Doing your duty well

Hey y’all, I hope you all have had a good week! Things are starting to move over here at Try Hard Studios. We are laying the groundwork to start tackling a whole bunch of database content and, personally, I'm pretty excited. There have been a lot of ups and downs as we're trying to figure out exactly what's next in this business, but I think we've landed on something good. It's nice to be excited. More on that soon. --- ### Thoughts from the week It's kind of funny how the tweets always coalesce around a centralized theme each week. This week a lot of the tweets are about performing your duty, doing your job, and doing it well. That's something that's always on my mind, in fact, I think it is morally correct to do your job well. I think it also happens to be strategically optimal to do your job well. It is morally correct to bear up under whatever duty has been placed on you and do it to the best of your ability. That doesn't just mean professional duties! At this stage in life I’m thinking a lot about my duty as a father, and whether or not I’m faithfully fulfilling it. It’s a pretty big question. One I hope I can answer affirmatively, with confidence, 18 years from now. --- ### Tweets from the week [](https://x.com/JamesClear/status/1935735189831131514) This has been helpful for me this week as I refocus on database education. I really enjoy databases and I enjoy teaching about them! While there is a lot of movement and opportunity in the AI space, I'm just not enthusiastic about it. I think a nice middle ground is going to be teaching database concepts for AI for an AI-driven world. --- [](https://x.com/KingDSky/status/1935808289708654691) This is only a 19 second clip, but I think it nicely sums up a compelling way to live. It feels good to put your whole self into a project! It’s harder, but it’s better! --- [](https://x.com/DudespostingWs/status/1935800001139294468) Here’s someone who did their duty. This guy saved a kid's life and when the kid finds him later the guy says “I was just doing my job.” It's a humble response. I'm always going to be impressed by people who take their duty seriously. --- [](https://x.com/__el__toro__/status/1935675934985654470) *(make sure to click on the Tweet above to see the full image)* I love it when people create something beautiful in an unexpected place. I don't really know what this is. Some sort of mechanical closet, probably. Somebody cared enough about their work to make it beautiful for no other reason than to make it beautiful. In an age of slop, it is still possible to craft. --- [](https://x.com/ADoricko/status/1934959743656681839) I met Augustus maybe a year or two ago when he was swinging through Dallas and we grabbed breakfast together. At the time, Rainmaker was just a kind of a plan or a dream in his head. It’s incredibly inspiring to see how far it's come. There's something about this video. You just have to watch it. It's bigger than any other video I've seen. It makes working on B2B SaaS feel pretty small. --- [](https://x.com/cityaestheticss/status/1935397252488368257) Here is your weekly dose of beautiful buildings. In this case, celebrating tiny outdoor spaces. Not really a problem here in Texas! We have huge outdoor spaces, but regardless, these are pretty delightful. --- [](https://jihad.house/notes/startup-slop/) > *To be direct:* ***playbooks run by companies like Cluely are making the world worse.*** *Build hype if you must, but remember that the more attention you demand, the more value you are responsible for delivering.* Fantastic [article ](https://jihad.house/notes/startup-slop/)that pulls no punches. If you haven't been following Cluely, they're running a pretty aggressive marketing playbook about “cheating on everything,” and I personally think it's abhorrent. This article makes the case more eloquently than I could and also expands it out from just crudely into "performative entrepreneurship." --- [](https://x.com/nixonfoundation/status/1934323895341064535) Okay, stick with me. We don't get a lot of Richard Nixon content here, but he's talking about his dad in this video. This goes back to some of the tweets above, and some of the earlier tweets that we've looked at. He talks about his dad being a great man and one of the reasons he says he was a great man is because he did his job, regardless of what happened. As a dad, I think about that a lot. Not necessarily doing my professional job, but doing my job as a dad. Performing my duty, living up to this sacred calling of being a dad, even when it's hard. --- [](https://x.com/thauburger/status/1533813657661890560) Not much to say here other than look at it! Look how beautiful it is! --- [](https://x.com/gtdad/status/1933939935612182886) There was a somewhat questionable study that came out this week that says ChatGPT is making us all dumb. I didn't read the study, but I saw that it was only like 50 people. I don't know how viable it is, but this tweet makes the case for me even better than that study could. The concept of having a bunch of stuff in your memory bank that your subconscious or creative thinking process can string together has been true for me. This is why I'm always talking so much about reading the docs, reading the books, and doing the things that seemingly make no sense because it populates your brain with all of these discrete points that then your subconscious can put together. If you don't ever read anything or learn anything, that landscape is completely empty and those connections will never come. --- **🎙️ Podcast Appearances** This week, my episode on the Plugin.fm podcast was released. We had a great conversation about how I’ve used screencasting to teach, connect, and build trust with other developers. If you’re looking for a little inspiration to get in front of the camera and start teaching what you know, give it a listen, it might be just the nudge you need. Check out the [audio or video version here](https://plugin.fm/podcast/screencasting-with-aaron-francis/). --- If you’ve been enjoying the newsletter and think a friend may enjoy reading it each week too, please forward it to them! They can sign up to receive it weekly here: . That’s it for this week! I enjoy reading all of your replies, so if you see something interesting or just have a thought you want to share, please hit reply and let me know. Talk soon, Aaron {{ ENV.unsubscribe\_personal | default: visitor.unsubscribe\_url | hyperlink: "Click here to unsubscribe." }}