The gaps in your skill set

Accidentally wrote this while trying to figure things out, so I might as well publish it here. And, no, I didn’t bother to edit it, so expect fluff and rambling. Everywhere I look, it’s becoming more and more clear that a lot of job markets are in very bad shape. The web developer job market is in a sorry state. Software developers in general...

The web, as a platform, ecosystem, industry, and market, is in a very odd place. The platform is genuinely great. Bugs are inevitable – every non-trivial project will encounter an implementation bug in a major browser at some point – but the platform overall is in a good place with capabilities I wouldn’t have even dared to hope for a decade ago....

Incomplete thoughts. Don’t count on any of it making sense. Digital has made the boundaries between various different kinds of time-base media – the different formats of audio and video – much softer. Podcasts are recorded with video. Video essays are distributed as podcasts. Series that are made for domestic broadcast in one country end up on...

Not a great year, but also not the worst. My freelance business did not fare that well for most of it. It did improve slightly towards the end, so this year is starting on a better note than 2024. There are some freelancing/job prospects that may or may not pan out at the moment. 2024 was mostly defined by my indecision and a monomaniacal focus...

Slightly different format from the other interim notes because writing about text requires paragraphs. These interim notes are all unedited and a little bit rough. – Thinking about where text-based media – print, ebooks, websites, newsletters, etc. – are heading led me to start another re-read of Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death and,...