Pablo Meier

I ♥ people; look for ways to make them happy, and empower them. Historically, this has been connected to software and live performance.

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All posts here. I also have a mailing list and an RSS feed.

Toplevel about me here.

The Year in Review posts go a bit long, but cover a lot of ground, and usually start with a big reflection that shows you how my head works (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024).
A bunch of folks liked my 2022 posts, where I was Working Through It after a big move and a breakup. They accidentally formed something of a series.
- It starts with 2021 in Review, where I introduce the move and the breakup.
- Talk on roadblocks and how we make them for ourselves, rationalize obstacles, about a month after ☝️.
- On defining separation from what ails you, making cool art, playing accordion. Two months after ☝️.
- This post on falling in love with theatre in High School kind of stands alone, actually.
- On love and loving, after freshly turning 36.
- Finally, 2022 in Review concludes it.
I did less of this kind of post in 2023 but:
- This, on belief and talking to yourself, is probably the thematically closest thing I did to 2022 blogging.
- On beauty, cursed knowledge that was very expensive to obtain, and some poetry that IMO didn't age well.
- Why Burning Man 2023 was a game changer for me (most of my life I've been a massive Burning Man hater).
- A longer post on my history of therapy and wellness modalities, after years of managing depression and neurodivergence.
In 2024 I mostly blogged about art, but there's still a lot of me in the posts. I'll single out the posts for The Sympathizer, Disco Elysium and Celeste.

Where have all the hackers gone? Some rants about how we talk about programming languages, in and out of business contexts, especially in a world of "Choose Boring Technology" (shorter piece against that here).
Arguing that software used to be treated as an industry of creatives, and the loss of joy for most is from us treating it instead like manufacturing.
In 2019 I felt like AI hype, at least for the grander visions, is a bit overblown. Wrote an update for 2023, after ChatGPT and Midjourney.
After decade of hobby programming, I have some strategies for using offbeat languages.
Nerd talk over modularity, monoliths, and microservices in 2018.
I think the phrase "legacy code" usually masks a more interesting set of workplace cultural issues.
Engineers have this terrible habit of showboating.
Little culture hacks to make an engineering workplace feel a bit more human.

I wrote some deeper criticism of some novels and video games in 2024. They're meant to still be interesting even if you haven't read the source: The God of Small Things, BioShock, BioShock 2, and The Sympathizer, Disco Elysium and Celeste.
Thoughts on why I fell in love with theatre in High School.
Reading why I picked accordion is a decent look at me talking art stuff.
The entire tabletop tag is a lot of creative work I did for games like D&D. I especially like the character biographies, like Snibliss, Ralmahant, or Ángel.
Some rushed sound work I did actually produced artifacts, it's absolutely not the work I'm proudest of but it's a look into a process.
The video games tag has a lot of thoughts on production and creative output, probably mostly in deep dives like Blasphemous, Tunic, and Bloodstained.

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