Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod

The guy who wrote this is gone

I’ve gotten about 1,000 alert emails in the last 8 hours because of this

It’s not pride, it’s just that I know how to use it really well and that makes it easy for me to use.

But it’s really only for viewing files on another system over SSH. For local work I use Sublime Text

I have Whoogle running in a docker container

This is why I use a search proxy. Still get Google results but with all the crap stripped away. Plus I can write custom search options so if I go ! imdb rise of the planet of the apes it will do the search and just take me to the first result

These were such a massive problem when I was a kid every yard filled one of those bag traps every week for the entire summer.

But then they went away and we had invasive stinkbugs. Then the stinkbugs got under control and we had invasive lanternflies. But I’m not seeing many of those this summer, either, which means the next wave is due any time now.

The problem with “It’s self-documenting” is that there are inevitably questions about what it says, and there’s no additional resources to pull from.

Totally agree. And I’d argue that we don’t even need technical writers. Even if all people do is correct grammar and spelling mistakes it would be helpful, let alone actually writing docs. It’s one of the easiest ways non-technical folks can get involved with open source projects.

If you know your weakness is writing documentation, please hire a technical writer.

I’m really thankful that I had a great English teacher in high school, and that my degree required a technical writing class. Being able to write a coherent email got me further in my career than the technical stuff I learned in college.

It’s also why the humanities are important. Stemlords who brag about not doing literature classes write terrible documentation.

You have to assume some level of end user knowledge, otherwise every piece of documentation would start with “What a computer does” and “How to turn your computer on.”

I’ve found the best practice is to list your assumptions at the top of the article with links to more detailed instructions.

One of the many things I loved about Sagan’s Contact is that, at the end, they found a pattern in pi when put into base 13. He didn’t really go into it as it was the end of the book, but I really wish he’d survived to write a sequel.

If pi is truly infinite, then it contains all the works of Shakespeare, every version of Windows, and this comment I’m typing right now.

Take civil rights legislation in the 60s; a lot of what LBJ accomplished was credited to the national feeling after the Kennedy assassination. Would JFK have been able to accomplish all that if he had served eight years with public sentiment toward civil rights being divided?

I think the same thing about the Apollo program. Kennedy gave that speech and then died, and now not only did we have to beat the Russians we had to do it for a beloved slain president.

There’s also an episode of Red Dwarf where they go back in time and convince Kennedy to be the second shooter on the grassy knoll, because his survival would have started WWIII.

The fact that KSP2 is still on Steam for $50 is criminal

For a long time nuclear power was going to make electricity so cheap it wasn’t worth billing. Turns out they were right, the reactor is just 92 million miles away

I just watched the movie because there were boobies.

It’s all water under the fridge

Yep, an actual model of your network that you can tinker with

I work with customers a lot, and it’s always impressive when I say “Yeah, just do these two things and it’ll fix your issue” and then it does. What they don’t see is the hours and hours I spent breaking shit, resetting the test environment, and breaking it again.

It’s like the apocryphal tale of the engineer who charged for knowing where to tap the hammer.