I’m kind of pissy, so let’s get into this.
My apologies though: it’s kind of scattered.

Family support?
For @Root? Fucking never.

Maybe if I wanted to be a business major my mother might have cared. Maybe the other one (whom I call Dick because fuck him, and because it’s accurate) would have cared if I suddenly wanted to become a mechanic. But in both cases, I really doubt it. I’d probably just have been berated for not being perfect, or better at their respective fields than they were at 3x my age.

Anyway.
Support being a dev?
Not even a little.

I had hand-me-down computers that were outmoded when they originally bought them: cutting-edge discount resale tech like Win95, 33/66mhz, 404mb hd. It wouldn’t even play an MP3 without stuttering.

(The only time I had a decent one is when I built one for myself while in high school. They couldn’t believe I spent so much money on what they saw as a silly toy.)

Using a computer for anything other than email or “real world” work was bad in their eyes. Whenever I was on the computer, they accused me of playing games, and constantly yelled at me for wasting my time, for rotting in my room, etc. We moved so often I never had any friends, and they were simply awful to be around, so what was my alternative? I also got into trouble for reading too much (seriously), and with computers I could at least make things.

If they got mad at me for any (real or imagined) reason (which happened almost every other day) they would steal my things, throw them out, or get mad and destroy them. Desk, books, decorations, posters, jewelry, perfume, containers, my chair, etc. Sometimes they would just steal my power cables or network cables. If they left the house, they would sometimes unplug the internet altogether, and claim they didn’t know why it was down. (Stealing/unplugging cables continued until I was 16.) If they found my game CDs, those would disappear, too. They would go through my room, my backpack and its notes/binders/folders/assignments, my closet, my drawers, my journals (of course my journals), and my computer, too. And if they found anything at all they didn’t like, they would confront me about it, and often would bring it up for months telling me how wrong/bad I was. Related: I got all A’s and a B one year in high school, and didn’t hear the end of it for the entire summer vacation.

It got to the point that I invented my own language with its own vocabulary, grammar, and alphabet just so I could have just a little bit of privacy. (I’m still fluent in it.) I would only store everything important from my computer on my only Zip disk so that I could take it to school with me every day and keep it out of their hands. I was terrified of losing all of my work, and carrying a Zip disk around in my backpack (with no backups) was safer than leaving it at home.

I continued to experiment and learn whatever I could about computers and programming, and also started taking CS classes when I reached high school. Amusingly, I didn’t even like computers despite all of this — they were simply an escape.

Around the same time (freshman in high school) I was a decent enough dev to actually write useful software, and made a little bit of money doing that. I also made some for my parents, both for personal use and for their businesses. They never trusted it, and continually trashtalked it. They would only begrudgingly use the business software because the alternatives were many thousands of dollars. And, despite never ever having a problem with any of it, they insisted I accompany them every time, and these were often at 3am. Instead of being thankful, they would be sarcastically amazed when nothing went wrong for the nth time. Two of the larger projects I made for them were: an inventory management system that interfaced with hand scanners (VB), and another inventory management system for government facility audits (Access). Several websites, too. I actually got paid for the Access application thanks to a contract!

To put this into perspective, I was selected to work on a government software project about a year later, while still in high school. That didn’t impress them, either.

They continued to see computers as a useless waste of time, and kept telling me that I would be unemployable, and end up alone.

When they learned I was dating someone long-distance, and that it was a she, they simply took my computer and didn’t let me use it again for six months. Really freaking hard to do senior projects without a computer. They begrudgingly allowed me to use theirs for schoolwork, but it had a fraction of the specs — and some projects required Flash, which the computer could barely run.

Between the constant insults, yelling, abuse (not mentioned here), total lack of privacy, and the theft, destruction, etc. I still managed to teach myself about computers and programming.

In short, I am a dev despite my parents’ best efforts to the contrary.

A while back I had a coworker who was just strange. I took a personal day one day, and came back to find my monitor (that I had brought from home) was gone. I was asking the people who worked around me where it went and after no one knew, I found it on someone else's desk. When I explained to him how I had brought it from home he denied he took it from my desk and continued that it was HIS from home! Turns out he had been taking other people's equipment around the office as well. He would rearrange furniture and even take down other people's personal decorations. He was eventually let go...

New decorations for the laptop!

After several months in a moving box, Master Cheese is back in the fight!

You know how cities hang all sorts of decorations wherever possible before Christmas? Well, it looks like people of Kekava, Latvia, are very big fans of Kotlin and find it's logo to be festive!

Good for them!

Windows 10 had one groundbreaking UI innovation, but no one adopted it and even Windows 11 discareded this revolutionary idea:

BUTTONS NEXT TO EACH OTHER AND AT THE EDGE OF A BOX DON"T NEED AN ADDITIONAL MARGIN

Windows 10 was the first and last OS where I never accidentally clicked right next to the X on a window, in a passive area that had no other purpose so it might as well have belonged to that motherfucking button.

I passionately hate this trend, adopted nowadays by every OS, that everything needs to be rounded, separated from the things around it, and "allowed to breathe". They don't breathe. They're not alive. They're fucking UI elements and the space between them is unused, lost space.

The only interaction a button has with its surroundings is that it pushes other content away to make room for itself and responds to the cursor. It doesn't wiggle, it doesn't grow and shrink, and it ESPECIALLY doesn't fucking breathe. Please, just let me click the motherfucking button.

Relatedly, do you know of a good, preferably bluish dark GTK theme that provides window decorations that stretch the full height of the titlebar and are laid out next to each other at the very end of the bar without gaps?

Christmas reminds me of my favourite development team ever. I first visited the team for a quick hello, before I started working with them, at Christmas time. Unlike the rest of the the company they had decorations and Christmas treats and the radio was on with Christmas songs. This set a very good impression.

When I did come to join them after the holidays I discovered that this team like having treats, would often sing songs together randomly and even make up new ones about their code on the spot. They had a great attitude to work and made the working environment a fun place to be. We did get lots done but I also learned so much being with them. When I left they wrote me a card filled with raps they had come up with reflecting my time with them. I still have that card.

I miss you guys dearly. Merry Christmas xxx

It's normal to sit up until 6:00 AM cleaning your room, taking down Christmas decorations, and organizing your clothes, right?

It's been three weeks now that „SPRING“ is over and Nerdism won over our interior decorations. Neither wife nor friends and family noticed. But I do. Every morning. This time I made an impact to our decoration. This single time

Today, a freelance javascript developer at my office told me that he designed a new website for one of his customers. I was intrigued that he is also designing and was very interested.

He showed me some images and I asked how he designed it. I thought he would come up with Figma, Sketch or whatever software, but he showed me the AI prompt.

I told him that he did not design it, but AI did that, prompting AI is not designing. He did not agree and rephrased it as "I made this".

After I said "But if I go to a bakery and ask for a cake with some nice decorations, and the baker is making that, I did not make the cake". He angry said, "You don't understand AI," and put his earplugs in and isn't talking to me since.

Prompting an AI is not creating. The AI/computing power with it's context is creating your stuff..

I would like to rant one more time about my internship.

I began in July, the first. That's my sister who helped me to find this internship and I was a little scared about how bad it could be.
I came at the office, my boss told me that I would work in an "Innovation lab", an apartment where people works on projects that are less corporate than the enterprise's ones.

To me, it was amazing. So I came in this apartment, it was like a dream. I didn't know that I would have such luck to be in this environment : kitchen, sofas, beds, many decorations for all political ideologies, ideas. There was some decorations that were about weed and many cool things for the young guy I am.

The lab's leader told me that it was a very free environment and all the awesome stuff I could use.
Then they showed me where I would work.

We were two interns employed as web developers. We had a complete room for us.
Then we began to work there, and I was presented to my internship tutor.
He gave me some instructions but told me that I had a week before the project begin.

Here began the troubles.

We waited a complete week without having any instructions. Then we began to build something in PHP with our knowledge and the informations someone from the lab gave us.
When finally we had news from the project, two weeks later, we learned that the project would be built with ASP. NET.
Here we go, I learn ASP. NET alone. I have many problems and nobody helps (even if the problem comes from enterprise's API/Framework). I finally make something usable with no help, after I discovered that my mate wasn't developer at all and just took an option for her classes which forced her to get an internship.

She had 3 month left, I had 6.
Then when the project really began, nobody came to verify what I was doing and on a meeting, they said that I was doing nothing.

The boss even became mad on us because he couldn't see what we were doing (we're back end developers).
I asked for help to the developers of the enterprise and someone came, sad to have to help an internship, and learned some tricks but nothing else.

To have a concrete explanation of what DDD was, I had to ask 4 times for help.

Finally I had something that could receive data from the connected hives we are working on and store them into a database in the architecture of the enterprise.

Then, they wanted me to try an API for them. I tried, and it wasn't working at all. So they make me still wait to change my whole architecture when the API will be released.

Recently, I was told that I would never do the front-end of the project (which was an horror because of the fantasm of the lab leader). Then they realized that my late wasn't a programmer. So they asked me to make a prototype for the front-end. I did for a presentation.

Then they didn't tell me the device they would use for the presentation and it was an iPhone 7. Idk why, safari couldn't display what IE can.

They blamed me for having done a bad work. It wasn't my job. I did it to help because they can't find a fucking front-end developer with a little more experience than me.

Actually, I am an alone developer since my mate is gone and the lab leader don't want me to show up because she considers me as a shame.
I asked to be moved back in the office of the enterprise, they agreed and said it was a 2-weeks delay. It's the Thursday of the second week and I have no news. I send mails to my tutor, even SMS, he doesn't answer me. They didn't call me to give me my pay with a week late. And the person who is responsible doesn't answer me neither. I came to see her, but she wasn't available. I'm now alone in a desk, waiting the time to pass.

Fucking this shit.

I'm in France.

EDIT : I forgot to say that I can't use the sofas or bed because I'm allergic to cats and there were 3 cats. Now there is still one and this beast vomits and poos everywhere in the house...

Taking over the living room to code.... Yes Xmas decorations still up

The overuse of something is designed to demoralize and discourage the very thing.

Vapid christmas jingles, meaningless consumerism, blackfriday shopping, keeping up with the joneses, decorations and tinsel bullshit so overloaded on homes and trees that it looks like a gaudy airstrip display, holiday-town-esque themes and festivals so frequent, overcooked and overcommercialized that its like you've stepped into a 40-year-old sterile suburban house-wives braindrain internal fantasy reruns of regurgitated hallmark christmas romance movies.

Alls fair love and christmas.

In other news, some strapping young and intrepid adventurer *lit a public christmas tree on fire*.

Its a shame really, when we can't just enjoy the simple things without some dickhead going and spoiling it. But also I can't help but ask

"ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!"

Client visits to Indian IT companies are extravagant affairs. It's Suit Up time, flowers and lights, decorations everywhere, Lavish Lunch and Dinners. While this happens I keep wondering, what goes in the mind of these clients. Are they excited, surprised, or they enjoy the hospitality.

Halloween reminds me of when I started my first tech job. It was a week before Halloween. I arrive for my first day. The front door that’s normally locked is wide open. It’s quiet. There’s caution tape everywhere. I think, “oh no, what happened?!” I debate whether I go inside or go to the lobby and ask security if they’re aware of a possible crime scene upstairs. I cautiously step inside and…everything is business as usual. It was all part of their Halloween decorations. I can laugh about it now, but I had quite a scare. 🎃

Turns out we have a Grinch. Someone just stole all my decorations in the communal staircase.

This really fucked my mood

!rant !dev Still funny office story

This happened last november. I decorated my desk for halloween (plastic bats, vampire stickers, more bats, a plastic raven, a little skeleton, etc). I also put a photo of Chris Pohl (vocalist from Blutengel, a electro-goth band).

I decided to remove all the decorations except for the raven and the Chris Pohl‘s photo.

One day, a partner and I were cheking out the code, and she suddenly saw that photo.

She: Oh, who is he? is he your boss?
Me: What?
S: Yes, is he your direct boss?
M: No, you‘re my boss
S: No, no, is he the vampire who you report your activities with?
M: Oh! XD No, it‘s Chris Pohl, Blutengel‘s vocalist
S: Mmm... he‘s pretty weird... his eyes...
and then, she got back to her desk.

That‘s it, continue reading rant stories 😅

P.D. What‘s the weirdest thing you have on your desk? 🤔

I just started a new job last week. Old-school sysadmin role for a pretty old-school company, but the pay is nice and the kids've gotta eat.

They gave me a windows laptop. I haven't used windows for work or as a daily driver since 2016, and now, a week into trying to make this machine work for me, I have the following observations to report.

WSL is nice. It's nice to have it installed(though actually installing it was an adventure unto itself), and to set alacritty to open my default user prompt straight into that is very nice. As terminal emulators are by far my most used piece of software, that's nice to have.

Command-line software management through powershell, winget, and chocolatey are also very nice.

I like the accessibility offered by autohotkey, though there is something of a learning curve on it. Once I get better with it, I suspect that what follows will be largely mitigated.

The Bad:
In general, Windows is janky. It feels like it's all kinda taped together without any particular cohesion in mind. As a desktop, it feels decidedly amateur, compared to the feature-mountain polish of MacOS, and especially compared to the flexibility and infinite possibilities of Linux.

Lots of screen real estate is wasted, with window decorations, and fonts that look terrible at smaller sizes, because the antialiasing of fonts is just terrible. Almost all the features I depend on in other desktops: ad-hoc searches and launches(alfred, rofi) are-- again --janky. They work, but they typically require more typing than alfred or rofi. I admit I haven't spent weeks on this problem yet, but I haven't found a workable solution yet with wox, hain, and keypirinha. Quick searches like what you get with alfred, alfred workflows, and the swiss army knife that is rofi, just aren't possible or reliable with the tools I've used so far, and most require some kind of indexing agent to fully function.

It beggars imagination that a desktop in which users are subjected to "default apps" that is purported to be acceptable for enterprise, professional use, does not have a default entry for text editor. I installed nvim-qt, and I want to use it to edit anything and everything I ever edit with text, but all too often, apps have hard-coded instructions to open text files with notepad.

I want to open certain URLs with firefox, certain ones with firefox developer edition, and others with vivaldi, and yet there is not an app available that I have seen yet in my searches that allows me to set this kind of configuration. I found one that's supposed to, but it just ignores everything I put into its config, and just opens MS Edge for everything. Jank.

Simple things take too long. Like the delay between when I laboriously hit ctrl-alt-del to bring up the login and when the actual text field appears, and the delay between that and when I want to start using the computer.

Changing some settings requires a reboot. Updating some software requires a reboot. Updating permissions on something sometimes requires a reboot. And those are all on top of the frequent requests to reboot for updates.

I would have thought Windows would have overcome most of the issues that create these problems, but it's just, as I said, amateur.

These are my desk decorations.

I swear there is just no documentation on GTK3 themes. I'm trying to change window decorations in an existing GTK theme and there's just no info out there. On top of that my posts for help have gotten a grand total of 0 replies.

If you happen to know where I can find some info about it I would really appreciate it.

How to Create Beautiful and Durable Pie Boxes

Whether you are looking for a unique gift to give, or you are looking to protect the delicate items you hold, there are many ways to do so with the right pie boxes. By using a custom designed box, you can capture the essence of the delicacies you are storing and protect them for a longer period of time.

Protect delicate items
Using pie boxes is a good way to protect delicate items such as pies, cakes and desserts. However, you need to be sure that the box is the right size and shape to ensure that your item is safely packed. If you don't pack your delicate products properly, they could suffer from moisture and change in temperature.

Before you begin packing your goods, consider whether you should use bubble wrap or paper. While bubble wrap provides an extra layer of protection, it can also leave your product vulnerable to scratching. Choose paper to wrap your items, as it will prevent scratches and will keep them from shifting during transport.

When wrapping fragile items, you need to use a lot of packing tape to secure your package. You should also fill any empty space in the box. You can do this by using bubble wrap, or by adding extra padding. Make sure to mark your box as fragile and to place a label with your name and delivery address on all sides of the box.

Once you've completed the packaging process, you need to seal the box and place it in the shipping box. Besides bubble wrap, you may also want to include ice packs to add extra protection. A cushioned ice pack is another option for additional protection.

You should also use quality packing tape, and make sure to cover all the openings of your box. You can also use zip-up bags to help you keep your things in place.

It is important to know the best way to protect delicate items, so you can prevent them from damage during the shipping process. There are many ways to do this, but you should use the right tools for the job. Purchasing a box that is the right size and shape for your items is the most effective way to do it.

When you use custom pie boxes, you can rest assured that your pies, chocolate pies and other edibles will be safe. They're manufactured with modern equipment and environmentally friendly printing techniques.

Make a gift
Whether you are giving a pie for a birthday, wedding, or as a thank you gift, you can make pie boxes that are beautiful and durable. Several pie box designs are available online, but you can also create your own. Here are some simple instructions to make a simple, yet elegant box.

The first step is to print out a template of a pie box. You can use a piece of scrap paper or decorative paper for your design. If you are using decorative paper, cut out a rectangle the size of your box. If you are using colored cardstock, you will need to cut out a pie filling layer. Once you have a pie filling layer, copy it for several boxes. You can also add other designs or embellishments to your boxes.

Next, place your colored cardstock on your cutting mat. With your x-acto knife, cut out a rectangle that is as large as your box. You will need to fold it on the dotted line. If you are using an x-acto knife, it will be easier to fold the box. Alternatively, you can use a scoring stylus. If you have a Cricut, you can score the cardstock to make a scalloped box top. You can also use burlap ribbon or twine to wrap your box.

Once you have the box finished, you can decorate it with other decorations or embellishments. You can even use calligraphy or other techniques to make the box more special. To close the box, you will need a sticker or piece of tape. You can decorate the lid with patterned paper and a clear plastic screen. This will allow you to see the contents of your pie. You can also use embellishments such as ribbon, glitter, or other materials to make the box more fun.

If you are giving a pie for a holiday or party, you can decorate your box with a festive theme. For example, you can have a holiday tree on the front of your box. Or, you can dress it up for a tailgate party.