Probably the funniest part about the SoCal bioluminescence is if itβs dense enough, you can generate enough light to see just by disturbing the water. The water displacement from a surfboard provides enough light to make night surfing possible, and plenty of people will actually do it.
I ran into a bunch of extremely confused German tourists who were asking me if itβs normal for the ocean to glow in the dark or for people to be surfing in the middle of the night. Globally normal? No. LA normal? Yes π
Venice Beach, California - 10/24/2024 11:40 PM
I've always known that marketing budgets are way bigger than cybersecurity budgets, but I don't think anything ever made me want to cry more than when I started getting influencer proposals and realized my entire cybersecurity salary was basically equivalent to 2 Instagram post per month
One of the things I've learned the hard way doing contracting is even if it's true, you cannot operate from the mindset of "I need money" and "some money is better than no money", because this is what the person you're negotiating with is betting on.
They're not only going to lowball you, they're going to make it sound like that's the absolute highest they can go, and some will even legit walk away if you refuse their offer, then come back later and offer you more. I've had ones where they say half my minimum fee is the highest they can go, I restate my minimum fee, they walk away, come back a month later and offer me 4x what I was asking for.
After like a month of being genuinely so burned out I didn't want to work, I got a way better idea of what the actual fair value of my skills was because I just kept unconditionally declining every offer, which resulted in most companies walking away but some going 10x, 20x, and even 50x their initial offer. Taking only 2 of the high offers I received made me more than taking every "highest we can go" offer back to back and just working all day every day.
The crazy part is, you expect that they higher they're paying the higher their expectations, but in my experience the more they're paying the more reasonable and realistic they tend to be, because they've usually done this before, whereas the genuine low offers how no idea the value of your skills, work, or how long what they're asking for should take.
My mid 5 figure contracts usually contact me 8 months before their deadline, we'll have an agreement within 6 months of their deadline, they'll set clear expectations, assign me a point of contact to check in with along the way, and always be available to help should I have any question.
On the flip side, 80% of the 4 figure contract I've taken, I've immediately regretted. For the same amount of work, one literally asked me upon signing the contract if I could submit my the project by the next day, and when I clarified that they want me to do the entire project in the space of 1 night, working over night, they said they could give me an extra day "if I really needed it". π
The Diddy conspiracy theories people are posting on Reels and TikTok are giving me brain damage
This poop colored water at Venice Beach, CA is actually a really cool and rare natural phenomenon. The brown hue is caused by the presence of phytoplankton (a type of microscopic algae). They emit neon blue light when agitated. If they reach high enough density, and the weather conditions are right, around 1 - 2 hours after sunset they can emit enough light to illuminate anything that causes disturbances in the ocean, such as dolphins and waves.
One of the things that worries me most about the next election is tech. The two biggest threats to tech companies right now are anti-trust and regulation (both of which they wholly need and deserve). Their business models rely on exploitation, and GenAI is basically just copyright infringement as a service.
They see Trump as an easy path to a world in which tech CEOs get to play kings. Not only is Trump pro-deregulation, but will likely also try to gut the DOJ and several other agencies out of spite for coming after him, and those agencies just so happen to be the ones that also handle antitrust.
I think Elon might have actually had a psychological breakdown and become completely untethered from reality, but the rest of the tech CEOs and founder suddenly putting their weight behind Trump is a very deliberate attempt to use him as a tool to weaken the federal government's ability to keep them in check.
I think gig working services are a great example of how capitalism's main point of innovation is making things worse in every way imaginable, while convincing people to just kind of deal with it.
It went from you could call your local takeout, they'd offer free deliver within a certain range, then you just tip some high school kid $6.
Now you get doordash, who charge the restaurant a 30% commission, which the restaurant passes on to you. then you pay a service fee, delivery fee, benefits fee, credit card fee, coming up with new fees fee, and a tip on top of that.
Then, despite the delivery costing more than my entire order, the driver makes less than minimum wage, my food arrives cold, and the restaurant takes the heat for any delivery issues.
I've got to the point where I've just started stealing gig workers. I offer to pay them directly to run errands for me. They make more than the service/agency pays them, I save money not funding some techbro's yacht, and they do a better job because there's an ongoing relationship.
I still have absolutely no idea how the YouTube algorithm works. I had an ok-ish performing video, then randomly at 2am the algorithm decides it's actually going to be my best performing video so far and doubles the views
I usually try to be fairly diplomatic on LinkedIn...but, some British dude DM'd me to ask me what it is about Trump that I think is so bad.
Like, honestly, there is not a single thing on earth more embarrassing than being a non-American Trump supporter. Americans spend their entire upbringing being blasted with hyper-partisan politics from all angles. To have grown up outside of the US political sphere, escaped the early-life radicalization attempts, and then still somehow come to the absolutely insane conclusion that Trump would be a good president is just....there are no words.
