vinniegarcia.com

Writing

2026-06-08T23:35:56Z

Writing
Things I Believe About Technology In 2025 2025-03-22
You Are A Human 2025-03-16
Tending to the Garden 2025-03-15
Habituation 2025-03-14
Making Websites Is Fun Again 2025-03-13
Rules for being human handed down from ancient Sanskrit 2025-03-12
Just Start 2025-03-09

Things I Believe About Technology In 2025

2025-03-22T00:00:00Z

Here are some things I believe about technology in 2025. I've had varying beliefs about it over my ~25 year career, and it will change again, so this is a snapshot in time. Here goes:

Technology is for things or people.
Understand who and what your technology is working for.
The gig economy is on net, more negative than positive.
The smartphone/mobile/social media era broke our brains.
The internet is dead
The internet being dead makes the human part of the web, when found, way more interesting and fun.
The most interesting technology coming out are the ones that are removing screens. Airpods, Meta glasses, etc. I'm trying to limit the amount of distraction rectangles I have to look at on a daily basis.
CarPlay/Android Auto are great. Yeah it's another screen in the car, but it's a mirror of the phone I know and it gets the car manufacturer's poorly made infotainment system out of my life.
Speaking of cars, backup cameras are great too, but aside from that and the radio, I'd be happy with a 2005-Honda-Civic level of technology in my car.
Last car point: knobs and buttons are better than touchscreens for the car.
Netflix was great 10 years ago, it had everything for $10 a month. Now there are so many streaming services, the cost can easily exceed the price of a cable subscription. And there's still nothing new worth watching most of the time.
VR can be cool, but I don't want that heavy thing on my head for a long time.
AI will be terrible in every case that it's not used in the human user's interest.

I sound like a grumpy old man, but I do like technology still, and I'm still not bored from it. I'm just trying to keep it in the right places, and working for the right things and people.

You Are A Human

2025-03-16T00:00:00Z

You are a human.

You are not a robot. You are not a machine. You are not a computer. You are not a program. You are not code. You are not a script. You are not data. You are not a file. You are not a database. You are not a server. You are not a client. You are not a network. You are not a protocol. You are not a language. You are not a compiler. You are not a interpreter. You are not a debugger.

You are not a profit-maximizing, cost-minimizing, self-interested, rational, economic actor.

You are not a consumer. You are not a cog in a machine. You are not a fungible replaceable part.

You are not a diagnosis. You are not a condition. You are not a symptom. You are not a disorder. You are not a prescription. You are not a treatment regiment.

You are human. Remember that.

Tending to the Garden

2025-03-15T00:00:00Z

You have to get organized, Vinnie!

My dad seared these words into my brain when I was a teenager. I didn't understand them at the time, or maybe I didn't want to understand. But not being organized has bitten me in the ass more times than I can count. I've been trying to get better at it, and in no way can I say I'm great at it, but I am trying new things.

Digital Gardening

For a long time, I just dumped my stuff into folders and never looked at them again. I've been carrying a lot of junk! Junk I never even looked at after it was created or used! So I'm trying to clear that stuff out. I thought it would be useful one day, but it hasn't. I didn't need it.

Paperwork

Paperwork is a mess, frequently. There are times where I have avoided getting the mail so it doesn't add to the pile. I'm better now about just processing it. But I have a folder of stuff from the past year that needs a pass through. And most of my bills are paid automatically, but I still need to keep track of them. And it always seems like there are more of those than I can track!

Work

The best way I've found to be organized at work is:

Review the list of work to be done when you begin your day.
Sort it by (time/importance/whatever criteria is important to you)
Work on each item top to bottom.
Cross the items off as you go.
When the day ends, review your complete items.
Move your incomplete items to the top of the list for the next day.
Add new items to the bottom of the list.
Repeat tomorrow.

I'm at my best when I both know what I need to do and can offload what I don't need to immediately do to the list.

Does this really help?

Yeah it does, when I am consistent and diligent about these things. Am I? No. But I'm trying.

My dad was around my age when he told me to get organized. I almost took it as a personal attack at the time. He was just warning me. He had spent years being bitten by disorganized times and was trying to help me avoid the same fate. I still learned this the hard way, but I'm better off for it. Thanks Dad, I appreciate you.

Habituation

2025-03-14T00:00:00Z

Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny. - Lao Tzu

I'm a creature of habit. The familiar is easy to stick to and difficult to escape sometimes. That can lead to bad habits too.

I've built good habits recently, and I'm proud of them. But I'm also aware that I need to keep working on them. I need to keep practicing them. I need to keep reinforcing them. I need to keep making them a part of my life.

Habits are muscle builting. I'm working on the muscle-building of writing right now. Maybe I won't write the greatest magnum opus ever each day, but I will do my best to write something. Even if I'm the only reader.

Making Websites Is Fun Again

2025-03-13T00:00:00Z

I didn't touch this website for 10 years since the last version. I finally redesigned it this weekend.

Over the past 4 months, I've made four websites myself and helped a friend breathe new life into three of his websites. I hadn't done that much work outside of my day job in years. It felt great.

Part of the absence was just being tired. After decades of working on software, and after a long day, sometimes the last thing you want to do is work on something like a website or app. You just want to spend time with family, or have a good dinner, or walk the dog and relax when you finish work.

A big part of it was just feeling like I had nothing to say, or being afraid to put it out there. I'm getting over that general feeling. But specifically, I'm going to put more here than just tech stuff. I'll put things I make, or places I go, or philosophies on life and the mind and whatever I feel like. This is my website. I'm going to determine what to put on it and not be afraid to express myself.

The internet and the web are not what they were when this website started in 2003 (yes, this website is old enough to buy alcohol!). It's less friendly, more corporate, more walled off. Instead of five giant websites, each with screenshots of the other four, people ran their own sites. I used to do that, and I missed it, so here I am again.

Rules for being human handed down from ancient Sanskrit

2025-03-12T00:00:00Z

You will receive a body.
You will learn lessons.
There are no mistakes, only lessons.
A lesson is repeated until it is learned.
Learning lessons does not end.
"There" is no better than "Here."
Others are merely mirrors of you.
What you make of your life is up to you.
The answers lie inside you.
Your answers lie inside you.
You will forget all of this.
You can remember it whenever you want.

These rules date back to circa 1500BC. They play in my head a lot, especially lately. Different ones at different times in my life, but they're usually in the background or foreground somewhere. They're great reminders of the human experience.

I will forget them again. And I will remember them again.

Just Start

2025-03-09T00:00:00Z

I often think of an idea. Then I write it down. Then I make plans to work on it. Then I don't work on it.

I made plans to work on this site for 10 years. I haven't touched it.

So let's start again.

What is this about?

It's about me. This used to be about my work, but that's limiting. I hope to add more than that. I do more than just my work. I want to do a good job there, but it's not the biggest or most rewarding part of my life; that would be my family and loved ones.

I don't know if I'll keep these posts around or delete them from time to time. It doesn't really matter. I am here again and I will make this relevant for right now and for later.