bartread

8 ms·

91.
by bartread 4mo ago
I genuinely think there are people who don’t “get” hobbies or, if they do, don’t get that other people might like hobbies other than the ones they like. As you say, the point is to enjoy it and that’s all.
92.
by bartread 4mo ago
I think it probably depends where you're going. We have relatives in a country where it might be a bit more of a concern, and we did briefly research taking a trip there to visit them, which is when all of this came up. In the end, for
93.
by bartread 4mo ago
> It's an awful piece of shit and I love it. I think, realistically, the issues the author describes - particularly with the keyboard and trackpad - would drive me up the wall for any kind of serious use. But then, if you're tr
94.
by bartread 4mo ago
I’ve still got a copy of this on a shelf somewhere in the house. Mine is the paperback edition with the funky comic style artwork of a dishevelled guy hunching over a computer in the middle of a tip of a room though. I can’t remember whethe
95.
by bartread 4mo ago
Give the fans a really good going over: tend to find loads of dust and fluff hiding inside them.
96.
by bartread 4mo ago
On a laptop that old it might be worth opening it up to blow all the dust out with a compressor or air duster. I’ve often found that to work wonders on old MacBook Pros. The other issue is that unless the battery has been replaced relativel
97.
by bartread 4mo ago
I think this is OK though. We can still micromanage[0] the code generation part for a useful productivity boost, I think. [0] At least, in my experience, "micromanaging" the AI is what gives me the best results. Iterating on the
98.
by bartread 5mo ago
> AI has a multiplying effect on existing technical skills It also has a multiplying effect on technical deficits. If you habitually demonstrate poor attention to detail when developing software, AI will amplify that too. LLMs project wh
99.
by bartread 5mo ago
I had previously got around this by using Anaconda but I don't really like the amount of crap that brings in either, and also it leads to a dev environment that doesn't look anything like production so that sucks too... as a resul
100.
by bartread 5mo ago
In the UK at least a big part of the problem for all high street retail is high fixed costs. High rents for "prime" locations that, given the trend over the last 25 years, are no longer very prime, coupled with high business rates
101.
by bartread 5mo ago
Hmm, see I don’t agree. I use Spotify extensively for music, but also for podcasts and audiobooks. Great for a long car journey, or background listening whilst doing DIY. I have plenty of frustrations with the app, but not with the core off
102.
by bartread 5mo ago
> In a just world In a just world what Zuckerberg and his cronies are doing - the sheer unrelenting tidal wave of destabilising societal damage (nationally, internationally, globally), not to mention the negative consequences of bullying
103.
by bartread 5mo ago
> I wonder if that threat is now much more severe in the age of AI. It is. I've been using Codex to analyse repositories en masse for a project I'm working on now[0]. Codex, Claude (my usual weapon of choice), etc., make pretty
104.
by bartread 5mo ago
I don't mind them using it as a channel per se (although the userbase isn't what it once was) but it certainly shouldn't be the only channel. For example: Twitter/X, along with Nitter mirrors like XCancel, are all blocke
105.
by bartread 5mo ago
Occasionally though, rather than petering out, you get a rage-fork that does something good. The io.js fork from node back in 2014 or 2015 springs to mind. IIRC there were a bunch of changes/improvements that needed to be made to move
106.
by bartread 5mo ago
100%. A place I worked some years ago we even had an escrow foisted on us by our larger partner in the agreement so that they’d be able to continue running the software we were building if we went under. Honestly, it was a pain in the ass a
107.
by bartread 5mo ago
> Amiga made lots of assumptions about the use that ended up tuning it well to platform games and NTSC video editing, but nothing else. I think certainly it was used mostly as a games machine by most owners, but then again so was the Ata
108.
by bartread 5mo ago
As rudimentary as it is that actually sounds a lot better than I was expecting, and I think as a kid in the 80s I'd probably have been happy with it.
109.
by bartread 5mo ago
Aha - and as if by magic... yeah, I just mentioned that the 128K machine had both the beeper and the AY chip, and this is a great example of them in use together.
110.
by bartread 5mo ago
Yeah, when I had the 48K Speccy I bought this and a shoot em up called Chronos, which wasn't by any means an amazing game (not bad for the £1.99 or £2.99 I paid for it, mind), but it was blessed with incredible intro music, which I thi
111.
by bartread 5mo ago
I never had an Atari ST so wasn't familiar with the details of how its sound chip worked. I did know it was a variant of the AY chip found in the ZX Spectrum +2A, which I did own for a brief period after several years of 48K+ ownership
112.
by bartread 5mo ago
> We were shown how to copy and paste data from excel and other data sources into the chat interface. Grnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnguuurnnngh. I remember the copy and paste drudgery from the early days of ChatGPT. It was a miserable and joyless e
113.
by bartread 5mo ago
A problem I’ve found is that when you’re adding functionality or refactoring it often leaves unused methods or types behind, at least with multiple devs working on the same codebase. This unused code gets further modified as time goes on: n
114.
by bartread 5mo ago
YOU are awesome - thank you, that's a great tip!
115.
by bartread 5mo ago
I agree. There's something about those 80s and 90s interfaces with their visible affordances, grab points, etc., that just makes them instantly comprehensible. Many of them are also beautiful. The absolute peak, for me, though are thos
116.
by bartread 5mo ago
In my country employers have a duty of care towards their employees: "hire to fire" very clearly violates that duty of care. Even ignoring that - let's say that duty of care didn't exist - are you telling me that you, as
117.
by bartread 5mo ago
All 4xx errors are client errors. 400 is the general “bad request” client area, indicating something is wrong with the request but not being specific about what. 404 is simply a more specific client error: it means the client asked for a
118.
by bartread 5mo ago
Yes, that’s completely fair, and I’ve done the same. I’ve also been on the other side and made it clear I’m available and happy to take a chance. When everybody is going in with their eyes open I think it’s a different matter.
119.
by bartread 5mo ago
> They don’t do it, because they want to control the data. Ironically, this incident shows they don’t have control of anything.
120.
by bartread 5mo ago
This is so ethically and morally odious I struggle to find the words to describe it. I’ve managed people out. I’m sure I’ll have to do it again. I’ve even let people go during probation but, on the rare occasions that’s happened, I’ve seen

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