Off-Topic

All Off-Topic posts from the blog — philosophy, career, management, and other topics outside of day-to-day programming.

2026 - April

• My Sim Racing Cockpit - Formula FX1

2026 - March

• 37 Days of Vibe Coding Immersion: Conclusions on Business Models
• Software Is Never ‘Done’ — 4 Projects, Life After Deploy, and Why One-Shot Prompting Is a Myth

2026 - February

• RANT: Did AI Kill Programmers?

2025 - June

• AGI or Skynet Isn’t Coming Anytime Soon

2025 - May

• Computing History and Retro Dev on YouTube
• RANT - LLMs are LOOT BOXES!
• Rant - Will LLMs Evolve Forever? Demystifying LLMs in Programming

2018 - July

• [Off-Topic] The Pity Evolution of Modern Society

2017 - August

• [Off-Topic] Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies in Brazil

2017 - June

• Estimates are Promises - A Better Metaphor
• The Economics of Software Development
• Starting with Blender
• [Off-Topic] Talent Is Highly Overrated: Humanizing Einstein and Killing Gods
• Conference Talks, Interviews, and the Pen!

2017 - February

• [Off-Topic] Carpe Diem and the Myths of Happiness

2017 - January

• [Off-Topic] Why are we all moving away from Apple?

2016 - November

• [Off-Topic] Learning Statistics

2016 - July

• The Year of Linux on the Desktop - It’s Usable!

2016 - May

• Rails has won: The Elephant in the Room

2016 - April

• [Off-Topic] Free Software: An Exercise in CAPITALISM
• [Off-Topic] If You Need “Validation,” You’re Probably Wrong
• The Year of Linux on the Desktop, by Microsoft??

2016 - March

• War is Over, or is it? A New Dawn for Microsoft

2015 - November

• Brazil Situation: No Macs for the Rest of Us

2015 - January

• [Off-Topic] Compilation: “Processes and Methodologies Won’t Help You!”

2014 - December

• [Off-Topic] Talking with a University Professor

2014 - November

• [Small Bites/Off-Topic] “People over Processes” — what are “People”?

2014 - October

• [Off-Topic] 3D Printing, the Legend?

2014 - September

• [Off-Topic] Agile: the Truth Behind the Method
• [Off-Topic] DO NOT Do What You (“THINK”) You Love

2014 - August

• [Off-Topic] First Time in São Paulo, What to do?

2014 - July

• [Off-Topic] Someone Important Left the Community! Now What??

2014 - May

• [Off-Topic] Career in Programming — Coding Isn’t Programming

2014 - March

• [Off-Topic] Commenting on the Approved Marco Civil
• [Off-Topic] Breaking Bad was a very successful startup
• [Off-Topic] Lean Is Dead, Long Live Efficiency

2014 - February

• [Off-Topic] The New Generation’s Dilemma: start a company or get a job?

2013 - November

• [Off-Topic] Remote Work — Small Office, Home Office (SoHo)
• [Off-Topic] Tech Startups, B2C overcrowding. Boring.
• [Off-Topic] Programmers Are Terrible Communicators (UDP vs TCP)
• [Off-Topic] Agile Done Wrong

2013 - October

• [Translation] Letter to a Young Programmer Considering a Startup
• [Off-Topic] Math, Trolls, Haters, and Internet Discussions
• [Off-Topic] #noEstimates Debunked

2013 - August

• [Off-Topic] Estimates Are Promises. Promises Must Be Kept.

2013 - July

• [Off-Topic] Comfort Zone: Taking to the Streets Isn’t the Only Solution
• Predictably Irrational

2013 - June

• Introduction to Agility
• Processes, Methodologies, and the Human Brain
• What Does It Mean to Be a Manager?

2013 - May

• [Off-Topic] A View from the Past About the Internet
• [Off-Topic] A View from the Past About the Internet
• Processes and Methodologies Won’t Help You
• [Translation] Standards: excellence vs. mediocrity
• [Off-Topic] People: Rational Animals? The id and ego in marketing
• Brazilian Portuguese Can Confuse Us: Standard vs Pattern

2013 - April

• [Translation] Estimation — The Best We Can Do

2013 - March

• [Off-Topic] Most people said they’d use my product. Will it work? No!

2013 - January

• [Off-Topic] The World Today Is Very Good! Happy 2013!

2012 - December

• [Off-Topic] A Vent III, Reflecting on 2007

2012 - September

• Ruby is Beautiful? What is Beauty?

2012 - August

• [Off-Topic] The Myth of the “Legacy”

2012 - May

• [Off-Topic] Great Artists Steal
• [Off-Topic] Reading with subtitles over Kanjis in Japanese webpages

2011 - December

• [Off-Topic] New Year’s Message — Philosophy

2011 - May

• [Off-Topic] Opinions, Truths, Democracy and Ethics

2011 - April

• [Off-Topic] Mea Culpa: Democratic Organizations Don’t Work

2011 - February

• [Off-Topic] Demystifying the “Evil” Microsoft
• [Off-Topic] The Fountainhead: Howard Roark’s Defense
• [Off-Topic] Atlas Shrugged: Is Money the Root of All Evil?

2011 - January

• [Documentary] The iPod Revolution

2010 - June

• [Off-Topic] Jeff Patton and Megan Fox in the same post?

2010 - April

• [Off-Topic] The Humble Programmer, by Edsger W. Dijkstra

2010 - March

• [Off-Topic] Penn & Teller and Larry Flynt, on Freedom

2010 - February

• [Off-Topic] Wake up Call

2010 - January

• [Off-Topic] Reading the Agile Principles
• [Off-Topic] Companies, People, Success
• [Off-Topic] Who’s the Idiot?
• Off-Topic: Literature for Agile Managers
• [Off Topic] Dunbar and Cross Functional Teams

2009 - December

• [Off Topic] Watch Out for Kanban-butt
• [Off-Topic] You Don’t Understand Anything About Scrum

2009 - November

• [Off-Topic] Restaurants and Technology
• [Off-Topic] Obedience to Authority
• [Off-Topic] Cell Phones and Airplanes
• [Off-Topic] The Problem of Credentials

2009 - September

• [Off-Topic] Thinking Makes You Better
• [Off-Topic] The Argument from Intimidation
• [Off-Topic] Man’s Rights
• [Off-Topic] The Cult of Gray Morality

2009 - August

• [Off-Topic] The Damn Regulation Law Is Back!

2009 - July

• [Off-Topic] All Marketers Are Liars
• [Translation] What Makes a Good Programmer?
• [Off-Topic] Bought My First Mac — Now What?
• [Off-Topic] Intervene or Not? The “Catch-22” of Co-Pilots
• [Off-Topic] Reference Books 2008-2009
• [Off-Topic] Agility, Chaos, Self-Organization
• [Off-Topic] Negotiable Scope Contract
• [Off-Topic] Authority vs. Responsibility

2009 - June

• [Off-Topic] Standards, Commodities, and Innovations
• [Translation] Advice for Software Development Managers

2009 - May

• [Off-Topic] The 5 Team Dysfunctions in Code

2009 - April

• Off-Topic: Should I Go to College?

2009 - March

• [Off-Topic] Net Negative Producing Programmer

2009 - February

• Translation: Flaccid Scrum

2008 - December

• Translation: Technical Debt
• Off-Topic: Scientific Method vs Cargo Cult

2008 - October

• Off-Topic: Understanding the Economic Crisis
• Off-Topic: The Agile Manifesto, or How to Become Google

2008 - September

• Off-Topic: The Power of Myth, Redux

2008 - July

• Off Topic: Why Programmers Should Play Go

2008 - May

• Off-Topic: Bleeding for Rails! Part 2
• Off-Topic: Bleeding for Rails!

2008 - April

• Off Topic: Let’s All Stop the Regulation of the Systems Analyst Profession
• Off Topic: Never Trust TIOBE
• Off-Topic: Google App Engine and Cloud Computing

2008 - March

• Off Topic: We Are Mathematically Illiterate

2008 - February

• Translation: I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know How to Get It

2008 - January

• Off Topic: “I Am Legend” - TERRIBLE!

2007 - September

• Translation: Counting Is a Waste of Time

2007 - August

• Off Topic: Pale Blue Dot
• Off Topic: Enemies of Reason
• The Sunk Cost Fallacy
• AkitaOnRails, Retrospective 1985-2007

2007 - June

• A Rant, Part II
• Off Topic: Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Speech, 2005

2007 - April

• Off Topic: Be Arrogant!

2007 - March

• Off Topic: A Rant

2007 - February

• Getting Real Translation - Release Candidate 2 Launch

2007 - January

• Off Topic: “Here’s to the crazy ones …”
• Off-topic: MacWorld 2007 - Steve Jobs Announces the Long-Awaited iPhone!
• Off-topic: MacWorld 2007 - Steve Jobs Keynote

2006 - October

• Kathy Sierra: Dilbert and the Zone of Mediocrity

2006 - September

• Evolution Through Competition