Refactored in prison (Changelog Interviews #642)

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17h ago 1:42:14

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Preston Thorpe joins us from inside prison, where he awaits a hopeful release within the next 12 months. His journey has been anything but easy—marked by hardship and uncertainty. But over the past few years, Preston has undergone a profound transformation. He’s refactored not just his skills, but his identity. Today, he proudly calls himself a software engineer and an open source contributor. In this episode, Preston shares his story of redemption, resilience, and what comes next.

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Sponsors:

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Featuring:

Preston Thorpe – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn
Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Chapters

1. This week on The Changelog (00:00:00)

2. Sponsor: Retool (00:01:07)

https://retool.com/changelog

3. Start the show! (00:03:57)

4. How did you end up here? (00:07:04)

5. Access and distrobution (00:10:28)

6. Dr*g flow (00:14:02)

7. Multiple offenses (00:20:14)

8. Sponsor: Depot (00:35:53)

https://depot.dev

9. First steps to writing software (00:38:14)

10. Your choice is your superpower (00:43:33)

11. The best life hack? (00:45:49)

12. You've made a choice. They can make a choice. (00:47:45)

13. Getting into open source (00:51:17)

14. Contributing to `exa` (01:00:05)

15. Sponsor: Outshift by Cisco (01:04:33)

https://agntcy.org

16. Applying new skills (01:05:37)

17. You seem to be on the tip (01:14:02)

18. Plans for next? (01:17:04)

19. Scared of what's next? (01:18:19)

20. Thanks to Prime and others (01:19:55)

21. The humans in our loop (01:23:02)

22. Thoughts on prison reform (01:25:17)

23. The Stanford Prison Experiment (01:29:49)

https://www.prisonexp.org

24. Wrapping up (01:39:11)

25. Closing thoughts and stuff (01:40:35)

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