If you're looking for a sign to switch careers: this is the sign.

Re: Liquid UI in macOS Tahoe. We might be reading too much into this. I grew up when Packard Bell Navigator and Microsoft Bob were a thing.

Brother needs a blog. I fire up Claude Code on the phone, instructs it to deploy Hugo in a private repo with a theme and Cloudcannon config. I wire things up in Netlify. Blog ready in an afternoon. Brother is pleased.

Balance after my last blog post went viral: - Tech writers were happy. - Developers stirred. - Somebody with a dual major in CS and English Literature said I don't write clearly. - Another dude said he could improve what I wrote using AI. - Someone invited me to speak at a tech comm conference.

“Sometimes the mark of seniority is realizing that arguing with people who won’t listen isn’t worth it; it’s better to save your counsel.”

Be kind to community moderators, even if you disagree with them. It's tough work.

I treat Google Docs like a big datalake (which is a fancy term for "socks drawer").

Publishing on Hacker News is endurance art. You choose to subject yourself to the whim of the public, like in a Marina Abramovic performance. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_0

Ah, help, I'm on Hacker News frontpage, and with that comes trolling. :) news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4662...

Mission accomplished: my post ended up in the TLDR Founders newsletter. tldr.tech/founders/202...

Nobody speaks of the real tragedy: all those folks called Claude that work in IT.

Many folks still think tech-writer work is making specs pretty & brooding over docs in a dark corner. Specifically "Hey Phil, you've got a nice isolated desk in the new seating chart." Fuck that. I need to be in with the devs, product managers, support, & QA.

Nobody speaks of the real tragedy: all those folks called Claude that work in IT.

We were like marbles slowly spiraling down a funnel made of silicon. We wanted tech, and tech needed us. passo.uno/how-to-becom...

The less a tech writer is willing to exit their comfort zone and engage with new technologies and methodologies, the less they'll be able to command a high salary (or any salary). I still see posts on Reddit asking "Does a tech writer need to talk to people a lot at work?". Sigh.

A gentle reminder. passo.uno/native-engli...

Gave this mentoring advice today: "Your energy and drive are inspiring. Don't let anyone take that away or sadden you with talks of 'Bohooo, AI is gonna kill us all'. I mean, it might still annihilate us, but at least we'll have enjoyed the ride."

Found a list of Claude Code subagents this morning and it made me think of... this. [Makes battle noises with the mouth like a kid]

Haha.

Subagents, commands, and skills are converging vivekhaldar.com/articles/cla...

Every adventure game fan understands.

A reminder that I published a letter earlier today. passo.uno/reconsider/

I... wrote a thing: passo.uno/reconsider/

I... wrote a thing: passo.uno/reconsider/

i think a core beef that i have with a lot of this "automation is bad" sentiment lately is that there is no inherent moral good in laboring the story of humanity is one of invention, where we improve our conditions by building things that help us do more things more easily

I ditched Oh My Zsh and I'm now using starship.rs together with atuin.sh. So much goodness.

We present a typology of traps to avoid: 1. Believing that AI systems are minds 2. Believing that AI systems are theories 3. Believing that cognitive science can be automated. Learn to recognise and avoid these traps. Failure to avoid leads to numerous problems. 3/🧵

How have I learned of Yellow Magic Orchestra only now? Cyberpunk made in 1978! music.youtube.com/watch?v=G6DM...

I was surprised to learn today that I’ve been ranked third in the World’s Best Technical Writers awards. I’m quite skeptical of industry rankings by nature, but I have a great deal of respect for the jury members involved. globalwritersawards.document360.com/c/document36...

Wish I was there.

New podcast episode! Tom, CT Smith, and I talk about AI workflows, building tools that don't depend on AI, the fear of skill atrophy, and more. My take on the future: "We're going to be folks who are whispering to machines to make them do things." idratherbewriting.com/blog/ai-tool...

I've put talks, webinars, and podcasts in a separate category of my blog, with a separate RSS feed. Less noisy that way.

Passo.uno is the 1712th. Nice.

The Dude has something to say.

Drive well. x.com/mitchellh/st...

I'm pleasantly surprised by Manus. It creates pretty decent slide decks.

I stared into the abyss. The abyss stared back at me. Then we went for a drink.

How this year felt at times youtube.com/shorts/1VXTi...

I wonder how one can be free from being complicit in pretty much everything that hurts the world while at the same time trying to participate fully. Maybe it's not possible. Maybe it takes so much effort that it isn't practical for most of us. What's the way out?

I'm tempted to stop talking about AI entirely next year.

Angry technical writer energy.

Learning Rust after two decades of orbiting around programming and developers' culture from tech writing and IT satelloids feels like hiking on a hard path with the best gear and the most detailed map. Sufficient? No. Could it boost me if I walk? Definitely.

I'm my family's IT depot: need spare ear tips? Batteries? Copier paper? A keyboard? An Arduino board? You name it.

My favorite advice for blogging remains that you should hit publish while you are still actively unhappy with what you have written, because the only alternative is a huge folder full of drafts and never publishing anything at all

Tried Nintendo Brain Training yesterday. On my first run, it essentially told me I'm a piece of concrete. Got better after I understood what it expected me to do. It's a game after all (and yes, people can perform better at IQ tests with practice, which is why they don't sell them in shops).

Probably the best video I've seen all year.

An LLM really comes in handy when learning programming.