SynAck

SynAck, 11 days ago to random

And now comes the part of my day where I throw up my hands in exasperation because I don't understand SCSS nor React and I can't figure out how to make the Quartz code style my site the way I want it to look. What's worse is that I'm trying to modify code that someone else has built, while not having a good handle on how styling works, which I'm sure is a very large part of my problem.

That and getting down to the nitty gritty of all the things I dislike about front-end work - all the bit twiddling and pixel tweaking falderall. I'm frustrated with the whole thing, so I'm done with it for now.

The good news is that while it's not looking exactly the way I want it to - which would likely have to be accomplished with some gnarly hand-written HTML+CSS code - it looks "good enough". There's a lot of space where I don't want it, but I can't figure out how to turn it off, so I'm done with it. The good news is that I was able to create an "OTS Links" sidebar component with some buttons on it, which was the goal for today.

If I just can't stand it anymore, I'll go pester some of the people I know that use Quartz + Obsidian and see how they did what they did.

I hate front-end work. :bec_sigh:​

SynAck, 11 days ago to Eurovision

Apparently, live #eurovision isn't available in the US. But that's okay. I'm team Jako (Armenia, I think) all the way, but I'm pretty sure she's not gonna make it.

I'll just catch the recap after the fact.

SynAck, 15 days ago to random

Just as an example of just how bad my web design sense truly is, I've been agonizing for the last 2 hours about how best to display the following information on my digital garden notes:

• published date
• last updated date
• status (how "complete" the note is)
• read time

I've got last updated and read times in there, and it doesn't look bad. But I absolutely can't decide whether or not to put original publishing date in there, and whether to just use tags for the status versus a dedicated line of text. And, assuming that I want all that stuff actually in there, where would be the best place to put it and how it should be formatted.

The irony, of course, is that the whole point of a digital garden is to learn over time and have the site be fairly mutable as it (and I) grow.

This is why I should not be anywhere near a front-end. I can't even make the simplest decisions about information arrangement and layout of same.

:bec_sigh:​

SynAck, 21 days ago to random

My favorite privacy-related quotes from the movie Anon (which, if you haven't seen it, you absolutely should, like, right now):

The Girl: "It's not that I have something to hide. I have nothing I want you to see."

The Girl: "You invade my privacy, it's nothing. I try to get it back, it's a crime."

Josef Kenik (a cop): "We rely on transparency. We can't control what we can't see. We require persistent identity."

The Girl: "We close our eyes to pray, cry, kiss, dream....or break the law."

I need to get these on some t-shirts or something.

SynAck, 26 days ago to random

Happy 2nd Birthday :corteximplant: !!! 🥳🎉 It's been a great 2 years, although I've only been here for 1 and a half of them. :holdthepain:

I'm really happy and proud to be part of the community that has grown here, and I echo all the sentiments that @lucy posted earlier. I have never had a social media experience like the one I found here, and within 2 days of joining :corteximplant_b: I knew I had made a good decision for my "home" instance!

For those of you young'uns out there, this place is a lot like what things felt like back in the early days of the 'net and combined with all the other OTS stuff in the "family" has given me back an excitment that I lost so many long years ago. It's good to be here, with good folks, with lots of diverse interests but also lots of shared passion from all over the world.

I'm glad to be a part of it, and I'm so glad that everyone on #CORTEXIMPLANT decided to be a part of it too!

And much thanks to @revengeday for opening up his hobby project to us and giving all of us nomads a base camp to call home. You're a true street samurai, choom! :samurai: :silverhand:

SynAck, 28 days ago to random

🎵 dah-dah-dun-dun-dun...another one bites the dust! dah-dah-dun-dun-dun...hey, gonna get you too! Another one bites the dust! 🎶

Hope all y'all Terraform users out there got some deep pockets, cuz that choice might start to cost you soon...

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/ibm-acquires-hashicorp-for-6-4b-open-source-terraform-questions-remain/2024/04/

SynAck, 29 days ago to random

I should probably be applying for some jobs, but the experience is so demoralizing. :bec_sigh:

SynAck, 1 month ago to random

I really wonder what society would look like if people weren't forced to do jobs they hate just in order to live.

The fact that a capitalist system makes money by denying people the basic necesssities of life and then lays the blame for not being able to live at the feet of the people that the system has screwed is despicable.

Capitalism profits the most on the misery that the capitalist system itself creates. The fact that "work" is seen as both an ideal state of being as well as an "incentive" to get the basic necessities of life is reprehensible. Forcing people to start work as young as possible and then work until they've been completely used up through decades of constant work like so many cogs is abhorrent.

And the capitalists who perpetuate this system have likely never been anything less than affluent their entire lives. The irony is that their accumulated wealth allows them to be more of a "freeloader" than any person without a job. They have transferred their "work" to their money and the only "work" they do is to say, "put this much here".

Capitalism is a lie. It is the ultimate ponzi scheme. It is a system of control by which the wealthy control the rest of us. Capitalism devalues humanity to the point of insignificance.

I hate it here.

SynAck, 1 month ago to random

Made the mistake of watching a few recent episodes of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and now I'm all angry.

Apologies in advance for any incoming screeds that may result. :gnah:

SynAck, 1 month ago to random

Waiting for grass to grow is like watching paint dry while boiling water in a pot.

#AnalogyOverload

SynAck, 1 month ago to random

Got a random recruiter email for a Principal Software Engineer role at Zynga.

Zynga's still around? I thought they went under years ago....

SynAck, 1 month ago to random

Hey, any of my choombas out there know where I might get my hands on a link to The Max Headroom Show that ran on Cinemax circa 1985 or so?

I never saw it because I grew up in a house where HBO was a gateway straight to hell, and of course that meant that "Skinemax" was out also. But I'd be interested to know if anybody has it archived somewhere so I could grab it.

There's not enough Max in either of the Max Headroom movies or series that I have.

SynAck, 1 month ago to acab

Max Headroom knew the score even back in 1985...

"You see, I'm not one to beat about the large, black boots but the first requirement for any security guard is to be totally-totally-t-to-totally insecure. I mean, who else needs to dress like a riot control cop so that he can write down your name and tell you where to park your car?"

#acab #MaxHeadroom #CyberpunkWisdom

Animated GIF of Max Headroom smiling and winking

SynAck, 1 month ago to random

I did not take this picture (my karate sensei did), but it is representative of the view from Austin. While this picture appears to be an annular eclipse, it's just overexposure from the corona due to being shot on a phone (pixel 6, I believe).

Photo credit: Paul Wilson

SynAck, 1 month ago to random

Had a get-together with "the hateful 8" this weekend - former co-workers that got the shaft the same day I did - and some current employees ("the moles", we call them). It was a good time, and I found out some interesting information.

A couple of them have found new jobs and it turns out that Oracle and Fico employees aren't allowed to use AI for anything, not even low-level "automated intern" stuff.

There's a glimmer of hope and sanity in the corporate world, it seems. Let us hope it continues!

SynAck, 1 month ago to random

Well of course he couldn't, because this "AI" bubble is all smoke & mirrors in the first place.

The failing was pinned on Mostaque's inability to devise and execute a viable business plan.

I just hope that Stability is the first domino to fall in this whole ridiculous hype machine. Will this wake people up to show how expensive, wasteful, and unfulfilling this lunacy is? Probably not. :gnah:​

https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/03/stability_ai_bills/

SynAck, 1 month ago to random

It turns out that I'm becoming a "house shoes" guy. I used to run around barefoot, but now I put moccasins on most of the time while I'm at home if I'm not wearing socks. What is happening to me?!?

Oh no, I'm becoming my father. :spongebobbruh:​ :oh_no_blob:​ :oh_no_bubble:​

SynAck, 1 month ago to random

You know, you don't have to smash things and bust heads to be punk. I mean, you can - no one's stopping you if that's how you wanna express it - but you don't have to. Punk is a subversive state of mind. It's saying, "I see your rules, but I'm not gonna play by them."

Work the system, don't let it work you. Being punk can be as simple as missing out on events because you're not willing to step within 1,000 miles of a Facebook account. Requiring your friends to communicate with you on E2EE platforms is subversive. You don't have to be a hacker to be a cyberpunk (but of course it helps). Being here in the 'verse is subversive, if you think about it. Fighting for a free, open, and secure exchange of ideas is subversive. If someone asks, "well how do you make money on this?" and there's no answer, that thing is subversive. It's a mindset and the will to use it, choom.

My point is, be subversive. Don't let society tell you what to read, what to think, and who to associate with. Use their own logic against them. Be different. If you have to burn something down, so be it; but if you can work around it or bend it into something that is no longer an obstruction, well.... that's punk af as well, IMO. :thinkaboutit:​

SynAck, 2 months ago to random

Passport acquired! I am now free to roam about the globe (mostly). Still waiting on my passport card, but it should hopefully be here in a couple of days (they inexplicably come separate from each other).

A lot has changed in passport tech since last I got one (2013). I vow to take some international trips so I actually get some stamps in this one! Between 2000-2010, I had a bunch. And then I haven't had any since, so now's the time to change that. I just wish that plane tickets weren't so expensive.... :oh_no_blob:​ :oh_no_bubble:​

SynAck, 2 months ago to random

Anybody else have any issues with FF slowing down loading TLs over time? It's especially bad on the Home TL for me. It works great for a while, but then sometimes it can take 10+ seconds to load the TL, and then stays that way until I restart FF. Everything on the web UI tab starts to slow down after that.

I'm running FF on Ubuntu 23.10 and I have two custom userscripts from my instance running through Tampermonkey. Disabling the scripts doesn't seem to solve the problem, so it seems to be an issue with FF itself.

Might just be a local instance thing, or just a me thing for some weird reason, but I thought I would ask to see if anyone else running the masto web UI is having this issue.

TIA

SynAck, 2 months ago to random

And while I'm talking about silly names, since when did that plastic flute-like instrument used in introductory music classes to teach kids the basics of music start being called a "recorder"?!? It doesn't record anything.

When I was a kid, those things were called "flutophones". Still ridiculous, but way more descriptive (and accurate) than "recorder". At least it gives one the impression that it is done sorry if musical instrument.

SynAck, 2 months ago to random

I may have gone on another sticker bender this evening...

The front of a desktop showing a samurai logo sticker and an Arasaka asset tag on the case above and below the power button and USB ports. The interior is exposed and a clear plexiglass panel is suspended to the left side over the innards by 4 silver metal posts. The large cooling fans and power cables are visible in the right center and the video card with orange lighting is visible in the lower center.

SynAck, 2 months ago to random

I think I just encountered my first biker furry, y'all. This is a shot through my back car window at a stoplight. The person was in full Holstein mode from head to toe (hoof?) and I've never seen a full-on plush helmet like this one. Goodonya mate, wherever you may roam!

SynAck, 2 months ago to random

Welp, finally kicked AT&T to the curb today. Canceled my Uverse, Internet, and phone. That should save me roughly $370/month. I was trying to get my VOIP phone converted to a standard land line just for emergency backup, but it was gonna cost me $70/month just for something that I never use!

Nope. She gone.

Now somewhere around 5pm today I'll get to find out what all is broken and what I need to still switch over to my gigabit network. I don't think that I'm using the old AT&T email address (still an swbell.net domain!) for anything, and I guess I'll just lose my "spam" phone telly number.

Oh well, they should have given me better service at a better price. Their loss. Cya, AT&T!

SynAck, 2 months ago to 3goodthings

Today was a productive day for me with at least #3GoodThings to share!

1. Got new passport photos and sent in my passport renewal application
2. Finally got my old Canon printer working on my Linux machine
3. Made Kung-Pow shrimp for lunch

@3goodthings