famous programmers in history. A Steve Jobs costume is classic and perfect fo…

it’s that time of the week again. Time to dive in to some hilarious memes about programming and computer science. If you’re here I’m guessing you probably spent the majority of your day wasting away trying to code something with no real concept of whether it will go well or not. Thank God. We live in a world where our salaries can be salaried and not just based on whether each line of code succeeds or not.

One of the most annoying things about being a programmer is the endless barrage of requests from your “friends” and “family” for you to make them a website. These requests are never put in professionally but rather brought up in a guilt-trippy way at random events. Your uncle has a landscaping company and has a website that looks like it would’ve been a victim of Y2K . Good news! Once you’re a programmer, your aunt will ask you to fix it every time you see her for years on end! The worst part i…

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