If we apply the Gartner Hype Cycle to this disruptive technology, I do believe AI will hit a "slope of enlightenment" where an AI-assisted Analyst is properly understood in industries and can take productive roles. Conveniently, this will probably coincide with a lower interest rate where companies have funds for a talent acquisition spree/rapid growth.

With that being said, today's graduates are stuck in an awful market with a lot of charlatans selling crappy online courses and bad ideas.

I don't think I'm one of the red team's 7 captains, but I don't exactly have my hands on the paddle every single day. After all, I can find the time to lollygag on HN between 9-5.

And you won't get purity tests from the layperson: in the end, you're responsible for the build quality so if you tirelessly labor/oversee those teams you're considered capable; if it ends sub-par, then you're a stooge.

I have also considered walnuts or fruit-bearing trees and slowly converting my land to something more akin to a food forest.

I have also seen this obsessive focus in sports fans: What was the half-season where Pat Maroon played on the New Jersey Devils as a rental? Well they made the playoffs that year which must have been Taylor Hall's MVP Award Season and ah yes! that had to be 2017-18!

Also, I can only give a thumbs down to Paul Simon's Call Me Al so many times. It's not a terrible song, but the way it snuck into every goddamn radio station I request became comical.

*Although algorithm discovery stopped appealing to me, I actually replaced Spotify with Radio Paradise and soma.fm and have been enjoying these public stations a lot more. I'm just a boring dad who now prefers carefully-curated for everyone over automatically-created for me

But there is some boundary line on the level of effort where a game becomes its own thing. Fortunately for the industry, the number of parameters that can be "tweaked" grew exponentially with each console generation.

The digital copy is a Bazaar: You wander the booths of Prime Video, iTunes, and... Fandago!?! They assure you their copy of True Lies is the best! Ignore that other booth... you may save $2 but are you certain that video will still exist in a year?

And the whole time you know that just under the bazaar is the Underground/Black Market where all is preserved and all can be had, but you'll need to work for it.

The fact is the 90s was riddled with derivatives, where every cartoon character had a derivative side-scroller of varying quality. The scale of a cartridge game grew enough that just changing animation quality, physics, attack methods, and level design was enough to make the Aladin side-scroller a different enough experience from the Lion King side-scroller that a customer would be satisfied by both purchases.

I'd say we have lived in the world MTJ predicted since this was written, but innovation and quality were hardly ever buried by rip-o-bot churn. Even today, I'd consider the "slop" genres ($5 co-op games, stream-worthy horror projects) to be healthy ecosystems where the cream typically rises to the top.

Still, it confounds me that the simultaneous rise of indie game devs and barcades hasn't led to an arcade renaissance yet. Niche games like Nidhogg and Black Emperor cost $6k for a cabinet. Killer Queen, oftentimes considered the cult-favorite of the scene, costs magnitudes more and puts off bar owners because the cabinet takes up so much floor space.

You'd think engineers could reduce those costs and developers could work out a royalty agreement that beats home sales on itch.io. To me it seems inevitable, but maybe there are just too many incumbents and bad actors in the arcade industry for such creativity to thrive.

The owner could never keep track of who had classes or specific commitments, so they would get together (originally in person) to independently swap shifts and make sure the people who needed more hours could get it. A few hours of communication, the schedule would be completely revised.

This was the peak of app-dreaming, and I always figured it was a matter of time before a ubiquitous shift scheduler took over the industry. The crucial piece would be giving workers a level of autonomy that would be challenging for management to accept. As far as I can tell, no app ever took off, but this flexible work option sounds like an evolution of that idea for a much larger operation.

Nowadays, I write beer (and sometimes wine) reviews in a similar matter. I would never post them on untappd or elsewhere because the thought of someone who brewed the beer actually stumbling across something so self-indulgent makes me uneasy, but I have found it to be a fun, low-stakes creative outlet (even if my wife dislikes me writing notes while we're out)

Just imagine being able to input a geolocation and automatically receiving insight about construction that optimizes for usable space, energy efficiency, or even the prospective homeowner's lifestyle (an AI that recommends different layout options for a family of 5, lifelong bachelor, and non-family roommates on identical quarter-acre plots)

On a slightly more disruptive angle, imagine an AI that could understand a municipality's building code and optimize the space while complying with the literal requirements. Your town has banned finished attics without two methods of egress? Here is an ideal renovation that will provide that necessary balcony while maintaining budget (and here are 4 other buildings in the town that were approved with the same design).

The same thing happens with die-hard sports fans. You ask "Who was the rookie points leader on the 05-06 Toronto Maple Leafs?" and a sports nut can start piecing together how the team did that year, who was on their roster, and finally derive an educated guess.

He gave a technically sound answer to every question, but I was extremely skeptical. For one thing, he wholeheartedly agreed to the design outlined in my "honeypot" question where the solution would be something prone to triggering immense technical debt. He also dismissed the "soft" question about a time he encountered a challenge.

His most recent work experience was at a competitor where a former colleague works (we're in a niche space). That friend told me he encountered the same thing, including a candidate who recently claimed to work at my company and was moving (I never heard of the name nor could find mention in Slack/AD).

> Small group of experts form Boutique Consultancy focused on specific technology (Cloud, SaaS Product, Framework, Open-source tool, etc.); Headcount = ~10 employees

> Experts start making referrals and mentoring analysts in specific technology; Slight diversification in offerings; Headcount = ~100 employees

> Boutique Consultancy makes major splash with huge client; Hire like crazy; Maybe accept additional investment; Headcount = ~300 employees

> Boutique Consultancy gets acquired by Global Service and Consulting Provider; Assurance that branding and leadership will remain; Buyers interested in "synergy deals"; Headcount = ~300 employees in +100,000 employee network

> Original experts and early employees take acquisition payouts and find/found new Boutique Consultancies; Buyers satisfied with acquired brand and customer base; Headcount = ~100 employees