Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #97, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.
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Prerna and I were at the FAUG: Zero to Hero event this week. It was a fun experience. There were five talks covering data, app development, infra, security and the state of azure, with a snack break thrown after the app dev talk. Almost all the talks talked about what you needed to do to get a job. I was not expecting this, when I had registered for the event. I had expected something which talked about the basics of the platform, like a training session.
The last talk of the event was ostensibly about security by Jussi Roine, but it ended up meaning more. Jussi talked about many things - how security landscape has gone from put everything in a private network behind a firewall to now, when nothing is with us.
- Identity left the building first, with Entra ID becoming the default and hybrid identities everywhere.
- Then, data left the building with all the SaaS applications, and things in the cloud.
- Finally, decision making has left the building with all the AI models taking decisions on the data that had left.
Then he went on to talk about the technical stack - giving an example of a new user being onboarded.
Almost out of nowhere then, he had slide which talked about being awesome to work with - not just smooching upto your manager or CEO or whatever, but actually being awesome to work with. That felt like a jolt.
He had less time, all speaker had less time. And maybe, this was a talk for a different place, a place where he had time. As he spent the rest of the time skipping over slides, slides which looked interesting to me. And finally, before ending he talked about these things again. These things that I hold dear to me - about continuous learning, about building things, experimenting, and then sharing it with the world.
He ended with the same slide - be awesome to work with.
When Jussi had started talking, he had that obligatory slide about who he was, and there was a thing there about him being a podcaster with around 300 episodes of his show out in the world.
He circled back to that toward the end of his talk. In the section about just getting started. He said it’s awesome most of the time, but during Christma time, or Easter or during these summer months, he often wonders - do I have to put it out this week as well? He then went on to say, if you want to have a podcast, maybe start with one a month.
But that thought, that sentence stayed with me.
Do I have to put it out this week as well?
Nothing happened this week.
Nothing.
We were sick the last week. On Monday and Tuesday, I was working from home, recuperating. On Wednesday I was in office.
I had registered for the FAUG event a long time back. Then, I had asked Prerna to register as well. As the event drew close though, I was not sure if this event would have anything for me. I am not starting in Azure, as Prerna is.
On Tuesday night, I cancelled my spot for the meetup. On Wednesday night, I saw a post from the FAUG page on LinkedIn where they had talked about this event, and how you were welcome to come. And I thought why not?
On Thursday, I logged in a little early, did some work, then left to attend the event with Prerna in tow.
Nothing happened in this week. I did not know what to write about in this edition of the nordletter.
Prerna and I took a couple of walks around Kumpula. One of the walks happened while the sun was shining. It felt nice.
Then on Wednesday, as I was out with Savya on the walk, the wheel broke off from his pram. When I took the pram to the cycle shop, the shop owner said he had no idea how to fix this, but they will try.
I don’t know if they will fix it. I hope they do. I will know more on Monday. I love going out on walks with Savya. It’s our time. Sometimes, and now that spring is here, Prerna will be tagging along as well.
On Saturday and Sunday, I stayed back with Savya while Prerna went and studied at Oodi. Usually, I would go walk with Savya and then unwind with him at Oodi in the play area. It felt weird not doing that this week.
300 episodes don’t happen without recording on the days when you don’t have anything to say,
/five things to share
1. I’m OK being left behind, thanks! by Terence Eden
I feel the same way about the current crop of AI tools. I’ve tried a bunch of them. Some are good. Most are a bit shit. Few are useful to me as they are now. I’m utterly content to wait until their hype has been realised. Why should I invest in learning the equivalent of WordStar for DOS when Google Docs is coming any-day-now?
Starts with talking about the Crypto revolution and Pyramid-scam-esque FOMO they were peddling. There is a similar FOMO now.
2. ‘Your Frustration Is the Product’ by John Gruber
The web is the only medium the world has ever seen where its highest-profile decision makers are people who despise the medium and are trying to drive people away from it. As Bose notes, “A lot of websites actively interfere the reader from accessing them by pestering them with their ‘apps’ these days. I don’t know where this fascination with getting everyone to download your app comes from.” It comes from people who literally do not understand, and do not enjoy, the web, but yet find themselves running large websites.
I had an interaction with a reader sometime back on a blog I had written about in the problem with read-it-later apps. They had mentioned then that I write what I want and don’t shove ads in your face as you tried to read - which was obvious to me. Reading is the thing you’re here to do.
But I myself don’t read on the web anymore. I use RSS to read. And that provides a great ad-free uniform experience to read.
3. Starfield is coming to the PS5 and getting a pair of major updates in April by Andrew Webster
After lots of rumors, it’s now official: Bethesda’s sci-fi epic Starfield is coming to the PS5. It’ll launch on Sony’s console on April 7th, and that day will also see the debut of two major updates for the game — one paid, one free — a combination that Bethesda describes as “the biggest update to the game since launch.”
It’s official now. This was the one game I wanted to play, but it was available only on Xbox. Happy it’s here now. If only I could make time to play now.
4. Windows 11 is finally getting a movable taskbar by Tom Warren
Windows has had a movable taskbar for decades, but Windows 11 removed this functionality at launch in 2021. I initially hated the new Windows 11 taskbar because it lacked functionality like displaying the time and date on multiple monitors, small icons, or the ability to move the taskbar around. The taskbar was so bad because Microsoft rebuilt it for Windows 10X, which was originally going to run on dual-screen devices before being reworked into Windows 11 for laptops.
I like to have my taskbar to the right. After the upgrade to Windows 11 I could not do that anymore. I felt mildly offed about that then. I’m happy to have this back.
5. Grief and the AI split
AI-assisted coding is revealing a split among developers that was always there but invisible when we all worked the same way. I’ve felt the grief too—but mine resolved differently than I expected, and I think that says something about what kind of developer I’ve been all along.
Saw this shared in a million different places. A good essay.
If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄
Until next week.