Nostr notes by tef

American Philosopher: In my article I invented the Chinese Room ...

2026-08-24T22:44:18+02:00

American Philosopher: In my article I invented the Chinese Room as a cautionary tale.

Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Chinese Room from classic journal article "Minds, Brains, and Programs"

seeing a "don't paste the ai at me" website and of ...

2026-08-20T15:12:40+02:00

seeing a "don't paste the ai at me" website and of course, it's ai generated, down to the most recent commit by claude:

"docs: replace em-dashes with commas/parentheses"

it's all very "i can't stand getting 10,000 line prs" explains vibers georg "except my own, which don't count and are outliers"

the best and weirdest thing i learned is that docks for pocket ...

2026-08-05T21:11:39+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…gymf
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the best and weirdest thing i learned is that docks for pocket watches existed, which would both rewind the clock and set it to the correct time automatically, which is frankly ridiculous for something purely mechanical

managed to stop myself buying a translation of hyugen's ...

2026-08-05T21:06:52+02:00

managed to stop myself buying a translation of hyugen's 'Horologium Oscillatorium' but the swiss french book on escapements arrives tomorrow

zoom, enhance ...

2026-04-30T04:39:22+02:00

zoom, enhance

the simple answer is that none of the good futures we imagine ...

2026-04-20T05:51:28+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…ep9s
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the simple answer is that none of the good futures we imagine happen by accident. and none of the people with power can be trusted to make better things happen

and now i'm asking myself if medieval peasants looked at the clock in the bell tower and told each other

"in the future, we'll have a weekend off, as they'll be able to see how long and hard we've worked"

i have been told that "the technical is social before it is ...

2026-04-20T05:46:07+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…pu5h
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i have been told that "the technical is social before it is technical" but only now do i realise this is just another way of saying "first as tragedy, then as farce"

we're destroying the open web we're burning down the ...

2026-04-20T05:44:03+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…gl2t
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we're destroying the open web

we're burning down the closest thing i've ever seen in my life to the library of alexandria

and people are explaining to me how warm it keeps their hands, and maybe, in the future, the ashes will contain the secrets of the universe

the worst bit? i still like machine learning, i still think ...

2026-04-20T05:40:20+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…wk6v
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the worst bit? i still like machine learning, i still think stochastic approaches can have benefits

but if i wrote software that pushed vulnerable teenagers to suicide, or enabled people to sexually harass strangers with pornographic forgeries

i would take a step back from the keyboard and ask my good buddy hans, "are we the baddies"

or at least, i hope i'd ask those hard questions

"yes your problem is capitalism" yes arguing about the ...

2026-04-20T05:37:10+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…ls9r
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"yes your problem is capitalism" yes

arguing about the technology in a vacuum is a debate club tactic, a way of denying the real consequences and moving the focus to imaginary benefits

i am not capable of putting on the pom poms and cheering for supply-side economic arguments that paper over the real world harms

i don't care if tests pass or if it works on your machine, i care how it acts in production

i don't want to be all "you are not immune to ...

2026-04-20T05:32:59+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…yy8a
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i don't want to be all "you are not immune to propaganda" but a lot of these arguments prey on optimism and hope that technology can lift people up

but when you start to examine the rhetoric, like "what if <imaginary circumstance where the tools are useful>"

or "bad thing? that's a lack of training and dicipline"

it just feels like gun logic in a new outfit

i said elsewhere but there is a distinction between things being ...

2026-04-20T05:29:14+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…2rv2
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i said elsewhere but there is a distinction between things being commodotized and things being democratized

sure enough there's a new low cost bidder in town and things are a little more affordable to some

but we all know those prices aren't sustainable, and i'm pretty sure that when the prices go up, and the adverts appear, the world won't be much better off for it happening

i give it a year before your representatives are cutting library funding "who needs it when we have ai"

sure enough machine translation has reasonably proven itself as a ...

2026-04-20T05:23:58+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…q4vu
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sure enough machine translation has reasonably proven itself as a mostly public good, albeit at the expense of the translation industry

so i am aware that good things can come with bad prices, but i haven't really seen much good and i am seeing a lot of bad things

it literally breaks my heart that the public web now sits behind a proof of work system, forcing strangers to mine coins to buy access to webpages

because a bunch of tech companies are desperate for an poison-free training set

it feels like a lot of the arguments i hear boil down to ...

2026-04-20T05:21:16+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…7c06
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it feels like a lot of the arguments i hear boil down to "what if none of the bad things were happening right now, and instead, good things happened instead"

and sure, if that were true, things would be good

but, well, all of the bad things are happening already and none of the good things are any closer to appearing

and i'm just not confident "wait and see if everything reverses course" is a sensible way to evaluate the impact of new technologies

similarly, i've heard a few times that "we might cure ...

2026-04-20T05:18:42+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…luak
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similarly, i've heard a few times that "we might cure cancer", and sure enough some brute force computation can fold proteins fast

but in practice it is more likely these tools will be used to fabricate experimental results, push dietary supplements and other snakeoil cures

and more coarsely, ai isn't pouring funding into the CDC, ai isn't reversing the destruction of the FDA, and is more than likely going to be used to justify those things

i've heard a few times that "waymos will make streets ...

2026-04-20T05:14:13+02:00

i've heard a few times that "waymos will make streets safer" so i went and looked up sf's traffic fatality statistics and they're pretty much identical

i mean, there is a slight increase over the last two years but there's sufficient variance to avoid suggesting a trend

as i understand it, waymos tend to take people off busses and other forms of transit, rather than out of their own cars

so i'm doubtful it will lower deaths on the road, just the number of busses

turns out being told "you're right!" 30-40 times a ...

2026-04-18T19:11:14+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…4eka
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turns out being told "you're right!" 30-40 times a day is roughly equivalent to being kicked in the head by a horse 3-4 times a week

you can read this as a subtweet if you like but it is just me ...

2026-04-18T19:04:12+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…xfng
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you can read this as a subtweet if you like but it is just me being disappointed

i only know three people who've had a psychotic break in the ...

2026-04-18T19:02:57+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…nfay
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i only know three people who've had a psychotic break in the last year, so maybe i am simply biased against progress

alas i am resigned to be "anti science" for daring to believe in the parade of studies that talk about skill fatigue

i am simply not capable of understanding how "a machine that makes you bad at thinking" is also "the machine that gives people agency" but i guess i don't have the right growth mindset

can't believe building a technological hub on a superfund ...

2026-04-18T18:58:23+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…s9fe
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can't believe building a technological hub on a superfund site would lead to such outbreaks of libertarian thought

not to be "i am too european for this" but it is quite ...

2026-04-18T18:57:16+02:00

not to be "i am too european for this" but it is quite crushing that the preventable deaths of teenagers are seen as an acceptable downpayment for technological progress

sure enough it's nothing new, america already exchanges death for freedom, but personally i can't find it in me to accept such costs of progress

there's no need for chatbots, or ddossing the internet, and yet we're assured that these are the only ways forward

i simply am not capable of the cognitive dissonance required

finding myself repeating "fuzzers are stochastic, with enough ...

2026-04-08T15:44:15+02:00

finding myself repeating "fuzzers are stochastic, with enough cpu time you will always find a bug, results are a usually demonstration of resources not algorithms"

like, hacking, along with spam and fraud are the sorts of activities where things only need to work 0.1% of the time to be successful

it isn't a demonstration of clever code or tooling but the uncompromising effectiveness of sheer brute force heh

went on a train ride ...

2026-03-28T18:39:12+01:00

went on a train ride

tfw your bus has more than twelve stops ...

2026-03-16T23:59:57+01:00

tfw your bus has more than twelve stops

sure, but don't get an om-4 heh

2026-03-10T21:36:36+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…gmjq
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sure, but don't get an om-4 heh

genuinely wasn't sure what ot make of the barefoot polka dot ...

2026-03-08T18:49:33+01:00

genuinely wasn't sure what ot make of the barefoot polka dot experimental rock band from quebec, but eventually gave in and clicked on the video last night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ssi-9wS1so

it's like someone left the rhythm section alone, unsupervised, and when you come back they're giggling, they have papier mache heads on and there's eight tape loops drifting in and out of sync. it's incredible

like some sort of brubeck surf rock or ratatat tabarnak

is this "i want to take portraits" or "the lenses are ...

2026-01-10T16:58:40+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…qkca
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is this "i want to take portraits" or "the lenses are lonely and need friends"

icymi https://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Category:24x24

2025-10-28T22:02:36+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…5r7e
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icymi https://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Category:24x24

it's kinda funny/tragic that we've gone from regular ...

2025-10-01T12:24:07+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…uc9l
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it's kinda funny/tragic that we've gone from regular stories like "the employee was fired for outsourcing work to sone third party contractor"

and now we live in the opposite world, where refusing to delegate your work to the lowest cost bidder is now grounds for termination

saw a post citing "no silver bullets" only to add ...

2025-10-01T11:44:38+02:00

saw a post citing "no silver bullets" only to add "but i'm built different"

got waved over to help someone with directions, and i mentioned ...

2025-09-21T21:43:53+02:00

got waved over to help someone with directions, and i mentioned "yeah it's easy to get disoriented around here because the road snakes around, north is actually that way"

after sending them off in the right direction, i figured i'd check and yes it was

i live in a old european city before you grid moders tell me it's easy

it's kinda funny how we use the term "cargo cult" to ...

2025-09-15T20:05:07+02:00

it's kinda funny how we use the term "cargo cult" to mean "we recreate the environment in the hope of summoning results, without any causal understanding"

but that's also how every software methodology is applied in practice, "if we have the same meetings and process of a successful team, we'll be successful"

even though for the most part, we're copying the c3 team at chrysler, who were not successful by any measure

at some point in my life i had to explain who donald knuth was to ...

2025-09-13T01:03:36+02:00

at some point in my life i had to explain who donald knuth was to a table of not-cs type people

"he wrote a book about programs, then a program to write books, and then wrote a book about the program, in the program to write books"

saw a cat ...

2025-09-07T20:29:26+02:00

saw a cat

"We regret that, sadly, unanimity is not possible on this ...

2025-08-28T16:56:06+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…2gee
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"We regret that, sadly, unanimity is not possible on this issue and kinder ground eludes us." adding this to my list of ways to tell people where to stick it

have you considered getting a copper coaster to rest your drinks ...

2025-08-19T00:33:00+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…37xa
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have you considered getting a copper coaster to rest your drinks on

people do love to over estimate the amount of mathematics in ...

2025-08-10T15:02:04+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…w9v9
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people do love to over estimate the amount of mathematics in programming when a lot of it boils down to word play

that said and done maybe CanCancel is the right one, as the ...

2025-08-10T14:58:06+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…jx9f
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that said and done maybe CanCancel is the right one, as the client doesn't actually care what the thing is, and only really cares about "should i send a cancel if i give up" so maybe i'm overthinking it

the larger issue is more accurately "this is a server side ...

2025-08-10T14:52:44+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…l3cx
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the larger issue is more accurately "this is a server side resource being held open for the client and it will expire if you do nothing, and also if you do not need it, it would be nice if you told the server if possible"

and although these properties usually happen to be true at same time, i'm also working out if "things that can only expire and not be cancelled" exists in a useful sense

fwiw, i have some long running operation on a server, which can ...

2025-08-10T14:48:57+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…fwfx
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fwiw, i have some long running operation on a server, which can be cancelled by the client, and i'm looking for a good way to say "and make sure to cancel this if you give up"

rather than something that only implies "you can cancel this if you want", or worse "you should cancel this"

like CancelOnError rather than CanCancel or ShouldCancel

for some reason, managers like to think programming is the bit ...

2025-08-10T14:45:25+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…j6qr
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for some reason, managers like to think programming is the bit where i'm using a keyboard, rather the bit where i'm actually thinking about a problem

when i'm at a computer it usually means i'm debugging

doing some programming: walking around the block for 20-30 ...

2025-08-10T14:44:03+02:00

doing some programming: walking around the block for 20-30 minutes as i try to think of the right word or name for a thing

will you make the stock price marginally rise enough to stave off ...

2025-08-07T02:46:59+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…y8fk
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will you make the stock price marginally rise enough to stave off the activist investors though, that's the key problem a ceo faces heh

in all earnestness "here are signs to check for hazardous ...

2025-07-20T22:36:25+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…r0lv
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in all earnestness "here are signs to check for hazardous waste" and a point of contact to get someone out to check would be a safety improvement

although i don't expect another orphan source i would not be surprised by mercury batteries

that said I do think a "It has been XXX days since our last ...

2025-07-20T18:16:27+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…vt4a
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that said I do think a "It has been XXX days since our last radiation accident" sign on the swap shop would be funny enough if not potentially lathe of heaven

it is 2038, every embeddded device is about to brick itself, ...

2025-07-05T17:29:20+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…htwx
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it is 2038, every embeddded device is about to brick itself, we've replaced all our IDEs with gatcha games, and now loot box coding is our only hope

at the same time i remain entirely unconvinced that a development ...

2025-07-05T17:27:32+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…0s2t
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at the same time i remain entirely unconvinced that a development methodology that resembles "outsourcing to a different lowest cost bidder on each email sent" will magically make companies any more successful at writing software, let alone to time or budget

a tool that is optimised for creating drive by commits, you will be charged once per question, and another time for the build and test. if it doesn't work out, or you don't like it, you can pay to try again: it never does same thing twice

the irony is that i do think that machine translation from prose ...

2025-07-05T17:23:20+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…w60e
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the irony is that i do think that machine translation from prose to code can work in small doses

eg a local model on a curated dataset could turn a bunch of text into a handful of lines of sql

it's relatively easy to inspect output and there's no intention of maintenance, just regenerating a new report query

for "i need a config file" or "bash one liner", i have come to accept that the future will involve a lot a lot of shotgun debugging and copy and paste guesswork, but semi automated now

here's what one developer said "look, i just don't ...

2025-07-05T17:13:49+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…t6wg
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here's what one developer said "look, i just don't know what's in the training set, and i don't ask questions" before adding "i really hate my job, and this turns the boring tasks into something novel. i get to pretend i'm solving a much more interesting problem too"

"it sucks, but on the plus side, they've poisoned the dataset, so the ddosing will slowly ramp down as curated sets become only realistic option for training, so maybe there's hope for provenance too"

great news everyone, i've managed to combine the technologies ...

2025-07-05T17:06:17+02:00

great news everyone, i've managed to combine the technologies behind "excel thinks it's a date" and "my phone keeps saying duck" to produce an office memo generator

it can also draw sentient anime breasts, as well as generating occasionally correct stack overflow replies

here's how: first we harvest every website, and use it to train a spam filter

we run the spam filter backwards on a massively parallel system to generate the desired output

then we try to filter out racism and csam. ish

i think a bunch about how edsger dijkstra didn't set written ...

2025-06-26T16:21:52+02:00

i think a bunch about how edsger dijkstra didn't set written exams for his students, the final was an oral exam, he'd sit and ask them questions

written exams aren't used because they're better at evaluating students, but because they're way easier to scale up, marking and grading can be pushed onto other students

with things like chatgpt destroying most of academica it's nice to think that dijkstra would be "have you tried actually examining the students" heh

realistically though, neurotypicals say "you talk too ...

2025-06-26T03:05:49+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…lxgw
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realistically though, neurotypicals say "you talk too much" but often mean something else

much like the "you don't give enough eye contact" feedback, which means "please occasionally make contact at end of sentences so i feel you're paying attention to me, but not too much that i feel watched"

"you talk too much" is often the polite phrasing for "you do not show enough deference, i did not get a single chance to demonstrate status"

did an interview, opened it as always by saying "i have adhd, ...

2025-06-26T03:01:05+02:00

did an interview, opened it as always by saying "i have adhd, i will go off topic, if you give me an agenda and times we can stick to it"

got told not to worry about it as it was just a casual conversation, and then got told i failed the interview because "i talk too much, and go off topic"

it's a knife in the back to spend hours proving my technical chops, only to fall by something you can learn about me in approximately 90 seconds

and it's a twist to hear it's adhd kicking my ass as ever

in case you missed it, someone has been porting mario64 to the ...

2025-06-17T03:32:56+02:00

in case you missed it, someone has been porting mario64 to the gameboy advance

in what i can only describe as incredible hackery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kueoO3b4B-M

technically speaking, it isn't the first 3d game on the gba, that honor goes to "asterix and obelix xxl"

technically speaking though, porting an n64 game to the gba is even more ridiculous

correction: i have been calling ai tooling "per request ...

2025-06-05T13:50:34+02:00

correction: i have been calling ai tooling "per request billing for editing text files"

after some research i have realised the billing model is slightly different

given that you have to make a few pulls to get something that compiles, it's closer to a gatcha game

or loot boxes, but with way lower payout rates

fun facts: mbas don't increase profit or returns, they just ...

2025-05-31T06:22:43+02:00

fun facts:

mbas don't increase profit or returns, they just cut wages [1]

in fact, ceos tend to be more self serving than other people [2], and risk taking ceos correlates to childhood exposure to pollution [3]

'superfund ceos' tend to get promoted [4], even though unionised places perform better in stock market [5]

sources:

[1] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29874/w29874.pdf
[2] https://hbr.org/2016/12/mbas-are-more-self-serving-than-other-ceos
[3] https://www.iimb.ac.in/sites/default/files/inline-files/hazed-confused-prenatal-ceo-risk-taking.pdf
[4] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5270031
[5] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0929119921001127

i'm looking for work as of today! if you need a staff level ...

2025-05-30T18:02:54+02:00

i'm looking for work as of today!

if you need a staff level backend/database person, i could very well be that person: https://tef.computer

if you know your company is hiring, drop me a link to the careers page.

nb: due to having a sleep cycle resembling a melatonin free jazz solo, i usually work in Eastern Time, remotely.

as a result i generally work for east/west coast firms in the us, or very flexible employers in the uk

i am watching a real life demonstration of searle's chinese ...

2025-05-25T04:11:58+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…x4va
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i am watching a real life demonstration of searle's chinese room argument and the people inside the room have announced they're geniuses at language

it's bad enough trying to keep a straight face as people talk ...

2025-05-25T04:06:05+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…7wa4
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it's bad enough trying to keep a straight face as people talk about "levelling up and investing in the team" but their best idea is "what if they also outsourced things to computers and emailed back and forth until software magically appeared? it works for me!"

this is very much the bubble i live in, but the push for "ai ...

2025-05-25T04:04:45+02:00

this is very much the bubble i live in, but the push for "ai coding" stuff really does seem to be coming from the top down, to me at least

now, sure, there are people more interested in the algorithms and statistical techniques, but that's not who i'm talking about

and yes, pretty much every coding trend is driven by fashion and status at the best of times

but, yeah

you can draw a graph of "excited about programming" and "excited by ai tools" and it's 1/x

it looks like my role is about to be made redundant, so i might ...

2025-05-23T18:11:41+02:00

it looks like my role is about to be made redundant, so i might be looking for a new role, staff developer, remote uk/us

my resume/cv is here: https://tef.computer

i am pretty good at the whole "fixing distributed systems" stuff but i'm also pretty good at the "levelling up a team" stuff too

as someone with a broad vernacular and a parochial habit of ...

2025-05-15T17:33:35+02:00

as someone with a broad vernacular and a parochial habit of em-dashes i feel personally attacked by the "this is what ai looks like"

plus, that's the training data, people are like this

idle question, does anyone know why the german passports use ...

2025-05-10T05:57:35+02:00

idle question, does anyone know why the german passports use 'D' and not 'DEU' or some other three letter code, like _everyone else_

no, really, everyone else has a three letter code

and yes, i have seen that travel stack exchange post you're going to find in the first page of results

yeah i would say i warned you but honestly i feel partially ...

2025-03-12T17:15:33+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…gczn
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yeah i would say i warned you but honestly i feel partially responsible too

to be clear, when a recruiter, manager, or ceo says someone is a ...

2025-03-11T19:13:44+01:00

to be clear, when a recruiter, manager, or ceo says someone is a "genius programmer" or "10x" or similar

they mean "someone who works 80 hour weeks and we only pay them for 40"

every time

i learned a cool bithacking trick and now i am in search of some ...

2025-03-01T23:11:16+01:00

i learned a cool bithacking trick and now i am in search of some tedious justification to use it in code, a true story

oh, right, yes, misreading you entirely i meant "read ...

2025-02-15T20:25:41+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…alv3
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oh, right, yes, misreading you entirely

i meant "read repeatable is technically si" but yeah for some reason i mistakenly though that was the default, not read comitted

edit: me getting confused, rc is the default, rr is si in ...

2025-02-15T16:13:16+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…wrz5
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edit: me getting confused, rc is the default, rr is si in postgres, but not the default

buy a film development tank

2025-02-12T22:39:46+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…tcf3
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buy a film development tank

it's a stim toy

2025-02-08T01:02:21+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…6ukl
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it's a stim toy

lol, the jack dorsey talk at fosdem has disappeared from the ...

2025-01-29T13:07:40+01:00

lol, the jack dorsey talk at fosdem has disappeared from the schedule, without explanation

the thing about nerds at fosdem, socioeconomically speaking, ...

2025-01-17T18:40:37+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…s3s8
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the thing about nerds at fosdem,

socioeconomically speaking, it's full of people who had access to computers at an early age, and people who earn well over the median

so, well, there aren't many people who've ever had to fight or protest, which is why you'll always hear "have we tried not causing problems" as a preferred option

it's the same sort of brainrot logic of "blocking a road could block an ambulance" where a theoretical consequence blocks any action with a result

someone has explained "pulling the fire alarm causes ...

2025-01-17T18:31:55+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…pftr
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someone has explained "pulling the fire alarm causes problems" and "the event organizers can suffer consequence for it" in what i can only describe as an incredible achievement in understanding a post

it's funny to note that the systemd guy doesn't protested ...

2025-01-17T18:26:09+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…vr9y
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it's funny to note that the systemd guy doesn't protested at fosdem because despite the invective, he isn't as despised as jack dorsey

the thing about pulling the fire alarm to stop a talk, you ...

2025-01-17T18:11:15+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…l5yp
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the thing about pulling the fire alarm to stop a talk, you don't even have to be in the same room, just in the same building, or somewhere on the same fire circuits, it's pretty impossible to stop

that, and with large enough buildings, they can't turn the alarms off without having someone from the fire service check

the more you know huh

btw if you're planning on protesting a talk, the easiest way ...

2025-01-17T18:06:40+01:00

btw if you're planning on protesting a talk, the easiest way is to pull the fire alarm

and if you're at fosdem, you can say "i just saw a vape cloud i guess" if anyone asks why

huh. i probably should `WITHOUT ROWID` in sqlite3 for a while, ...

2025-01-05T05:05:30+01:00

huh. i probably should `WITHOUT ROWID` in sqlite3 for a while, and `STRICT` too

https://sqlite.org/stricttables.html
https://sqlite.org/withoutrowid.html

we did through example, luna

2025-01-04T20:56:51+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…9n08
_________________________

we did through example, luna

i see brat summer is still happening huh

2024-12-18T16:47:47+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…gq0v
_________________________

i see brat summer is still happening huh

@npub16y8…d455 total aside but programmers think "version ...

2024-12-12T18:21:26+01:00

Glyph (npub16y8…d455) total aside but programmers think "version numbers will fix this" despite twenty years of the user agent string proving otherwise

it's easy to propose a solution if you only understand 10% of the problem

it took me a while to realise what looked off, there's no ...

2024-12-10T21:09:50+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…u7w7
_________________________

it took me a while to realise what looked off, there's no adverts

i.e welcome to the tolerant left, we've got [checks notes] ...

2024-12-08T19:44:06+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…72k6
_________________________

i.e welcome to the tolerant left, we've got [checks notes] capitalists who think it's ok to be gay but school meal debts are fine, neoliberals who think racism needs to be means tested, and new york times readers who've been patiently waiting to cheer on a war crime

phoenix is 25% off until end of month

2024-11-28T21:48:02+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…tcwe
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phoenix is 25% off until end of month

if google decide they do not want email from you, it's bad ...

2024-11-28T03:51:41+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…p3v2
_________________________

if google decide they do not want email from you, it's bad news trying to send email

also bad news: that ip address you just got used to be spam, here's a fursuit, it's your best way to find a spam list admin

i am reading a post and i agree but seeing "no-one owns or ...

2024-11-28T03:50:16+01:00

i am reading a post and i agree but seeing "no-one owns or controls email" is like a reading a paper and finding a bedtime story for children halfway through

McAffe, McAffe and Me

2024-11-27T19:27:32+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…92qq
_________________________

McAffe, McAffe and Me

someone has suggested "the opposite can be worse" and i ...

2024-11-24T21:30:41+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…w68z
_________________________

someone has suggested "the opposite can be worse" and i do not have time to draw out the gundam and the shot firing over their head

the point is not "here is a choice between extremes with no in-between" but "no matter what methodology you adopt, management will use it to push risk onto those with no power in the company"

yes, it's a purpose of a system is what it does post, fill in your bingo card now

it is very funny to me that agile is pitched as "give workers ...

2024-11-24T20:47:34+01:00

In reply to nevent1q…8gnp
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it is very funny to me that agile is pitched as "give workers agency over the process" and adopted in industry as "do these exact things in this exact way or else"

software engineering methodologies are simple, there's really ...

2024-11-24T20:45:56+01:00

software engineering methodologies are simple, there's really only two goals

the first goal of a methodology is to make workers replaceable, and this is usually achieved by removing any worker agency in the project

the second goal of a methodology is to insulate decision makers from risk and this is usually achieved by blaming the workers for failure—for not hitting estimates forced upon them

unfortunately, "delivering software people want" doesn't make the cut

anyway, "world standards day", to celebrate international ...

2024-11-09T07:14:45+01:00

anyway, "world standards day", to celebrate international standards, was on october the 14th

unless you're in america, in which case it's next week, the 14th of november

https://em-tg.github.io/csborrow/ "the C# borrow ...

2024-10-31T18:26:26+01:00

https://em-tg.github.io/csborrow/

"the C# borrow checker", a nice little post about how C#'s ref is rather analogous to lifetimes in rust

it does ask why these changes went under the radar, and i think it's that the changes landed gradually, as it's the first i've heard of them

i need that "did i eat?" "have i forgotten to drink ...

2024-10-17T00:34:25+02:00

i need that "did i eat?" "have i forgotten to drink water again?" flow chart tattooed on the insides of my eyelids tbh

even before you open up the book labelled "the guy has really ...

2024-10-16T02:07:33+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…gsfh
_________________________

even before you open up the book labelled "the guy has really skeevy opinions and doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut"

or the large overflowing binder of "people who have left free software because of his behaviour"

there's a quick summary note that says "other free software organizations have broken ties with the fsf because of him"

for someone who kicked up a fuss over sudo it is kinda tragic they're clawing onto power over others despite the consequences

"what's his job" promoting free software and ...

2024-10-16T01:59:49+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…68ws
_________________________

"what's his job" promoting free software and providing a real alternative to proprietary systems

"how's that working out" gcc kept getting forked to stop him sabotaging the project, eventually forcing clang to exist.

"oh" immediately after he stepped down, emacs replaced the default config with something useful over his crufty defaults

"i guess" other people have successfully written microkernels several times over, their secret was not reporting to rms. he is the reason hurd does not work

to be clear, stallman has repeatedly shown that he's not a ...

2024-10-16T01:55:59+02:00

to be clear, stallman has repeatedly shown that he's not a capable steward of software projects (everything that happened to hurd and gcc), and even less capable as a leader of an organization

even before you get into his toenail eating: he is very bad at his job

if free software is to mean more than a cult of personality, he should be replaced at the fsf, no question

i do not think he is capable or responsible enough to perform the job he gave himself

i have seen a long post lamenting the decline of the yahoo! ...

2024-10-13T18:01:12+02:00

i have seen a long post lamenting the decline of the yahoo! directory and the rise of google

but unfortunately i was alive and using the web at the time, so i remember things differently

the yahoo directory was already off centre stage by the mid nineties, and yahoo search used altavista in 97, then inktomi in 98, well before google arrived

and then yahoo search used google for a bit, heh

the secret to having a good time on mastodon is immediately ...

2024-10-11T18:56:01+02:00

the secret to having a good time on mastodon is immediately muting any post that gets boosted more than twice

anyway this is why i'm such fun at parties "yeah when we ...

2024-10-11T18:47:25+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…k3kf
_________________________

anyway this is why i'm such fun at parties

"yeah when we liberated the camps, we put the queers back in prison"

"the tuskegee syphillis experiment lasted almost four times as long as the apollo program"

"yeah we don't know because the uk foreign office shredded all evidence of torture"

there's just this category of "rising tide of ...

2024-10-11T18:39:51+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…umsp
_________________________

there's just this category of "rising tide of fascism" post that's just "bad things will start happening ... to people like me"

it's just yeah, the machinery is already in place and it's just aimed elsewhere, and the hypothetical examples of a fascist future have historical president that's never mentioned

it is a mystery why all these silicon valley types turn to ...

2024-10-11T18:17:08+02:00

In reply to nevent1q…tqh8
_________________________

it is a mystery why all these silicon valley types turn to fascism

well i guess except for the deeply racist and misogynistic work environments

and the whole "i am biologically superior to my peers" thing so many of them spout

oh and the whole "rules do not apply to us" thing or the "we should be in charge of everything because we're smart" things

the phone call can't be coming from inside the house