Matthew Eernisse

we used to be a proper country

software engineers before vs after agents

Claude Code vs OpenCode github comments hit different this way (im so sorry)

男は大好きだけど女が観ても全然面白くない映画ナンバー1は『ダークナイト』 女は大好きだけど男が観ても全然面白くない映画ナンバー1は『プラダを着た悪魔』 日本人は大好きだけどアメリカ人が観ても全然面白くない映画ナンバー1は『バトルシップ』

I have changed my mind on how AI will impact jobs in America. Previously, I believed AI would replace many entry level roles typically filled by young employees. The technology would then work its way up the organization and eventually reduce the total number of jobs in a company. The data is saying something different, so when I get new information I am willing to change my mind. The number of software engineers being hired has been increasing. The number of open software engineer roles is growing. The number of new college grads who get hired has increased 5.6% over the last 12 months. The unemployment level for people aged 20-24 years old who have a college degree has fallen from nearly 9% to almost 5% as well. The Wall Street Journal recently wrote “AI created 640,000 jobs between 2023 and 2025 in the U.S., according to an analysis by LinkedIn of job posting data, including new white-collar positions such as Head of AI and AI engineer.” And I am starting to see companies throughout our portfolio aggressively hiring to keep up with the demand for their products and services. If AI can make employees more productive, which is widely accepted as fact, then companies are going to want as many productive units of labor as possible. This is a key reason why I am changing my mind. AI appears to be a magical technology that will make companies more productive and more profitable. The net result will be more corporations, more startups, and more jobs. All three are big, positive wins for the American economy.

During World War II, Hitler was convinced that Americans lacked the will to fight and that any who did would be quickly overwhelmed. When early reports arrived from the battles in North Africa, German observers noted that Americans fought differently from the Europeans. Rather than charging aggressively and risking heavy infantry casualties, U.S. forces relied on overwhelming firepower—staying at a distance and expending vast quantities of artillery with little hesitation. Thanks to unmatched industrial production and logistics, fresh supplies were always available. This approach allowed relatively smaller American units to wear down much larger and well-entrenched enemy forces. In contrast, German and other European doctrines often emphasized aggressive maneuver and were sometimes more willing to accept high casualties to achieve objectives or preserve key equipment. This material-heavy American style surprised many Germans, including Hitler, who had long dismissed U.S. soldiers as soft and lacking in fighting spirit. He believed soldiers were cheap and expendable; he discovered too late that Americans fought to conserve lives by expending machines and ammunition instead. It was one of many reasons for Germany’s defeat—perhaps the hardest for some foreigners to fully understand. Americans place a high value on the lives of our soldiers. Equipment and shells could always be replaced.

I realize non-programmers, if smart, can vibe code much faster than senior programmers on average. They just trust AI with everything and see great results.

I deleted the wrong table at 3 AM. Production. No backup. 200,000 users. My hands actually shook. Here’s what I did instead of panicking: - Stopped the app: more requests = more damage - Checked binary logs: MySQL was still recording everything - Wrote a script to replay the logs forward - Restored the data in 4 hours Three things I learned at 3 AM: - Enable binary logs before you need them - The scariest bug is the one you cause - Panic is slower than a terminal I still run SELECT before DROP. Every. Single. Time.

This is getting way too real! I can now get on a video call with my OpenClaw Agents to chat with them face to face. All i need to do is to send them a Google meet invite.

Unix’s tar command—short for “tape archive”—is infamous for confusing rookies who’ve never touched a magnetic tape cartridge. Even today, countless newbies naively run tar commands with odd flags, having no idea they’re emulating ancient, spool-driven tape archives from a bygone computing era. Ask a fresh sysadmin about tapes, and they’ll stare blankly. Yet their fingers instinctively type tar xvf, carrying forward a fossilized command structure—like mechanical muscle-memory left behind by generations of now-retired Unix greybeards.