@cwebber@octodon.social This line of thinking is why I still prefer #IndieWeb as the future of distributed social networking, and why I keep hoping IndieAuth + Ticket Auth (or something similar) goes somewhere to improve how we handle private/friends-only/limited-audience posts (which is the one thing really missing from the Atom/RSS ecosystem right now).
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Hereās a pain scale that I can relate well to. My pain rarely goes below five and frequently reach nine. Iāve thought about ER visits numerous times but Iām lucky that all my doctors are fantastic and I can usually get ahold of them when in need. #chronicpain #pain
So substack says censorship of Nazis is bad and they believe in free speech.
But substack also moderate sex work.
Their investors, presumably, donāt mind a few thousand newsletters talking about genociding the planet, but if they saw a single tit then theyād go into cardiac arrest.
Today is a heavy and Momentous day for me. As some of you who knew me before, 1 year ago today my best friend since childhood died. From diagnosis to dead in 3 months. He was just shy of his 46th birthday. Again, fuck cancer.
He was the best man (and literally my best man in the before times) I've ever known. He made me want to be a better person.
And so I've tried to become a better person to honor him, to become the best Jennifer I could possibly be.
This month has been Momentous. Starting month 6 of HRT, going out as myself for only the second time with my dear sister Valerie. And with her getting my ears pierced, using the women's restroom and being correctly Gendered for the very first time. It's since happened a couple times and I'll never get tired of it.
And Friday I came out to my in-laws, and I was shocked to find out they were loving and supportive about it.
Today I'm sending a version of the text I sent them go my two sister-in-law. I'm boarding a plane soon and will probably hit send right before take off. Hopefully I land to acceptance. But it doesn't matter, I will essentially be out at that point, and I'm so ready.
So in the hope it helps somebody else, here is what I wrote them:
"Hi! There's something we want to tell you guys about. Something beautiful and wonderful, that we just can't hold in anymore.
Last year my best friend Jeremy got sick and died, in the prime of his life. And I realized...life is short and tomorrow isn't guaranteed. And it was time to make an attempt to come alive again.
So I started taking care of myself. Started dieting, started therapy. Started by ignoring the obvious truth staring me in the face and making a last attempt to be happy with who I was. And as I lost weight and went to therapy and did a lot of soul searching, a lifetime of denial and repression and sadness came flooding back. I started visualizing the end goal, and what I realized is that even after I lose the weight, even after I do the mental work, I'd still be a failure as a man. Because...I'm not a man, I'm a woman, and I always have been. I've fought this my entire life and i just didnt have it in me anymore. Not if I wanted to live.
Every time I saw a reflection of myself I saw a face that didn't belong to me, and my chest would grow tight until I couldn't breathe, and I'd feel as if I was drowning, but nobody could see me being dragged into the murky depths. Transition is literally saving my marriage, my family, and my life.
So that's pretty much it. We're happier than we've ever been and want to share that with our family and the world. We hope you'll welcome me as a sister as you welcolmed me as a brother. When you're ready, we'd be happy to talk about it. Just let us know. Love you all!"
#transgender #comingout #nevertooold
The first rule of salary negotiation is the new hire budget is bigger than the promotion budget. It is always easier to negotiate a higher starting salary or hiring bonus than getting a raise or promotion after youāve gotten the job.
Iāve been stunned at how low the bar is for hiring managers to OK a higher offer for a new hire versus fighting for a raise for one of their team members. Never believe a recruiter who says you can get a bump after you start and do well unless itās in writing.
As a team's infrastructure estate grows, it becomes increasingly beneficial to create a global registry of all people, services, and components. Once you do, you can integrate with tools like terraform, Chef, and Kubernetes to help provision your infrastructure according to a single authoritative source. This post explains how GoCardless built their registry, and some of the uses weāve put it to.
At Christmas my mum was talking about her neighbours in the street. About one of them: āHeās apparently a detective in the police, which surprised me because he always seems so dodgyā.
So close to having a revelation.
Iāve been building out a Calendar section for my #IndieWeb blog, listing out events I may be going to over the next year, so friends (old and new) can get in touch if they want to join me!
Being able to post even my potential physical location online is a privilege, but one Iāll happily invest to foster a more connected 2024 š
Testing out the first few here: https://www.byjp.me/calendar/ (or /ipns/www.byjp.me/calendar/ on #ipfs)
It says a lot for my emotional state that my wife bought me a weighted blanket to help during my autistic meltdowns and I'm too afraid to try it out because I'm close to crying already and I know it'll cause a dam burst meltdown and I don't want to do that on Christmas.
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Merry COVID Christmas! Iām with the family (through a window) and riding out rain in the tent. Whenever the rain pauses my family pass gifts and mulled wine out the window! Good enough. Should be allowed inside tomorrow. š¬
I donāt mind flying under the radar. There are benefits for a product to start small and grow slowly. But Iām still kind of puzzled why Micro.blog is rarely mentioned when articles talk about platforms that support the fediverse. We first added ActivityPub in 2018. Must be doing something wrong.
The great dirty secret of the software industry is that an awful lot of the work that is critical to sustainably build and maintain a software system/product/whatever only happens in the wild because one person with a little extra care and a little extra time decided "I'm not going to wait for this to get priority. I'm not going to wait for permission. I'm just going to do this because it should be done, and damn the consequences."
Ha, did not realize that with Microsoft's acqi of GitHub, they pushed it into so many government and enterprise spaces a lot more quickly. Probably why the leadership team there caved to Microsoft, it was more money.
Just because you love what you do doesnāt mean itās not work.
It doesnāt devalue your work or time.
I know weāre so used to it because of capitalism, but work doesnāt have to feel bad, tiring and draining all the time.
It can feel good and still be work.
On 17 September, I made a choice. Waking up from 15 hours of lost time, at a friendās house, when I shouldāve been home the day before. I had clarity. Enough. Iāve shared before aā¦
I have interviewed 100s of candidates for software engineering positions.
Iāve done take-home tests, in person challenges, pair programming with the candidates.
All of them were awful experiences for me and especially for the candidate.
I can only think of a single instance where a code challenge exposed a poor software engineer and I could definitely have made the same assessment just by talking to them.
Lately Iāve stopped doing any software or mental puzzles.
I donāt do any of that when I interview designers or QA people or HR people, so why would I be particularly toxic towards software engineers during the hiring process?
Instead, I actually read their resumes (which is significantly quicker than doing interviews, asking them to repeat the same information), and then I ask them questions like:
- Where do you get your tech news?
- How do you learn about new technologies?
- What do you most appreciate in your coworkers today?
- What is a perfect workday like for you?
I specifically avoid trap-style questions like āwhat is your greatest weakness?ā or āwhy are you leaving your current job?ā
I recommend that you make a plan for what you want to learn about the candidate, e.g. āare they good at acquiring new skills?ā or ādo they share the same values as the team?ā and then structure the interview around that.
Be a non-toxic manager. Make your company look good during the interview process. Get better candidates.
#jobs
Newsletter subscribers might be surprised to see a slightly new design. Iāve moved away from Substack and back to Buttondown, an indie mailing list service. Every email will be free from now on; paid ā¦
ADHD is not ācanāt sit still disorderā
ADHD is āposting in 10 group chats, subreddits and other posting platforms, never using the search function to see incidents of the same question being raised, asking for tips on how to do complex things like feed yourself and do one task. Upon discovering that you just sort of have to do the thing, you close all the tabs. You ignore your previous attempts to find an answer and do the same post a week later in the hopes that someone has come up with the perfectly suited to you way to do one task. You feel shame and embarrassment and anger and often nothing at all, whilst neurotypical people tell you that itās easy to do one task you just have to want to do it. You want to do a lot of things but even the things that give you joy are insurmountableā disorder
:)
They should let you download 12 hours of randomly selected TikToks for a flight.
Do not spend the Friday before Christmas replying to this post about how you donāt like TikTok. Just enjoy your night!
How did I only just find out that antidepressants can reduce dopamine?
I might try and titrate off my Sertraline, as perhaps my lifelong depression was more about the lack of dopamine that ADHD gives me?
(Yes I will be sensible, yes I will consult with a doctor)
It's been a year since I last did one of these, and to think I once thought I could do it monthly maybe! Once a year will do for now.
(It's actually Saturday as I'm writing this because I was lazy ā¦
Current situation with being ill:
1. Do nothing
2. Not-completely-shit-feeling because I'm doing nothing
3. Feel guilty I'm not doing more
4. Do something
5. Feel like utter crap because I did something
6. GOTO 1
Jamie Tanna
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