Here I am, without my van, on the opposite side of the world, sitting at IHOP in Austin, Texas, and the story of how I ended up here is a strange one. It has now been just over a month since I left Gitpod, a company I thought I would be with for a very long time... A wonderful yet lavish offsite. and I wouldn't be here where I am in Austin, Texas, without Gitpod. Back in June, the CEO of Gitpod tasked me with investigating another company called Coder which recently launched a new remote development product offering... Coder - Remote development on your infrastructure Coder - Remote develop ..read more

So, why did I leave Gitpod? It's hard to pick a particular singular reason but that internal all-company letter which was sent weeks after a wonderful, yet extravagant offsite, really spooked me; like I have been homeless before and I'm sure as shit ain't going back there... venture-backed CEOs after laying off half the company pic.twitter.com/DAfm0QbwP6 — Alexis Gay (@yayalexisgay) September 19, 2022 I found it somewhat strange that a 65ish person company has scaled up so many folks in HR I guess it would be easy for leadership to paint me as disgruntled but the reality is that as a holder ..read more

A couple of moments ago, I finished reading the article by Rob O'Leary about the pervasive data collection done by Visual Studio Code. Now that I'm no longer an employee at Gitpod, I'm finally able to author a blog post freely about something that has been troubling me for quite some time... Whilst Visual Studio Code is "open-source" (as per the OSD) the value-add which transforms the editor into anything of value ("what people actually refer to when they talk about using VSCode") is far from open and full of intentionally designed minefields that often makes using Visual Studio Code in any o ..read more

Hello there! First, you have made the correct decision to visit Sydney, it's a pretty chill place for tourists. To help you fall even more in love with the city, I have provided you with a list of awesome things to do. coffee Australia has some of the best coffee in the world, that is if you know where to find it. If you're on the run and can't venture to a specific cafe, then choose any place that serves pablo and rustys or campos coffee. good coffee Avoid any establishment that serves "grinders coffee" as that coffee is terrible and the food could be questionable. Grinders is manufactur ..read more

As hacker summer camp swings into full gear, I reflect upon the time where I was arrested under suspicion of transforming a Hong Kong university mail server into a 0-day warez site and almost spent time in hacker winter camp. I was, fortunately, 13 at the time and last week I turned 40 which means I've been on the internet now for 29 years... "now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time" You know that opening scene of Hackers where journalists are chasing a young kid around trying to get a media scoop? Yeah, that happened to me... This scene in hackers hits close to home; as a young chi ..read more

I was asked recently on the topic of leadership. In short, I’m an avid fan of servant leadership - being selflessly 100% focused on helping folks within my team / being a janitor. What is Servant Leadership? - Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership Back circa 2018, I joined an AI startup in Sydney that brought me in to serve an existing team. The people within the team were freaking brilliant but misunderstood (literal mathematicians and a comp sci professor who published a paper contesting the Church-Turing thesis). The Church-Turing Thesis confus ..read more

As the saying goes, all good things come in threes: Last Friday, I submitted my resignation to Gitpod and signed with my ? On Saturday, I finally, after time apart due to COVID19, met in person with someone who will always be a special someone in my life Yesterday, I submitted an application for a house in Sydney and commited to my children that I would seek 50/50 shared care and I hope the saying is true. Gitpod supported me during a really tough period in my life and together we took awareness of Gitpod from 0 to 1. Oh wow! You will be missed, but I'm truly happy for you identifying and t ..read more

McDonalds in Australia do a decent cup of coffee. It’s not great but it’s consistently decent so I often start my day with a cup. Due to my travels around Australia in a decked out van I have seen how many McDonalds operate and just how many of these terminals are left fucking unlocked. Underpaid staff who used to do ordering have been replaced with these self-service kiosks and a process that is based off to tickets. This process completely falls apart when the ticket printer runs out of paper and as McDonalds does A LOT of orders the printers run out of paper often. From what I've observed ..read more

I'm saddened by the need to author this blog post about a product that I once loved. For the last eight months I've been traveling around Australia in a custom built van with Denon 4 controller connected to two SOUNDBOKs v3 speakers and life has been pretty freaking good lately. Instead of maintaining open-source software I've been playing tunes to groups of people as the sun goes down and hacking the firmware of the Denon Prime 4 to make it possible to SSH into the device and run custom binaries. The van build is now complete and it is amazing, so amazing that SOUNDBOKS themselves follo ..read more

For some, this is the consulting version of Siberia; lost in a hopeless no-man’s land. Without a plan, you'll have very little to do and what you are assigned is often either busy-work or unfulfilling at best. Like a utility player on a sports team, you are sitting in reserve waiting until your skills are needed for another project. It doesn't have to be this way tho. Here are some of the things that you could be doing: 1) Self-promotion: make sure folks know what your interests are, and the sales team know what style of engagements are appealing to you. When was the last time you took an acc ..read more