Well, sure, with an image classifier, the bird identification is doable. I’m sure I could implement that if I went looking for some open source thingamabob that does that. But it’s still not something I could actually understand. That part definitely hasn’t changed over the years.

The problem with cryptocurrencies is that you can explain it, without going to technical details, to a person with the intelligence of an average investment banker. (Which isn’t much. Many animals make more profitable random investments when prompted.)

Same with generative AI I guess.

There’s always the old piece of wisdom from the Unix jungle: “If you write a complex shellscript, sooner or later you’ll wish you wrote it in a real programming language.”

I wrote a huge PowerShell script over the past few years. I was like “Ooh, guess this is a resume item if anyone asks me if I know PowerShell.” …around the beginning of the year I rewrote the bloody thing in Python and I have zero regrets. It’s no longer a Big Mush of Stuff That Does a Thing. It’s got object orientation now. Design patterns. Things in independent units. Shit like that.

Reminds me: long ago, one comedy website made a bunch of awards that you could put on your own website with if you didn’t get awards from anyone else. (Having a bunch of random awards was the style of the time.) One of these was the coveted Titanic Navigation Award. I don’t think it can be awarded to anyone any more, as the developers of React have been the most deserving one to receive it in recent years, for their unending efforts in making navigation more confusing for everyone.

Yay, I didn’t get spammed! …so the stuff I have on Codeberg is officially stuff nobody but me cares about. (Sadness, or an opportunity?)

Yup, the bottom line is, there was this dude who, upon buying a website, fucked it up.

Upon attaining unprecedented government position, he got access to government systems, and fucked them up.

Did anyone vote for this? No, no one voted for this. Were there supposed to be checks and balances to stop this from happening? Well, theoretically, maybe, but, urgh, the Founding Fathers didn’t expect anyone to unleash the Ultimate Idiot on crucial data infrastructure.

When Elon bought Twitter, I realised right away I’d need to close my account.

What made me hurry up exporting my data and closing the account were the reports of Elon Musk personally fucking with the systems, and the subsequent glitches and outages. Had to get it done while the site was still moderately functional.

And they just let this guy get his hands on actually important national computer infrastructure? Fucking hell.

Whenever Elon speaks of programming, he just spouts the most delusional Point-Haired Boss bullshit imaginable. Truly, he has been promoted to the level of his incompetence.

(It is also highly ironic considering the Dilbert creator’s politics.)

(Pre morning coffee brainwave)

If someone wants DIY fix their Cybertruck, they should consider adding an isolated, self powered emergency door release mechanism. With explosive bolts. Now that would make it cyberpunk as fuck. Wait, that makes it more vulnerable to weapon fire. Shit now I really need my coffee

I don’t really watch Star Wars. I’m a more of a Trekkie gal.

🖖

See, you can separate files both ways as long as it’s logical

“Linux is probably insecure. Also GPL sounds like communism.” …did I just get mysteriously whisked back to 1998? Because that was the last time I heard this shit.

Well, some browsers have made User-Agent strings useless. Technically, it’s like this:

Firefox: “Mozilla based browser, Gecko engine, Firefox.”

Chromium: “We’re totally a Mozilla based browser we swear. Also KHTML, which is like Gecko basically. I guess also a bit like WebKit. Has anyone ever heard of those? No? OK. Fine, here’s some actual information then…”

A turtle factoid! 🐢

A pancake tortoise (malacochersus tornieri) hatchling is called a Morsel, an adult is called a Flapjack, and a group is called a Stack.

…Not really, but, uh, anyway.

My favourite example of a straight-to-the-point animal name:

There’s a species of turtles. Goofy looking fellas with big heads. So what are they called? Big-headed turtles. OK, but surely the Latin name is sensible? No, it’s megacephalum. Totally a band name.

I once read about Andy Warhol’s film Empire and thought it could form a decent stylistic background for a movie about your average programmer’s work day.

One continuous 8 hour shot of a programmer sitting by a computer, slowly scrolling through a code, pausing for a long time to stare at particular sections, and occasionally saying “why the fuck doesn’t this work?”

• Yes
• Yes, and also delete Electron
• That, and also make me forget I ever even heard about Electron in the first place

Turtlie! Ancient shellmaster! Aww.

My hierarchy goes something like this:

• A relatively trivial configuration file? TOML
• A configuration file that needs a bit of complexity and nesting? YAML
• Is it getting so complicated and longwinded that you’re actually unlikely to touch it by hand anyway? JSON
• Have we become downright enterprisey? XML

I still haven’t figured out what that means. Greatest Yeet All Time Time?

Choosing to not use something is not a good way to learn how to use it.

In this particular instance, the lesson is to either a) use the provided database tools (e.g. pg_dumpall) for live backup, or b) bring the database cluster down before you backup the raw data folder.