The Odersky Scala course was pretty cool. It gave me a basic understanding of monoids and monads that has stuck with me. Robert Sedgewick's courses were very good. Learned a lot about graphs.

When it comes to Brooks's Law and AI, will trying to incorporate AI tools into a late project, make the project later? Probably. I'm glad I'm close to retiring. AI has been a mixed blessing for me. I don't have the desire at this stage to do all the wrangling necessary to incorporate AI tools effectively into my workflow.

It's a fun little exercise left to the reader to upgrade to current Java. It pretty much eliminates the need for his ad-hoc code generation tool.

Been there, did that, very much enjoy the result.

What will happen to his dog Spot?

I believe in one of the Planet of the Apes sequels, they used a BART construction site, because of how futuristic it looked.

Pre-opening BART tubes were definitely used for George Lucas's first feature film, THX-1138: https://www.sfgate.com/streaming/article/bart-transbay-tube-...

A Streets of San Francisco episode, starting a very young Michael Douglas, was set in the BART tunnels, still under construction, as well.

I didn't know CareerBuilder still exists. They were the first job site I can recall in the late 90s. Then Monster emerged as the dominant place for job search.

I still have my Etch-a-Sketch as laptop mouse pad.

I've been stuck in meetings like that. I'd just walk out saying, "you know where to find me if my input required."

When I was leaving for the navy, the last thing my mom said was, "don't get a tattoo." I never did but that was in 1981, maybe half a decade before tattoos and body piercings started becoming a mainstream thing.

I remember the first spam I ever received. It was in 1998 on my first day working at AOL. It promised an advanced degree from a prestigious, unaccredited institution. The spammers were somewhat honest back then.