Endlessly learning
Photo by Valery Sysoev on Unsplash
Since the internet exploded across the globe, technology has grown and chanced immensely. But the foundations and the specific elements in the technology largely remains the same.
For web pages, those foundational technologies are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Why do we use all 3 and what is the intrinsic purpose of each?
Photo by Jakob Søby on Unsplash
I break into websites - with permission, of course.
I’m part of a program where they give you websites to break into - so you can learn hacking skills. They tell me how many bugs I’ll find plus a few hints. After that, I’m on my own to try and find them.
Most days I’ll find one bug. On a really good day I might find 2, maybe more.
When I’m done for the day, there’s always a bug I haven’t found. It’s the nature of the work.
But I hate it. It eats away at me that there’s something I missed. I obsess over what it could be and I can’t just let it go.
It can get so bad that it’s all I can think about. I’m frustrated I can’t solve it and all my energy is spenty obsessing over it. So I start getting angry and impatient with my family. It’s not a good place for me to be.
I have tunnel vision.
Photo by Parker Johnson on Unsplash
Open source voting software creates trust. A healthy, thriving democracy - like what we aspire to - relies on trust.
Currently, our voting systems have been closed (proprietary). As citizens, we vote and hope our vote was accepted. We hope it’s accurate and counted. But we don’t know - not for sure.
Because the systems, and the code they run on, is hidden from us.
Photo by Brian Patrick Tagalog on Unsplash
Let me tell you a little story.
I received a Starbucks gift card. I enjoy coffee so it’s nice to receive a gift card for it. I opened their mobile app to add the gift card. And that’s when my frustrations began.
Photo by Matthew Waring on Unsplash
Every morning, I listen to NPR in the car. Lately, the financial news has been on a downward trend. Almost every morning, the Dow is down, the NASDAQ is down, the S&P 500 is down. It’s not sounding great.
Who knows what’s coming. Maybe it’s a blip. But maybe it’s not.
That’s life. Things go well for a while, then there’s a downward trend. Things are bad for a while, then there’s an upward trend. Back and forth, again and again and again. It’s just a part of life.