But how much more? We talk to two people who are well into their later chapters. Scott talks to Lawrence Lockhart about reinventing yourself well into midlife. Rob talks to his mom, who, in her early 80s, was far from her final chapter.

Lawrence Lockhart

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• TikTok

Music

• Whipping the Horse's Eyes - Calexico
• Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man), Instrumental - Love and Rockets
• Spy Always Dies Alone, 23117649
• Oleksandr Stepanov
• Yrii Semchyshyn
• NiN, Ghosts

Scott talks to Anjuan Simmons about the power of lending your privilege, lifting people up by getting out of the way.

Rob talks to April Edwards about being an ally, listening, and shutting up. April's blog post about her health battle can be found here.

Music

The music used for this show is shared, kindly, by the following artists - our thanks to them!

• Zakhar Dziubenko
• SPMusic
• OctoSound
• Alexi Action
• Nine Inch Nails (as always)
• Praz Khanal

Rob has packed up his family and is travelling the world. He talks about his Faith in his children, recorded in a small town in Greece. 

Then we talk to Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, aka Sammus, about her crisus of Faith. She's juggling getting a PhD from Cornell while her side career as a musician is starting to take off. Which path is the right path?

• Sammus - Mae Jemison
• Sammus - No Hands
• Sammus - The Father
• Sammus - 1080p
• Sammus - Pity Party
• Sammus - Success
• Sammus - Power Ups
• Sammus - Cybernetic Armor

Scott and Rob have not yet gone to space and don't understand why. In this episode of This Developer's Life we ask the hard questions about space. Why aren't we on Mars? Why haven't we gone back to the moon? We talk to Paul Lutus, Dan Bricklin, Tamar Cohen, and hear from Ray Bradbury.

Credits

Thank you to Jeff Goldsmith, maker of the free storytelling app Backstory, for allowing us to use his recording of Ray Bradbury from Comic-Con 2010.

We were very private about the whole thing and waited to tell anyone until we knew we were mostly OK. However, to my surprise, the day of the diagnosis my wife, who has never shown much interested in podcasting announced "I want to record an audio Cancer Diary. Can you do that?"

So we did.

We honestly didn't know if we were going to publish this when we started but after a month of editing late into the night, we are.

This episode of This Developer's Life takes a half year of our lives and many, many hours of audio and turns it into a single hour show that Mo and I are happy to share it with you today.

I hope you enjoy the show and that you and yours are, and remain, healthy.

Music

The music tracks this week are used under Creative Commons. Please check out our friends on SoundCloud.

• Xinbi - Elysian Rain
• Ian Redfield Music - Thoughtful Violin (2010)
• Yogi Music - Stuff
• Lunova Labs - La Vie
• Jéan-Paul D. Jackson - Mimi
• SlightWhiteRabbit - Relax1
• Seven Lions - Days to Come
• itsjakez - Cancer

• Peter Cooper Friendly publisher, programmer and author
• Derick Bailey Consultant and aspiring microprenuer
• H. Alan Stevens Father, Geek & Speaker
• Dave Ward Software developer focusing on jQuery and web application usability.
• Sara Chipps Just a girl, standing in front of a compiler, asking it to love her.
• Tenderlove When I'm not trimming my beard, I'm hanging out with my lady.

Music

The music tracks this week are either Creative Commons from Magnatune or 30 - 60 seconds snips used as Fair Use.

• Patrick Cauldwell Liberal Arts Major and Author of Code Leader
• Zach Johnson 17-year old home-school kid who has an internship building rockets at Microsoft

Music

The music tracks this week are either Creative Commons from Magnatune or 30 - 60 seconds snips used as Fair Use. Most of the music for the show was from a single artist: Aluminum Forest. An amazing album worth your time - go check it out.

• Aluminum Forest - Aluminum Forest
• Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
• Daft Punk - TRON: Legacy Reconfigured

Photo

This week's evocative photo is from Flickr and is used under Creative Commons.

• David Sokol Fortran Programmer and dude with an AWESOME hover state on his home page
• Sean Bamforth Former Dataflex programmer and now beginning .NET guru
• Pete Brown Senior Project Manager, Microsoft and budding Thomas Edison

Music

The music tracks this week are all Creative Commons from SoundCloud and most are less than 10 seconds.

• djpenegre - Ibiza Sunrise 2
• MattyBlades - Midi Blues
• ~djrain~ - Ladies of the 80s Retro Mix
• mrevaaaaa - The Cogs Are Spinnin'
• WenzelRanch - Happy Feed Midi Jam
• AlexDaniels - Zimbabwe
• Lucent Zoom - 1764
• Lucent Zoom - Irish Song
• MIDI Controller - 'Xactly
• BDarner2 - 6Death of New Age
• The Apex - An Azure Night

Photo

This week's evocative photo is from Flickr and is used under Creative Commons.

• David Heinemeier Hansson Creator of Rails and budding Racer X
• Pete Brown Senior Project Manager, Microsoft and budding Thomas Edison

Music

The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with most of our mashups I won't link the source but you can find them on any video serving site.

• Ladytron - Ace of Hz - DJ Tiesto Remix
• Nine Inch Nails - Various Remixes of Deep and Perfect Drug
• Jerry Berlongieri - Known Bugs
• Karftwerk - Pocket Calculator
• DJs From Mars - Enter Telephone

• Bill Hill Lover of reading, of typefaces, and co-creator of ClearType
• Geoffrey Grosenbach Owner/Founder of PeepCode

Music

The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with most of our mashups I won't link the source but you can find them on any video serving site.

• Juno Reactor - High Energy Protons
• Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
• Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - Pieces from the Whole
• Nine Inch Nails - The Great Collapse (Instrumental)
• Calexico - Whipping the Horses Eyes

• Michael Bach Designer at Microsoft
• Geoffrey Grosenbach Owner/Founder of PeepCode

Music

The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with most of our mashups I won't link the source but you can find them on any video serving site.

• Jeff Buckley - Halleluja
• Hymn - Hymn
• Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
• Jag - My Momma Told Me
• Low and Spring Heel Jack - Hand So Small

• Aqueelah Grant QA Specialist at Trimmer Media
• Seth Juarez Developer Evangelist at DevExpress

Music

The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with most of our mashups I won't link the source but you can find them on any video serving site.

• Deftones - Change in the House of Flies - Accoustic Version
• Music Inside - Sound Objects
• The Kills - The Good Ones
• Lisa DeBenedictus / Sidetrack - DJ Cary
• Swampland - touchingGrace
• The Kills - Tape Song
• Tricky Sandman - Mark Vidler

• Geoff Dalgas - developer on StackOverflow
• Sam Saffron - developer and data geek at StackOverflow
• Jeff Atwood ,Mr. CodingHorror and co-founder of StackOverflow

Music

The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with most of our mashups I won't link the source but you can find them on any video serving site.

• Beastie Boys - Sabotage
• Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts VI
• Star Garden - Rutile
• Calexico - Whipping the Horse's Eyes
• Rildrim - Linber

• Ayende Rahien - a prominent developer in the .NET community and a force of nature
• G. Andrew Duthie - a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft
• Boris Pavlović , a Serbian developer living with his wife and family in Switzerland

Music

The music tracks this week cycle around remixes of a single song: On We March by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The different faces of the music seemed to mirror the phases people go through when confronting criticism - either from others, or their very own.

• Nine Inch Nails - On We March - various Remixes
• David Bowie - Sorrow - Instrumental
• Nine Inch Nails - Perfect Drug (Grind Mix)

• Remon Zakaria works at DashSoft, a software consultancy in downtown Cairo specializing in turnkey solutions for offshore companies.

Music

The music this week, aside from the very last song, is from a single composer: Jami Sieber (Lush Mechanique). If you've listened to this show for any significant amount of time - you know that music is a big part of it. This week is no exception: Jami's music is evocative, wonderful, compelling and simply a joy to listen to. Go download these things. All of them. They're wonderful.

The final track is a song from Ramy Essam - an Egyptian folk musician who became the "Singer of the Revolution" and led the masses in Tahrir Square in song.

The track we ended with is a remix of his famous song, found on YouTube.

• Rob Sullivan submitted our very first listener story about what drives him as a DBA - sometimes a bit too far
• Rory Blyth - the smartest man in the world talks openly and candidly about his obsessions - and how he can't just learn something a little bit.

Music

We featured some remixes this week from Nine Inch Nails which is issued under Creative Commons. The band allows you to download their tracks, remix, them, and then load them back to their site for common consumption. If you like the following tracks, please support the band by buying their CDs.

• Nine Inch Nails - Zero Sum - Instrumental
• Nine Inch Nails - All The Love In the World - Instrumental

Other tracks for this week are used under Creative Commons from Magnatunes. In addition we have some bootlegs and I've linked to the DJ's websites:

• Jami Sieber - Secret Heat
• Rildrim - Dead Sun

The following tracks were used under fair use (played for 30-60 seconds):

• Foo Fighters - Everlong

• Jon Skeet shares how he stays at the top of the Stack Overflow points pile
• David Fowler talks about TopCode and flying to DisneyWorld to watch coders code
• Aaron Jensen quits his job to play poker professionally
• Daniele R. Banks is just getting started but is already building competing robots

Music

We featured some remixes this week from Nine Inch Nails which is issued under Creative Commons. The band allows you to download their tracks, remix, them, and then load them back to their site for common consumption. If you like the following tracks, please support the band by buying their CDs.

• Nine Inch Nails - Only (Richard X Mix)
• Nine Inch Nails - In Motion (Discrete Omni's Angular Momentum Mix)
• Nine Inch Nails - Heresy (Instrumental)

Other tracks for this week are used under Creative Commons from Magnatunes. In addition we have some bootlegs and I've linked to the DJ's websites:

• Stargarden - Mural
• Swivel Neck Jones - Burn
• Heavy Mellow - Maybe It'll Rain
• Matt Hite - Me and You and Yazoo

• Dave Nielsen tells us about working only for himself and what sleeping on a couch in a basement storeroom feels like
• Tom Preston-Werner talks to us about founding Github and turning down $300,000 from Microsoft
• Nate and Niki Kohari talks to us about starting up, and then selling, a tech company while being married

Music

Most of the the tracks for this week are used under Creative Commons from Magnatunes. In addition we have some bootlegs and I've linked to the DJ's websites:

• 2 Many DJs - Beatles Vs Kraftwerk
• Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
• General Fuzz - Red Balloon
• Nine Inch Nails Remixes - We are Alone/On We March
• Williamson - 2 percent er
• Rildrim - Linber
• Williamson - what's on the ceiling
• Mark Vidler - Go Home Productions - The Weather Episode

The following tracks were used under fair use (played for 30-60 seconds):

• Puscifer - Momma Sed
• MC 900 Foot Jesus - Buried At Sea

In addition - we used a few clips from the movie Rushmore. If you haven't seen it - go get it.

Wes Anderson - Rushmore

• Chad Myers tells us about one of the first lead positions he had working for a sleazy business guy.
• Chad Fowler talks to us about being an imposter
• Sara Chipps contributes her first story to This Developer's Life, interviewing Scott Reynolds about his dream jobs
• Doug Rohrer talks to Scott about bonding under extreme, Enterprise circumstances

Music

The tracks for this week are used under Creative Commons from Magnatunes. In addition we have some bootlegs and I've linked to the DJ's websites:

• Fissunix - Whole Sex Lotta Machine
• DJ Cary - Dreaming of This
• Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
• General Fuzz - Smiling Perspectives
• Rildrim - Linber
• DJs From Mars - Enter Telephone

Music

The tracks for this week are used under Creative Commons from Magnatunes:

• Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
• General Fuzz - A Spy in the House of Love
• General Fuzz - Walking Home
• John Williams - Days End
• Melissa Polinar - Perfectly Distracted. You can see more of Melissa at http://www.melissapolinar.com.
• Rildrim - Linber
• OGMA -Jasmine's Song

The following tracks were used sparingly, but are not Creative Commons. If you like them - please buy them:

Hapa - Justin's Lullabye

Hapa - Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai

• Mark Freedman shares his story about clawing his way out of a successful career as a manager at a rather large, growing company. A good job, lots of respect, and he hates it.
• Bertrand LeRoy talks about charting his own path right at Microsoft after graduating with a PhD in Physics and how he maintains a career right down in the middle of manager and coder.
• Todd Baesen talks about moving from Chemical Engineer to Nuclear Engineer on the USS Enterprise (literally), and then to senior management at a big engineering firm in the SF Bay Area.

Music

The tracks for this week are used under Creative Commons from Magnatunes:

• Daniel Estrem- Asturias (Leyenda) no. 1 from Cantos de Espana
• Harlan Williams - Beneath the Iron Heel of Pagan Rome
• Williamson - a please goodbye from whore
• Urban Response - Hunter Gatherer
• DJ Cary -Termoli
• Fischerspooner - Danse en France
• Jaydiohead - December Backdrifts
• Tool - Rosetta Stoned
• General Fuzz - Beatdown
• Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
• Jaydiohead - Life There

Scott talks to Brad Wilson, Senior Developer on the Microsoft ASP.NET MVC team about what motivates him to get out of bed and come to work every day at a high-intensity company, surrounded by brilliant people.

Rob talks to Rob Sullivan, a database administrator at a large company, about what motivates him to make developer's lives miserable in order to keep his job.

Music

The tracks for this week are used under Creative Commons from Magnatunes:

• Urban Response - Hip Hop Nai Hai de Morrer
• General Fuzz - Lay it Down
• Urban Response - Resistencia Nunca Morre
• iNTROSPEKT - Government Road
• Harlan Williams - Gregory IX
• DJ Cary - Overflight
• Brad Sucks - Dirtbag

The following tracks are commercial tracks, used sparingly (30 seconds or so) under Fair Use:

Metric - Love is a Place

• John Resig, Creator of jQuery, decided to write yet another javascript framework when there were already quite a few to choose from. Not only did he succeed, he changed web development forever.
• Alex Payne, former API Developer Lead at Twitter, talks about the (somewhat insane) move to leave Twitter, and (somewhat more insane) choice to 'reinvent banking' with BankSimple.
• Miguel de Icaza, founder of the GNOME project and creator of Mono talks about creating a clone of the .NET framework - all because he didn't like what else was out there at the time for Linux.

• Ward Cunningham - creator of the Wiki and major figure in Agile/XP programming
• Charles Petzold - author of many books about Windows and prominent speaker
• Dan Bricklin - 'Superman' according to Scott. Creator of the spreadsheet and all around amazing guy.

Most of the music in this podcast is released under Creative Commons, including:

• DJ Cary - Sonic Chiil
• Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
• John Williams - Dusty Porch

In addition - super short clips of the following songs were used under Fair Use:

• Kraftwerk - Pocket Calculator
• Laurie Anderson - O Superman

In the second story, Scott talks to Dan Bricklin who in the late 70s and early 80s helped to usher in the computer age, as well as a new industry. Dan is the creator of Visicalc - the first spreadsheet program.

Music

• Making me Nervous: Brad Sucks
• Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts
• Willamson
• John Williams: Acoustic Country Blues Guitar

Please support these artists.

Scott then interviews Cyra Richardson - a program manager at Microsoft with a rather strong opinion about the changes she's seen in the company over the last 20 years.

Finally, I spend some time talking to Giles Bowkett and his various ' 'interesting' interactions with the Ruby community.

In this week's This Developer's Life that's what I take a look at, from 3 perspectives:

1. Mike Moore (Ruby developer) talks about personal skills for solving problems, including the ability to ask a different question.
2. Javier Lozano (Microsoft developer) talks about teams coming together as a 'band of brothers', solving problems that may, or may not, exist.
3. Tamar Cohen (Java developer) shares her story of the unsolvable bug - something she *had to solve* as the exploration of other planets depends on it. She works at NASA, programming planetary rovers.

Scott Hanselman finishes things off with a story about what happens when trouble finds you'

Some Notes:

I've been asked by the producers of This American Life to kindly change my logo as well as podcast title. In retrospect it seems rather obvious that I should have thought about this - but the short answer is that I didn't know if anyone would really care about this podcast. I also didn't expect the attention it's getting.

Oops.

I changed the logo - a name change will come soon. Worry not - the RSS will stay intact, as will the iTunes link.

UPDATE - I've remastered the episode and removed some of the music.

Soundtrack:

If you like any of the songs - please support my efforts to stay within 'Fair Use' by buying them' I'd very much appreciate it.

• Mezmerize - Liz Phair
• Please Me Like You Want To - Ben Harper
• Human After All - Daft Punk
• Too Little Too Late - Metric
• NIN Remixes (under Creative Commons)

The second story comes from Scott Hanselman - one of the biggest names (if not *the* biggest) in the Microsoft community.

Technical Note: You'll notice that the first story's audio isn't ideal. John was using an analog mic that picked up some EM hum that I needed to filter out. I'm committed to spotless audio - but I have to work with what my guests have'

Music

• Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts 18
• White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
• Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts 12
• Pavement - Grave Architecture
• James Brown - Super Bad
• My Fair Lady - You Did It

• The first story comes from Sara J Chipps a Microsoft developer who lives on the East Coast.
• The second story comes from Oren Eine (Ayende Rahien) about what life as a prison commander in Israel taught him about his career.
• And finally there's me (Rob) - talking about the "Coyote Contract" that was doomed to fail. So I gnawed off my own reputation to get out of it.

Music

• Air - Sexxy Boy
• Nine Inch Nails - #6 (Ghosts)
• Electralane - On Parade
• Beta Band - Broken Up a Ding Dong
• Calexico - Minas de Cobre
• Fischerspooner - mega c (bonus track)