> Work is just a transaction now

Always has been

> Worried about your own kids but acting against their interests.

> That same VC invests in AI companies and by what I heard about her, has done phenomenally well.

Her kids will be fine, its the vast majority of other, non wealthy, kids who are in trouble.

> I have never used an LLM for my writing, software, or personal life

Must be nice to not have a paycheck tied to using this tech. For many people, myself included, its either use it (adapt) or lose your job. Most of us relay on our jobs to pay bills and live in the modern world.

Commit messages are often squashed after merging a feature branch

Agreed, over the last 6 years I have been able to spend lots of time with my two kids. Would not trade that for anything.

I've been running pi-hole for years and love it. https://pi-hole.net

Better than NextDNS ?

Pi-hole operates on your local network.

NextDNS performs the same thing but on the public internet, removing the dependency on a VPN to the private local network.

If I knew I was traveling to a region, with a potential conflict, I would do my due diligence and read the news. For the vast majority of people, reading news is a net negative.

You may be right. I just wanted to add that there are probably people stranded in Dubai right now because they booked a Berlin–Sydney flight with a stopover six months ago. Sometimes you simply can’t predict these things.

Yes, staying informed can help in some cases. But there are also many situations where it wouldn’t have made a difference. The amount of noise you have to sift through to “stay updated” is huge. At some point, it becomes a trade-off: consume a constant stream of news to maybe avoid a rare edge case — or tune it out and accept that very occasionally you might get unlucky.

I have tried focusing my attention on the interview process. Although almost all of our knowledge is a prompt away, interviewing is a skill which cannot be outsourced. It seems like this is the way to outlast AI in this industry.

I've been investing in low cost index funds for decades. Although not "income" in the spirit of your question, these funds distribute quarterly dividends which is income. This is truly passive income.

This is the way. A common theme for older people is wishing they worked less and spent more time with family. I have two kids and cant imagine sacrificing more time than absolutely necessary working. Once my first was born, my priorities immediately changed. Its difficult to describe but work instantly became a lower priority.