Effing Rust
Every time I do a software update on FreeBSD now, I have to recompile bloody effing _RUST_! WHY THE HECK DO I NEED TO SPEND 2 HOURS WAITING FOR THIS TO COMPILE EVERY SINGLE TIME!
Die in a _fire_!
Die in a _fire_!
The Cloud
I don't know who said that "the cloud is just someone else's computer" (and yes, I understand that it's more complicated than that). But every time someone talks about moving into the cloud, I keep on thinking about how almost every time I find a thing I like, it gets discontinued... If I put my data on "the cloud", and they decide they don't like my credit card (or some government gets involved), it isn't my data anymore...
Tea pot
I broke my lovely 2-and-a-bit cup Beehive teapot, which I bought many years ago from Tealuxe (RIP), by accident. Until I can figure out if it's repairable, I had to get another teapot. I went and got the "Somerville" teapot from MEM Tea, and I have to say that it sucks. It's too small, the strainer is too small, it spills too easily, and it's really a downgrade.
(OTOH, they have a "White Turret Teapot", which is letting me try my hand at "gong fu"-style brewing without having to get facile with a gaiwan, which is very good in the office environment.)
(OTOH, they have a "White Turret Teapot", which is letting me try my hand at "gong fu"-style brewing without having to get facile with a gaiwan, which is very good in the office environment.)
Debugging technique
Here's a fun debugging technique! Write code that is wrong, but you don't realize it, until you start writing an email to the module developer because obviously something is wrong, but as you're gathering the data to convince them, discover what you missed.
Bleh.
Entry tags:
Star wars
I'm reading a lot of Star Wars fanfic right now, in particular fix-its (often time travel fix-its) set before the rise of the empire.
And so, so many of them use "BBY" to specify the date.
"BBY" stands for "Before the Battle of Yavin". None of the characters at this time know that the Battle of Yavin is going to occur. They should be giving dates in the Republic (or other contemporaneous) calendar.
25th Amendment?
All of this talk about invoking the 25th Amendment misses a key point. The Executive Branch, in the person of the President, just incited an attack on the Legislative Branch. The 25th Amendment allows the people of the Executive Branch to deal with a rogue or incapable president, but if Congress doesn't do something themselves, in their *own* right, they will have forfeited their power to protect themselves to the Executive Branch. And once they start down this path, it is not long before they soon stop being an independent branch of the government, and we become a dictatorship.
Computers...
I love this quote from https://inessential.com/2020/11/22/no_jedi:
You’ve run across this too, right? Friends and family think, because you’re in tech, that you’re a computer tamer who’s on intimate terms with every feature of every app. They think you know how to make computers sit up straight and mind their manners.
You and I know that’s not true. You and I know that being in tech means that you wish, with a frequency and fervor that would astonish outsiders, that a cleansing fire would one day ignite that burns up all the computers in the world.
“The computers earned it. They brought this on themselves,” we’ll say. While everyone else panics, you and I will know that this fire is, at long last, justice.
Bah
I hate to say it, but unfortunately right now the Republican Party is advocating white supremacy and Nazism. As such, I'm going to have to reluctantly conclude that people who still maintain they are Republicans are either completely idiotic and ill-informed, or on the side of the Nazis and/or the KKK.
Everything sucks
Why the f does everything have to suck so much.
I *hate* companies.
I want to destroy something.
F AT&T. F Apple.
I *hate* companies.
I want to destroy something.
F AT&T. F Apple.
I really want this to be real
PSYC 4410: Obsessions of the Programmer Mind
Identify and understand tangential topics that software developers frequently fixate on: code formatting, taxonomy, type systems, splitting projects into too many files. Includes detailed study of knee-jerk criticism when exposed to unfamiliar systems.
I would love to take this class.
From http://prog21.dadgum.com/210.html, via http://www.dragonflydigest.com/2015/09/13/16715.html
Apple apparently hates radio alarm clocks
Every time I finally find an app that functions as a radio alarm clock, Apple destroys it by requiring that it cannot work if the screen is turned off.
Apparently Apple hates radio. I wish I could think of something sufficiently karmic to happen to the person who has determined that radio alarm clocks shouldn't be allowed to work, but I can't, so I'll just have to wish for them to be publicly humiliated and repeatedly have their hands broken with hammers.
Edit: now that I'm no longer livid with rage, I take back the hammers. Humiliation is still required.
Apparently Apple hates radio. I wish I could think of something sufficiently karmic to happen to the person who has determined that radio alarm clocks shouldn't be allowed to work, but I can't, so I'll just have to wish for them to be publicly humiliated
Edit: now that I'm no longer livid with rage, I take back the hammers. Humiliation is still required.
Small anti-gay businesses
Apropos of nothing, my solution to small businesses that don't want to cater to gay weddings.
Let them not cater. Do you really want the photographer of your wedding to be performing under duress?
Instead, make the law something along these lines:
any owner-operator business smaller than a certain criteria (like, less than 10 employees, only one branch, something like that) where the owner-operator (not an employee, but the actual small business owner) has a religious objection to gay marriage may choose to not provide services to a gay wedding, provided the following are true: at the initial meeting, or first contact, or whatever, the business owner states *up-front* that they prefer not to be involved with gay weddings; and that upon request they must provide a list of, say, the three closest equivalent businesses which do work with gay couples. These businesses *must* be of the same caliber as the small business which is declining to help with the gay wedding, and *must* be not too far away, either in distance or cost. If, for some reason, the business owner feels that such other purveyors of service do not exist, they must apply for an exemption from this requirement, listing all of the local businesses in their sector and why they are not sufficient.
Let them not cater. Do you really want the photographer of your wedding to be performing under duress?
Instead, make the law something along these lines:
any owner-operator business smaller than a certain criteria (like, less than 10 employees, only one branch, something like that) where the owner-operator (not an employee, but the actual small business owner) has a religious objection to gay marriage may choose to not provide services to a gay wedding, provided the following are true: at the initial meeting, or first contact, or whatever, the business owner states *up-front* that they prefer not to be involved with gay weddings; and that upon request they must provide a list of, say, the three closest equivalent businesses which do work with gay couples. These businesses *must* be of the same caliber as the small business which is declining to help with the gay wedding, and *must* be not too far away, either in distance or cost. If, for some reason, the business owner feels that such other purveyors of service do not exist, they must apply for an exemption from this requirement, listing all of the local businesses in their sector and why they are not sufficient.
Why the hell do I need to have an account!
Just because I've placed *one* order with your company, doesn't mean that I want to have an account created on your server. Let me delete the account. If I want an account, I can make one.
ARGH!
ARGH!
Court system cell phone fuckery
In this day and age, why are we still prohibited from even carrying our electronic devices with us to a court house? Require it to be off and kept off on pain of a fee or something, but not even able to carry it with me!?
Oscars
Everyone seems to be talking about how bad the Oscars were. I'm a bit confused, because I'm not sure that I saw the right show -- I actually liked them.
Yes, the humor was sometimes crass -- have they seen any recent Hollywood movies? (Actually, I haven't, but I have seen a lot of the promos...) I thought that Seth MacFarlane was fairly good. I laughed out loud several times.
And, for the first time that I can remember, it seemed like the presenters actually got their scripts in advance. It has always bugged me that the Academy Awards, put on by Hollywood, always seems to have the most stilted and unbelievable interactions between the presenters. These are supposed to be some of the most famous (and, implicitly at least, best) actors of our time, but they can't even manage one minute of conversation in a natural way?!
This year, the presenters actually seemed like they were interacting!
Yes, the humor was sometimes crass -- have they seen any recent Hollywood movies? (Actually, I haven't, but I have seen a lot of the promos...) I thought that Seth MacFarlane was fairly good. I laughed out loud several times.
And, for the first time that I can remember, it seemed like the presenters actually got their scripts in advance. It has always bugged me that the Academy Awards, put on by Hollywood, always seems to have the most stilted and unbelievable interactions between the presenters. These are supposed to be some of the most famous (and, implicitly at least, best) actors of our time, but they can't even manage one minute of conversation in a natural way?!
This year, the presenters actually seemed like they were interacting!