Great! Stop poorly integrating every single thing you can lay your hands on and maybe tend to some of the feature fix requests on idea exchange with hundreds of thousands of votes…

This is just portable stenography, right?

I’d been there one way or another since 2005.

Sometime in 2024 was asked to explain a Bible passage -> did so -> site wide ban for anti-semitism. Passage in question was Ezekiel criticising the behaviour of Jews in the 6th century BC

Reddit is a disaster. Unless you’re generating bland, safe, family friendly slop that’ll rake in ad impressions they don’t want to know.

Just let it die and move on

Patient: poops self

AI Nurse: “would you like to hear a poem?”

Manipulative headline? In the technology community?? Que devient ce monde…

For sure. Askhistorians is still good, as are some niche technology ones and regional ones. But the rest are trash compared to 10-15 years ago

It’s all bullshit. Reddit is an increasingly low quality magazine for ‘B grade students with a superiority complex’. AITA is just the very-obviously-made-up agony aunt section…

There’s a thin line between being entertained and being informed. The latter requires more energy to repel BS. Often a community is started by genuine people who want to share high quality articles. The reputation attracts a larger crowd who are ‘entertained’ by this, and while valuing the integrity of the content, do not themselves exert the same effort. At some point the ‘entertained’ crowd start contributing content themselves, of lower quality, but which is popular for its entertainment rather than truth value. Times this progression by ten if the platform owners are monitising attention. ‘casuals’ and the pursuit of profit drive enshitification.

“one blink for everything’s ok, two blinks for nothing’s wrong…”

Good. They should stop frantically adding new features and tidy up some of the crap we have to use day to day.

It’s simpler code to re-download the file than retrieve what cached version may or may not exist in memory

This seems incredible

There would already have to be a data layer that serves the main web page renderer. That layer would already have to handle looking in the cache or making an http request in event of a cache miss. It would seem almost trivial for a UI operation like ‘save to disk’ to simply call that layer in the same way

For a few hundred K image file I can understand why some might not bother, but I’ve seen this behaviour where a browser already has an MP4 cached (such that it can replay any part of it without subsequent http traffic) and yet it still makes a new request when saving. It’s weird to be honest…

Have often wondered this myself, would love to know the answer

I watched a lot more Star Trek as a kid but it’s always the Star Wars universe that I feel drawn to. I can’t really quantify it, I think it’s just an aesthetic thing. I suppose Star Wars feels more ‘wild west’.

Old school sci-fi: am re-reading the Asimov robot stories again. Always something new to reflect on.

I could have written this word for word, you’re not the only one. I’m about twice your age though.

I simply thought that employees in the software industry were essentially at equal parity in terms of their departments

Oh boy that would be a nightmare.

Don’t get me wrong, I can easily imagine a working environment where everyone is a professional and everyone is making well reasoned responsible decisions with their hardware. Such workplaces exist.

But in reality there are any number of reasons why individual workers shouldn’t have unlimited access to their machines or others in the pipeline. I’ve worked mostly in corporate (financial) software environments, but many of these things apply to all workplaces though many places will be far more relaxed (or disorganised)

A few off the top of my head:

Data loss - irrespective of who anyone is, they shouldn’t be able to plug removable media into a machine and download the production database without being noticed. Likewise, for everyone’s safety, no-one should be able to plug a usb stick they found into a machine connected to the network. Exceptions can be sought, and granted, as part of an audited process. Anecdote: I worked one place where we were due to continue working over the weekend and a business analyst took client data home with them on an unencrypted usb stick.

Verified software - people shouldn’t be able to download and execute whatever they feel like as this offers a huge attack surface. Many companies maintain a list of verified software and install this centrally rather than allowing people (even developers) to download it and install it themselves. Again exceptions can be granted. Anecdote: one place I worked, an member of the infrastructure team had installed bitcoin miners on company servers.

Stability - developers generally do not have access to the production environment, running deployments is the responsibility of a dedicated team, this is because the temptation to meddle when in a pressured situation is too great. Anecdote - at one bank I worked at I made a mistake in a package of changes I’d prepared. The person running deployment came and told me and - because of a particularly time sensitive issue - we went and figured out the issue at the point of production deployment and fixed it manually. This worked but was exceptionally irresponsible. At a different place I worked, early in my career, I made a similar hacky fix and took down the public website of a major UK utility provider for several days

Quality - the software development process has many checks and balances between areas of expertise designed to bring out the best even if it’s more frustrating getting there. Want to change the indexes on the DB? Got to convince the DB admin that it’s the right thing to do, can’t just do it myself. Want to close that ticket that’s way overdue? Can’t unless QA / testing approved else I’m just marking my own work. Want to make changes in the integrated dev environment because that’s far easier that developing against the out of date mocks in my own sandbox? Nope. Want to expose a new endpoint for my services to talk to unilaterally? Nope, need architectural sign off, network security signoff, and the infrastructure team. Anecdote: All of these have been areas where I, a reasonably skilled developer, would have compromised in various points in my career when my back was against the wall and I was under pressure to deliver.

Some corporate environments can be suffocating, other software places can be so lax as to be alarming. In my experience there’s a sensible balance in the middle and the best places to work have been where management is sensitive and reactive to the needs of developers to get the job done in as reasonably a safe way as possible.

You might want to browse through this: https://wiki.osdev.org/Creating_an_Operating_System

Which should also help explain why doing the whole thing in python isn’t feasible

I would like to see the poem about onions…

A lot of people misunderstanding you I think.

So you, a regular person, is only attracted to very attractive people, maybe a small number of which you’ve seen in real life and most through media. What to do?

Welcome to the 21st century unfortunately. Your brain was trained on potential mates who were likely accessible, near by, and likely within the realm of being a good pair with you. You were not designed to be exposed to the “best” humanity has to offer on a global scale of billions. You have been spoiled so to speak, your sensitivity is all out of whack.

Solutions? First, don’t lie in a relationship, especially if you already know you’d feel like a fraud. One option is to follow your conscience of not lying and so not entering into intimate relationships at all (because the other almost certainly needs you to appreciate them in that way). Another is to fast from media a while. All of it. You’re in an unnatural situation (biologically speaking) the solution is going to seem extreme but essentially reducing your horizon back to potential relationships of ‘ordinary’ people and nothing beyond. Therapy helps too. Might not work, but you could be surprised.

Are ‘average’ people attracted to their ‘average’ partner. Yes. Attraction works in very different ways in many people. They know celebrities are more ‘attractive’ but the reality and closeness of the person they’re with is what’s more important to them and makes that attraction more ‘real’. Did cavemen find cavewomen attractive? Yes. It was all they’d ever seen. Your brain is on the same hardware version.

It sucks really but, to take an analogy, you’re stuck with your regular food at home with Michelin star chefs serving up masterpieces on TV 24hrs a day. You feel dissatisfied with what your kitchen has to offer. But you can’t afford a fancy restaurant.

Well. Comparison is the thief of joy. Turn the TV off (so to speak). Experiment with some new ingredients to see if you can surprise yourself with what’s on hand.

You should probably also fast from porn for a while (if that’s your thing).

Have you ever been stuck orbiting the earth with a ground crew watching your vitals?

The arctic drilling rights that come attached to Greenland are worth trillions

Control of Panama ensures American trade continues if shit hits the fact over tariffs and a trade war (it’s an American weak point that could be used as leverage if America don’t control it). Not that there’s going to be a trade war. But talking shit about it like you’re preparing for it is all part of the tactic.

But also all of this is nonsense designed for two reasons i) Trump’s negotiation tactic is based on the “Madman theory” which was also popular with Nixon. Basically make your opponent think you’re unhinged and crazy and they’re less inclined to call your bluff and you’re more likely to achieve your goals in the compromise. and ii) he doesn’t want anyone to be thinking or talking about the fact he’s getting sentenced on 10th January