006: Hopes for 2021

Oxford Dictionary included "doomscrolling" in their "word of the year" report for 2020; we're all feeling pandemic fatigue; many people still believe in wide-spread election fraud; the Georgia senate race was a nail-biter; and - oh yeah - we recorded this show the day after the storming of the United States capitol building.

It's all been more-than-a-bit surreal.

But, in the face of such physically and emotionally trying times, we look forward to a new year of possibility. Whether it's taking control of our finances, finding ways to be more active, building up our personal brand, or becoming the blacksmiths that we always knew we could be, the crew shares their personal and professional / technical goals for this burgeoning new year. As the Phoenix rose from the ashes, so too - we hope - 2021 will rise from the smoldering dumpster fire of 2020.

We'd also like to give a huge shout-out and thank you to Monte Chan for being our first Patreon supporter! You are a beautiful, beautiful person; and we hope to make you proud!

Triumphs & Fails

• Adam's Triumph - With 2020 just behind us, the Georgia Senate run-off keeping us on the edge of our seats, the insurrection, and plenty of "doomscrolling", he managed to kick off 2021 with a somewhat productive week. He's reminded of a quote from Cory Doctorow's latest book: "I'm not OK, but I'm going to be OK. I'm coping, but I have a lot to cope with."
• Ben's Triumph - Coming off the two-week "deployment freeze" at work, he managed to rebase, merge, and deploy the 20-something small git branches that he had amassed over the holiday. It took a few days, but everything went swimmingly!
• Carol's Triumph - She accidentally discovered her son (16yo) and his best friend listening to our podcast; and, they loved it! Woot woot! We are totes connecting with the youths!
• Tim's Triumph - In the aftermath of the insurrection and storming of the US capitol building, he managed to not curl up in a ball and rock back-and-forth in the corner. Given the context, this was a pretty momentous effort.

Notes & Links

• Cory Doctorow - science fiction author, activist and journalist.
• You Need a Budget - award-winning software that teaches you how to manage your money.
• Mark Drew - a rather amazing chap from the CFML and web programming world.
• Devil Forge - full-service metal melting and blacksmithing tools supply company.
• Max Cunningham - YouTube channel, blacksmith and forge enthusiasm.
• Forged in Fire - reality show featuring world-class bladesmiths re-creating historical edged weapons in a cutthroat competition.
• Alec Steele - blacksmith and YouTube star.
• Primitive Technology: Forge Blower - awesome YouTube video in which a guy "invents" the force blower using primitive tooling.
• AlumnIQ - world-class software for alumni and donor engagement.
• Brad Frost: Atomic Design - book about building design systems.
• Material Design - design system and general design platform by Google.
• Angular.js - modern application framework for building Single Page Applications (SPA) from Google.
• Storybook - an open source tool for developing UI components in isolation for React, Vue, Angular, and more.
• * Helios - design system used at InVision.
• async / await - modern JavaScript technique for making asynchronous code read like synchronous code.
• Snowpack - a lightning-fast front-end build tool, designed for the modern web, allowing you to load JavaScript modules from URLs.
• Promise - a proxy for a future, asynchronous value in JavaScript.
• Redis - an awesome open source, in-memory data structure store, used as a database, cache, and message broker.
• BitCoin - is an innovative payment network and a new kind of money.
• DogeCoin - an open source peer-to-peer digital currency, favored by Shiba Inus worldwide.
• Cryptocurrency - a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange.
• Blockchain - the world's most popular way to buy, hold, and use crypto currencies.
• A.I. - intelligence demonstrated by machines.
• AWS Machine Learning - a machine learning as a service platform.
• Machine Learning - the study of computer algorithms that improve automatically through experience.
• Boston Dynamics: Do You Love Me? - absolutely mind-blowing video of robots getting their groove on!
• Dependabot - automatic dependency and security updates in your GitHub repositories.
• Kent C. Dodds: Testing JavaScript - online course for testing JavaScript applications.
• TypeScript - popular extension to JavaScript that adds types and other advanced features.
• Scala Play Framework - framework that makes it easy to build web applications with Java and Scala.
• JSON: JavaScript Object Notation - the de facto data exchange format for many networked applications.
• Let's not be monsters - adorable toddler telling us to be better!

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