TL;DR

• Welcome! 🫶 

• This newsletter will remind you to live life AND be productive (I hope!).

• Revolt against the “normal”.

• LinkedIn is shit and no longer works, move on.

• To survive in the current market we need to just keep learning, and “Keep calm and carry on” 🇬🇧 

Heya! 👋 

Welcome to 🤙 Carpe Deez Nuts — an unfiltered, uncensored newsletter about tech, careers in tech, and the lifestyle of a software engineer (i.e., myself).

What to expect from this newsletter: Nothing. Don’t expect anything. I’m all about low expectations.

But if I have to TL;DR why you might find this useful or interesting, it's because this newsletter aims to help you stay productive, mindful about life, and calm. Anti-stimulating is what I’m going for.

I need this. You need this.

Everything in this world is extra stimulating, extra urgent, extra crazy — just fucking STOP it! Especially considering the whirlwind of shit our world is right now with all the wars, layoffs, changes…

So, I created this newsletter to:

1. Somewhat express my creativity, and

2. Calm you the fuck down from FOMO and other fears/stresses.

It offers tools and strategies I’m actively using to manage the shitshow that our economies and jobs have become. This may include tools or learnings, whether technical or personal.

I won’t cover all the news, or everything that happened that week. Because it doesn’t matter.

I will provide you with SOME news, and a cynical perspective that should hopefully make you feel better, have less FOMO, and stress out less about everything that’s happening in the world.

I’ll make it weekly (I’ll do my best!). And It won’t be stack-related. Yes, I work with JavaScript and Python, and yes, when talking about tools and work, I may refer to some tech-specific topics.

But no—I consider myself a polyglot programmer: Golang, Rust, Python, JS, even C# if I have to. Anything goes.

This will be in the form of a letter, just like this one—a collection of my random thoughts with some links and maybe a few sections. Here are the rules that I’m following:

1. When it comes to technical concepts, I want to be accurate and correct. So if something I’m explaining is incorrect — tell me. I wanna know. And I don’t want to be misinforming anyone.

2. No AI. I — and only I — will be writing this. I will use AI to fix grammar, though, as I am a foreigner and need that (and you want that).

3. Outside of technical concepts, this is going to be full of my opinions. Objectivity goes out the window. My opinion is the correct opinion.

4. If you think my opinion is wrong, see the previous point.

Enough with the intro. Let’s jump in.

I’m subscribed to a bunch of newsletters, and one of them, React Status, shared this article. The old me would’ve said, “WHY would you do that? There are established ways of doing things, people have already been using [insert tool name or stack] for ages, and etc.”

Today, I’m revolting against everything “established,” everything mainstream, and everything “basic bitch-y,” despite being quite a basic bitch myself. Have you seen my action figure that ChatGPT generated—the one that literally everyone else has done??

This is the prompt I used, by the way—one of the Reddit users covered it.

Anyway, I digress. Projects like these are amazing and necessary for training that “think outside the box” skill (yes, it is a skill, and you can acquire and improve it).

Fuck Vercel. Fuck Big Tech. Yes to indie makers, solo founders, independent builders, and creative thinkers.

That post was written by Jonas. Jonas is great. Be like Jonas.

LinkedIn is shit and doesn’t work anymore.

I’ve invested heavily in LinkedIn over these years because almost all the jobs I’ve found throughout my career were through LinkedIn. The people who hire me and sometimes get in touch with me regarding contract work are on LinkedIn, and it’s the only way I stay in touch — apart from Telegram and WhatsApp.

Yet, I observe that too: before Sainsbury’s I have been applying for a bunch of roles with no results. Sad. LinkedIn needs to get its shit together.

Nevertheless, for now, LinkedIn is THE tool to stay in touch with me. Hit me up.

I saw something accidentally online, and it hurt. Now I’m gonna hurt you.

* in old man voice *: I’m not happy with where this world is going!

Last thing I’m gonna leave you with are two phrases I’ve heard from those productivity guru videos:

and

I think this is relevant in our current reality, where everyone’s career ladder is broken, perspectives are void, and jobs are sparse. In situations like these, all we can do — and what I personally do — is study. I’m reading books one by one that I’ve accumulated and ignored throughout my career, books that were recommended by people who are smarter and better than me.

And if you ask me, I’d recommend you do too. Find what you have always wanted to learn or work with—dust off that book on your shelf and start learning something new.

I believe this will take you further in life in terms of accomplishments, earnings, and overall life satisfaction.

OK, that’s enough for today.

Wish y’all a Happy Easter! 🐰🥚

PS the title was inspired by Dane Cook in the Waiting. Legend! 🔥 

🎓️ Top Learning Materials of the Week

Here is the book that I’m currently reading, since I’m on a Python project and urgently need to improve:

📖 Learning Python by Mark Lutz

⚒️ Tools of the Week

🐝 Beehiiv — a newsletter tool. This is what I’m using to create this newsletter. I considered Substack, but functionality and purpose-wise, I found Beehiiv to be more appropriate for my goals.