October was the first month when I had to leave full-time development of shipit and move to another job. I am now a product engineer at Salv which helps companies beat financial crime. As unfortunately happens with many startups, shipit somewhat failed financially. In the past year being the only full-time employee also had its toll on me: depression and anxiety, personal pressure to improve the situation. After almost 7 years of remote work I now go to the office, have small talk and very deep and insightful conversation, walk way more, and overall have a happier life. And for now shipit becomes a side project with continued support and slightly slower feature development.
Getting out of social networks
As I was applying for the job, I did an extensive research on the company, employees. And during every step of the interview I was compiling a folder of information and questions to ask. However with one employee it was next to impossible to find anything online. Later we had a chat about it, and he told me that once a year he reviews everything that Internet knows about him and deletes what he thinks is no more relevant. Given I stopped using Facebook ages ago, I went there and wiped it clean as well. Unfortunately for a few small reasons I cannot completely kill the account there yet, but at least there’s a bit less information it knows about me.
Italy
We spent 10 days travelling in Italy. First flew to Rome, then picked a car and travelled through Tuscany to Pienza. There isn’t much to say about the travel other that Rome is not for children, and the food was bad. Tuscany is very pleasant to the eye and the mouth with its vast fields, local dishes, small historical towns, great people and wine. And Pienza where we spent just one night, is a lovely town.
Reading
After watching Dune on the big screen I wanted to read the book. There were many interesting ideas in the movie which I knew the book would describe in more details. And boy was I not disappointed. I wrote down some thoughts on cultivating your children which discusses how children might become the slaves of your own ambitions.
In addition to Dune I have an ongoing interest in wild foraging and fermentation. For a long time I’ve been (rather unsuccessfully) experimenting with wild yeast and sourdough, and in between these experiments I decided to explore lacto fermentation. And one of the most interesting books on the topic is “Wildcrafted Fermentation” by Pascal Baudar. It’s a collection of various recipes and techniques which I still consider a good reading.
At work we had our first developer book club which started with a book on hexagonal architecture which we’re migrating to. Having spent two years at a co-working place I’ve tried to start a book club multiple times. The last attempt failed because of the pandemic. It’s nice to see this initiative, and even though the book is not something I thoroughly enjoyed reading, it was useful and the discussion part was very enjoyable.
Finally I’m still reading the “Genome” and “The Greatest Story Ever Told” which bring me a lot of joy.