Like many boomers, RFK Jr. was exposed to high levels of lead during childhood. These are people who will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.
My birth certificate says I am a woman. My documents say I’m a woman. My family says I’m a woman. My parents say I’m a woman. My friends say I’m a woman. My doctors say I’m a woman.
Fuck this government if it disagrees, and fuck you if you disagree.
We exclude so many of what could be our best people because either we tell them their path isn’t a valid one or they look at the people who make it in tech, don’t see anyone like themselves, and self select out before anyone has a chance to say “actually, you could do this.”
Especially as someone who is nearly entirely self taught and who is the daughter of someone who taught shop classes, I truly believe a more equitable path forward for preparing people for work in tech is to make it a vocation and not something perceived as only for folks with degrees.
I’m only on episode 4 of “Change, Technically” with @grimalkina and @analog_ashley and I’ve already cried twice and and cheered out loud in my car a few times. If you’re in software, infrastructure, or use either professionally you should be listening to this. https://www.changetechnically.fyi/
Hey #PlatformEngineering folks (especially with Kafka experience!) - how would you like to be the new Terra at @honeycombio? They are hiring a Staff Platform Engineer to backfill for me (my last day is Friday) and you couldn’t ask for a better group of folks.
Lynn Conway was remarkable in a number of ways but I think the reason her death hits me so hard even though I didn’t know her personally is the most unremarkable thing about her: One of us got to live her life quietly, grow old, and be remembered fondly as herself in death.
@grimalkina@mononcqc@CSLee I love any opportunity to point out both that: - Even for staff/principal/etc. engineers this stuff can still feel bad/be complicated, so it’s very ok for more junior folks to feel that way. - It doesn’t always have to be terrible, we can make it better - with science! 🧪
@grimalkina@mononcqc@CSLee yeah I feel like only very recently has there been any real guidance for folks above senior at all and we’re just on the cusp of a broader understanding of the ways it can look like. Sometimes it’s “here is this amazingly detailed technical blog post” but a lot of the time it’s going to be what used to be considered “soft skills” like “here is how I’m learning to use my seniority to be comfortable being vulnerable so I can model it for others” - and yes, the cost that comes with that.
I forgot to post this years #daffodils. They’re my favorite flower, these were transplanted from my parents place in South Jersey, which were transplanted from my grandparents house for me to care for when I was little, which were themselves transplanted from my grandmothers childhood home in Pitman, NJ where she would sell them as a little girl (they were her favorite flower too). #BloomScrolling#PlantsOfMastodon#Plantstodon