GeePawHill

GrandPaw, Geek, Software Development Coach, Writer, Ass Pain. Continuously startled by people and people-stuff. Pronouns: Don't care, will respect yours. https://geepawhill.org

Site: https://geepawhill.org

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Last Notes

2024-08-25 21:51:40

I feel confident that creepier than Lindsay Graham exists. But, in this hurly-burly carnival world, it's hard to find an example.

2024-07-08 04:12:03

In my timeline, I'm hearing a lot, re: France, "this is why you must never believe polls".
I think that's a bad take.
If the left and center had not believed the polls, they would not have worked together to create this outcome.
I'm hardcore about the politics in the US, and the merest dabbler in the politics of France, so g'ahead and bust me if I'm being ignorant, but my reading is that believing the results of the first round is what created the results of the second round.

2024-07-07 01:11:11

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One of the great myths is the belief that, mostly, people are normal.
Honey. Mostly, "normal" is a fucking lie.

2024-07-07 01:07:58

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NB: It's not saying "accept everyone". I know, some folks read it that way, but it's not. You don't have to accept everyone.
But if you accept their good parts, well, you have to accept all the shit that comes along with that.

2024-07-07 01:06:15

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My dear friend Steve told me two decades ago that what he had learned in his years of working with others could be boiled down to just two sentences.
1) Don't waste time.
2) Accept the whole person.
Rare wisdom, that.

2024-07-07 01:02:05

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I rose to it.
1) If you do not smoke, please please please don't start. It is a terrible thing.
2) When you see me do things like smoke, or quaff my ubiquitous diet cokes, or any of my other odd tics, you are not seeing what makes me an excellent programmer.
3) What you are seeing is an ND person who has found semi-acceptable means by which to pass as NT.
4) In the particular context, we were emphasizing that collaboration is king.

2024-07-07 00:57:50

Here's a thing. I gave a short prezzie followed by an AMA on Thursday, for young persons, college-aged. It went well, thanks.
But in the *chat*, a student remarked on the fact that I was smoking. (I was outdoors, I work outdoors for as long as I can, about five months a year.)
And the student noted that I was a smoker, and that many hardcore devs seem to be smokers. And asked whether smoking helped people become pro geeks.
I've rarely been presented such a wonderful teaching moment.

2024-07-06 23:33:15

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So fucking smug. Passive-aggressive *central*.

2024-07-06 22:46:16

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Also, being "there" early is part of my coping mechanism. I love it when I get to a place 20 minutes early and go find the nearest place to buy a cold diet coke, return to the site, and drink my soda and smoke a cigarette.
I am one of those people that makes the GPS say "Recalculating route" in that passive-aggressive tone she always uses.

2024-07-06 22:40:57

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I don't so much use a clock to manage my day. Instead, I focus on how much time I get where I am alone and it is quiet.
Virginia, bless her heart, does her best to be very quiet. But she's pretty deaf, and often, that means creeping around on noisy tiptoes, then suddenly banging cookie sheets together. :)

2024-07-06 22:38:22

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My wife is a true-blue day-ist. She's awake at dawn every day, tho she'll sometimes just lay in bed and read or surf for an hour or two.
I am . . . indeterminate. My circadian clock seems to have become broken, from a fairly young age.
And depression has worked its wiles on me in the past, and seemingly, today, as well.
I wake up every day and think to myself, "I like it when it's warm and dark and quiet, I'll just stay here for a while.

2024-07-03 16:23:46

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And the second:
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/723/475/954/357/423/original/e77cee630c174fe2.png

2024-06-28 01:22:03

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you got a good vpn, one hopes.

2024-06-27 12:03:49

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I think those folks who've never dealt with this are really, however kindly, absolutely bereft of a clue.
I think most of those who've survived it are certain that however they managed it is the only way to manage it.
I think both groups mean well, I just think they don't know what they're talking about.

2024-06-25 22:18:20

Concept: A box full of headbands, each of which can be used to signal where you're at just now.
"Fragile."
"Silly."
"Ashamed."
"Bright-Eyed."
"Exhausted."
"Political."
"Cute."
"Pensive."

2024-06-25 20:53:50

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I routinely catch shit here and abroad for suggesting that the browser stack is a terrible development stack on multiple fronts. :)
Honey badger don't care. Honey badger don't give a shit.

2024-06-21 11:58:34

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I'm voting for "in a forest with a good stereo system".

2024-06-17 09:24:23

Said it before, I'll say it again.
If we want better men, and we certainly do, we need to take better care of our boys.
Women can help with this, they really can, but ultimately, it's up to us men who have survived our masculinity, to the extent that we have, to serve.
Do it today. Even just a little.
Mentor a boy or a young man who could use even a *semi*-healthy male figure in their life.
It makes all the difference. It did for me, and I've sought to pay it forward. You can, too.

2024-06-14 06:23:25

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So nowadays, mostly, I just try to sit down at the end of the bar, and enjoy Jeopardy, and speak softly to my bottle and my shot-glass.
"Oh, that's GeePaw. Good guy, a little crabby, doesn't understand our modern technology."

2024-06-14 06:20:49

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The powerless I speak this truth to, almost uniformly, give me the old-man-yells-at-cloud look.

2024-06-14 06:14:17

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The number of teams I've met who are doing AWS and/or k8s for a service mesh to handle loads a single 1985 PC could deliver, smdh.
25k users, 100 transactions each a day.
Baby, *any* monolith could deliver that, if your team doesn't start with the assumption that http is free.

2024-06-14 06:00:14

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I know it's a very unpopular old-school stance -- I'm 64yo, and I'm aging out -- but I think you maybe should make some money off your first 25k users hitting a monolith on a VPS before you start paying AWS bills.

2024-06-14 05:53:56

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"Well, to be honest, the single 8gb VPS w/the 2tb disk *is* gonna run you. You're looking at maybe $50/month."

2024-06-14 05:51:29

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"5000 users at 5 transactions a day!?!? Do you have a 'smart' refrigerator?"

2024-06-14 05:49:27

Me talking to people worried about scaling:
"You're right, we're gonna need a 2nd generation FitBit w/an external drive to handle that kinda load."

2024-06-02 01:43:51

Here is how unimportant your vote for Biden is:
Republican legislatures all over this country have already passed laws -- and are continuing, desperately to pass laws -- to make it impossible for you to vote.
Sugar, if your vote didn't matter, they wouldn't be trying so hard to keep you from voting, or convince you not to.

2024-05-29 02:15:56

I remember when I trusted the CDC.
I didn't trust them to always be right. Science is damned hard when events are breaking.
I did trust them to always do their best.
Those days are as gone as my youthful enthusiasm for ELO.
Wear a fucking mask, and fuck the fucking CDC, and if you work for the CDC, baby you brought this on yourself.

2024-05-19 01:59:48

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The "Sack of Rome" was accomplished by a man who was fully literate, spoke four languages fluently, and was collecting a debt he'd earned as a Roman mercenary that had been delayed by three *years*.
He sat outside the walls of Rome for six months telling them that if they didn't pay him what they owed him, he would sack the city and take it.
They didn't pay what they owed. So he took it.

2024-05-19 01:58:51

In James J O'Donell's _The Ruin of the Roman Empire_, and his other works, he takes great pains to explain that neither the visigoths nor the ostragoths were actually "barbarians".
They'd been living side-by-side with Romans for centuries. They were, in fact, the chosen mercenary soldiers Rome turned to again and again, against a variety of enemies.

2024-04-22 03:47:23

Have you thought *at* *all*, for even a minute, about the business model of OpenAI?
In one sentence: "We will take every actual human-created content, the golden egg, from everyone, without permission, and then we will use it to sell plausible made-up shit, simultaneously choking out the creation of all new human-created content, the goose."
Ponzi was *vastly* more sophisticated than this.
I've long regarded extractive capitalism as corrupt, but I had no idea they were all so stupid.

2024-04-02 19:51:18

Look, I haven't been keeping up with the treaties, what is the current "no longer technically day-drinking" time in international law?

2024-03-24 01:12:42

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With the red plastic wrappers and the green tops, where even the fuck did they *come* from!?!?

2024-03-24 01:11:10

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I totally and angrily want to argue against this.
Nothin'. I got nothin'.