Steve Hall

Husband. Dad. Digital Experience at Northwestern Mutual by day. Gamer by night.

[Steve Hall @MarkOfHall]

The only correct use of the term "full stack engineer". 🤣

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Full stack engineering

[Steve Hall @MarkOfHall]

@TheFigen_ Milwaukee doesn't give a fuq. 🤣😭

[Green Beret Nap Time @GBNT1952]

Well, we aren’t even halfway through 2026 and we have:

a Nazi running for democrats up north,

the SPLC, a far left organization full of mostly black people, funding the KKK and other racists,

Tucker lying and denying a clip of himself saying Trump is the antichrist even after being shown that he said it,

Shawn Ryan glizzing fat Cenk like his life depends on Muslim peen,

Candace Owens juggling multiple lawsuits and no Jewish attorneys to represent her,

Nick Fuentes tired of politics because the closet is getting smaller and everyone knows he’s paid to act like a white racist, but really he’s just a little gay Mexican,

Dave Smith realizing that the Jew haters will turn on Kapos as well,

the Pope saying woke and socialist things,

the SCOTUS stopping democrats from being racist… again,

a 20ish year old kid and his mom exposing hundreds of millions in fraud,

and still… despite many of our best efforts, thousands and thousands of people have fallen for propaganda made for illiterate Russian peasants.

What a time to be alive.

[Steve Hall @MarkOfHall]

@DavidSacks @TheChiefNerd Critical Infrastructure, SCADA, HMIs and other control systems are still running crusty old Windows CE based devices. Those aren't getting replaced or patched anytime soon. Buckle up. 😢

[Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays]

What are the odds those tiki torch carrying neo-Nazis from Charlottesville would only rally once? Feels like it was an American intel op against Trump. That’s my working assumption.

[Samay @Samaytwt]

Unpopular opinion: "AI makes everyone a developer" is true the same way "cameras makes everyone a photographer"

[Steve Hall @MarkOfHall]

@jhvh111 @Amank1412 Kids these days. 🤣 Next they will bring back MUDs! 🤣

[Steve Hall @MarkOfHall]

@Amank1412 @spencerbgibb Awesome! Somebody built Lynx in the Year of our Lord 2026! 🤣 We had this in 1992! 🤣 Next up, Gopher! 🤣 What is old is new again!

[Arthur MacWaters @ArthurMacwaters]

population has grown ~9x in 200yrs, while poverty trends to 0

people act as though capitalism is a zero sum game, but it’s actually the only system that creates positive sum outcomes

the average person today is far richer than most kings in days past

[Zane Hengsperger @zanehengsperger]

when spacex was getting started, the first and last men to walk on the moon testified before congress against it.

gene cernan told congress commercial space companies "do not yet know what they don't know."

he said the boeings and lockheed martins were "the folks who have been working on everything we've done for the last 50 years. they know how it can be done."

neil armstrong said he was "not confident" the newcomers could achieve their goals.

together with jim lovell they warned it would put america on "a long downward slide to mediocrity."

spacex now launches more rockets than every country on earth combined.

the experts will always tell you it can't be done. build it anyway!

[Aimen Dean @AimenDean]

“The Iranian regime poses no threat to the world.”

Honestly, every time I hear that sentence - usually from a politician or a very comfortable diplomat - I mentally put a big red X on their ability to understand geopolitics. Not disagreement. Disqualification.

Let’s walk through this slowly, for the well-meaning but dangerously naive.

In what world is it normal for a state to recruit 700,000 fighters from across Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan… arm them, train them, and deploy them as transnational militias outside the authority of their own countries?

In what world is it normal to effectively hijack the political, economic, and military decision-making of a neighboring state like Iraq, while simultaneously fueling civil wars in Syria and Yemen that have left millions dead and tens of millions displaced?

In what world is it normal that half of a country’s armed forces - namely the IRGC - is designated as a terrorist organization by dozens of countries… and yet continues to operate, fund, arm, and expand?

And here’s my favorite.

In what world is it normal for a regime to transfer ballistic missiles (multi-warhead systems with ranges exceeding 2,500 km) to a terrorist non-state actors like the Houthis?

Let me simplify that.

Sovereign-level strategic weapons… handed to narco terror militias.

Militias that traffic in narcotics, humans and chaos.

And somehow, we’re told this is… not a threat?

Even NATO countries like Germany or Italy don’t field that kind of range in their arsenals. But a militia in Yemen does?

Perfectly normal. Nothing to see here.

And all of this is happening in a region that holds roughly 60% of global oil and gas reserves, and controls the world’s most critical maritime choke points - Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and the Suez Canal.

So let me ask the obvious question.

If this is not a threat… what exactly qualifies? Explain it to me like am a 5 year old!!

Do we wait until global energy flows collapse? Until maritime trade is strangled? Until missiles start landing beyond the region?

At what point do we graduate from “not a threat” to “perhaps mildly concerning”?

Because from where I’m sitting, the regime isn’t preparing to become a threat.

It already is one.

Oh, I forgot .. All of the above is happening while the same terror sponsoring regime is seeking nuclear weapons and in actual control of 460 kg of highly enriched uranium enough for 11 nuclear bombs!!🤦🏻‍♂️

[AlphaFox @alphafox]

Are you this old?

[Steve Hall @MarkOfHall]

@devops_nk Yup

[aviel @aviel]

Look, I hate to come across as an alarmist but we have finally crossed the chasm and from my vantage point are experiencing a classic "slowly and then all at once" situation. Especially in Seattle. Treat this more as a wakeup call than anything else.

Here are the facts.

1. In Seattle there are A LOT less tech jobs than there were even just a few years ago. https://t.co/QR77XxIXuw

2. Your city, state, AND STARTUPS are NOT coming to the rescue. https://t.co/jiylebCDDJ

3. LLMs have irreversibly changed the way that we do just about everything in tech. Even in the past month. If you aren't IN THE WEEDs on a daily basis you have no idea what you are even talking about. When 80% of LLM skeptics on LinkedIn have "Open to Work" with "Software Architect" or some similar inflated title on their bio it's more than just a passing "trend".

I talk to a lot of people every week. And I mean A LOT. Over the past few weeks the gravity of financial realities has started to set in. Unless you have S-tier social skills, you aren't going to get that salary again with your current skillset. So no, you can't actually afford your mortgage. Oh, and you also probably needed to realize this 12 months ago because you've already irreversibly dipped into your savings utilizing hope as a strategy.

Oh and to add insult to injury, prices of everything are going up at the same time: https://t.co/1sz4ZzYAG2

I do not have advice for you if you're in this spot, you're in deep shit and I'm fighting on too many fronts at this point. But if you aren't there yet, my advice is to reset your expectations. You are not mid or late-career, you are just getting started.

If you can stomach that I have some REALLY good news for you. The future looks awesome and you're going to do something great.

[Steve Hall @MarkOfHall]

@abhijitwt Vault

[RossRadio @cqcqcqdx]

I'm This Old..

[Steve Hall @MarkOfHall]

@datmatidev @unclebobmartin Soon we're going to have "old school coding days" where old devs get together and don't use AI. Kind of like lumberjacks using hand saws. 🤣

[Steve Hall @MarkOfHall]

@GovTimWalz Sir, you have blood on your hands. Had you deployed state and local police along side federal officers, maybe these terrible shootings of your state's citizens would have been avoided. Instead, you chose to be an insurrectionist and provide violence. Sickening

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

A few days ago Microsoft deactivated IntelliCode in VS Code.

60 million downloads.

Free.

Unlimited suggestions.

Worked offline.

They killed it.

The replacement is Copilot.

2,000 free suggestions.

Then you pay.

I called it "platform evolution."

Leadership loved that phrase.

They nodded approvingly.

No one asked what we lost.

Including me.

IntelliCode ran locally.

No cloud. No subscription. No limit.

Copilot phones home with every keystroke.

I told the team it was "more intelligent."

That's not a real comparison.

But it sounds like one.

A developer asked why we couldn't keep using IntelliCode.

I said "it's deactivates."

He asked why.

I said "Microsoft decided."

He asked if there was a technical reason.

I scheduled him for a "career development conversation."

He stopped asking questions.

The announcement was buried in a GitHub issue.

Mid-November.

No blog post.

No changelog entry.

Just... gone.

60 million users.

Found out when it stopped working.

I told the team this was "streamlining the experience."

Streamlining means removing the free thing.

Experience means you pay now.

A junior dev asked about the 2,000 suggestion limit.

I said "most developers won't hit it."

That's not true.

Copilot suggests on every keystroke.

2,000 is a Tuesday.

But it sounded reassuring.

He looked skeptical.

I added him to the "adoption champions" Slack channel.

He stopped asking questions.

Finance asked about the new costs.

I showed them a graph.

The graph measured "AI-assisted development velocity."

I made that metric up.

They approved the licenses.

$19 per seat per month.

Times 400 developers.

$91,200 annually.

For something that was free last week.

I called it "investing in developer productivity."

The CFO nodded.

We're "AI-native" now.

I don't know what that means.

But it's in our investor deck.

Microsoft published a blog about "empowering developers."

The word "deactivated" wasn't in it.

Neither was "removed."

Neither was "you have to pay now."

They called it "the next generation of intelligent coding."

Next generation means the free one is dead.

Intelligent means we train on your code.

Coding means you subscribe.

I'm presenting to the board next quarter.

The slide says "Modernized Developer Tooling."

Modernized means we removed their choice.

Developer means they're locked in.

Tooling means recurring revenue.

For Microsoft.

I'll be VP of Engineering by Q4.

I still don't know why IntelliCode had to die.

But I know what it's for.

It's for converting free users into paying customers.

Conversion means capture.

Capture means dependency.

Dependency means they're serious about revenue.

Revenue is whatever Microsoft says it is.

As long as the stock goes up and to the right.