*yesterday*
Client: "Perfect! How did you do this so quickly?"
Me: "I used a library"
*today*
Me: "I'm still debugging. It will take some time"
Client: "Well, it has already taken too long...I can hear Mozart in the background. Maybe you need to go to a library to get some quiet and get it done fast. Visit the one you used yesterday."
Me: "Library?...Ah, I meant plugin...like, code...a library is a bunch of packaged code"

Our CTO has been told, this morning by management, that our development department is "too quiet" and that it's spoiling "the atmosphere" of the office space.

So we've ordered mechanical keyboards.

Big event. Massive traffic in production, so we were monitoring all night.

I was in a room with 2 devs of my team, a marketting girl, my boss and a designer... chilling.

Suddenly the production is down.

Boss: production is down, anyone can check?
Me: already on it
Dev1: it looks ok for me
Dev2: me too
Me: wait what? Impossible everything is down
Dev1: oh I refreshed the page it's not working
Me: don't stay on the page refreshing it like you are fucking monkeys. Give me useful intel or be quiet.
Market girl: is it working?
...
Guys is it working?
...
Hello?
Me: Not yet we are looking. Don't distract me.
Boss: client called us. They want it online now.
Dev1&2: he's looking
... 1 min later...
Boss: is it working?
Boss: is it working?
Boss: is it working?
Me: SHUT THE FUCK FOR FUCKING ONE SECOND. ALL OF YOU, OUT NOW. YOU ARE FUCKING MONKEYS WHO CAN'T DO SHIT. IF YOU CAN'T HELP JUST SHUT YOUR DAMN SHITHOLE. DEVS, LOOK WITH ME. MARKET GIRL PREPARE A FUCKING POST-MORTEM MAIL. BOSS GET THE CLIENT ON THE PHONE AND STALE. DO. YOUR. FUCKING. JOBS.

That's how I ended up screaming at everyone... the rest of the night went in complete silence and I fixed the issue 2min after the got quiet or busy.

3 years ago.....

*lunch break. In a table with 2 other co-workers*

Me: "I am going to quit today!"
Co-worker 1: "What? I am going to do that today too!"
Co-worker 2: "Are you serious? I was planning to do that too today!"
Me: "Holy cow! Let's do that today the three of us, but I am going last one. I want to see his face (our CEO)".

After couple of minutes and disagreement, we agreed to do that.

When I told him (I was the last to tell himm), he was sweating and his face was red. Started to throw offensive words towards me. I was expecting that and came prepared. BUT, in the middle of his words saying "I hire you because no one would hire you" etc, quietly and with a smile on my face, I interrupted him saying, "Look, is this going to take long? Because I gotta go somewhere and I am not in the mood to listen to you!"

He started to shake from that rage he had inside him. I know he wanted to punch me. But nothing happened.

I still remember his face like it was yesterday. :P

Epilogue:
My aunt's husband and him were best friends. He called him saying what happened. Of course, I was the one to blame. Since my parent knew what kind of guy he is, they told me "You did good for being quiet, not screaming and not acting like a child!"

FUCK YOUR OPEN SPACE OFFICE!!!!

AND FUCK YOUR HOT DESKING!!!

As a developer, is it too much to ask for a quiet section? 😭

Things have been a little too quiet on my side here, so its time for an exciting new series:

practiseSafeHex's new life as a manager.

Episode 1: Dealing with the new backend team

It's great to be back folks. Since our last series where we delved into the mind numbing idiocy of former colleagues, a lot has changed. I've moved to a new company and taken a step up as a Dev manager / Tech lead. Now I know what you are all thinking, sounds more dull and boring right? Well it wouldn't be a practiseSafeHex series if we weren't ...

<audience-shouting>
DEALING! ... WITH! ... IDIOTS!
</audience-shouting>

Bingo! so lets jump right in and kick us off with a good one.

So for the past few months i've been on an on-boarding / fact finding / figuring out this shit-storm, mission to understand more about what it is i'm suppose to do and how to do it. Last week, as part of this, I had the esteemed pleasure of meeting face to face with the remote backend team i've been working with. Lets rattle off a few facts to catch us all up:

- 8 hour time difference to me
- No documentation other than a non-maintained swagger doc
- Swagger is reporting errors and several of the input models are just `Type: String`
- The one model that seems accurate, has every property listed as optional, including what must be the primary key
- Properties go missing and get removed at the drop of a hat and we are never told.
- First email I sent them took 27 days to reply, my response to that hasn't been answered so far 31 days later (new record! way to go team, I knew we could do it!!!)
- I deal directly with 2 of them, the manager and the tech lead. Based on how things have gone so far, i've nick named them:
1) Ass
2) Hole

So lets look at some example of their work:

- I was trying to test the new backend, I saw no data in QA. They said it wouldn't show up until mid day their time, which is middle of the night for us. I said we need data in our timezone and I was told: a) "You don't understand how big this system is" (which is their new catch phrase) b) "Your timezone is not my concern"

- The whole org started testing 2 days later. The next day a member from each team was on a call and I was asked to give an update of how the testing was going on the mobile side. I said I was completely blocked because I can't get test data. Backend were asked to respond. They acknowledged they were aware, but that mobile don't understand how big the system is, and that the mobile team need to come up with ideas for the backend team, as to how mobile can test it. I said we can't do anything without test data, they said ... can you guess what? ... correct "you don't understand how big the system is"

- We eventually got something going and I noticed that only 1 of the 5 API changes due on their side was done. Opened tickets. 2 days later asked them for progress and was told that "new findings" always go to the bottom of the backlog, and they are busy with other things. I said these were suppose to be done days ago. They said you can't give us 2 days notice and expect everything done. I said the original ticket was opened a month a go *sends link* ......... *long silence* ...... "ok, but you don't understand how big the system is, this is a lot of work"

- We were on a call. Product was asking the backend manager (aka "Ass") a question about a slight upgrade to the new feature. While trying to talk, the tech lead (aka "Hole") kept cutting everyone off by saying loudly "but thats not in scope". The question was "is this possible in the future" and "how long would it take", coming from management and product development. Hole just kept saying "its not in scope", until he was told to be quiet by several people.

- An API was sending down JSON with a string containing a message for the user with 2 bits of data inside it. We asked for one of those pieces to also come down as a property as the string can change and we needed it client side. We got that. A few days later we found an edge case and asked for the second piece of data to be a property too. Now keep in mind, they clearly already have access to them in order to make the string. We were told "If you keep requesting changes like this, you are going to delay the release of the backend by up to 2 weeks"

Yes folks, there you have it, the most minuscule JSON modifications, can delay your release by up to 2 weeks ........ maybe I should just tell product, that they don't understand how big the app is, and claim we can't build it on our side? Seems to work for them

Thats all the time we have for today,

Tune in for more, where we'll be looking into such topics as:

- If god himself was an iOS developer ... not
- Why automate when you can spend all day doing it by hand
- Its more time-efficient to just give everything a story point of 5
- Why waste time replying to emails ... when you can do nothing instead

See you all next week,
practiseSafeHex

Her diary:
Tonight I thought my husband was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at a fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment on it. Conversation wasn’t flowing, so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk. He agreed, but he didn’t say much. I asked him what was wrong. He said, "Nothing". I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said he wasn’t upset, that it had nothing to do with me, and not to worry about it. On the way home, I told him that i loved him. He smiled slightly, and kept driving. I can’t explain his behavior, I can’t explain why he didn’t say, "I love you too". When we got home, I felt as if I had lost him completely, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there quietly, and watched TV. He continued to seem distant and absent. Finally, with silence around us, I decided to go to bed. About 15 minutes later, he came to bed. But I still felt that he was distracted, and his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep - I cried. I don’t know what to do. I’m almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster :(

His diary:
My code is broken, can’t figure out why.

• Good night’s sleep (8-9 hours)
• Clearly defined requirements.
• A fun challenge to solve.
• An idea of how to begin.
• Music! Something fast paced and/or harsh. I find soft tunes, good lyrics, etc. are usually very distracting.
• Deadlines help, too, even if they make me stressed out and work too much.
• No political BS / hateful and intolerant political comments from my coworkers within the past day or two, as being called a horrible, racist nazi by association absolutely kills my desire to do any work for them. Going two days without something like this happening is exceedingly rare.
• Being left alone, *especially* in the morning before work! The more distractions, the harder it is focus, even if i have peace and quiet later on.

Story of my most useless meeting?

Too many to mention. Here's one. Years ago a new HR associate was specifically hired to better engage the workforce. About once a week, she conducted about an hour to two hour meetings which consisted of every 'touchy-feely' idea you could think of. I swear any day I was going to walk into a meeting and do the "fall back into your partner" trust exercises.

One particular meeting, 'Betty' engaged us with the topic of what keeps us motivated, and I was a little more annoyed than usual because I was behind on a system critical project and these meetings were mandatory.

User1: "Knowing I make customer satisfaction my number one priority."
User2: "The strong sense of accomplishment I feel by doing my best"
Me: "Money"
<you could almost hear Betty's gasp>
Betty: "Oh, no, money shouldn't be the motivator. Money is like icing on the cake. Tell us what keeps you happy and engaged."
<other users nod their heads in engagement>
Me: "Again, money."
User3: "I can't...ugh..I don't believe..oh..why would you say that? I think being part of such a great team is payment enough."
<more nodding of heads>
Me: "Do you work for free? I don't. None of us do. Would any of you keep doing your jobs here if you weren't getting paid?"
Betty: "That is really not the point of this meeting."
Me: "Sure it is. I'll bet if Order Taking starting providing bonuses for positive after-call surveys, employee satisfaction would go through the roof. Anyone else like that idea?"
Betty: "Your attitude isn't helping this discussion. Lets move on."
Me: "Lets not. In 20?? the Gartner group performed a study where they 'discovered' the primary motivator for employees was money. You want employees to perform better, you pay them. It is really that simple."
<I could see the looks of "Its OK to speak my mind?" and others wanting to speak up>
Betty: "Moving on. Lets go over the company core values again and discuss how they enrich our lives at work and at home."

I kept quiet for the rest of the meeting.

The poop hit the fan, and my boss pulls me into a conference room
Boss: "Betty is really pissed at you. She went directly to the VP of HR"
Me: "Good. Does this mean I don't have to attend the enrichment meetings?"
Boss: "Yea, that was her idea of punishment. Lucky bastard."

A quite normal Windows day:

Bios to Windows: "Go now! Get up!"

Windows to Bios: "Always slow with the young circuit boards."

"I've got something weird on screen."

Windows' answer: "Ignore it first."

Hardware assistant to Windows: "The user puts pressure. He wants me to identify this thing. Could be an ISDN card."

Windows: "Well, well."

Unknown ISDN card to all: "Will you please let me in?"

Network card to intruder: "You can't spread out here!"

Windows: "Quiet in the case! Or I'll cut both their support!"

Device Manager: "Offer compromise. The network card is allowed on Mondays, the ISDN card is on Tuesday."

Graphics card to Windows: "My driver retired yesterday. I'm crashing now."

Windows to graphics card: "When will you be back?"

Graphics card: "Well, not at first."

CD-Rom drive to Windows: "uh, I would have a new driver here..."

Windows: "What's ich´n supposed to do with it?!"

Installation software to Windows: "Leave it, I'll mach´ that already."

Windows: "That's nice to hear."

USB connection to interrupt management: "Alarm! Just been penetrated by a scanner cable. Request response."

Interrupt management: "Where are you coming from?"

USB connection: "I was in the computer right from the start. I'm joined by another colleague."

"You're not on my list." - "Say something."

Windows: "Hopefully there won't be another printer."

Graphics card: "The new driver twitches."

Windows: "We'll just have to get the old one out of retirement."

Uninstall program to new driver: "Go away."

Unwanted driver: "Fuck you."

Windows to Norton Utilities: "Kill him and his brood!"

Utilities to driver rests: "Sorry, we have to delete you."

Important system file: "Arrrrrrgghh!"

Windows on blue screen: "Gib´, the Norton Boys are over the top again."

Blue screen to user: "So, that's it for this week."

Excuse me for stealing your time

And I know it's way too long

You all, something is wrong. No one has pissed me off at work recently (other than boss, but he does that by existing). I'm not sure if they've all learned, or if shit is about to hit the fan.

I hate it when people from other "cool" departments come in to our office and call us "too quiet", "unsociable" ,"not fun"..

They need to stop for a second and realize how we got to being programmers...

Personally, I went through all the possible professions and asked myself.." which job requires the least amount of human interaction?"

SO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET YOUR HIPSTER FACE THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!

!dev
!!misery

I'm drunk, so it's time for some faux-emotional, blunt oversharing. and lots of profanity. It won't be pretty.

------

I'm miserable. I can't sleep at night. When I finally manage to, I sleep like crap. In the morning, early, I get woken up by my children screaming or pulling my hair or jumping on either the bed or me, or talking ad furore, or any number of other miserably unpleasant things that completely prevent sleep. So I'm tired every single day, which totally surprisingly makes focusing on work fucking difficult. Doubly so because the work is fucking uninteresting and the code is awful to read and difficult to understand because it's complicated and often poorly written. And extending it takes enormous mental effort I simply do not have to give. Oh! Guess what my job is?

To make matters worse, time to myself basically does not exist, ever. I wake up, I attend standup, I cook and eat breakfast, I work while fighting against endless distractions and interruptions, I cook and eat dinner, I work some more, and finally: I can go to bed and try to sleep. The next morning, I wake up and repeat this misery, ad nauseam.

Et ad nauseam? Nauseam est nunc.
It's not proper latin, but fuck you. it's good enough. and nobody speaks it anyway.

Ego sum miseriae. Is that good enough for you?

I can't find it in myself to care about anything. I've been doing whatever I can to feel a little more normal, but mostly I just feel numb. If I drink, it helps a little because I notice my misery a little less. That's a great solution right there: drink until I don't care anymore, and keep doing the same shit without even trying to make things better. Why? Because I fucking can't. I hate this house, I hate the lack of quiet, I hate this city, I hate the dust and the clutter, I hate this state, I hate this codebase, I don't like my coworkers, I hate that I can't get a fucking thing done without spending 6x longer than it should, I hate that I can't fucking think of a single thing I want to do, I hate that I can't ever enjoy anything, I hate that I'm beginning to hate myself, and I fucking hate everything else, too.

In short:
I'm not happy. I'm fucking miserable.

And no, I'm not posting this here for you to psychoanalyze me or suggest solutions. It's for me to vent. Fuck your opinions and fuck your advice and fuck you.

I think I've finally realized something:
my boss does not actually listen to me.

Quite often during out weekly conference calls, he asks me questions about things I had just covered. I always assumed he couldn't hear because a) i'm rather quiet, and b) freeconferencecall.com bloody sucks.

But it happens for written things, too. I type an update on something in Slack, and an hour later he asks me for an update on it. I always assumed (likely correctly) that he has nearly zero reading comprehension. He writes like a 5th grader and only remembers a few nouns and one verb from anything he reads. But I swear he actively skips reading anything I write.

Now, however, I have frigign' proof that he ignores me. We have both been trying to get ahold of {Clover contractor} via email for months. We have gotten three replies, but twice scheduling prevented setting up a meeting, and once I simply missed the email amongst the flood of log spam I haven't been allowed to address.

I have asked the boss multiple times for the guy's phone number -- in emails, in Slack, and in front of everyone during our weekly conference calls -- and he has totally ignored me every. single. time.

Here's a transcript of my seventh(!) attempt:

Boss [2:13 PM]
Have you and {Clover contractor} met yet? If not make it happen. Stop letting it not happen. GIve specific dates and times. {Clover contractor} let's talk Tuesday 2pm or Wednesday 4pm which works better for you.

Root [2:14 PM]
For the seventh and last time, give me his phone number.
Getting ahold of him via email has not worked.

Boss [2:14 PM]
I am sendning one more, from that I want you to make the meeting happen asap.

Root [2:14 PM]
if i call him, setting up a meeting will be _easy_
Give me his phone number and I will handle this.

It is now 3:00pm and I haven't gotten a response.

Either he doesn't want it to happen, wants me to fail for some reason, or he's totally fucking oblivious. Yet ofc it's me who earns all of the blame when this meeting doesn't happen, and I'm likely to get yelled at in front of everyone, fucking again.

I'm really beginning to hate this guy.

I can't wait to walk out on him and watch the company come crashing down in my absence. It'll be sad to watch, but bloody hell does he deserve it for his arrogant incompetence.

No, MD5 hash is not a safe way to store our users' passwords. I don't care if its been written in the past and still works. I've demonstrated how easy it is to reverse engineer and rainbow attack. I've told you your own password for the site! Now please let me fix it before someone else forces you to. We're too busy with other projects right now? Oh, ok then, I'll just be quiet and ignore our poor security. Whilst I'm busy getting on with my other work, could you figure out what we're gonna do with the tatters of our client's business (in which our company owns a stake) in the aftermath of the attack?

Absolutely hate the awful Machines we have to code on at the office, went through three laptops in the space of a year.

All of the them the exact model and specs probably purchased from some tech museum. They would hang and BSOD several times a day and made me look bad when my bit of code wasn't ready on time for a delivery.

Lol , even running spotify while running a couple of dev tools wasn't possible without causing the music to stutter.

After a year i managed to get my hands onto an old Dell desktop when a colleague left that had better specs that would sort of do the job. Wished i could reformat it but alas we aren't allowed to do anything remotely like that.

Finally got fed up of it all, since i bought myself a little treat, an Intel Skull canyon.

Awesome little piece of kit , pretty damn powerful and looks cool too.
Oh an on quiet afternoons I do get to game a little 🤗
The integrated iris pro gpu is surprisingly powerful, it can handle some of the older AAA titles although I haven't really put it through the test yet.

i leave it in the office
Secured with a kensingon lock and locked in my desk drawers
But I usually take it home over weekends

We have open office. I had this co-worker Intern who sits right at the corner of the development team and farts silently. Sometimes there's no smell or little but sometimes it smells like he has shit on this pants.

No one knew that he was the one who farts in the office because he was always quiet and doing his job and doesn't react whenever anyone says anything to him.

On a friday evening when we were having drinks with other coi-workers in the office, he got high and told everyone that he was the one who farts silently in the office. Actually that was his last day of Internship too.

OK.
1. So i tindered.
2. I got a really nice girl.
3. We chatted really long and good.
4. We tried to meetup it did not work because of our schedule. New
job on my end, she is a student.
5. I thought its over. Fine whatever.
6. She gives me her number.
7. We continue chat on whatsapp
8. Blablabla 3 days long, she gets bored and tries to friendzone me
9. I revert the shit and state i wanna be serious and there wont be a
friendzone/nice guy comin from me.
10. She happy and continues to chat.
11. I get emtionally invested in her.
12. We exchange thoughts dreams and music.
13 We want to meetup at weekend. I cant. Got a family wedding all
weekend.
14. We want to meetup the second week.
I cant. Im off on a company trip. Again new job here.
15. So we say in the week after I get back.
15a. Before the weekend we need to deliver an rc and go all out to hold
the deadline.
15b. We deliver, but shit happens on the customer side. His fault but we
get the blame.
15c I go onto the company trip.
16. We chat and i send her pictures of the trip over the weekend so she
sees I care.
17. She seems fine. And happy.
18. I come back from the trip late night and need to work the next day
jetlag style.
19. I work jetlag style. And try to fix the shit from last week.
20. I come home really tired and looking forward to date day tomorrow.
21. I cant do anything. My home looks like shit and the bag still
unpacked. I just eat and fall asleep.
I feel bad bcs my home will turn her down instantly if we make it to my
place.
Need to hope that it does not come to this.
22. Date day comes. Today.
23. I wake up at 6 early to plan ahead to make sure my clothes are fine
and i arrive on time in the office to exit early.
24. I expect to check what goes on today in the city and give her the
location to meet and time.
25. I enter office and immeadetly get caught up in meeting planning, dev
questions and the meeting itself because the project is on edge.
26. We have a 5hours long meeting where people go on and on and on.
27. 3h later in the meeting:
my brain was fried and around 12 i go to lunch with some people.
28. Meanwhile the city is turning into a rainy mess of a shitty day. No
way I can have a nice walk with her like that. Bars and coffeshops are
just to boring.
29. So i eat to regain some sense and we go back to the office.
Meanwhile I am thinking all kinds of locations and stuff in my head.
30. Havent given her any update since a good morning in the morning.
31. We reenter the meeting. Things continue like before. The project is
on impossible demands and impossible timelines. Still we try to do our
best.
32 3h later on 3pm I tell her i am in a long meeting and working on a
meetingspot.
33. shes not happy.
34. I get a call from a relative
35. i need to go out and take the call. not good for the collegues.
again new job here.
36. family trouble,  money trouble, goverment demands. I promise to
handle that tomorrow. Before work.
37. i get back into the meeting.
38. still super slow and no results.
39. need to focus but start to check for locations on my phone.
40. she asks me where i am
41. I send her my location.
42. she thinks i am saying she should pick me up!
43 i joke and say no definitly not.
44. shes pissed.
45.  I decide for a coffeeshop. after work. and send her the location
46. She says to call it off.
47. I go all in and go romance style. I say ill wait there even if she
does not come to show her how much i care.
U know to avoid the lets do it some other time fuckery and then it never
happens.
47. She goes quiet.
48. 2h later we finish the meeting. Meanwhile QA foudn a bug we need to
fix because why not.
49. I got 30 minutes to find the bug and fix it before I need to go to
uphold my word.
50. I find out what to do, but it might break a lot of other things
without careful test and implementation. Collegues says he takes it.
51 I feel bad but I need to go. I even leave earlier because otherwise I
would not be on time.
52. I arrive 15 minutes early. I grab two coffee2go and wait outside,
53. Shitty weather, sometimes rain, sometimes sunny, cant decide what it
wants.
54. The weather is just like how I feel.
55. I wait 1 1/2h
56. I think I should feel stupid, For gods sake its tinder. People dont
give a crap, Enough people around why should I Invest so much into this?
But I dont feel stupid. Because this is how I want it. I dont want
appointments, I dont want safety. I decided for her and I went all in.
57. I send her pics from the sceneray as proof that I waited,
58. I think I blew it. She is still quiet.
59. Friends are asking me for plans for the weekend. I wish I could say
I already have some with her.
60. I feel lost right now. But my head says I put too much stress on
her, And i fucked up with the planning. I should have been more precise.
My head also says that i am putting myself into the victim role, which
is wrong always. Should I continue to reach out to her? Is there
something I could do still?

Since everyone is posting their system, I'll do it now, too:

- Type: Laptop
- Age: about 5 years
- Weight: 2-3 kg (too much)
- Modifications: Paper below problematic keys; Samsung Evo 850 250GB SSD
- Usecase: School-Laptop with every Office-Suite I could find.
- Pros: Wrecks my PC with the boottime (Gnome > KDE); Looks really sick; Really lightweight Arch installed; Quiet when not under load
- Cons: Really heavy; Battery old and unreliable; Bluetooth stops working after closing lid

Yesterday my employer banned the use of all wireless keyboards and mice due to security concerns. This applies to all employees, including our many remote employees (I wonder how they plan to enforce that). I’m trading in my nice quiet wireless keyboard for some Cherry MX blues to protest. I really liked my current keyboard and mouse too. RIP

So just finished the presentation for my internship project. I'm free now!(and can sleep normal times too) But I have a few things I need to get off my mind. Dunno if it'll seem a bit stupid to some of you..but yeahh....
Anyway, during my demo yesterday
Lecturer: So this project of yours uses some open-source stuff?
Me: Yeah.
L: And if the company wants to use if for commercialization they need to pay for the license?
M: Thats basically it. Yes.
L: Well, see..thats the problem with your project. You need to think of all this things. If there's no other options then just code the whole shit yourself. Or maybe discuss with the management on this.
Yeah...see, I doubt the management here cares about us anyway. Oh, you're working on your intern stuff. Not important. Just resize the pictures in my powerpoint will you? Oh and you want to use the company computers for your project? No can do..confidentiality stuff. But make sure the thing will work on our system anyway when you're done with it. And even if you use our computers, they restart everytime you open Word anyway..hahaha. You want access to this thing so you can learn a bit on our company's work. Sorry but no. EVERYTHING is confidential so you can't access it since you're interns, eventhough our company is the one that took you inanyway.
Manager: Oh, the thing you're making is pretty cool. You know,all of you can just give your systems to us later.
Friend: Yeah well, maybe we can ask the company for payment? Haha.
Manager: Hahaha well the company can just take your systems for free since you're doing it on our working hours.
Fuck. You. When we ask to do our stuff you said noooo its the company hours. Do our work. And do your stuff back at home or something. Oh, but then we'll drag you around the state to see the clients, and you'll reach home at 8-9pm or something, but of course you're not tired right? So just code then. Or you're not going anywhere today? You're still not allowed to code here eventhough you don't have any work though...so just sit there and be quiet. Or maybe shred my papers for me. Fuck your working hours.
Lecturer: And well, thats the problem with some students *looks pointedly at me* they want to go to non-technical companies so that they can have it easy. Your friends who go to other companies will learn a lot more.
Do you think I fucking want to be here??? This is the only company I got so fuck that. Even when I get different offers and apply to change companies, you go nope. No can do. Stick with your current company eventhough we know that its shit for IT students because its a big company, see? And we have our university's reputation to upkeep. I came here to learn, not make you the No.1 university or something. And its not like you, or the staffs here, help us with anything.
So fuck all of this. We're gonna tell the other lecturers to stop sending students here. You don't learn anything. I'm done with this shit, not gonna think or worry about it anymore..I'll just, go get cake or something. Yeah.

I'm the guy who posted Surface Pro photos recently, just in case you see some similarities.

=========

This, is the Microsoft Designer Bluetooth Mouse.
It is beautiful. Magnificient. Minimalistic. Fast. Accurate.

I first thought it would be my future mouse.
I thought I would use it for years.

I used for an hour, and literally threw it away.

I thought it would be comfortable, since i used cheap logitech mouse which of those were all too high in height.

But, this mouse, is so low in height. It literally puts your hand in the floor.

You, the devRant members, pointed out at my previous rant that it looks, and would be uncomfortable, and I literally said shut up!

Well, sorry about that, I regret my words.

It is piece of beautiful trash.

The click sound is very quiet, the scrolling is very good, but the height of the mouse....

If I keep using this mouse, I would probably get a carpel-tunnel disease(is this correct?).

I guess I should only use this mouse when I need to use it quickly outside, since portability is number one among all mouse in the world.

Next coming, some more Surface pro coding sessions, and Surface pen.

Anything interested about the surface pro? Leave in the comments below!

So this happened last week.

Last week I went as a volunteer to give an introduction class basic programming to some guys and gals who are going to attend computer science soon next year.

The class lasted one week and we had done some basic algorithms and programming in Python.
Besides that we also did some very basic websites (html, css and javascript).

Obviously all those people were very enthusiastic.
Some were a little bit too enthusiastic...

There were these 2 guys who were best friends. They already knew everything apparently. Even though they just finished high school they had been programming for over 10 years, had already made countless of websites, applications, 'hacked Windows', RATs and some amazing games.

So there were some people there who never had programmed before. I started giving the lecture and warned people who already knew some basics of programming the first day might be a quite boring but I could not simply skip it obviously.

Those 2 dickheads acted like the biggest childs ever, started screaming in class, making sure everyone knew they were bored, and were constantly complaining to me that they know what print, for, while and strings were. I stayed calm and tried to explain them again I simply couldn't skip parts of the lecture for them.

Every hour and every day it started getting worse and worse with them. Not only but the whole class were furiously mad at them. Some other students even started screaming at them. They screamed back insulting everyone they even didn't what php was and stupid stuff like that.

At some point they interrupted me AGAIN and asked me how long I programmed. I told him little them over 5 years or something. They started laughing at me. Those 2 dickheads looked at me like they were so much better than me because they programmed over 10 years.

At some point, almost the last day, I had enough of their bullshit, interruption, screaming, insulting other students who asked questions, ... I said you know what, you give the lecture!

They refused because they felt too good for all these other 'noobs' (the other students). They would never become good and blah blah more bullshit.

I said alright, we're doing websites, you've made some websites, show me your most impressive website.

He was happy and felt honered.

He sent me the whole folder and I showed his website on code on the big screen in the room.

Then I said: "Everyone, pay close attention to this!"

That dickhead smiled and felt good

Me: "This is how NOT to make a website"

I started explaining to everyone all things that were complete shit and all things that were straight up sins.

That one friend of the dickhead stayed quiet. The other dickhead became as red as a tomato. At some points you even saw tears in his eyes. At some point he insulted me I was a scriptie and simply left.

The class started clapping.

One of the weirdest but also best moments of my life

Moral: Don't act like a complete bigheaded dickhead, don't feel better than everyone and show some respect

Thank you for reading

Have a nice day!

Fuck, I'm too tired to rant about shit. Life is really starting to go better and I just...don't know what to rant about, so I've been quiet for the past couple months.

Uhhhhh, whenever I close my laptop the screen stays on and seeps through but I'm too lazy to actually mess with it to make it turn off when I close it?

I've been hanging out with my best friend again lately and she's the best fucking person ever?

OH WAIT, I'M BROKE, THERE'S SOMETHING (I've spent like 10 minutes typing, just trying to think of shit to say)! But I'm just bad with managing money and I get paid on Saturday anyways..

Guys. I don't know what to even rant about anymore. Life is finally going good enough that I don't feel the need to rant all the time.

Init and Hello. My name is git and this is my story.

I just arrived in this system recently by the apt highway. It's not the only way though. Some for example used the npm hype-train, others arrived from the ssh shore. No matter where we came from the next step on our agenda was time to introduce our self at the event destined for all new-comers to the system.
"As many of you I reside in the usr-bin district. I'm really into history and commitment! I like it when people work together, so I'm always eager to bring all branches together."
"But what is it actually good for?", asked Curl, which I already met at the bus station. Many nodded in agreement. It was odd. Somehow I felt not quite at home. All the others seemed so different based on their field of work.
"We have worked here in a really agile environment for ages. There is no need for any kind of strange bureaucracy.", said another voice.
All attempts to convince them from the beauty of history or a little bit of management were unsuccessful. It was just the beginning of a not so interesting stage in my life - to say the least.

Today was another of 'those' days. I live in this community for quiet a while now and unfortunately nothing really changed - at least for the good. I sat on my branch of the tree with all the others around and there was nothing really to do for me. Again. I mean, actually it's true. I have to admit it. There is just no work on this world for someone like me. All the others seem to be so busy, while I just have to sit around and question my own existence. Since I grew tired asking these questions to myself, I stopped it. I can't do a thing actually. That's not how this world works.
"Hey fagit, anything meaningful to add to our delightful conversation?", nginx shouted over to me from another branch of the tree. Before I was able to give an indifferent answer the voice just continued.
"Oh, sorry. I forgot that you have no purpose after all. Well, never mind!"
Everyone started laughing at me. It was not too bad by the way. Actually, this was quite ordinary. These fucktards completely ran out of creativity. If it wasn't for that mere emptiness gaping right above my guts, I'd actually be disappointed. I even got accustomed to the alias 'fagit'. Quiet sad given the fact that i really like my real name. If only someone would mind using it... First too quiet to notice but growing in intensity a rumbling emerged from somewhere deep within the tree. Out of a sudden everyone stopped laughing. The voices slowly faded while the growling from afar grew louder. It had come. Not more than a shadow reached out from the tree and faster than anyone could comprehend nginx was simply gone. Killed in an instance.

Disclaimer: This story is fictional. No systems were harmed in its creation.

My GitHub is quiet, too quiet...

Been bored because I can't think of anything to code.

Read the following in Morgan Freeman’s voice.

Okay everyone sit on down and get ready for story time. There once was a workspace that was a pain in the ass to setup. It often would take an entire day even for the most experienced devs on the team...for it was a workspace perched atop a swamp of shit that would require a whole year to refactor into something that isn’t shit.

It was inherited, passed down, stepped in and scrapped from the boot soles of every programmer that ever touched it. It was an amalgam of old, new, and third party components with a class path a mile long and no package management because the company although physically in the present, somehow maintained a temporal presence in the past. And there was nothing that the team hated more than setting that workspace. In short it was an unholy mess that made Satan cry and Dennis Ritchie spin in his grave so much that the state of California attached magnets and a coil to his body and casket to generate electricity.

Then one day the untalented clowns known as App Group decided that our IDE should be owned and configured strictly through them. They took poor Eclipse and mounted so much silly shit to it that it resembled a riding lawn mower with a fax machine and a blender duct taped to it. Eventually as everything the company touched did, it simply turned into a broken, shitty mess that not even Jesus Titty Fucking Christ could bring back the dead.

And then, every month or so the IDE would break in such a grand way that every developer had to rebuild their workspace...the very same Lovecraftian monster disguised as a code base. It was just too much to bear for old Deus. He was all out of fucks and there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to quiet his injured soul. So he stood on a chair, carved his name in a rafter and tied a noose to it, put it around his neck and finally kicked the chair out from under himself. I am told he even pooped his pants and the post mortem shit in the seat of his pants was still better than the codebase at work. I’m Morgan Freeman.

>Gets a new CPU for desktop (yay, went from R5 1600 to R5 3600X)
>Spends half a day flashing new MB BIOS (Needed to flash individual major versions in order, couldn't just go 1.10 to 6.40)
>Finally finishes preparations and goes to replace the CPU
>Cleans the old one and packages it to give it to a friend
>Has issues inserting the new one as the orientation arrow on the motherboard was very hard to make out
>Spends 30 minutes applying thermal paste, worrying about optimal spread
>Forgets which side the CPU fan goes on
>Finally boots back up... CPU fan is suddenly loud AF under load, but eh, temps under stress are sub-60, so, good

~~Next day~~
>Loud CPU fan is too annoying, opens the case again
>CPU fan is on backwards
Ugh
>Takes the fan off, turns it around and fastens again, puts PC back together and boots
>Is quiet again, nice
>Goes to work on the PC
>2 hours later randomly checks temps because no fan noise is weird
>CPU at 75dC, crap
>Opens the (live) PC, CPU fan is not spinning
>Has put the header on one pin to a side
>Unplugs and replugs it correctly
>Fan suddenly starts spinning very fast and cuts my finger
>Finally closes the case once more. All issues resolved

...Its situations like these that make me wonder... What would happen it I had to work with servers in person, physically lol

Finally got my Bluetooth earphones!
It's called Pamu Scroll, funded in Indiegogo.
I bought it for $49 without shipping fee.
Now let me write a review about it here after using for about an hour or so.

1. Shipment
Shipment from China is slow and hard to track unless it is classified as EMS, which mine wasn't, obviously.

2. Packaging
It has some shock protection layer, but without that, nope! It was staying still inside the packaging though.

3. Design
Beautiful. Just beautiful. Period. Just see the picture below.
It opens as a papyrus, maybe that's why it is called Pamu Scroll. Both the case's end, and earphones itself has magnets to hold each other.
It has a leather feeling to both the inside and outside of the case, and the touch control area of the earphones is also leather feeling, adding a nice touch that differs with other earphonnes.
The diamond feeling finish in the end of the case makes the case itself isn't earphones, more like some expensive jewelry case.

4. Fit
My ears are smaller than most people, for I am young, so it sometimes fall off when I jump, but when I put it the correct way, never falls out.

5. Audio
I am not an audiophile. I don't really care about the audio quality and how it sounds like unless the sound is too cringy and has so many white noise.
This earphones has white noise, but just a little bit, you won't notice except when you are in a quiet room.
The bass is boosted, but low sounds, and vocals can be cringy sometimes, so I should manually tune them with my phone's equalizer.

6. IPX6
Not tested yet, but they advertise as using it in the shower.

7. Stereo call
Yup. Stereo call. Call in both ears. But only right microphone seems to get the voice.

8. Pairing
Using BT 5, it is a breeze to connect.
Take both of them out, put to your ear, then ding! "Connected"
Done.

9. Charging
with micro-usb
wireless charging for optional purchase - 10 bucks

10. battery
Reasonable amount
You have 3.5 hrs of listening time in both ears, and you can charge 2 times more each by putting in the case.

===============

Overall, it is awesome and let's just pray it doesn't break for at least for an year.

One side note, I can activate assistant by double tapping in the left ear (yes it is touch control), but my S8 asks me if I want to customize with Automate/Tasker. Yup!
Will share that later as well.

If you have any questions, ask me! Thanks for reading my first ever product review in devRant! <3

== Internship Interview Rant ==

This is the weirdest interview I've been to to be honest because it wasn't really ABOUT ME. It's like the boss is not really interesting in knowing what I can do, what I am capable of doing. He asked me about my educational background for 5 minutes and started explaining about the startup for 45 minutes. He explained how he came up with the idea like it was a children's bedtime story. He explain what the job is, BUT he didn't mention what programming languages they use. All he said was it required knowledge about different programming languages. I tried asking but he seemed to dodge the question for some reason by saying everyone needs to know a little bit of everything. (Srsly i don't even know what to start learning for this) After listening to him talk and talk and talk and talk, he finally said "hey, think about it and send me an email if you are willing to take it up!"

He works with STUDENTS. The team is composed of him and 5 students. o.O They all seem so..... quiet in the office. Is that normal ???? Or like shouldn't everyone be kinda "interactive" sometimes?

So there is a girl working there too for 3 weeks now but SHE IS IN ROMANIA like wtf, gr8 then i guess ill be the only girl there but hey perks of being a girl, u get to be spoiled sometimes XD it happens a lot !

Internship ad ----> Main language: English
Me: *rages internally during the interview and thinks: BRUHH WHY ARENT U SPEAKING IN ENGLISH i prepared what I was gonna say in english for an hour*
I wonder if the code is in english or maybe its not :(( But I wish it were because it would be soooo much easier in english.

And there you go, I guess I have one week to find a better internship or decide to deal with this talkative boss. This isn't exactly a story of my last job cause my last job is totally non-dev related. This is a story of (maybe) my future job unless I actually find a better internship.

On one side I fucking hate waiting for the internet technician. I would've liked to go to work (especially as there is an event right now) and not sit here during "That-5-hour-window-because-scheduling-isn't-a-thing-the-german-Telekom-will-tell-you-about" and nurse my impatience.
On the other side, I have idle time and I like programming when everything's quiet in the house and only the heating and my PC cooling system are whirring quietly, so I've got that going for me which is nice.
Only too bad there's no internet right now.

I didn't even realise .NET 7 was released YESTERDAY until a startup wizard pre-selected that instead of .NET 6 LTS
It was surprisingly a quiet launch .-.
Or I was too busy to notice -.-

day 1 of being out of office. Work email eerily quiet. A little too quiet...

My LinkedIn is usually pretty quiet. Recently I've received quite a few messages from recruiters. Some of them put numbers in and I look at them, well, the market looks hot.

I like where I am but doesn't hurt to have a look around eh? So I went through some interviews and shit. No preps, not trying to please anyone, being completely honest. And out of the 3 I tried, 1 got to the final round.

Before the final round, the recruiter kept harassing me (it's their job really) about what my "bottom line" is. She said they really liked me but I'm not up to their expectation as a senior role. So they want to proceed with a non-senior role, then climb my ladder up. I told her, I don't give a shit about the title. The she said for that, the salary will be "adjusted" (reads reduced). I told her, look, I said I wouldn't bother if the offer is anything less than X amount of money. Then she said but this company would offer 10% bonus, which will add up , mind you, "close to" X. She said she wanted to know so we don't waste the director's time (as the final round is to meet the bloody director).

I said, if I need to disclose my bottom line before going to this, which is pretty much my negotiation, then let's call it off. No point wasting my time either.

The next day I received the last call from her. They fucked right off.

I know everyone here already knows. But let me experience be another example of how a plague recruiters is. I don't have any experience like this before but this is probably a fucking lowball case too.

!dev

I just had one guy coming back to the house at 4am, again, and he made his usual grand entrance, slamming the doors, stomping on the wooden floor making all the creaking sound as he walk all the way to his room, which is right beside mine. And when he went into the bathroom, which is on the other side of my room, he slammed he motherfucking lid on the toilet bowl which was so fucking loud I literally jumped out of bed. I ended up not being able to sleep (I have a lot of trouble falling asleep), and when I tried to sleep in the afternoon to catch up on the missed winks, another motherfucking bastard started blasting fucking hardcore electronics in the living room which is right below my room. The same bastard also plays loud movies or music at 2-3am. I’ve told that bastard that comes home late to watch his noise but man he only minds the noises I told him and nothing else. As for the other fucker, he’ll say he’d keep it down but continues doing what he’s doing anyway.

I moved here cause I know that it’s usually a quiet place and away from the party kids, but I somehow ended up with a party kid and an insensitive fucker (This motherfucker had the loudest sigh of frustration when I knocked politely on his door last night. Yes I calmed down before I talked to him, but ended up deciding to not utter a word at all when I hear that sigh).

I should move out, but I can’t find a place before next term cause it’s way too late at this point. I am on a lease, but my landlord understands my situation, and he seems okay with breaking the contract.

Having been here as an international student for almost 2 years now, and having moved 5 times, this has been the worst nightmare of a bunch of people to stay with.

For those that has read of me ranting about this elsewhere, yes it’s that same fucking bunch that doesn’t clean the house.

iiiii fffffuckingg hate articles that just explain something

put a piece of code

that piece of code uses X amount of classes/models

they never mention what structure are those models/classes made of

what is inside them

i cant continue following the article because i dont know what is inside them

they just put it in ur face and say Fuck you

no

Fuck YOU

<font size="1000000px;">FUCK</font>

<font size="10000000000000000em;">YYYYYYYOOOKUUUUUUUUUUU</font>

U MOTHFFFFFUCKERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

USELESSS ARTICLE

zzzzz

frustratioms

my nerves are torn

broken

disabled

demented

day

in life

obsession

hell

unreal

what is life
q

what are doing

why are doing this

what is the point of living

how long does it take for a man to die

why are some people blessed with luck and some are not

zzzz

u know what is even more frustrating

girls

yes

ohdont get me started on this topic

well i warned u

the path towards abundance lies upon the few; thou who shalt not risk high; shalt always stay thus low

girls also frustrate me bc

i always do every thing nice and im always nice

so i realized

being nice is fake as fuck and doesnt fuckin work

being urself doesn't do a Fckimg tHING

hhh

frustrations

.

breathe

.

in this hardlife

only the strong survive in this world
- tupac shakur

zzzz

so yes bavk where i was saying girls frustrate me because i always do what im supposed to

so

i tried being thou who shalt i am not

guess what mothrfucker

it works when u be a gofdamn fkig low mothfckr a u know a goddmn fkig punk then they respect u and want u

back i fckked up

i turned back to my real me, the nice me

and then they left me

they think being nice = means being weak

FUCCKK YOUU

ssss

zzzf

kindness != weakness

U FCKING WHORES

UNDERSTAND THAT

zzzzz

breathe

i just wanted to have a walk outside and thenit started raining

so i had to stay inside bc of the rain

m

i am very lonely

u know i was very fine when i was lonely at a very young age but now i need a living entity beside me

with me

i fking need

wait i will cuddle my fluffy dog rn maybe i will feel better

br b wait for me ok

i feel better now

fck

i remembered that goddamn girl again

man i feel so heart broken

srsly

i have sunk into the deepest depths of endless depression I think

it doesnt feel nice

it feels very lonely and depressing down here

but i thimk tjat is be because i care too much

some people say i overthink

I dont overthink

i am like the stealth people
the shadow people

i stay quiet and observe

everything

i always know what is happening but i rarely speak about it

and people dont realize

so they think they can fool me

no

everything has its limits

so much lies that im sick of it

i always tell it how it is

i always reward those who help me

i always help those who help me

i never forget those people

zzzZZ

why is it that people who dont give a single fucking Fffffficxkkckck about me

are the ssame people i almost care the MOST?

i cross hundreds and thousands of miles to visit a person, invest hours of my time to do that

i do that....

and they wouldnt even step 1 foot in front to see me....

what kind of life is this

vv

feel like cryin rn

.

zzzzz

.

i dont understand what one must do

what is the point

all i want is to be happy

that is it

but being happy is.... i wanted to say the hardest part of life but now my voice told me being happy is a state of mind

myself answered me that being happy ? is a state of mind?

so that means if i want to be happy even if everything around me is falling apart

in my mind i can create a psychological world that would make me.... happy ....?

or what

i dont understand what did myself tell me

why do i care so much if im lonely

u know my friend from college we go to same computer science college

hes a very smart man but a fake FUCKING friend, plastic as fuck

he reads philosophy booms and told me

"when a man is lonely for long enough, he will slowly start to fall apart"

that is me...... that is ...truth......

he quoted a philosopher from some book

zzzz

he also said a quote he read about the meaning of life

"this life is endless pain and the only purpose of life is to reduce this pain as much as possible so we can be happy"

what the fck that is incredibly depressing

what the fuck im actually crying rn

i feel stabbed in the back and left behind and cheated on, all of those happened and some of them are happening right now

dont know what to think about the reasons

all of this causes me such huge anger and depression and that is whT keeps me going

going by working harder than i am supposed to

without all this hurt there would be no glory

all this effort..... it better pay off at the end...... please God..... i beg you....

i have completed 50% of my life purpose, let me do the rest so i can die in peace...

Any night, 1:30am, bedtime: "Yes! I can't WAIT for tomorrow to begin! I'm gonna make SO much progress on that personal project that I just KNOW is gonna change the world and make me a billionaire! My time is now!"

Next day, 9am, first call of the day: "Ugh, waking up SUUUUUCKS! But, fine, just gotta get through the workday, then it's beast mode time!"

5pm: "Ugh, that day SUCKED... meeting after meeting, constant interruptions for the few minutes I got to hack code, SO many emails, and hey, good day, only five new things pushed down from corporate to bang my head against! Feelings pretty mentally exhausted, but it's all good, I fortunately love this programming stuff, so first dinner, then a little exercise, spend some time with the family, and then it's time to COOOODE!"

10pm: "Ok, house is FINALLY quiet (fucking dog), just a little noise from my daughter staying up way too late again... kinda spent, but this project still excites me, and I may not get as much done as I was hoping, but fine, I can still make some tangible progress and that's what matters. Maybe just one last quick check of email, Reddit, make sure there's no new Hot Ones or Honest Trailers I gotta watch, update IDEA plugins and see what's new, then it's work time! Nothing can stop me now!"

Any night, 1:30am, bedtime: "SHIT! I GOT FUCK ALL DONE AGAIN! GO DAAAAAAAMN IIIIIT!!!!"

alright so I've been at my new job for 3 days now. I got a complain that I was talking too much or was just in general to noisy.

I'm sure alot of other developers do this but when I am programming I talk myself through steps. I understand that this is an office environment and I need to keep quiet. But what I don't like is that other full time employees are being hypocritical.

One other worker had a 40 minute conversation, that I'm sure the entire office could hear, about the card game bridges.
Another was full on yelling at a team of devs over the phone about how they should get the entire team to work on a bug that he had found.

Yeah, handouts create lazy people I'm not impressed with
You want something in life, then why don't you go and get it?
Actions speak louder than words do, it's pretty quiet, isn't it?
Look at the world we live in, defined by comment sections
Surround yourself with people that challenge how you think
Not people that nod their head and act like they agree
Those people will cut you open just to watch you bleed
Always be yourself, not the person that you pretend to be, no!
These people gon' tell you that you will never make it
Then when you do, they gon' say they knew you were goin' places
That's just how it works, next thing you know you'll be overrated
Hearing people say they miss the "old you, " it's crazy, ain't it?
And perfect people don't exist, so don't pretend to be one
I don't need pats on the back from people for my achievements
When I die I wanna know that I lived for a reason
Anyone can take your life, but not what you believe in, no

Just remember this

Yeah, don't take opinions from people that won't listen to yours
If money's where you find happiness, you'll always be poor
If you don't like the job you have, then what do you do it for?
The cure to pain isn't something you buy at liquor stores, nah
The real you is not defined by the size of your office
The real you is who you are when ain't nobody watchin'
You spend your whole life worried about what's in your wallet
For what? That money won't show up in your coffin, woo!
Yeah, anger's a liar, he ain't got no respect
I fell in love with my pain and I slept with my regrets
Happiness saw it happen, maybe that's why she up and left
Joy called me a cheater, said she ain't coming back
I've always had a problem with relationships
But that's what happens when you see the world through a broken lens
Mistakes can make you grow, that doesn't mean you're friends
Who you are is up to you, don't leave it up to them, no

Just remember this

Yeah, they say you got into music, you signed up to be hated
That's kinda weird cause I don't remember signing my name up
Coming from people that give advice but never take none
I like my privacy, but, lately, I feel it's invaded
I heard that life's too short, don't let it pass you by
We waste a lot of time crying over wasted time
It's not about what people think, it's how you feel inside
My biggest failures in life are knowing I never tried, woo!
I look at the world from a different angle
People change, even Satan used to be an angel
Think twice before you're bitin' on the hand that made you
Don't believe what you believe just 'cause that's how they raised you
Think your own thoughts, don't let them do it for you
Say you want a drink, don't wait for people to pour it on you
Cut out the liars, stay close to the people you know are loyal
Grab your own glass and fill it, don't let your fear destroy you, woo!

Hey everyone! This is a long one so get comfy~

TLDR; I'm glad to be back in the presence of all you awesome people. 2019 was a dream and I have a lot of you to thank for that.

If you've noticed, I've been away for a while. I took a sabbatical from a lot of my socials (including github - or at least public github :( this summer. Let me explain:

In late April/early May, I applied and got an internship at RBC (a big bank company in Canada) found out I'm getting flown out to San Fran for a talk I gave at a summit, and got accepted to this 2 week physics [Quantum Cryptography] camp @ UWaterloo. So I had quiet the summer. In order to throw myself into work and friends and all that, I decided that I was going to take a break. Although I took a break from Github I was still active on Github Enterprise for my job but outside of that I didn't do much.

Don't worry though, now that it's fall/winter season, I'll be in my room for way too long so it's back to the usual grind. Currently, I'm in the process of planning a hackathon, prepping for picoCTF 2019, filling out University applications, all while dealing with school :) I've got a lot of projects/things coming up so ya'll will hear more from me :D

!dev
Today, on the Hypocrite show we have a bunch of hypocrit wankers talking meta. For example, this just in, a bunch of talkative wanker classmates, all gorls (yes, this is not a typo (yes it's for sarcastic goal (yes read it in Gru's voice (no I don't do Lisp stop asking)))), start talking about how they don't like their lower-graders talking too much they, the previously mentioned "gorls", are around and would prefer them to shut up and let enjoy their "peace and quiet". Oh I don't know, you wankers wants my 2-page 11px complain on you talking too much in class and everywhere you go?

fuck.. FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!
I'mma fakin EXPLODE!

It was supposed to be a week, maybe two weeks long gig MAX. Now I'm on my 3rd (or 4th) week and still got plenty on my plate. I'm freaking STRESSED. Yelling at people for no reason, just because they interrupt my train of thought, raise a hand, walk by, breathe, stay quiet or simply are.

FUCK!

Pressure from all the fronts, and no time to rest. Sleeping 3-5 hours, falling asleep with this nonsense and breaking the day with it too.

And now I'm fucking FINALLY CLOSE, I can see the light at the end of the tunne<<<<<TTTOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTT>>>>>>>

All that was left was to finish up configuring a firewall and set up alerting. I got storage sorted out, customized a CSI provider to make it work across the cluster, raised, idk, a gazillion issues in GH in various repositories I depend on, practically debugged their issues and reported them.

Today I'm on firewall. Liason with the client is pressured by the client bcz I'm already overdue. He propagates that pressure on to me. I have work. I have family, I have this side gig. I have people nagging me to rest. I have other commitments (you know.. eating (I practically finish my meal in under 3 minutes; incl. the 2min in the µ-wave), shitting (I plan it ahead so I could google issues on my phone while there), etc.)

A fucking firewall was left... I configured it as it should be, and... the cluster stopped...clustering. inter-node comms stopped. `lsof` shows that for some reason nodes are accessing LAN IPs through their WAN NIC (go figure!!!) -- that's why they don't work!!

Sooo.. my colleagues suggest me to make it faster/quicker and more secure -- disable public IPs and use a private LB. I spent this whole day trying to implement it. I set up bastion hosts, managed to hack private SSH key into them upon setup, FINALLY managed to make ssh work and the user_data script to trigger, only to find out that...

~]# ping 1.1.1.1
ping: connect: Network is unreachable
~]#

... there's no nat.
THERE"S NO FUCKING NAT!!!

HOW CAN THERE BE NO NAT!?!?!????? MY HOME LAPTOP HAS A NAT, MY PHONE HAS A NAT, EVEN MY CAT HAS A MOTHER HUGGING NAT, AND THIS FUCKING INFRA HAS NO FUCKING NAT???????????????????????

ALready under loads of pressure, and the whole day is wasted. And now I'll be spending time to fucking UNDO everything I did today. Not try something new. But UNDO. And hour or more for just that...

I don't usually drink, but recently that bottom shelf bottle of Captain Morgan that smells and tastes like a bottle of medical spirit starts to feel very tempting.

Soo.. how's your day

So, i decided to Start making an Android App (quite a big Project to me), so i we're Reading books und Programming Yesterday for 12, today for 10 hours, everything worked Out perfectly, i fehlt great.
(But, Thats the rule, never feel too confident)

So i wanted to Put the Last Activity in my App, chanhed the XML etc.
At the end i thought i should run it one Last Time before i shutdown my PC.
Well, Error in my XML, tried to fix it for 1 hour (quiet a Long Time for 8 lines of Code), didnt Work.
I pressed Ctrl+z until it reached the Point where it Last Time worked... Still doesnt Work.

So, i am quiet pissed Off, and sleepy.
My Dilemma, eat and sleep? Or try to fix everything...

I love this wk108 tag. Have a lot of stories related to it.
For me , my mentors are the reason i am what i am today. In this crazy selfish world where people only want to run faster than the others, having nice helping people around is great.
(Val titanLannister=xx)

(1)class 6-10th, xx is a curious, but poor boy with no desktop/mobile , but still loves cs classes due to various ,caring teachers.
(2) class 11th end,programming for the first time that year, hates programming, one day when everybody goes out for lunch, xx tears down while talking to his cs teacher "why can't i score good marks when i was the best till 10th? Is programming so tough?" . I remember him giving me a little but greatest motivational lecture followed by 40 minutes of the most basic concepts in which i might had asked him a 1000 questions. "You are my chaempion", he used to say😂 (bad accent) . But god, if he hadn't motivated me that day, i swear i would have left all this and go for business. Thank-you, lokesh sir💗💗

First year : tried to go for a competitive learning course. Mann, am not cool in that stuff. Again was about to break (i was among the top scorers in school boards and had designed many small games back then. I should have been good here too, but nah... the other guys were like bullets .)
Oh my, my deepest bow to this amazing teacher SUMEET MALIK (oh sir, you were so good) .
How this guy taught? Well, he first explained the concept. Fo those who understood, he gave them question 'A', for those who didn't, he repated . For those who understood , can do question a again, and those eho did A already gets an even advance question B. And this cycle went on until the weakest student(usually me) understood the concept.
And no, it never happened even once that class finished with even a single child not doing all questions he gave.he used to teach very less concepts each class and would go to everybody's desk to check they understood the concept, the question, its working, weather we implemented or not and weather our implementation is correct or not +our doubts. Hell , i even took doubts with him for hours after the class and he always just smiled💗(oh sir, am so sorry for being so dumb)
Real Doubt classes, doubts on whatsApp, revision assignments , tests , competitions,... damn, i haven't seen a teacher with this much dedication. At one point of time, that institution was famous for our Sumeet sir's classes 😂

Then last year, i got another mentor . Harshit bhiya. The guy is awesome, and a little extra swaggy 😂. He got a lot of chill, with his big AAD badge, a bag full of stickers and his every day association with people at udacity and google. As always i tried to overwhelm him with my ton of doubts in class, but he use to just give me a few pointers/links, after which i was like quiet for the complete session😂. He gave me a lot to think/work upon and i got a kind of career to work on.

I also think of mentioning a fucked up depressing-bot assholic friend of mine, but he don't deserve to be in this list of my best people. Just fuck you mann with a blockchain of dicks, if you are reading this.

I subscribe to many copywriting newsletters. Here's an article that shows how it's like on "the other side", marketers struggle, too.

How Kevin's Massive Mistake
Completely Changed His Life

Kevin H. made a huge mistake.

The biggest, he would say, if he could tell you himself.

And he knew it immediately.

It was, he said, "instant regret."

Within milliseconds, he was asking himself "What have I done..."

Kevin, see, had just jumped the rail of the single most popular suicide spot in the world, the Golden Gate Bridge.

On average, the site gets another distraught jumper every two weeks. Kevin was one of them.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried to quiet the voices in his head. Therapy, drugs, hospitalization.

Time to die, those voices still said.

And yet, in the minutes his bus dropped him off at the bridge, he hesitated and paced with tears in his eyes.

"I told myself if just one person comes up to me and asks if I'm okay... if one person asks if they can help... I won't do it. I'll stop and tell them my whole story..."

But nobody did, so he jumped.

It was in those next milliseconds, he would later say, he knew it was the biggest mistake of his life.

He didn't want to die.

But now, he was sure, it was too late.

From its highest point, it's a 245-foot plummet into the icy bay waters below.

Out of the 1,700 people that have jumped from the bridge since it first opened in 1937, only 25 have survived.

Kevin, against all odds, would be one of them.

He slammed into the water like hitting concrete. Three of his vertebrae instantly shattered.

When he surfaced, he couldn't hold his own head above water. But, incredibly, a sea lion kept pushing him up.

The Coast Guard soon arrived and pulled him out.

From there, he began a long recovery that required intense surgery, physical therapy, and psychiatric care.

While still under treatment, a priest urged him to give a talk to a bunch of seventh and eighth graders.

Afterward, they sent him a pile of letters, both encouraging and full of their own pained thoughts.

He also met a woman.

Today, Kevin lives in Atlanta and he's been happily married for the last 12 years.

And he tours the country, sharing his story.

So why re-tell it here?

Obviously -- I hope -- you don't get lots of copywriters looking to snuff it after a flopped headline test.

Just the same...

We've talked a lot in this space about the things one needs to get by in this biz.

My friend and colleague Joe, over at the publishing powerhouse Agora Financial, likes to list requirements.

You need intense curiosity...

You need a killer work ethic...

And you must, MUST have... resilience.

Meaning, you must have or find the capacity to bounce back from failure and flops, even huge ones.

Now, again, Kevin's story is an extreme and in this context -- I hope -- a hyperbolic example of somebody giving up. In the worst way possible.

It is also, though, a metaphor.

See, I get a lot of notes from some of you guys... and at conferences, I get to talk to a lot of people...

And I often get the sense, from some folks, that they're feeling a little more overwhelmed than they let on.

Some are just starting out, and they've got a lot on the line. For some, it's everything. And some are desperate to make it work.

Because they have to, because their pride or livelihoods or a family business is at stake, because it's a dream.

And yet, they're overwhelmed by all the tips and secrets... or by piles of confusing research or ideas...

For others, even had some success, but they're burned out, feel antiquated, or feel like "imposters" that know less than they let on, in an industry that's evolving.

To all those folks... and to you... I can only say, I've been there. And frankly, go back there now and again.

Flops happen, failures happen. And you can and will -- even years and decades into doing this -- make the wrong choices, pick the wrong projects, or botch the right ones.

The legendary Gene Schwartz put it this way, according to a quote spotted recently in fellow writer Ben Settle's e-letter...

" A very good copywriter is going to fail. If the guy doesn't fail, he's no good. He's got to fail. It hurts. But it's the only way to get the home runs the next time."

Once more, nobody -- I hope -- is taking the trials of this profession hard enough to make Kevin's choice.

And believe me, I don't mean to make light of the latter. I just want to make sure we hit this anvil with a big hammer. To drive home the point that, whatever your struggle, be it with this biz or something bigger, that you don't want to give up. Press on.

As Churchill put it, "Success, is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."

Or even more succinctly when he said, "If you're going through hell, keep going."

Because it's worth it.
.
John Forde

there is no way YouTube isn't dead as a product

last night I had to switch from matrix voice chat to discord voice chat to talk to somebody (because their phone suddenly doesn't do matrix well, keeps cutting out their mic if their screen is turned off or they switch to a different app wtf). they misinterpreted something I said as talking about "shock value". I think that's a demeaning term that doesn't capture why "bad" content is good. now I'm just chilling trying not to workaholic and first recommendation on YouTube I have is about "what happened to shock value websites". oh I'm sure that's a coincidence

this has been happening increasingly and I fucking hate it. it keeps recommending videos that have absolutely nothing to do with what I'm watching or have ever watched or would even be in the interest of in the past, but I mention it somewhere and it creepily suggests the content to me, always with videos claiming to have 2-3 million views. bullshit. I tried some of these and there's no way anybody cares about this content in such numbers. it's so lukewarm and dumb. and how the hell do they have "opinion" vlogs about every topic? since when did that become the #1 type of content on YouTube? cuz it's 50% of my recommendations and I've never given a shit

I have like 500 subscriptions on YouTube. I've had an account a long time. a lot of them are old channels that stopped being active as YouTube evolved, which I think was a shame. a lot of them had to do with ad revenue or YouTube algorithm just not suggesting their content to new people. they were wholesome, honest channels with really good content I think -- really good game analysis, compilations of unique or weird viral content and the guy was just a funny dude in his basement, etc. but fair I guess. shame, but fair

Then there was the quiet era, where your front page just didn't suggest the good channels and just the stupid channels. it didn't suggest your subscriptions but in your interest area or something. what's the point of subscriptions if you're not showing me them? this is also about the time if I left a comment on a video I ceased receiving replies so I assume I was shadow banned. I have not received a single reply in years now, even on small channels. some content creators noticed if they post on their own channels and accidentally logged out and looked for their comment their own comments don't show up. just weird annoying nonsense that's inappropriate for them to be doing. bruh, please

and then the next wave came, it wasn't just YouTube won't recommend your channel, in the COVID era what came was if you mentioned something then channels with previously millions of views, still currently millions of subscribers, suddenly went down to 5k-50k views per video. bitch please, you expect anyone to believe this nonsense?

then they fucked up the search. I KNOW videos exist and I can't find them. I type in half the video's title, you can't find it. thankfully if you type in every single word exactly you can still find them. bruh that's too much. also just search plain doesn't work. if I'm looking for a specific topic I get 5-10 max videos on that topic and the rest are irrelevant recommendations. this is entirely ridiculous. there's videos I KNOW exist on YouTube and nobody gave a shit about them, like 5 view Benny benassi music clips with a scene from a video game. I can't even meme anymore

this morning a friend on discord sent me a... weird clip, of like an anime skit. problem? well discord embeds YouTube videos. I pressed play. I get... an ad. lol what. I browse away and back to the video. try again. ad. yeah I'm not playing this. I have to refresh the page 20-30 times sometimes just until the ads stop fucking up every time my adblocker ceases working (and then I have to go update it again lol -- by going to the developer page for the ad block because it was banned from the app store so you can't auto update it and have to manually update it every time)

my friend links me a discord plugin to... remove ads... from YouTube embeds... bruh

I used to mod discord but it's annoying, because every time discord updates you have to go re-apply the hack to be able to mod your discord

I think we should just plain move away from YouTube. during COVID era a lot of people got banned in subreddits on reddit. I noticed when you get banned, the subreddit still has you listed as a subscriber. the r/Canada subreddit for example has 3 million subscribers but the activity of a subreddit that's maybe 1k people. increasingly subreddits just became ghost towns after that like that. reddit is a dead website, with fake numbers. I think YouTube is now a dead website, with fake numbers. no fucking way stupid lukewarm opinion videos with absolutely nothing to add are getting 2-3 million views and people are just clamouring for these takes they didn't ask for

also stop listening in on my private conversations. fucking disgusting. idc if an AI is transcribing. ew.

TIL indians live on the "satisfaction" plane hence saying yes to things they can't do to satisfy you, but also dissatisfy people as a form of attritional warfare, which is their specialty.
I was watching the trump v Kamala debate and was reminded of a bunch of tactics I've had used against me by an Indian lead dev, who I ignored the behaviour of and didn't think she was actually hostile to me until it was too late. but it made me feel so bad for him and I got an epiphany. it seems like the tactics are the same, so I got curious if there was an Indian art of war

Interestingly the AI said yes but directed me to the wrong book. I did find the right book eventually. it exists. the Chinese stole ideas from it to write their sun tzu art of war, but it's basically a Machiavellian manual before Machiavelli was alive. very cool

also turns out China is behind everything. I remember ages ago I got in a fight with a schizoid programmer friend of mine because he knew China was taking over everything and he wanted them to win, and I was rooting for team India because they were far less miserable than the Chinese. don't make a deal with the Chinese. guy was stupid. they treat people like irrelevant meat

China seems to be connected to everything that's going on right now.
- they're infiltrating Canadian politics, get international students to change Canadian election outcomes (200k/30m people who weren't citizens but got bussed to voting centers and just used proof of address to vote. they changed outcomes of 4 elected officials in one province, and local Chinese people are saying they get threats about their family back in China if they don't do what China tells them to -- but our elected government just keeps quiet on it and then goes to China for new orders during "climate conferences" and uselessly gives them a bunch of our fucking money)
- there was issues with the Chinese buying up real estate in Canada and just leaving them empty. it's probably still happening even though Canada eventually imposed a tax on leaving empty real estate around that you're not renting out. they're still buying up properties, and we have an increasing housing shortage as a result. one of my old apartments a white guy, who was suspicious and shifty, bought the unit and forced us to move out citing code violations (you can't kick someone out otherwise here because of very strong renter's protections). they never introduced who bought the place, but they did have 7 ALL CHINESE SPEAKING IN CHINESE people come in and measure everything at the apartment. so they're definitely still buying up real estate
- are behind the green agenda (our politicians seem to take orders from them under this guise)
- seem to strangely have had camps where they let migrants pass through the South Americas to get into united states, were very closed off and hostile to anyone snooping so it was up in the air what they were doing there. after people came to snoop the camps up and disappeared
- are who USA is competing with in the AI race, the whole AI narrative is literally a fight between the west and China

and there's a super smart systems guy who thinks they were behind the world economic forum and I'm increasingly starting to believe it

all electronics coming from China should be a concern. it isn't

there's tons of Chinese trying to enter open source software to install backdoors. they're nearly successful or successful often. same with that DDoS on DNS years ago

there's rumours they've been running Canada since the 80s, via infiltrating Canadian tech companies to steal their software and are the gatekeepers for a lot of underground stuff

I'm starting to believe even the COVID virus was on purpose. I didn't before. there was a number of labs that had that virus, a lab leak happened around Ukraine 6 months prior to the "Olympics outbreak" (seriously that was PERFECT timing for a lab leak if you wanted to do a bioweapon on purpose -- you would hit every country at once!), but there was also a lab in Canada that had it and some reporters were upset about it because the lab didn't seem to care about our national security and was letting suspicious Chinese nationals work at it, and for some reason there's been discovered a BUNCH of illegal makeshift Chinese labs in California with super vile stuff in them

and what the fuck was that Chinese spy balloon fiasco anyway. you can't shoot it down? I think that was a test to see how fast and readily the west would defend itself. or maybe they wanted to see the response procedures

and then on top of it many people think the opioid epidemic is all china. china makes the drugs. it would also fit perfectly, because in the 1800s or whatever the British empire had entirely decimated china for decades by getting them addicted to the opioid trade. eventually the British empire merged with USA and now USA is basically the head of the new British empire

I think we're at war with China and literally don't fucking know it

Motherfucking peace of shit....
Dont know to whom I should direct this to .

Was creating a new login page for web app using Quasar(vue.js). Since my application have 2 different types of user, which also have different UI, and functionality.
One is written in vanilla ( and is quiet heavy) and the other one in vuejs ( though earlier it was written in vanilla too ). Login page too was written in vanilla which was working fine.
Now just yesterday I finished a prototype for the third type of user, which is also written in vuejs. Now I decided to re create login page using vuejs. Quiet small and easy to do. Finished it yesterday itself. Now since today's morning I am trying to configure it so that it this piece of shit just let me log in. It was authentication and verifying but not letting me log in.
( On server after authentication, I set cookies/token on clients browser and auto reload the page, so during next request to server/ or during reload, server will read the cookie/token and send the specific admin panel to user)

Prick. Dick.
It was setting cookie, but not at the '/' path. Mother fucker.
It was setting cookie to the path I was sending login credentials ( which was different from '/', I.e.- /login/verify=password )
So it was setting cookie/token at '/login/verify=password'.
Even tried setting path for cookie at server. Read everything on internet. MF nothing worked. All I came across was, 'this is CORS' .... 'this is CORS'. Assholes, if it were CORS', how then I am able to make request to server and getting response without error

Only a hour ago, when I made get request to '/login/verify=password' I figured out, cookie is being sent to server for this path only. Then did some changes at server, so to send login credentials to '/'. Now that shit is working

Fucking waste of time. Wasted more than 6 hours. Asshole.

Btw, if you can suggest a better way to login, then please.

It's winter and it's quiet. Too quiet. My shitty job has me sitting here, waiting for work to appear. I could be at home working on something dev related and fun and meaningful to the progress of my life but no, I have to be here and I have to "look" productive for the bosses. I hate this shit, it's like prison, except I get paid, so I should be thankful. I can remote into my PC at home but I already got snapped for that, now I'm paranoid and afraid to try use this shitty downtime in a productive way.

Well, guess I better go sweep the already swept floors again to maintain the illusion of "work" for my penny dripping masters.

QQ having nothing to do is worse than too much to do.

so my uncle (in my father’s side) and my auntie (from my mother’s side)... we were in a car and they started talking about me, i pretended to be asleep. THEN they talked about how quiet I am.. like???
They were talking about how much they hate me for being too quiet. SO DID I RUIN YOUR LIFE FOR BEING QUIET? one of the reasons why i wanna live alone or be with the people who loves me the way i am.

Okay. I look at myself as a kind of intellectual person. My parents are not believers so I came out quiet normal. As engineer and fan of technology I believe in science and I have a fairly complete look at life and universe at whole, I do not need any religional explanation for anything. I do not believe in the conspiracy theories and in any highly organized global secret society who controll us. I have acquired my view and opinions by systematically rethinking every aspect of life and everything I knew and I was thought before, btw this is the reason I stopped to eat animal products too.

But after all this corona shitshow, I really don't know If the current situation is just rolled by stupidity of media and politics or its really some plan of some people. I mean you can legally buy cigarettes with proven death rate of 10%, they recommend you to drink milk while its ultra carcinogenic and like 60% of population is intolerant, you have to wear mask but not gloves while the virus transference is 90% trough hand contact, and there are many many many questions that makes me paranoid. And now this vaccination stuff with countries almost forcing it in population, ahh... Man, This complete story is too irrational and strange. I start to loose my stable belief system and slide out. I noticed that I am not sure and I am just silent when people talk about these things. I hope this nonsense will end soon.

TLDR: Read the post.

Part of me watches the day fly by as I work through the various stories and issues my company has as we walk through the various phases and clean up of their own stupidity of outsourcing. I guess it would be unfair to say “stupidity” It was really a money thing. Excuses aside, the alcohol today tastes amazing as I work through the issues, nothing is ever the same, nothing is ever redundant or boring. There are times where you want to pull your hair out, jump off a building and question why the hell any one would write code, specifically Laravel this way.

I watch the internet from now and then and see the cry babies whine and complain about GitHub and Microsoft jumping into bed and their favourite, and mine too, editor falling into Microsoft’s hands.

It’s disgusting and completely childish, but I digress. The last time I was here the alcoholism and the loneliness had begun pushing me towards the Nicotine and suicide. I have managed to obviously push through and watch the money come in only for adult life to take it away, I guess that’s life. Complaining about it will do nothing other then show others how much control you lack in your own life. You quiet your complaints and bury them deep inside your mind where they fester and stir and become drowned in alcohol.

Dating is even harder, especially when you work from home, so much so that I have completely given up there, any semblance of social life is buried in Final Fantasy 14 online, where pixels and text other people write have become my friend, at least for a moment or two before the work takes over and I sit in a room blaring music and watching the code I write, appear on screen like some savant who has high functioning autism but can create amazing works of art. I don’t think I am autistic though.

The truth is I don’t mind my job, I love the money and the freedom as I stated before.

Code for me is like a seed of anger that starts deep in my core, festering, eating away at me, killing me slowly and branding me a fool. The problem is the best feeling, when there is a problem I can solve it with code, when there is a problem that cannot be solved by code I take solace in the problems that can be. I don’t like people, I hate offices and I despise dealing with my own personal issues, I would rather drink and vape until the nicotine and the alcohol has made me sufficiently numb.

Code is a place I can escape, a place I have control, a place where I don’t feel like blowing my brains out at the stupidity of other people. Have I mentioned that I hate people?

The internet is full of idiots, people ranting and raving about this and that and how it affects them oh so much, when they don’t even let their own code, there own programming problems, and in most cases shitty solutions, affect them. Look at this GitHub thing, the idiots are running around with their heads cut off, waiting for the world to end or in most cases acting like it has. Companies get bought, bill get paid, people leave each other – Shut the fuck up and deal with it.
I guess if you look back at what I have written you could say the same thing to me, boo-fucking-hoo working from home sucks sometimes, grow up and deal with it like an adult. Fair enough, I’ll take my lumps. Excuse me as I continue to drink this post away and watch the downvotes come in. I guess honesty comes with a double edge sword.

And yes I would rather use alcohol as a solution then deal with the issues.

Just moved teams and went from a lead to a individual contributor. Feels much quieter... almost too quiet.

Any recommendations for a $100 or so mechanical keyboard, a bit on the quieter side? I used a Cherry MX Blue board back at home and while it felt great, it's not going to fly in my current environment, so I'm looking at reds or browns (I do game a fair bit so reds are okay too, but would prefer browns, hopefully they're quiet enough).

Perhaps not a full sized one, maybe tenkeyless or something. I've been eyeing the Ducky One 2 Horizon mini, love the colours and it looks pretty much exactly like what I want, but I'd like to see what you guys think.

(I would like to build one but don't have the time)

Location: the US

Probably acting. I loved to go to the acting course at school. Played a bigger role in a theatre play in that same school. I was more of a quiet guy, but had no problem turning into (most) roles and playing scenes.
Had a good friend who was part of a theatre club and passionate too, so working with him was even more fun.
My role-play seemed to be so impressive/surprising, that it was praised in the final year book by several anonymous comments inside my profile page.
Today I'm a CS grad and acting is still interesting, although it's unlikely that I will pursue this path.

It’s quiet
Too quiet