We join the Whiskey Web and Whatnot podcast live from the hallway track at All Things Open 2024. Topics include: Chianti, content creation, open source, fake jobs, cancel culture, Silicon Valley (ding), frontend frustrations, the Roman empire & more.
Ch | Start | Title | Runs |
---|---|---|---|
01 | 00:00 | Let's talk! | 00:39 |
02 | 00:39 | Sponsor: Fly.io | 02:45 |
03 | 03:24 | The setup | 01:11 |
04 | 04:35 | Wine & Friends | 01:42 |
05 | 06:17 | "Brought to you by" | 01:36 |
06 | 07:53 | x.com hot take | 00:40 |
07 | 08:33 | Good legs on this wine | 02:24 |
08 | 10:58 | Tentacle ratings | 05:20 |
09 | 16:18 | Content creation worth it? | 02:05 |
10 | 18:23 | Open source worth it? | 02:42 |
11 | 21:05 | Building reputation | 04:45 |
12 | 25:50 | Sponsor: WorkOS | 03:17 |
13 | 29:07 | Sponsor: Wix Studio | 00:54 |
14 | 30:01 | National certification | 04:55 |
15 | 34:56 | Lone wolf is lonely | 01:18 |
16 | 36:14 | Fake jobs | 02:25 |
17 | 38:39 | Cancel Culture | 03:05 |
18 | 41:44 | Cancer Culture | 01:57 |
19 | 43:42 | The WP Engine example | 01:29 |
20 | 45:11 | By any means necessary | 03:13 |
21 | 48:17 | SV Analogy: Part 1 | 00:18 |
22 | 48:36 | Max Howell cameo | 01:03 |
23 | 49:38 | SV Analogy: Part 2 | 02:01 |
24 | 51:39 | MANAMA? | 01:43 |
25 | 53:22 | Indies vs Orgs | 00:39 |
26 | 54:02 | Succession v Gladiator | 02:56 |
27 | 56:58 | Sponsor: Timescale | 02:16 |
28 | 59:14 | How about no? | 01:44 |
29 | 1:00:58 | Where to draw the line | 01:36 |
30 | 1:02:34 | SaaS deps | 00:44 |
31 | 1:03:18 | Phoenix blues? | 00:45 |
32 | 1:04:03 | Framework laptops | 02:01 |
33 | 1:06:04 | Eminem is how old?! | 00:52 |
34 | 1:06:56 | How to end | 00:18 |
35 | 1:07:15 | Jerod's dream job | 00:23 |
36 | 1:07:38 | Adam's dream job | 02:45 |
37 | 1:10:23 | Bye friends! | 00:47 |
38 | 1:11:10 | Next week on The Changelog | 01:37 |
:link: https://changelog.com/friends/68
On the subject of Fake (not Steve) Jobs: it appears some news outlets have caught wind of the phenomenon... https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/ghost-jobs-california-tech-industry-19871249.php
What is the rationality behind bleeping on the podcast? We are all adults here, we have all heard these words before countless times and use them every day in our normal language.
Is this some requirement from the podcast hosting companies or apple or whatever?
The two reasons I remember are
I finally figured out why Jerod is anti-TS. He wants the file extension to be his initials
We really want to reach the widest developer audience as possible -- that means the younger generation as well as those with kids present when listening...and that happens a lot. Not bleeping also forces the "E" tag on the podcast which generally is just limiting.
I just listened to this episode.
The Whiskey Web and the Changelog combo was a blast :100: :boom:
Keep it rolling...
Just listened, lots of fun
I do find the complaints about cancel culture to be a little strange
Is cancel culture different to a boycott? Do different sides of politics tend to use different names for the same thing?
Are there any examples of someone who was cancelled/boycotted where it actually harmed them permanently?
Louise C K rings a bell, but it's not like his lifestyle has even been impacted: he's not begging on the streets, and he's even back on stage just like before
If cancel culture is a thing, the impact seems to fade so quickly that transgressors don't even have to apologise or make amends to be forgiven
Complaining about cancel culture makes me think of Lisa Kudrow's character complaining about censorship in Death To 2020, hilarious
_Deleted, nothing useful to add here_
Ron Waldon-Howe said:
Are there any examples of someone who was cancelled/boycotted where it actually harmed them permanently?
Why is permanent harm the metric you select? I'm sure James Gunn, Kyrie Irving, Shane Dawson, Morgan Wallen, James Damore, and many others suffered significant life/career setbacks, even though they eventually recovered. Were they not canceled, then, because the harm wasn't permanent?
If somebody breaks my arm, do you not care because the arm eventually heals up?
How about that woman who tweeted some terrible/stupid joke before her plane took off and by the time it had landed a few hours later she had been publicly condemned and had lost her job. Was that a boycott?
Adam was advocating for being gracious toward one another and he specifically spoke to the culture of quickly (and too often, incorrectly) canceling individuals who screw up, have wrong conclusions, disagree with the status quo, etc.
I know how I'd like to be treated if I were in any of those scenarios...
Cancel culture is just people using their rights of free speech and free association. If I see that a comedian tells a joke that I consider is harmful to me or somebody I love I use my right of free association to not buy any of his output. I use my right of free speech to urge others to do the same.
If your boss fires you because you told a joke than it's obvious your boss also thinks what you did was gross and doesn't want any of that taint on the company. In the US workers have no rights so your boss can fire your for any reason.
On the other side of the coin you have actual government actions that get people fired or deported or jailed. Those are the things you should be actually worried about. Elon willy nilly firing tens of thousands of people, people being deported because they protested Israel, people being beaten by cops because they were near a protest, people being run over because they were at a protest etc are all much much worse than people using their right of free speech on the internet to point out their disgust at a "joke".
Nobody said people don't (or shouldn't) have the right to cancel other people. We just think it's lame in the ways previously discussed. Hence Adam's complaining and my defending him.
Tim Uckun said:
Those are the things you should be actually worried about.
That's a false dichotomy. Being worried about one thing does not mean you can't also be worried about other things.
I think "it depends" with each case: context matters
I agree we can worry about multiple problems, sure
And we all have our own priorities and values and beliefs, so it's completely valid for one person to be most concerned about cancel culture, whilst another person is most concerned about something else
And it's also okay to complain about cancel culture whilst acknowledging that it isn't your biggest concern, sure
I'm not familiar with the other examples, but James Demore wrote that it was acceptable and natural for STEM to have disproportionately fewer women than men, and tried to justify this with evolutionary psychology, which would only have taken a single Google search to see just how thoroughly debunked that is
He had every opportunity to avoid that mistake, but chose to release his poorly-justified manifesto anyway, violating the Google code of conduct
I'm sure we've all seen some DEI activities that don't seem 100% aligned with DEI goals, but to debate the fundamental problem and DEI goals themselves with such flimsy reasoning ... both his laziness (or lack of research) and his sexism warrant some amount of rebuke, don't they?
That said, as a society that should value growth mindsets rather than a fixed mindset, we should certainly be open to James Demore educating himself and apologising, absolutely
And yeah, I agree with @Tim Uckun : cancel culture doesn't fire people, USA voters continuously voting in favour of the eradication of workers rights is what gets people fired
That said, Australia seems to be sliding in that direction now, too: attempting to lock in a 2 party system, with both parties increasingly forbidden from interfering with corporate interests :S
Even in New Zealand workers rights are continually being degraded by right leaning governments every time they take office. When the left leaning government gains power it makes small steps to restore some of those rights but overall it doesn't undo the damage being done.
Luckily Australia has strong unions, something we used to have here in NZ but not so much anymore.
I'll double down though. Everybody should be exercising their free speech and association and the power of their purse to the maximal effect according to their values. You vote rarely but spend money every day. Taking action feels better than slinking off to a corner cowering and whimpering when somebody uses their power of speech and money to abuse others. The best way to counter harmful speech is with your own speech.
Another aspect of public shaming is that it makes an example of someone and helps to discourage similar bad behaviour from others
Unfortunately, today's political assignments seem to encourage bad behaviour and cancel out the cancel culture :shrug:
yes. It sends a message that there may be more people who will resist you than you first imagined. That other people have allies and that those allies are willing to organise and act.
I agree that we seem to be in troubled political times but that's partly our fault for staying silent and hoping for the best. I am Turkish by birth and I saw all this happen in Turkey for more than a decade. The same playbook has been deployed in Russia and Hungary and now is playing out in the USA. Soon I am afraid it will hit our shores.
Last updated: Jun 28 2025 at 14:41 UTC