The UI of Electric Minds Reborn (Amsterdam Web Communities System) was not AI-generated. At most, it was AI translated, as I used Claude to help turn old clunky 2006-era HTML into modern styling with Tailwind CSS. See also https://erbosoft.com/blog/2026/04/07/to-ai-or-not-to-ai/.
Robert Heinlein proposed something like that in his "lost" novel For Us, the Living: instead of declaring war, Congress would authorize a war referendum, in which only those eligible for military service could vote. The catch was, everyone voting "Yes" would thereby automatically sign themselves up in the military for the duration. If a further draft was needed, it would first be composed of those that didn't vote, and lastly those who voted "No."
(In the book, the "future" Congress had called war referenda on three occasions; each time, the vote was overwhelmingly "No," and historians believed those decisions were justified.)
Simpler: Leaders who engage in military engagements should face a public referendum 6 months/1 year later, with exactly 1 question: "Should [Leader] die?". Presidents in the US rarely get elected with less than 40% of the popular vote, and I reckon about 30% of people wouldn't vote to kill someone pretty much no matter what they did. Half of those people are your supporters, so really it's just a matter of avoiding your popularity plummeting to sub 35% because of your warmongering. By that math. By that math, Trump, W. Bush, and Truman would have gotten the gallows. Biden, Carter, and Nixon all fell below 35%, but didn't start any foreign wars.
It seems a good idea, but then I remember the history of World War I: the French and the German populations were very happy and willing to go to war (especially the French). A quick war that will settle it, they thought. And then they ended up in one of the worst meatgrinders of history.
Even if they had a referendum system such as the one proposed, I don't think that would make it a better decision. And given how people don't assume the consequences of their decisions, they would just find excuses later on - "we were manipulated, they lied to us" - but the damage will still be done.
It's hard out there for everyone in this market. I've got literal decades of experience, but I've been pounding the virtual pavement for month after month, and still nothing.
20 solid years of experience, self-employed at the moment, but I got curious a while back and started browsing jobs, and it's ... well, tough to even find something unless you're an extreme specialist and trust to bank on that technology or niche sustaining you through the next few years.
Location: Aurora, CO, USA (Denver metro area)
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: No, but open to travel
Technologies: Python, Java, Go, C/C++, SQL/MySQL/Oracle, Linux, network development, integrations, Developer Relations, online community
Résumé/CV: https://erbosoft.com/~amy/resume.pdf
Email: amy [at] erbosoft [dot] com
I can do anything I set my mind to, and have done enough things over the course of a career to justify that statement. I want to do great things for an innovative company, and want to work with teammates interested in the same thing. If you've got something interesting, I'd like to hear about it.
Seeking a senior SWE position; I have some lead experience as a developer, but was also on the board of directors of a nonprofit, which indicates additional leadership experience.
(I've been working on a major project in Go recently, to expand my horizons...it'll be deployed soon!)
Feature idea: For those of us who aren't familiar with The City, could you allow clicks on the image to identify specific landmarks (buildings, etc.)? Or is that too computationally intensive? I can identify a few things, but it would sure be nice to know what I'm looking at.
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