Writer, software engineer, author of Human Software. Thinking about the humans behind the systems.
The Human Software 284 - Pluribus
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Aside from being a writer, I'm also an avid film and TV watcher. This week we were blessed by the arrival of Pluribus on AppleTV. It's a speculative science fiction series written by Vince Gilligan, co-creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. He's someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to writing, producing and directing these incredibly successful series. More than that though, he picks the best people and directs them with ease. Here's a bit on when Vince Gilligan knew that Rhea Seehorn would be his next lead: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQxG6OyDfwJ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== Also, if you're a super fan of Better Call Saul (as I am) then you could do a lot worse then watch some of the table reads. Here is a perfect example of the art of Rhea Seehorn and Bob Odenkirk in action. Pluribus itself? It's great - go watch the first two episodes immediately. It also deserves its own blog post which is already in the works. Talking of promoting new shows, this week I'm embarking on a podcast tour and next week I'll be talking about Human Software in front of some real humans! Eek! You can help me out in the meantime, I hear that if you get 20 followers on Amazon than this unlocks extra insights. Would you do me a favour and visit my author profile on Amazon and follow me! That will help with the algorithm. Thank you! https://www.amazon.com/stores/Richard-Bown/author/B0FRK6KMYW Have a great Sunday! |
The Human Engineer
Writer, software engineer, author of Human Software. Thinking about the humans behind the systems.
The After (at the back) I finally headed back to work this week. Over the last few months, I've often felt like I was going around in the circles and that, in fact, was quite close to the truth. I first posted on LinkedIn that I was "Open to Work" at the start of November it's taken about six months to land a new gig. Why so long? A few things. I'm older, there's AI, and it is a tough market but at the beginning I certainly had plenty of interest both from the network and from recruiters....
It's amazing how dependent we are on paperwork even in 2026. I spent a few hours this week printing forms, signing them, scanning them, uploading them. Automation has brought us so far ... and yet. I tried to use Claude to help me design some shelves above the washing machine and honestly it was easier just to use my own head. AI is sometimes an exhausting tool to use. One of those forms was for a new job — starting in a couple of weeks. More on that soon. The bigger news: Human Software has...
Conference season hit Amsterdam last month with the global juggernaut that is Kubecon but I eschewed the noise of that particular enormous techie event and went instead to the writer-friendly event "Stories Unfold" at Amsterdam's OBA theatre. This was a very pleasant evening giving a selection of self-published and traditionally published authors a stage to share the stories behind their books and also highlighted a new compilation of short stories. The audience was very much made up of...