busybee fluffy rambles

Software engineering

I’ve been applying to jobs again. So far it’s difficult finding jobs that I’d be willing to do, and of those, I either get ghosted or an immediate rejection. My resume is currently a mess though. I should probably have separate resumes for media shit vs. programming shit. Not that I really want to work on programming shit anymore.

And on that note, I’m getting very weary of how much time I spend working on software projects that end up not going anywhere. I feel like the entire state of programming has gotten to be stupidly overcomplex and like I’m shouting into the wind when it comes to simplicity of design and building things based around extensibility and interop rather than coming out of the gate with being an Everything Solution. And then when I try to explain more fully what I’d like to see as next steps, the response I get is, “Oh, well, I hope to see what you make.” When the whole reason I’m trying to collaborate with others is that I only have very limited time/energy/pain budget to be able to work on code. I just can’t do it all by myself, and even when I do do it all by myself, I can’t seem to get anyone else to care about actually using the damn thing.

(So, no, I haven’t gotten much forward momentum on Canimus, for example.)

There’s so many things I’d like to be doing but so little energy with which to do it. I’m tired, y'all.

I definitely see the appeal to AI coding agents. I would not feel good about using one to do the things that I want to do, and I wouldn’t trust them to build things even remotely how I’d want them to be built. But I totally get why others do it.

Side tangent about cars

The shitbox Corolla has been doing what I need it to do, but I keep on running into little bitty problems with it. Like the other day I got stuck behind someone who was just, like, waiting at a four-way stop for several minutes, and that was a great moment to learn that the horn doesn’t work. (And then the person behind me started honking wildly and then got super road-ragey. So that was fun.) So that’s another thing to have to investigate. Because I don’t honk often but when I need to it’s with good reason.

And of course I still need to get the brakes done.

Even though I barely drive (usually 2-3 miles a week on average) I’m still always inclined to look at the current state of EVs. At present this is the entire list of cars I’d consider buying new, if I had to:

• 2026 Nissan LEAF

If it comes to recommending a car for someone else to consider I’d also add the 2026 Toyta bZ and the 2026 Subaru Solterra (both have been fully refreshed and are much more interesting vehicles now, and they’ve diverged enough that there’s relative pluses and minuses to both of them), but I’d rather have something more car-like, and the LEAF, despite being marketed as an SUV, is still basically a hatchback/fastback, and is actually even more compact than the old one.

Telo and Slate are also super interesting but neither is even close to coming to market, and Telo’s expected price is pretty high for what you get, and Slate looks super cool as a work truck but that’s not the sort of vehicle I would find useful.

But of course the whole reason I went shitbox is because I don’t drive enough to justify the added expenses of owning an EV and pretty much everything I actually use a car for is better served by an ebike anyway, aside from the occasional thing where I need to haul cargo and kitties, and in the case of cargo it’s cheaper overall to just order delivery, and in the case of kitties, well, the shitbox suffices (and so would Lyft in a pinch).

Now that the weather is getting nicer I can start thinking about riding my ebike again, at least.

Cannabis blues

The only cannabis dispensary within walking distance of me anymore is Uncle Ike’s, which I do not like frequenting; ethically-speaking, they have a long history of predatory, anti-competitive behavior, and anyway I need CBD-dominant products and they only seem to carry high-THC get-fucking-wasted shit.

There’s some dispensaries all the way across town but getting to them is a bit trickier, because the local transit is awful, driving there would likely be an anxiety or fatigue trigger, and biking doesn’t feel safe since that part of town is very stroady. And even then their CBD products also seem lacking; one of them has their menu online and the only CBD stuff they carry is 1:1 (which is still “get fucked up” territory for me) and the other one’s online menu is completely broken (and their website looks like it’s been hacked by spammers) so who even knows what their deal is.

Aspirations

I’d really like to feel safe driving again, just so that I can expand my range out. And if that does happen maybe I’d feel justified in getting a better car.

I’d also like to feel good about making music again. Right now it just all feels so empty to me and I’m having trouble finding the motivation to do stuff.

I’d like to feel like I’m not just taking up space.