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Texas Monthly reports chronic kidney disease of unknown origin among young immigrant outdoor workers—a pattern long seen in Central America, now appearing where heat, labor, and limited care collide.
Inspired by texasmonthly.com · Texas Monthly
Lalit Maganti finds staff problems by listening like a sponge across meetings and chat. That only works when engineers can initiate work—not when they are order-takers on a roadmap.
Inspired by lalitm.com · Lalit Maganti
A Chicago working paper on ADP payrolls shows firms kept 2–4% raise norms while inflation hit 7–9%, leaving a permanent real-wage cut after prices cooled.
Inspired by bfi.uchicago.edu · Erik Hurst, Christina Patterson, Nela Richardson and Ye Liv Wang
BBC coverage of CEO AI manifestos lands beside real headcount cuts at Block, Atlassian, Coinbase, and Rackspace—interested testimony from people who both sell the future of work and shrink today’s payrolls.
Inspired by bbc.com · BBC
Senko Rašić challenges the claim that code was never the hard part—hiring, craft, and buggy software say otherwise—arguing understanding why to build and how to build well both stay hard while AI shifts where scarce effort goes.
Inspired by blog.senko.net · Senko Rašić
July lost 23,000 payroll jobs and prior months were revised lower, yet unemployment fell to 4.1% as participation dropped—a hiring crisis masked by a lower breakeven job-creation threshold and people leaving the labor force.
Inspired by nbcnews.com · NBC News
John Naughton warns that AI gains may concentrate among owners while workers face displacement. Early adoption can freeze headcount, but if AI becomes ordinary infrastructure, larger AI-assisted teams may eventually have more leverage—and the real fight is over who captures the rewards.
Inspired by observer.co.uk · John Naughton
Bruce Schneier’s work-versus-gym framing for AI use—use tools when the result is the point, keep the struggle when the practice develops skill—and how that maps onto software work, writing, and still requiring reviewable output after trust questions are answered.
Inspired by schneier.com · Bruce Schneier
Necrosoft Games and United Videogame Workers-CWA organized an itch.io Game Industry Hardship Fund bundle—127 DRM-free games from 109 creators for a $10 minimum, with proceeds helping U.S. and Canadian game workers cover groceries, rent and medical costs.
Inspired by itch.io · Necrosoft Games / UVW-CWA
Not everything needs to become a product or attract an audience. Make things carefully, share what you learn, help others build, and begin again when life interrupts the work.
The people worth keeping around often bring joy and kindness to ordinary moments that would otherwise pass unnoticed in a busy life.
Inspired by kottke.org · Jason Kottke
Using his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford presents a wonderfully articulated call for self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world.
