s19e10: Hallway Track; DOGE; Efficiency; COBOL; Give None of These Things; Context, Not News

0.0 Context Setting

Wednesday, 28 May 2025 on DL786, an Airbus A321NEO cruising at 35,000 feet and an airspeed of 527mph.

I’m heading out to the Code for America Summit in Washington D.C., where I’ll be part of a panel on procurement this Friday. I can’t link to the panel because the website is stupid.

On Monday 2nd June I’ll be having an impromptu meetup in D.C. in the evening once I figure out a venue - drop me a line if you’d like to come along.

I have at least three draft episodes lying around, and more fragments of episodes. It has been hard to get something finished and sent. But, here we are!

0.1 Events: Hallway Track is Back

Registration for Hallway Track 012: The Thing About COBOL opens on Thursday 29 May at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern.

We’ll have Marianne Belloti, Mar Hicks, and Clive Thompson talking about COBOL! Here’s the show blurb:

That computer system you hate that’s also really old? There’s a fair chance it’s powered in some way by COBOL, the programming language that people love to hate, and if it were a person, would be hitting retirement age.

COBOL sucks,