1 year Ago
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (2021) (read in 2022)
Published on in Books
Standard disclaimer[1]
Lockwood has a great feel for using a modern, hip vernacular to describe this world of ours. Her styles feels a bit like Gibson, with his similar penchant for emphasizing cultural relevance with product placement.
The first half of the book is about the “portal”, a kind of stream-of-consciousness brain-dump about what it’s like to live on the Internet and simultaneously in the modern world as a privileged first-worlder. She’s not even shy about comparing herself to a... [More]
Hiding folders in Azure DevOps Code Wikis
Published on in Programming
It is currently not possible to hide individual folders or files in an Azure DevOps Code Wiki. Folders and files beginning with a .
are hidden by default, but you can’t influence the structure other than by reordering pages with a .order
file in an individual folder.
The topic Hide folders that do not contain Markdown files (Microsoft Developer Community) discusses extending this functionality.
I replied with the following:
There are a lot of good suggestions here.
Changing the name of the folder or file in order to... [More]
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman (1984) (read in 2021)
Published on in Books
Standard disclaimer[1]
This book explores the thesis that printed material is the sweet spot for delivering information to human beings. The move in the mid-twentieth century to audiovisual presentation is a step in the wrong direction. The medium of television transforms everything it touches into entertainment. The book was written in 1985 and deals with the hole punched in culture by television.
Thirty-seven years later, the direness of the situation has been turned up several notches, with... [More]
Lies capitalists tell themselves
Published on in Quotes
“We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor—both black and white, here and abroad”
I learned this from the post Kingmaker by Mr. Fish (Scheer Post).
Stop trying so hard to use pattern-matching
Published on in Programming
In the article Why tuples in C# are not always a code smell by Dennis Frühauff (dateo. Coding Blog), the author writes the following code for calculating a discount.
The requirements are as follows:
- Premium customers get 20% off.
- Gold customers get 30% off.
- Regular customers, when they are students (< 25 years), get 10% off.
- Regular adult customers get no discount.
- All regular customers get 15% off during happy hour (3 to 8 p.m.).
The author’s original version
public decimal CalculateDiscount(Customer customer, DateTime time)
{
... [More]
Teleportation, of a sort
Published on in Quotes
“To fly is the opposite of traveling: you cross a gap in space, you vanish into the void, you accept not being in a place for a duration that is itself a kind of void in time; then you reappear, in a place and in a moment with no relation to the where and when in which you vanished.”
Links and Notes for January 6th, 2022
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Table of Contents
Now, now girls, you’re both ugly.
Published on in Philosophy
I just saw another article about Why the right is always wrong … and how both-sidesists help to ensure this by John Q (Crooked Timber) arguing against saying that both sides are just as bad because we have to look at the policies. Fair enough, fair enough.
“Biden’s infrastructure package included provisions for multi-family housing to be erected in traditionally residential zone. These provisions were vigorously resisted by Republicans, following the lead of Donald Trump, who used racist scaremongering to mobilise... [More]”
Max Blumenthal and Mnar Adley on Ukraine
Published on in Public Policy & Politics
Max Blumenthal can be a pain in the ass because he’s so harsh sometimes and he expresses such disgust with things that don’t seem that disgusting, but the man has seen things. So, when he says that a staged a-cappella in a Kiev subway makes him sick to his stomach, it’s because he knows that it’s a staged operation funded by think tanks funded by the CIA, deliberately made and promulgated by the U.S. government to retain support for the war in Ukraine.
He says at 17:20,
“Every war or color... [More]”
The inverted salary pyramid
Published on in Public Policy & Politics
The following video was quite interesting and not just for observing the sartorial style of the San Fransisco author set. They are very thoughtful and passionate revolutionaries for a sane and just society.
At 36:20, Rebecca says,
“People’s passion is being weaponized to facilitate their exploitation.” These are the so-called “thankless” jobs where the pay sucks, but it’s morally and/or societally important: health-care, education, old-age care, care for the poor. All of these need to be... [More]
You should be using a GUI for Git
Published on in Programming
I’ve seen this Noob question: Does anyone use things like git gui? by Collekt (Reddit) again and again.
“Just curious as I’m learning and getting familiar with git. Do real production teams use any kind of tools for git like “git gui” or others? Or does everyone just use it from command line? Thanks for any insight. :)”
You almost certainly have several use cases for your source control:
- clone/push/pull
- commit
- amend/squash/rebase interactive
- merge
- diff
- code forensics (log/blame, cross-reference, find changes)... [More]
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2023.01
Published on in Movies
These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
- The Mummy II (2001)... [More]
Think again
Published on in Miscellaneous
Links and Notes for December 30th, 2022
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Table of Contents
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2022.14
Published on in Movies
These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
- Kiss of Death (1995)... [More]
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2022.13
Published on in Movies
These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2022.12
Published on in Movies
These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
- The Green Mile (1999)... [More]
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2022.11
Published on in Movies
These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
- Neal Brennan: Blocks... [More]
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2022.10
Published on in Movies
These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
- The Expendables 3... [More]
Links and Notes for December 23rd, 2022
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Table of Contents
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2022.9
Published on in Movies
These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
- Spider-Man: No Way... [More]
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2022.8
Published on in Movies
These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
Links and Notes for December 16th, 2022
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Table of Contents
Links and Notes for December 9th, 2022
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Table of Contents
World Cup 2022
Published on in Sports
As a friend of mine has repeatedly written, “I feel bad for anyone boycotting this World Cup because it’s the best tournament of our lifetimes.” He also felt bad for himself that he would have to “go back to watching shitty premier league and MLS after this.” He’s quite a bit younger than I am, it’s the best tournament I’ve seen as well. The football has been absolutely top-notch.
It may be highly corporatize and corrupt and awful and wrong, but on the field, it’s absolutely amazing. I’ve never... [More]
Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2022.7
Published on in Movies
These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
2 years Ago
Terminology for CSS values
Published on in Programming
The article ”Thousand” Values of CSS by Karl Dubost (Otsukare) clarifies the definitions for the various types of value in CSS. While there aren’t a thousand different kinds of value in CSS, there are quite a few. Each has its raison d’être.
The article is informative, but lists the values in what I consider to be an unintuitive order. I’ve changed the order and consolidated a bit. Each term links to the W3C documentation[1] and each definition starts with the official description, a layman’s translation, and a simple... [More]
Where we at with recommendation algorithms?
Published on in Technology
It is sad to think that, not only do the algorithms have a chance of influencing us, but that they are winning. I say this in light of the recommendations I keep seeing that demonstrates the utter vapidity of most of the algorithms we have so far.
I just finished The Last Wish, the first book of The Witcher series of books. These are fantasy novels about a master of sword and magic who travels the world slaying monsters.
They only have Sword of Destiny (a short-story collection that actually... [More]
Links and Notes for December 2nd, 2022
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Table of Contents
Crybabies in Qatar
Published on in Sports
Whatever happened to the rule where only the captain is allowed to talk to the referee? Now players fly from across the field to deliver the amazing news to the referee that they don’t think that their teammate committed a foul and that the referee should reconsider and retract the call. Which never happens. But they all line up to tell him anyway. It’s tedious and childish.
A friend clarified for me,
“the point is not to argue that call, its to encourage the ref to reconsider a future... [More]”