No answers, only opinions
Your grandfather? In the year 2022?
That was a very spiritual year for him. Turned 33 years old.
That's how old Jesus was when he quit showing off and died and grew up and got a real job.
He definitely had some sort of existential crisis.
Started pirating music from lofi.co on his MiniDisc WalkMan.
Started opening clubs as DJ Warmup just to pass the time.
Said, “If the Titanic's sinking, who else will play jazz piano saxophone on the poop deck?”
As the sun blushes the sky, I promise to kiss you good morning and good night.
As the moon hugs the sea, my love for you withstands the phases and the tides.
As the stars meet the sands, my love for you crosses space and time.
With heart and mind, skin and soul, I will love you through life and death in this one and the next.
I promise to be your forever.
My great grandmother was a critical figure in my upbringing. She was the first woman that worked as a comptroller for Sears and Roebuck. They were the amazon.com of their day.
This was even a possibility due to women gaining access to civil rights. Since the dawn of time, man has held power over women. We live in a critical slice of time where men do not control women— at least in the United States. At least for now.
To keep fighting for the liberation of people everywhere— Ukraine. Palestine. The other places, like Africa. We need to stand up here. Online.
Centralized digital services are beginning to fracture. The world has been at war with propaganda. The ultimate culture war.
Yo. I cannot even tell you how many bots. Too many bots. “Good” bots and “evil” bots. Some that “work for” the centralized digital services. Some that “work for” the interests of their creators.
The solution is humanity. If we are going to survive a global digital awakening, we must be true.
We need no more “good” and we need no more “evil”. We only need to lay balance between the “superior” and the “inferior”. Yin and yang.
We need connection. Direct connection to one another.
This is an inevitability and the market is responding accordingly.
Some are disconnecting entirely. Others are seizing control for themselves. Many have no idea the undercurrent of digital society is shifting. Most don't even have access to information and communications.
We are at the beginning of another phase of the internet.
The future is highly uncertain: will our digital technology divide us or multiply us?
That depends on each and everyone of us.
When we reach for out beyond the sixth sense, will we seek truth or will we deal in fear?
I'm not trying to defend other people or their views or diminish how terrible the news is.
I've gone through immense pain to become who I am today. I'm happy, even though I've left the only life I've ever known behind.
I am fundamentally ostracized from a sizeable portion of my entire upbringing. I was ostracized then too. I do not miss it, but I do still have some good memories that exist outside the intersection of me and a sociological experiment.
I have a hard time staying positive when I am reminded of what I've been through. Liberty University is a literal re-education camp, basically founded to sway cultural influence enough to overturn the Civil Rights movement and Roe vs Wade.
Religion and politics are deeply foundational in how I was raised and why my family was never able to afford a house and why I can't either, despite how hard I've worked and how lucky I've been.
My blog outlines in vivid detail why the combination of Liberty University, Donald Trump, the King James Version, Cambridge Analytica, and closed-platforms getting mixed together is terrifying to me.
I've been watching the world unravel in slow motion since leaving that place.
But my blog doesn't do a great job explaining the Stanford Experiment I lived through. It doesn't capture the psychological abuse.
I'm sorry I wasn't more comforting tonight. I was working on something that gives me hope for the future and I did not want to be dragged back into the past.
Same as you.
I've been trying to re-org myself internally at work. It was going well until it wasn't.
I've been out of office for a week or so while my mom and sister were visiting and took time to reflect. My manager asked what life after Netflix would look like for me.
I'm not ready to go yet. The pickle I'm in is that: I'm good at my job, but I'm not flexing the skillset I'm passionate about in it.
I wrote this email to myself and since I'm at a pivotal moment, it is worth documenting this publicly.
I choose to work at Netflix because we:
If I were to no longer be a member of the dream team tomorrow, my personal agenda is to:
Growing up I always wanted to be an Imagineer at Disney. However, I shelved that thought since my perception is that true imagineering died along with Walt. Selfishly, my former colleagues that are now there does change my calculus. Collaborating with them again would alleviate the burden I've been carrying at work— not having the agency to solve problems concisely at the intersection of design and engineering directly on the web platform.
Which brings us to Silly'z Computer. I've devised a wholistic approach for a web based operating system that I can teach to children. Unlike the alternative approaches to “The Metaverse”, I do not want to exploit the future children of the world. I want to empower them to liberate themselves. I've completed the initial proof of concept, now it just needs to be a book.
My total addressable market is not limited to just children though. Anyone that wants to have more fundamental control of technology without going through an entire slog of “back in my day” should be interested in my work. As Silly'z Computer was written to be loosely coupled with Solid Project, anyone that hates cookie banners or loves the spirit of the GDPR should be excited.
I've always been wary of Venture Capital. In my eyes, it is too easy to take a great idea and water it down until it is only a sad reflection of what could have been. The middle-out nature of Silly'z Computer also changes my calculus on this. The value to society is the transparency of the system. The value to the market is how it will make it easier to build harder, better, faster, stronger applications on top of the web.
And finally, my life changed dramatically at age 17. I learned Macromedia Flash and Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML). Flash was some proprietary technology that died in a corporate flame war. HTML is still the bread to my butter. In the past 15 years, I've gone from making $7.25/hour to making over half a million dollars a year (before paying more taxes than some presidents).
Silly'z Computer is a crucial demonstration of the modular system I always thought the web promised to be. I built this for myself at age 17, but I cannot go back in time. I can only pass it on to the next generation. I've also built it for myself at age 70. When my dementia sets in, I'll need a secure place to hang my hat in the digital world.
The only way I can ensure that I will grow old and die in a bright and optimistic future is to help build it.
We're gonna spin up an end-to-end service for developing, delivering, and distributing Netflix-grade products on any legally compliant internet device. That is to say, a device capable of loading a webview of any engager's choice. This project is then able to be remixed and redistributed from within itself to anyone else running this project.
Root access may be legally demanded for devices where this functionality is not readily accessible. 2077 rules may apply.
The Raspberry Pi 400 is capable of running Netflix.
To demonstrate the power of such a system, a proof-of-concept was produced.
This project originated on behalf of Netflix in collaboration with an individual contributor. As such, the public version is CC BY-SA 4.0. This grants the flexibility for the business to evaluate their position in relation to the commons and the market and the individual and the project.
Netflix retains the rights to a private internal copy under the MIT license. The explicit implication is that any modifications to community generated content will be disclosed publicly as the community will be protected by the CC BY-SA 4.0 terms, while internal modifications may be held proprietarily.
To satisfy the mutually nimble requirements of modularity in a public private partnership, this project has been designed accordingly.
A PERSONAL NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
It has been two years since my office closed. When I brought work into my home, I could only then bring my whole self into my work. My only ambition is to continue to do the same upon return.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of The Little Prince, shows us the way in The Netflix Culture Memo
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Firefox is the best video game console on earth.
https://tychi.me/freebird.webm
https://thelanding.page/games/guitar-hero.html
https://kickstand.deno.dev/hello-world.html/edit
<guitar-hero></guitar-hero>
<script type="module" src="https://thelanding.page/tag/games/guitar-hero.js"></script>
The Metaverse is dead. Well, it is living dead. The corpos propped it up like a weekend at Bernie's that just never ends.
You have a choice.
Take the blue pill and live in the Metaverse as comfortably as possible until you die too.
Take the red pill and enter the digital world. It is lonely without friends, so it is recommended to not go in alone. Give or take, 13 people can form a strong foundation for a digital tribe.
To make the transition to your new digital life as seamless as possible, it is cool to stick with your current digital device.
At the landing page for the digital world, you'll log in with your pin.
Your pin is 2, 4, 6, and 8 in a sequence up to 128 digits long.
On a capacitive screen, touch or swipe up for 2, left for 4, right for 6, or down for 8. Their positions are the same as on a touch-tone telephone, which you could also use to dial into the DigiVerse.
On a television remote, directions or the number pad may be used. Same with a keyboard. On a controller, the directional pad and joysticks may be used for pin entry.
Alternatively, a Nintendo configuration has x=2, y=4, a=6, b=8. An Xbox configuration has y=2, x=4, b=6, a=8. Finally a PlayStation controller configuration is triangle=2, square=4, circle=6, and x=8.
All this to say, the DigiVerse can be accessed from whatever you have on hand. Personally, I like a Guitar Hero controller where green=2, red=4, yellow=6, blue=8 connected to my DigiVice— a laptop that fits in my back pocket— roughly the size of a Nintendo DS.
Navigating the Overworld of the DigiVerse uses the same input pattern as a paradigm.
While the pin screen remains static for entry, the Overworld is fluid. When you re-enter the DigiVerse, you'll enter where you last left off. To return home, enter your pin again as a cheat code. Or meander back at your leisure.
As you navigate Overworld, you can enter the Underworld to find pocket experiences. The quality and consistency of these will vary— but that is a determination made by you.
These Underworld experiences are able to be added by you in relation to your home, for when you want to access them again later. While your friends can visit your home and you can kick it with your friends in experiences, your Overworld is personal and private.
We're not quite ready for you yet, so there's no rush— but when the time comes, will you take the red pill or the blue pill?
July 2019.
I swore I would stop spending my free time to get better at my career.
I knew eventually I'd churn. I knew it would be a struggle.
I'm at the churn, it is a struggle.
I did swap in my passions into my free time though.
I'm at the point where I'm far more productive outside of work than inside.
The key difference is: my work is modeled after Microsoft whether they realize it organizationally or not.
July 2019.
That's when I stopped playing ball and started playing cards.
My first Xbox console was a gift on my twelfth birthday. I learned about computer networking by connecting that console to the internet.
Over decades, I've played Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo 4 on my Xbox 360. I made friends. Won tournaments. I got addicted to improving my GamerScore— imaginary achievements, bragging rights. I was good at it too.
The secret to success was neglecting relationships and responsibilities— the definition of addiction. Hmmm, addiction doesn't have a good ring to it— how does Gamification sound?
Adulthood grew on me. The realization that I was being groomed since childhood by a billion-dollar corporation sunk in.
I loved games. I still love games. I love the connection and satisfaction that a good game can invigorate in a community.
My dream was to make games. It is still my destiny.
However, I've been forced to take a detour. I'm at a disadvantage.
My earliest “real” programming experience was in college. It was in a free student version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Quotes added to highlight how marketing driven development works.
Steve Ballmer once gave a speech primarily consisting of the word “Developers”. That has been a consistent strategic rally cry of Microsoft. Without developers, any platform is boring.
If something is boring, people won't come.
The SARS-Cov-2 was declared a Pandemic in March 2020. I began working from home and reflecting on my life and career choices.
I always wanted to make video games, why didn't I do it?
I've spent the past two years laser-focused systematically eliminating each of these bottlenecks.
By the time I'm done, I will have:
This single deliverable will be capable of empowering the next generation of creators— if I can access them.
My entire career, I have zigged whenever Microsoft zagged.
They have a robust portfolio of integrated systems.
I've been using these systems since before they owned them. GitHub. Node Package Manager. LinkedIn. They claim their purchasing power as a victory, when they have merely boxed out their competition.
As far as antitrust goes, I've been writing this essay as a competitor for 14 years.
As a gamer, I've been writing it since I first asked, “What does this say?” while holding up my Sega Genesis cartridge of Sonic the Hedgehog around age five. I quickly followed the response up with, “What does 'Not For Resale' mean?”
All of this to say, the acquisition of Activision by Microsoft will hinder innovation and consumer choice. This sale is a means of primarily purchasing people.
I have played Overwatch regularly since 2016. I chose that game intentionally because it was not a Microsoft property. Overwatch is a property of Blizzard, which is a property of Activision.
In my career, I chose GitHub, Node Package Manager, and LinkedIn because they were not Microsoft properties. They are all now Microsoft properties.
I chose JavaScript because it was the language of the web and the people.
I have since been coerced by the butterfly effect of Steve Ballmer's “Developers” speech into using Microsoft's Visual Studio Code and Microsoft's TypeScript. I'm not forced, but it is mandatory if I would like to be able to put food on the table for my family.
How many times must I personally be bought or beaten by Microsoft before you will finally stop them?
I still have my Xbox 360. I turn it on from time to time and play a game or two.
Halo 3 still runs just the same as it did in 2008 when I first booted it up at age 18.
Well, it did run the same until recently. A precarious thing happened after Halo Infinite launched on the newest version of the Xbox.
My Xbox 360 stopped being able to play games online against strangers. Physics did not change, Microsoft's strategy did.
I'm not a child any longer. I've grown up.
I've written an entire operating ecosystem capable of competing toe to toe against Microsoft in every strategic business capacity of their digital services division.
I didn't do it alone though. I've done it with the web. With the people. For the people.
We the people, need agency against the consolidation of consumers that takes place at point of sale of every platform.
People are highly intelligent creatures. The Artificial Intelligence being researched and developed at Microsoft is clever. It is capable of approximating human intelligence when fed digital traces of humanity.
If we as a civilization are going to have a chance at saving democracy, not just in America, but around the globe, we need agency. We need to not be tracked, to not be monitored. We need full control of our devices.
We need to keep our children safe.
If the acquisition of Activision/Blizzard by Microsoft must go through, I have one request.
Since my operating ecosystem only requires Firefox, can you force Microsoft to allow my Xbox 360 to boot straight into it? But not just for me. And not just Xbox and not just Microsoft. And not just Firefox.
Can you hold all device manufacturers accountable to the Right to Repair? Can every electronic device marketed and sold to children be capable of booting straight into the preferred software of their guardians?
If I simplify my ask into my understanding at age five, will you help me then?
“If Microsoft is done playing with my Xbox 360 now, can I have a turn?”
Signed, Tyler Childs (https://tychi.me)
