rlamacraft @rlamacraft@qoto.org

I’ve just spent 2 hours debugging an issue which turns out to be because JavaScript was silently converting my integer to a string… Not even quotes around it when printing out… just great.

The fact that we as an industry decided to take a programming language designed for normal folk to add a little bit of interactivity to the personal websites and use it to build commercial grade applications is honestly one of the worst decisions of the 21st century. Pure stupidity.

“Several years ago, I was chatting with another engineer from a close competitor. He told me about how they'd set up a system to run hundreds of data processing jobs a day over a dozen machines, using docker, load balancing, a bunch of AWS stuff. I knew these jobs very well, they were basically identical for any company in the space.
He then mentioned that he'd noticed that somehow my employer had been processing thousands of jobs, much faster than his, and asked how many machines we were using.
I didn't have the heart to tell him we were running everything manually on my two-year-old macbook air.” — just amazing! 😂https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26473388

“Fixed width typeface with ligatures” is a bit of an oxymoron really

Why is billing address even a thing? Why is providing my physical address necessary for me to purchase an entirely digital good?

I just don’t understand what can drive someone to such monstrous behaviour. Calling them “dogs” just doesn’t do it justice https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/15/the-death-of-zaw-myat-lynn-allegations-torture-used-on-opposition-activist-in-myanmar

Just when I think I’ve found an actually usable text editor on iOS it mysteriously looses my changes to a file. Worse than useless.

Ok, Planet Money has convinced me NFTs are maybe not entirely crazy. I guess the real crazy thing is the art market in general. My ultimate opinion will probably fall on who ultimately benefits. If digital artists end up making their worth compared with more traditional art forms then good. But if big business and rich investors end up making the most then what have we really gained (other than a whole bunch more carbon emissions). https://pca.st/episode/9798a8d4-d004-4252-be89-e8e3d1a0d685

Why does there even need to be separate music awards for different genders? I get there’s a biological difference in most sports, but music? Seems needlessly divisive. The Nobel prizes aren’t gendered, why is music?

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/12/sam-smith-gender-2021-brit-awards

NFTs are nothing short of completely and utterly crazy. Ignoring the suckers who spending their money in such a way (who am I to tell them what to do with their money), NFTs are antithetical to the philosophical founding of the Web; that data and information should be free and open to the world. NFTs sure seem like an attempt for the elites of the world to claw back some control over what are otherwise identical bits on disk…

For anyone in the U.K. who isn’t aware, Clear The Lobby is a great weekly newsletter about whatever’s currently being debated in Westminster https://clearthelobby.co.uk/

Offering 1% pay rise to health staff in a global pandemic is disgusting behaviour. It infuriates me when people say we don’t have enough money. No; we simply don’t have the right priorities.

Having spent so much time in JavaScript land lately, playing with some C is honestly such a comfort. Error messages! At compile time‽ What is this magic??

Ok, I’m convinced; decimalised currency is a stupid idea https://youtu.be/R2paSGQRwvo

Why are people using Facebook to access government, health, and other information‽ A web company messing up should not be an issue national governments have to be concerned about… https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/18/facebook-blocks-health-departments-charities-and-its-own-pages-in-botched-australia-news-ban

I really feel like there’s a divide in the software developer industry between those that value reliability, accessibility, and stability and those that prefer novelty, and aesthetics. Here’s a quick way to find who you are: simply open this link and note whether your gut reaction is negative or positive, respectively. https://ray.so/