ent001

This is my biggest problem with the current state of things. The loss in quality of life out weights the gains in productivity. And they are concentrated on highly conscientiousness individuals, those who already got silently taxed with most of the 80% of the work to get the last 20% of the results. So it is now compounding, if you care your workload will approximate 99,99..% of the total workload divided by the number of high conscientiousness individuals in your team/organization.

The current hype cycle might even represent a net global gain like some people argue. But it represents yet more externality driven exploitation. Remains to be seen what the new equilibrium will be given that now the population being exploited is not only close to the core of the world system but also already overburdened.

I do think it represents a mere acceleration of the previous trend that resulted since around 2005 in an explosion of average (not median) pay for software developers due to similar dynamics. If the system settles on a new level of pay that manages to convince enough people of enough skill to go along, it might just hum along and not implode. As for the rest of us, welcome to the growing permanent underclass and brace for the impact of the climate wars. We will be the fodder that will insulate the chosen ones under their air conditioned domes.

I think software is just very young. We've been doing it for maybe 2 generations. The current way, saas, ci/cd, is like half a generation old.

We're still at the "search" phase, there is very little wisdom at social and personal levels.

It's clear from the rapid flux in tooling, methods, ideology, and the results, that we basically have no idea what we're doing re: using computers and building software. A lot of the self assuredness of current advice is self soothing behavior.

First of all you need to decide your goal. Why are you reading, taking a course, or writing down anything, in the first place?

Otherwise you're just gonna be doing busy work to feel like you're doing what you're supposed to.

Do not suppose. Decide what you want to achieve and slice that into things you can do inside of a day.

On the other hand, if you have nothing to achieve, anything goes. Just read, think about it, go for walks.

Just don't get caught in between, busy and going nowhere.

Taking notes is like lifting weights. You don't need the weights to be higher, and you don't need the notes to exist. The process of writing organizes thoughts.

For students, that is. If you're writing papers or a book you should probably structure and manage your notes somehow. But for uni classes, well, it isn't even recommended that you read your notes. Or teachers' slide decks.

Lectures, slides and notes are merely a hike through the territory. You're supposed to range it by yourself later, seek out papers and books. Digest as much material as you can as early in the course as you can. Taper it off towards exams and do not study for a few days beforehand.

Basically the opposite of every student's instincts. It works though. Learning takes inquiry, breadth and depth and lots of sleep to sink in. Cramming for exams is self defeating.