swordsmanluke @ swordsmanluke @programming.dev

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2

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310

Joined

2 yr. ago

Man, I don't know why a random Rick Astley song replaced goatse, but I am so glad it did.

The name of "Amazon" carries cachet. It sounds like impressive experience.

The thing is, Amazon famously treats its employees like shit - even the highly paid ones. There's a sorta Stockholm Syndrome that develops, where you convince yourself that this misery is the cost of "doing great things" or you decide to bail while you can and go someplace that doesn't suck.

Managers who spend any amount of time at Amazon tend to be the former. They end up with this mindset that if your team isn't miserable, you just aren't working hard enough and that having "tough" conversations means that you berate people until they break.

So beware Ex-Amazon managers. They're not all bad, but a sudden influx is not a good sign.

(In fairness - One of the best managers I ever had was at Amazon. If he left that place, I'd be thrilled to work with him again. Just. Not there.

The hands-down worst manager I ever had was at Amazon as well.)

Depending on your ide of choice, I'd also recommend Codeium (with an "e" - Codium is something else) as an alternative. If you sign up during their currently ongoing EA phase, you can get a free lifetime account.

I've used both and I haven't noticed any major difference in the quality of results. If there is a difference at all, I've personally had better generations from Codeium, but the overall difference is slight.

(For comparison's sake, this was with Python and Ruby so far.)

Braid is the closest I've seen videogames come to literature. The best literature is always about something else - not the plot, but deeper themes. And Braid feels like that, to me. Everything in that game, from the story, to the specific mechanics all tie into the greater theme.

It's just a masterpiece.

I've been at places where the corporate policies were just buzzword doublespeak and they are a waste of time. Everyone knows it's bullshit.

I've also been at exactly one place where the leadership team gave serious thought to what their goals were for the organization. Then they wrote down a set of goals that were

• simple
• coherent
• actionable And that actually made it easier to do our jobs. When we had to make a decision, we could actually refer to these principles and use them.

It was crazy helpful!

...And then they hired a fuckton of Ex-Amazon managers into high-level roles and they promptly drove away all the best people and replaced the helpful principles with Amazon's work-or-die philosophy. So I bailed. 😭

Aw man, you can't write all that and then not give an example!

Ruby makes scripting drop-dead simple. You can run any shell command by surrounding it with back ticks.

    
# simple example, just grab files: 
files = `ls`.split("\n")

# pipes work inside back ticks
files.map {|f| `cat #{f} | grep "can I use grep w/out cat"`}
  .compact
  .each { |match| puts match }
# easy to build a pipeline on the data in ruby, too! 

  

That's it! No messing around with popen3, or figuring out pipes or signals. Those are there too if you really need them, but if you just wanna write a quick script with a less arcane syntax - try Ruby!

Ho-ly shit... You got me thinking and - if it weren't so OP that it'd ruin the storytelling, the teleporters would make the federation the most terrifying army in the galaxy...

Transporters should be able to fix pretty much anything wrong with you. Lost a hand? Don't worry, we'll replicate it from your last transport. Feeling sick? Nope - we beamed the little beasties away. Just a little dirty? Uniform rumpled? That won't do, we'll just fix that for you. No need to stop what you're doing, it'll happen in the background, you won't even notice it's happening...

K'ovok, Klingon warrior, led his troop's third assault on the federation outpost. They had been locked in combat with the Federation army for three days now. His troops were covered in blood, mud and unidentifiable filth after three days of glorious battle.

The Federation "dolls" didn't even look sweaty. Their uniforms were clean, fit perfectly and they were still smiling - always smiling - with their white, perfect teeth.

K'ovok swung his bat'leth through the neck of a federation p'tagh and smiled with satisfaction as the body fell lifeless - and nearly headless - to the ground. He turned to find his next opponent...and heard the slightest hum. Whirling, K'ovok found himself facing the same man he had just beheaded shaking out his arms and smiling. Always smiling. Even his uniform was spotless.

"Nice swing" the Federation doll spoke, slowly adjusting his neck and jaw. "You sure can dish it out! Let's see if you can take it, too."

No plague, nor illness, nor infirmity ever touched the humans. As soon as they passed through one of their transporters, which was often, any deviance from perfect health was simply cleansed. From overeating to plagues to simple sloth, there was nothing the transporters could not repair, replace or remove.

Aboard a starship the systems were even more aggressive. So long as you wore your combadge, your vitals were measured for any abnormalities. A slight tingle on your skin as bacteria or just honest dirt was transported away, added to the biomass the replicators drew from. Occasionally, you might lose a few seconds of time in the case of a really bad mess. More than one officer could relate a story about dying of a heart attack of moment and then waking back up still in the command chair.

Of course, the transporter system had required generating an intensely thorough understanding of human biology to perform these feats. Most other species refused to make use of human transporters, for that very reason. The information required to configure them for "best effect" was simply too dangerous to hand to another species, however "benevolent" they may be. The Vulcans had famously accepted the "gift". And in fairness, the transporters did work as advertised. Disease, infirmities, even many indignities of aging simply went away from Vulcan, cured by the transporter.

But some still wondered, at what cost? The humans were allies, but they now had the data to engineer highly specific germs, plagues that could spread unseen through the galaxy, yet kill only Vulcans.

There was no evidence such pressures were being applied, but it was notable how quickly the aloof Vulcan empire had become fast friends with humanity. Subservient, even, to their so-called Federation of Planets.

Some whispered that it was yet more insidious - to function as they did, the transporters needed to understand your biology perfectly, from the beat of your heart, to the thoughts in your head. What if the transporters scanned for "unhealthy" thoughts and simply "cleansed" those too?

And yet The Federation came on, and ever on. Spotless and smiling.

I don't disagree that it would be great if it were easier for non-techy people to try Linux. But we're speaking in the context of an OP who said that they're not afraid of using the console, which indicates a certain level of technical skill to start from. They've asked for directions and I'm trying to provide them.

Beside that, I think there's a limit to how simple I - or anyone - can make the process of installing a new OS. That isn't a "Linux" thing - there isn't any simpler option if you want to install Windows from scratch either.

If you want to get Linux in the layman's hands as easily as most people get Windows, buy them machines from System76. Sorted.

In the meantime, what would you suggest, vs my "wall of text [...] of geeky jargon"?

Fair point!

Making a Bootable USB stick: I like using balena etcher to make bootable USBs. It handles downloading, burning and making a bootable image for you. It's great!

Just point it at an empty USB stick (or one you're ok with Balena erasing everything on) and select the Linux distro (or downloaded ISO) you want to use. Come back later and you're all set to reboot into Linux from the USB stick!

Booting From USB: You may need to manually select the USB stick as your boot device when you restart! If so, usually you just need to hold F8 during the reboot process to get the menu.

If that doesn't do it, you'll need to get into your computer's BIOS to enable booting from the USB. That usually requires holding down either F1, F12, or Delete, depending on your particular BIOS. I usually just hold them all down.

In the BIOS you're looking for something like "Boot" or "Boot Order", "Disk Devices" etc. It may be hidden inside an "Advanced Options" or "Security" section.

Once you've found it, make sure your USB drive is A) enabled for booting from B) in the boot list before your other drives

After that, Save and Exit your BIOS (methods vary, but it's usually written on the screen someplace).

Yup, agreed on all counts.

I just feel that if it's your first distro, it's probably better to stick to vanilla Ubuntu until you better understand the subtle differences between the various Debians.

Still and all though, it's easier to install a Linux than it's ever been. My first Linux was actually an OpenSUSE, soon replaced by Debian Etch. I bought the latter online and they mailed me the installation CDs! It took me days to get the installs working.

Now, you just pop in a USB and follow the friendly install wizard. It's friggin awesome.

Ubuntu is a decent place to start.

Before anybody decides to jump down my throat over it, there are some very good reasons to not use Ubuntu generally. I know.

That said, I still recommend it as a first distro because it's

• well supported - if someone puts out Linux support, it's likely been tested on Ubuntu.
• simple to install - everything from WSL to a live boot USB drive to a full install, you've got lots of options
• pragmatic - yes, it's compromised vs being truly FOSS. Otoh, your consumer grade Windows-supported hardware will likely work out of the box. For a first timer, I think that's critical.

There are many other, better distros out there for specific needs. Manjaro is a great one for gaming in particular, but can be a little harder to get setup with, or to find help for when things go wrong. But I still think Ubuntu is the best "starter" distro I've encountered.

Eating super refined sugar like candy causes a chain raccoon of events in your body to occur:

1. Your blood sugar spikes. Even in non-diabetic people, eating a sugary treat can cause a spike above 150mg/dL (healthy levels are usually below 100 when fasting and below 130 after eating)
2. Your body ramps up insulin production to help use the sugar.
3. Because your levels have (probably) spiked so high, your body produces a lot of insulin, but your digestion isn't sending any more sugar - you already finished digesting it and got the whole load at once.
4. Your body burns through all the excess sugar in your system and your blood sugar levels fall... precipitously because there's still a lot of insulin floating around.
5. Your blood sugar levels fall low enough that your system decides it must be time to eat.
6. You get the munchies. And since your blood sugar is now lower than your body wants it to be, you crave something extra carby. ...Like more candy.

Repeat this process long enough and your pancreas (which makes insulin) burns out. Congratulations! You now (like me) have Type 2 Diabetes! 🎉✨💫

So... To not eat all your candy at once, do a few things to keep your blood sugar from spiking, triggering cravings for more.

1. Eat fibrous veggies. And eat them at the start of a meal. Getting the fiber into your digestion first slows down processing the rest, keeping your blood sugars from spiking.
2. Eat carby treats as dessert to a meal, not on an empty stomach. Same reason as above.
3. If you've really gotta indulge, try to drink a Tbsp of vinegar (diluted in a glass of water, so you don't melt your teeth) just beforehand. The acetic acid in vinegar interferes with digesting carbs. It's not as good as broccoli, but it helps. (Citric acid does not work like this.)

In addition to the other tips here (Especially keeping treats out of sight), keeping your sugar levels from spiking and crashing helps a lot to curb carb craving.

Especially children who don't live in your house.

Of course, your friends will get pissed if you give their kids too much candy, so one LPT is to just drive slowly through residential neighborhoods offering the candy up to any kids you see outside.

If you have an exceptionally large amount of candy though, you may need to rent a larger vehicle, like one of those panel vans. Though if you do, you can use some temporary paint to write something like "Free Candy" on the side to help spread the word!

Fwiw, there was a "remastered" version of TOS, which updated many of the special effects. It's a lot less egregious vs Lucas' Star Wars remasters, but it's still a definite change. Some liked it, some didn't. But if the old effects and visual artifacts are putting you off, it may be worth a try.

I loved (and still do) the rush of solving the puzzle. Programming languages give you a constrained set of rules to express yourself with. And yet we know that you can create literally anything with those rules if you can just put them together in the right way.

I love when a program actually comes together and it works for the first time! When I've started from nothing but a vague desire and then pulled a solution from out of the void. It's as close to actual magic as anything else I can think of.

I compel lightning and stone to my will, commanding them in unspoken tongues.

I dislike coffee. Something about the scent literally makes me nauseated.

So for years my caffeine source of choice was Mtn Dew. (I don't like black tea either. Tastes like boiled raisins to me, and yes I have tried the good stuff.)

Unfortunately, after years of this, I have developed The Beetus.

Today, I get my caffeine from caffeinated chewing gum. It's faster, less glycemic impact, and makes my breath nice. (Especially vs coffee breath.)

Kant approves.

Very cool! Thank you for the link, I'll check it out!

Zelda 2s sister hack actually makes the game playable finally.

I am legit curious what you mean by this. I've played LoZ2 in emulation a few times, but never to completion.

What does the ROM hack do? I always found the game physically (electronically?) playable, just boring.

Hi! This is my greetsword!