I found myself in need of a post-election palate cleanser, which is how Becky and I found ourselves spending most of November traveling Japan again. As always, I learned a lot. Like that the rhythm game Chunithm is probably too difficult for me to ever become good at. And that the Kawasaki Brave Thunders have a tremendously loyal fanbase. And that driving cross-country in Japan wasn't quite as nerve-wracking as my fears had made it out to be. (Though it's hardly cheap.)

Oh yeah, I also learned that every room's TV in the Toy Story Hotel is set in an Etch A Sketch frame:

As it happens, my grandfather was an executive at Ohio Art and played no small part in bringing the Etch A Sketch to market. He sadly died before I was old enough to ask him for that story, so all I have are bits and pieces I learned from my dad. It's too bad that so many people who've touched my life in such profound ways remain complete mysteries to me. Writing this newsletter is one of a dozen ways I strive to avoid the same fate.

To be honest, this is perhaps the most personal essay I've published so far, if not the most emotionally vulnerable. It's certainly the most detailed account of "who I am", in a certain sense. I have no idea what you'll think or feel after reading this. If you find that it speaks to you, I'd be lying if I were to say that was intentional. The primary audience of every story I tell about myself is myself. And there's never just one story. And those stories always change upon retelling.

Here goes.

And then what happened?…

I will forever remember October 2024 as the month I managed to clear a year's worth of personal to-do items only to come out the other end asking, "what am I supposed to do with my life when I have nothing left to do?"

Big "dog who just caught the car" energy.

I like to use this newsletter as a way to experiment with different modes of writing. Playful stuff. Put an interesting spin on an old memory. Send a meaningful message by telling a story. Write some jokes. So let's see what we have here…

Looks like you get a stream-of-consciousness essay on the challenges facing software developers in the current job market and ideas for what to do about it based on conversations I've had with various tech leaders. Weird, but here we are. I don't make the rules, I just type out what the voices tell me to.

Before we dive in, I'll take a moment to plug my podcast, Breaking Change, which I feel like is really hitting its stride when it comes to format, content, and audio quality. The best part is that because nothing I say matters, it's like one of those sightseeing buses you can hop on and hop off at any time. Listen here and there. Finish an episode or don't. Write in questions and comments and you'll keep getting free access to more episodes. I've had folks write in to say they take copious notes as they listen and one person who claims to use my semi-dulcet tones as a sleep aid for their newborn. I'm sure the podcast has other uses too, but those are two of them, apparently.

You'll never guess what happens next…

Hey everyone, have a good September?

Apologies, as most of my top-of-mind thoughts are hurricane-adjacent as I write this:

• That we decided to escape the storm by driving from Orlando to Savannah on Wednesday morning
• That I spent Wednesday night tossing and turning in bed after Milton made landfall, wondering whether I'd be more upset if there was significant damage to the house (and with it, the hassle of months of insurance claims and repairs) or if there was zero impact at all (rendering my 10 hours in the car an unnecessary hedge)
• That, in college, I rented a house on Milton Street we all called "The Milton", and how disappointed I am that none of Orlando's local news affiliates thought to call me to discuss this fascinating human interest story
• That our house is absolutely fine. Didn't even lose power. And my predominant emotional reaction is, predictably, to feel like the drive was a waste of time

Anyway, that's October stuff. And I'm not here to talk about October stuff, because Searls of Wisdom is a publication that happens in arrears. It takes a full month for these insights to coalesce and maturate in the nacre of my self-indulged mind.

So, let's talk about September stuff.

The one thing I'll remember about September 2024 is that it was the month I gave my final conference presentation. After 15 years of speaking at user groups and software conferences, I've decided to hang up the presenter remote. End of an era.

Here's a pic of me and my friends Aaron and Eileen at the RailsConf: World Edition afterparty:

It's been strange developing so many impactful friendships over dozens of seasonal pseudo-vacations sprinkled sporadically throughout my adult life. I've rarely ever visited these friends where they live, or met their families, or seen how they operate outside the predictable plot beats of a conference event. Each relationship a vignette of awkward run-ins at baggage claim and hotel lobbies. Strained catch-ups at noisy speaker dinners and sponsor parties. Warm greetings crossing paths in convention center hallways. Hushed critiques shared from the back of other people's sessions.

I can happily live without attending another conference. But will that mean living without most of these friendships, too?

Yeah, probably.

Below, I'm going to discuss my decision to announce my retirement from public speaking, how people reacted to it, and what the resulting dissonance can tell us about weighing loss aversion against opportunity cost.

Keep reading…

By reading this you have demonstrated two things: you have at least a passing interest in hearing from me and you know how to subscribe to a thing. That being the case, you might also enjoy subscribing to my podcast, Breaking Change. Right around 20 episodes, and it's settling into a biweekly format that reminds me of the drive time radio talk shows I listened to as a kid to pass the time. If you're interested in the kinds of things that surround me—independent software development, theme parks, Japan, tech news, games and movies, and hypercritical observations about everyday life—you might like it. You also definitely might not like it. No way to know until you try.

Keep reading…

Last month I talked about the power of pressuring yourself instead of letting the world do it for you. This month, I can report that I followed my own advice and managed to get a metric shitton of work done on the app I'm building. Sure, I fell behind on other goals, I only left the house a handful of times, my to-do list has become a stress-inducing mess, and I can't say I had much fun. And I'll admit, there were times I questioned what the hell I was doing with my life. But think of the productivity! I successfully stimulated my work ethic gland and I hustled hard.

Maybe a little too hard. This was the least blurry of all three pictures taken of me this month:

And before you knew it…

June was a busy month. Because Becky's business is in a sort of limbo until I finish and because I'm giving a talk at Rails World about how easy it was to finish, I am extremely heads-down finishing my work on her Better with Becky app. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, though. I think.

This moment in every project reminds me of one of my favorite tongue-in-cheek "laws" of computing:

The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.

One thing I will say is, while the ninety-ninety rule has rung true to me for nearly every team project I've been a part of in a corporate context, it doesn't resonate at all when it comes to my solo work. Maybe it's the acceleration one can build when the full context of the code resides entirely in one's own head. Maybe it's my particular "measure twice, cut once" ethos as applied to planning and testing. More likely, it's that when the person planning the work is the same person that's doing the work, scope creep becomes emotionally untenable once they reach the point of exhaustion. Reminds me of that quote often misattributed to Leonardo Da Vinci, "a work of art is never finished, merely abandoned."

Anyway, because I've been so busy building that app, I haven't gotten out much. Of course, I say that in Orlando-adjusted terms, as I did manage to find time to meet a beloved character actor from Raiders of the Lost Ark, attend a preview event to ride a new theme park attraction, and see the new neighborhood drone show in between pomodoro timers.

Today, we're going to talk about pressure.

Content warning: more content…

During his closing keynote at RubyKaigi, Matz joked that it's really confusing why people would want a picture with him. "Why would you want that?" So a couple hours later I made sure to explain that I don't know why I want it, but could I please have a picture anyway and he obliged after a mock protest:

I'll be honest, I struggled a bit over what to write this month. I spent the entirety of May traveling all over Japan and had so many novel experiences that the only thing more difficult than picking a few favorites to write about would be to arrive at some kind of overarching theme to summarize the entire trip. Searching for the right thing to discuss here put me in an uncomfortably contemplative state, for better or worse.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this decidedly middle-aged edition of Searls of Wisdom.

Turns out, there's more to it…

We kicked April off right around here with a stay at the new Evermore resort's Conrad hotel, which saw fit to include yet another upscale tiki bar in a part of town that contains an order of magnitude more tiki bars than thai restaurants. And five times more tiki bars than pharmacies. Roughly as many tiki bars as schools, judging by a quick search. Anyway, here's me drinking an Oaxaca Colada out of a ceramic conch shell:

Not too much to report this month that I didn't already cover on my web site, as I was mostly heads-down writing software.

Oh, by the way, to all the folks who kindly wrote in to express sympathy about the back pain that I documented here last month: thank you. It was entirely uncalled for (as in, I did not call for it), but I appreciate the sentiment. For what it's worth, I got in to see my physical therapist and she patiently listened to me ramble about the dozen theories I'd been crafting before simply asking, "are you doing the hamstring stretches I showed you two years ago?" At which point, I melted into a pile of humiliated goo and slid away, escaping under the door.

Anyway, stretching my hamstrings every day is helping a lot. God, I hate doing them, though.

April was also defined by the various preparations needed for what's shaping up to be another epic Japan trip. (Incidentally, this is also what consumed a good chunk of last April.) After going to RubyKaigi as a foreign correspondent for Test Double, I've decided to return in a slightly more low-key fashion. Oh, and this time Becky's joining me!

After the conference, I'm hoping to spend a couple weeks wandering heretofore unexplored (by me) regions of the country on a solo language-learning and research expedition. To assist in documenting all the places I'll go, I added a mapping feature to my site that I call Spots.

As I check items off my packing list, I re-installed and logged into several of the apps I use whenever I'm in Japan. Switching my phone to my Japanese Apple ID for this purpose has become something of an annual ritual of mild frustration that nevertheless leaves me ponderous. Why does everyday life in Japan require a full home screen of only-available-in-the-Japanese-App-Store apps? And if we were to compare them to their counterparts in the West, what might they teach us?

When I first signed up for a study abroad program nearly 20 years ago, it was in large part because Japan seemed like such a radical departure from my upbringing in the states. When I took an elective on post-war Japanese industrial design, I was repeatedly awestruck by the number of tools and appliances that solved common problems in ways I hadn't seen before. That so many things are designed and produced independently in Japan made me realize how many facets of life I'd assumed to be constant were in fact variable. Knobs that twisted left when they "should" have twisted right. The tea kettle whose fully-concealed cord resulted in my not realizing it was electric and subsequently melting it over my gas range. The countless bathtub drains whose basic operation escaped me, leading to my checking out from more than one hotel with a tub full of water. But one thing I hadn't bargained for was the degree to which this profound differentness would also apply to Japanese software design.

Japan produces a lot of software intended primarily (if not exclusively) for domestic consumption. For almost every major function of our lives that's mediated by a popular app, it's likely some other app you've never heard of dominates the same market in Japan. The fact these apps often emerged in relative isolation provides a sort of natural experiment, offering us the opportunity to question features we thought were essential and appreciate alternate approaches we might not have arrived at ourselves.

In case it might whet your appetite for exploring these differences, today I'm going to give a quick run-down of a few of my favorite Japanese apps below.

To be continued…

Don't tell March that it's a short month—we got a lot done!

For starters, we completed our first major home renovation since moving in. Apart from twisting my insides into knots from self-inflicted stress, everything went totally fine and all our contractors were awesome.

I also found occasion to extract my first new open source library of 2024 while working on the new Better with Becky app. If you're a Rails developer and have ever felt uneasy about how easy it is to destroy models, check it out!

But I'm writing to you about something else that made my March especially memorable. An old friend came to visit that I hadn't seen in years. His name is chronic back pain, and he's a real son of a bitch.

Content warning: more content…

As I teased and subsequently recounted on my podcast (Breaking Change, available where all fine podcasts are sold), I decided to be that piece of shit flying cross-country with Apple Vision Pro strapped to my face three days after it launched:

Of course, here I am a month later typing this with the same computer strapped to my face, but from the much more socially-acceptable confines of my home office.

Overall, I'm prepared to call February a success, if for no other reason than it was sunny and 83ºF yesterday, which allowed me to spend a few hours lounging at the pool. Probably not great news for the planet, but absolutely clutch for my 2024 base tan.

Speaking of planes and sunny destinations, this month I want to write a little bit about how and why my perspective on travel has changed over the years.

Content warning: more content…

Greetings from me and my Persona^(BETA). In case you haven't met him, here's what he looks like:

If you'll allow January to leak into the first week of February (as I have), what a start to the year this month has been! I kicked off a brand new podcast and cut 4 episodes for a grand total of over 8 hours of explicit-rated, Searls-flavored content. Less importantly and after 7 years spent cooking in the R&D oven, Apple Vision Pro finally released, ushering in a mostly certain future amid a wildly uncertain present. And the world is finally fixated on a problem relevant to my life: how much of a time-consuming pain in the ass it is to fly between Japan and the US.

But today, we're not going to talk about any of that. We're going to talk about the nature of software and what it means to truly own an app.

Content warning: more content…

I bought Becky a piano for Christmas so I've been brushing up on the only instrument I know how to play:

Congratulations on surviving 2023, everyone. Was touch and go there for a minute, but if you're reading this: you made it.

Don't worry, I'm not going to do a year-in-review for this month-in-review newsletter. One layer of retrospection is plenty. So let's just keep our heads down and focus on the month that was December.

Spoiler alert: there's more to this…

I finished Starfield last month, which included this unsettling scene of my own avatar giving me some free advice:

Having a receding hairline is generally miserable, but the frustration is especially acute when futzing with a video game's character creator. As much as I'd love to grant my digital analog the curly mop of hair I shed long ago in my early 20s, I can never bring myself to so brazenly signal my dissatisfaction with my own appearance. I will admit, though, I usually consider selecting the hair I wish I had… before inevitably choosing whichever of the three balding scalps matches mine best.

Keep reading…

This month in Disney World living, my brother Jeremy and I got to meet Aaron Paul and Brian Cranston at an event promoting their Dos Hombres mezcal:

And then what happened?…

Wow, September came and went in a hurry.

You'll never guess what happens next…

Each month, it's my goal to get these newsletters out on the first of the month, and each month I fail. But in fairness to me, I took two overseas vacations in August and neither time did I bring anything to write with. Add to that, I just got home from Greece with that hip new variant of Covid everyone's talking about. So this month's newsletter is now a third of a month late as a result.

You'll never guess what happens next…

Whenever you read something I write, please know that I was having exactly this much fun writing it for you:

Greetings! It was a slow month in the content mines, as I've shifted my focus back to Top Secret work at Test Double, the fruits of which will probably not be apparent for six months or longer. As a result, I can't really answer what July was "all about", because I was squirreled away working on stuff I can't talk about just yet.

Spoiler alert: there's more to this…

This month, I wrote 3500 words for you about my life—a Searls of Wisdom record! But, unfortunately, things got a bit too softwarey for these parts, so we're going to put it on the Test Double Blog instead. (Stay tuned—hopefully we'll have it up in the next week.)

But wait, there's more…

Greetings, Internet! I am back with a second issue of this stupid newsletter you forgot subscribing to.

And before you knew it…

Greetings! I hope you're doing well. Are you doing well? (Feel free to reply and tell me whether you're doing well!)

Keep reading…