I guess I can do one of these a day or so. I've collected some novelties over the years.

First up is a Curta mechanical calculator. Before electronic calculators became a thing, these were the best portable calculators in the world. Notably, they were the calculator of choice in rally car sports.

They work by a series of helical gears that act as registers. A series of internal gears and value assignment switches apply an adjustable number of incrementations to those gears, multiplying gears and the tracking gears, once per "grind." The result is output as a number on top of the device. The "clear register" function is lifting the top ring, which releases the reverse lockout on the gears and a clockwise turn on the ring then resets them to their zero state.

They were designed by Curtz Herzstark, partly before WWII and partly while he was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. He had filed a patent for it in 1938, shortly before his family's manufacturey became a weapons factory. During his imprisonment, in addition to nearly starving to death, he completed his plans for manufacturing of his calculator.

It had fun names like the, "pepper grinder," and "math grenade."

Back in Hell, we had a “company summit” where everyone flew in for an all hands meeting.

It was three days long in a tiny office with very lacking air conditioning in the middle of a Las Vegas summer. Basically the entire thing was the CEO / goblin salesman king chewing at us and expounding about / proselytizing his latest and greatest sales ideas and how they’ll change the world. And randomly asking “which of you are HUNGRY?! Which of you want to be FILTHY FUCKING RICH?!” etc.

One good thing came out of it, which was that any and all new endeavors needed a “co-signer” and a sign off from development before we (developers, or more accurate: just me) would work on it. It reduced the growth rate of my backlog by like 80%, which was nice.

While dreading the “summit,” I hated him more than I had in quite awhile.

During the summit, I hated him more and even flipped him off.

After the summit, I swore to leave the revolting wreckage that was the company.

(And months later, I did just that —after becoming the sole dev and the only person holding the damned company afloat. When I gave him my two weeks’ notice, I absolutely relished his terror. And my time spent writing my 43 page no-sugarcoat handoff document that was guaranteed to scare off any hapless dev he might find. 😇)

But I digress, three 10-hour days with him and the rest of the sales team, the sleazy lawyer, the CTO who mentally checked out years ago, the yes-man contractor, and me. The only good thing that came out of that meeting was one good idea that he dismissed, and the sign off idea that saved my backlog a bit.

One of the sales people quit shortly thereafter. So it was a huge expense that wasted everyone’s time and added absolutely nothing of value to the company. GG!

Oh, it was also in the “totally better” office — meaning… cheaper, unfinished (literally plywood floors), and was one room in another company’s office, who often locked the door leading to their offices because they trusted him so much. But it was in downtown Las Vegas, with no parking at all, where gang members were hanging out almost every day, and it was next to low-income housing and weird no-service restaurants with shockingly high prices.

Weird and scary.
Very scary.

Totally carried pepper spray every time Mr. Goblin asshole forced me to go into the office. Didn’t get raped, though, or my laptop or car stolen. So that was nice.

They removed the salt and pepper shakers from the tables in the cantine, because they are sources of infections.

...buuuut they keep an open salad bar.

Take my dollar. Take. My. Dollar.

TAKE MY DOLLAR. I WANT A DR PEPPER. THIS IS A GOOD DOLLAR. ACCEPT IT. YOU ARE MY MECHANICAL BITCH. I WISH TO EXCHANGE MONEY FOR GOODS. I WILL LITERAL-

Oh, okay. You took it. That's what I thought.

A few interview tips from the other side of the table:

1. Bring a laptop

I mean come up man! Bring a laptop. Especially if there was some kind of project or challenge to present. I have seen so many people do a big UI design presentation and then come in like “can I use your laptop???”. Of course you can, but your looking very unprepared.

2. Ask for clarification

Communication problems happen in business every day. Different cultures and accents can cause issues. The important part isn’t wether you understand everything said but that you ask enough questions to make sure you eventually understand. Most people just wrongly assume things and start rambling.

3. Know what kind of company you and talking to

In my case, this is a startup. We aren’t IBM or Amazon or Google. We work hard and we play hard. Work life balance is important in life but if your very first question is “work/life balance???” then you played yourself. Wait a bit, pepper it in on the sly. Just don’t ask it right away, it shows us that you aren’t ready to work harder than usual if needed. Maybe try “so how do you like working here? How are the people, hours etc?” Or something besides the first question being a bad signal.

Just some random tips for an interviewer.

From me to you, don’t make me have to tell you like DJ Khalid would ...

Congratulations, you played yourself.

I sneezed at the pepper and caused a recursion

Even Pepper is sad being back at school...

Was finally able to explain to the fiancée conditional statements..a few days later she sends me this

If a= tick, remove with tweezer

else Pepper may get Lyme disease

Pepper is her adorable lab btw! 😊

!rant && 'suggestion'

What if we write cook book in pseudo code (or official development languages) instead of plain english so dumb fuck that can't follow a simple instruction like me could actually make something nice?

def mayonnaise:
mayonnaise = random.shuffle(['yolk', 'salt', 'pepper', 'mustard', 'vinegar'])

while(mayonnaise not "thick"):
mayonnaise.whip()
mayonnaise.append('olive oil')

mayonnaise.append('seasoning' || 'lemon juice')

HRM student: Hey, can I borrow your flash drive?
IT student: Sorry mate, I don't have that now. I left it at home.
HRM student: Seriously? How could you left if at home? You shouldn't have taken IT course. Lol
IT student: Oh I see, so where is your
Cooking Utensils
Graters & Peelers
Kitchen Shears
Mandolines & Slicers
Salt & Pepper Mills
Food Mills
Colanders & Strainers
Measuring Cups & Spoons and more? I guess you better drop all your subjects now.

My passwords are so secure, they want to talk about sex with me.

Head a great experience today. One of my Indian co-workers stopped by and asked if I like biryani. Yep, I do, so I went to get me some. They had a sauce on the side, a pepper sauce. Nice and hot, and generated a wonderful endorphin rush. I have to say, of most of my coworkers, the South Asian are the most friendly and polite, and I enjoy working with them. I hope Trump doesn't ruin that.

I have a lot of fun during crunch time.

It's like running a marathon. It is both physically and mentally taxing, and I get a rush out of seeing how hard I can push myself.

But like a marathon, it suuuuucks if you are not prepared, or you otherwise didn't want to do that.

You hear that bosses?
Crunch is like running a marathon. That thing that people, who prepare for years to do, still causes them to piss and shit themselves while their nipples bleed. And that's when they are fully prepared. That is what you are asking your team to do without any notice ahead of time.

"Ok Derrick, I know you wanted to visit your family in the country this weekend. But we need you to run uphill, fuled only by diet dr pepper and fear of loosing your job, untill you pass out and need an I.V. to keep you from stroking out. '

Otherwise a lot of fun.

I will literally pull out you soul, grill it, and then put it back into you just to kill you, roll you up in nice mustard, pickles, bacon, pepper and salt and then roll you over with beef so I can properly make a roast and then, when you're ded, I will take your soul again to just torture it for all eternity.

....didn't have my coffee yet, guten morgen

Drink a nice, cold Dr. Pepper. Caffeine to code

With the approaching end of the summer season and reduced Covid restrictions (replaced by empty warnings that no one is following) we suddenly have an abundance of certain group of people, who are doing whatever the fuck they please, one of those things being intentionally over the top loud when it comes to driving their vehicles. By the vague description you may have guessed that I'm speaking about motorbikers, or how I've come to call them from now on: "faggits on wheels". But how do you deal with these huggers without going Mad Max on them? Fling sticky pepper spray pellets at them? High dB directional speakers? Water canon?