@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

donaldball

@donaldball@triangletoot.party

I get mad about the collapse a lot but mostly I’m into cats and games and books and cool people.

By day, I write software. By preference, I'd write clojure or I'd be learning rust and elixir. By necessity, I'm writing golang and typescript.

I think the way we model and transfer data in the industry commonly is woefully inadequate and am on a jeremiad to demonstrate alternatives.

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donaldball, to random
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

For decades now, folk have been fretting about how the US media allow themselves to be played by the right. Decades.

I am begging folk to consider the alternative that the owners and operators of the media are making choices.

waldoj, to random
@waldoj@mastodon.social avatar

There's a group chat that includes Michael Dell, Howard Schultz, Bill Ackman, Daniel Loeb, and nearly 100 other powerful kajillionaires whose names are less well-known. They used it to advocate for arresting protesters at Columbia University and to fund-raise for New York City mayor Eric Adams. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/16/business-leaders-chat-group-eric-adams-columbia-protesters/

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@waldoj Private group chats amongst the 1% are, I believe, a significant and underappreciated means by which all sorts of reactionary campaigns are organized.

ashleygjovik, to random
@ashleygjovik@mastodon.social avatar

The United States has invaded the United States in order to bring freedom and democracy to the United States.

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@ashleygjovik Cops brandishing assault rifles against protestors is 100% intimidation. There is no threat or credible evidence thereof that would support these weapons being useful for any other purpose.

seachanger, to random
@seachanger@alaskan.social avatar

when’s the last time you heard of a cop come out and be like “you know some people in my line of work take things too far and I condemn those people”

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@seachanger There was that one dude in the NYPD, what, ten years back. The one that the NYPD brass managed to get locked up in a psych ward for his attempt to blow the whistle.

fkamiah17, to random
@fkamiah17@toot.wales avatar

👏 ✊

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@fkamiah17 @glassbottommeg $20 says the cops that drove the busses did not have valid CDLs.

donaldball, to random
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

Okay so fucking off Google: what are good replacements for Docs and Sheets? I think I'm good for everything else. I'm happy to pay a reasonable rate.

mhoye, to random
@mhoye@mastodon.social avatar

Since I see that a notable VC-famous is now telling us that he wish he'd "stood by" Eich way back, I'd like to tell you a true fact that situation: Eich didn't lose the CEO's job for his (reprehensible) Prop-8 donation.

Everyone wants to believe that's true, because fits nicely into narratives a number of invested camps want to believe, whether it's somebody being ousted for reprehensible views the woke SJW mob somehow pulling down a great leader (tm) but that's not what happened.

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@mrcompletely @mhoye I have some different words to offer that may better describe Javascript.

mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

Still relevant:

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/111502639878997581

News is such a confused industry. In order for it to be successful, it needs the majority of people to find value in the news that it produces. Most people are not old, wealthy, straight, white, men, but most news stories are framed from that perspective, even when the framing is false and easily debunkable.

Most news rooms don't look anything close to the people that they need to buy their papers to have a sustainable business.

Failure is inevitable.

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@mekkaokereke Would you increase the perceived fortunes of the Sulzberger family though? I think that’s the only metric that matters to the NYT, when all is said and done.

inthehands, to random
@inthehands@hachyderm.io avatar

I endorse this post @rubenerd:
https://bsd.network/@rubenerd/112264116393309434

…and I endorse it in its more general form: “Just don’t have that problem” is one of the most unhelpful, snitty, arrogant, obnoxious, and demoralizing things you can say to somebody who is in a place of frustration.

1/

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@trochee @inthehands There's a trap I've seen very experienced engineers fall into — I've probably fallen into it myself! — whereby after mastering some morass of complexity, they — we — become endeared to the technical difficulties of the puzzle and resist efforts to reduce or eliminate the incidental complexity, or to seek out simpler solutions to the business problem.

StillIRise1963, to random
@StillIRise1963@mastodon.world avatar

I want to see a movie where we band together across the globe to defeat fascism, the evils of capitalism and combat climate change with cool, new innovations.

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@StillIRise1963 @seachanger Can we make it be a documentary? I think it should be a documentary.

marick, to random
@marick@mstdn.social avatar

In my consultant days, I used to say:

“If you get to the end of a half-day task, you doubtless noticed problems: clunky code, bad names, incorrect comments. So you should spend, oh let’s say, half an hour cleaning up some of that. Whatever fits inside the timebox.”

I’ve found this approach works pretty well: blaze on coding madly (with tests, of course), then – as I cool down – making “non-functional” improvements (including to those tests).

I never got the feeling people do this. Do they?

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@marick It is honestly somewhat harder to do in the era in which PRs must be linked to feature tickets and solicit multiple approvals. I think it’s underappreciated the extent to which these well-intended policies may inhibit reasonable, maintainable source code.

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

“Don’t modernize your code just for the heck of it | Go Make Things”

This. “Modernising” a code base is quite often a prelude to some of the worst software disasters you’ll ever see. It requires much greater expertise than just writing for a new project https://gomakethings.com/dont-modernize-your-code-just-for-the-heck-of-it/

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@baldur I led a team which rotated onto helping rescue a failing project once. Leadership offered us 3-4 weeks to "fix the tech debt", and both they and our manager were perplexed when I flatly refused.

Setting aside the obvious trap, my point to them was — making changes just to make changes is silly and dangerous. Give us one (1) feature at a time with a generous timeline and we will fix the things that make sense to facilitate that change.

mekkaokereke, (edited ) to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

As we hear reports that it will take 10 years (🤯) to replace the 1.6 mile Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, remember that China built the Danyang-Kunshan bridge and Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in 4 years each.

Danyang-Kunshan Bridge is 102 miles long, and 100 ft above the water.

Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is 16 miles and 623 ft tall, earthquake and typhoon proof, and can withstand a direct strike from a 300,000 ton cargo ship. That last point is unfortunately topical.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U7iQqogVmr8

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@mekkaokereke @UncivilServant @McBeth @hazelweakly The US privileges process over people and/or projects at every level. I think most people across the political spectrum would agree with this observation, even as they’d viciously fight about why it is the case and what we could and should do to achieve a healthier balance.

ryansingel, to random
@ryansingel@writing.exchange avatar

I still think the most under-reported, most holy shit tech story of the last 5+ years is how good e-bikes have gotten and how much more affordable a decent e-bike has become.

E-cars and trucks are a nice change but mostly meh. E-bikes, tho? They are magic.

They deserve subsidies and way more press attention.

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@ryansingel @mekkaokereke I am significantly mobility impaired and will be clearing over 1000 ebike miles in my first year as an owner. I hadn’t even realized fully the depth of my disability-induced depression until my emotional support vehicle entered my life.

danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

Nvidia claiming 25x reduction in energy costs compared to H100 for their new hardware, thus validating that energy consumption as a PRIMARY objection to AI is lazy recycling of objections to web3

Whereas crypto nonsense is designed to burn energy pointlessly, the goal of machine learning is “productive” applications, thus there are ongoing incentives for optimizing price performance over time

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/18/24105157/nvidia-blackwell-gpu-b200-ai

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@danilo @jalcine I understand scale, and I can also object to multiple things for more than one reason.

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@danilo Oh you wanna be that kinda guy. Cool cool, we all make choices.

BlackAzizAnansi, (edited ) to random
@BlackAzizAnansi@mas.to avatar

Are you susceptible to believing propaganda? Please explain your answer and reasoning.

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@BlackAzizAnansi You can work to resist propaganda by critical analysis, awareness of biases, and humility, but I don’t think anyone can be immune; there aren’t enough hours in the day to function with maximal skepticism at all times.

finestructure, to random
@finestructure@mastodon.social avatar

Boeing are speed running the Ship of Theseus paradox

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@finestructure @Migueldeicaza That would require them to actually replace each part they remove.

donaldball, to random
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

TIL: Apparently, the major campaigns begging for cash via unsolicited text messages now treat "fuck off" equivalently to "stop".

majorlinux, to random
@majorlinux@toot.majorshouse.com avatar

The way my son is explaining his math work to me just sounds bonkers.

It's first grade math and I know the answers and so does he.

How he gets there though sounds do foreign.

I'm not sure if he's explaining it right or if this is how he's being taught.

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@majorlinux I love(d) common core the idea — there are various ways to learn the theory and practice of math and we should expose students to them all so they can focus on the ones that work best for them.

I loathe common core the implementation — students will learn to do arithmetic in each of several poorly explained and increasingly confusing ways and will be graded on them all.

joshuaphilll, to random
@joshuaphilll@spore.social avatar

The New York Governor sent the National Guard into the subway. The mayor lets the NYPD assault people for protesting genocide. Atlanta won't let Cop City on the ballot. If Democrats actually want to fight fascism they should start by being less fascist.

https://www.jphilll.com/p/the-national-guard-is-in-the-subway

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@joshuaphilll @currentbias Yo also and what the hell do national guard troops expect to do with assault rifles in a crowded subway station I mean seriously what’s the threat model? This is fascist security theater.

blogdiva, to random
@blogdiva@mastodon.social avatar

JFC i haven't stopped thinking about this photo op. this is the stupidest thing Joe could have done, right after pooh-poohing Michigan's vote.

seriously, this worries me.

we will end up with fucking Trump not because of people like me asking Democrats to rebuke but because Biden INSISTS in embracing it.

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@blogdiva We’re the only thing standing between you and the fascists, say the Democratic elite. It doesn’t matter that much if they’re literally standing right beside them, embracing them!

donaldball, to random
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

"PE is committed to an ideology that is far worse than any form of racial animus or other bias. As a sector, it is committed to profit above all other values. As a result, its brutality knows no bounds, no decency, no compassion. Even the worst crimes we commit for hate are nothing compared to the crimes we commit for greed."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats

@pluralistic tells it like it is.

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@pluralistic I do maybe want to quibble with the "we" in the concluding thought, since I actually don't believe, or don't want to believe, this is true of most people. I think most of us are living in rotting facades of democracy, where our collective options to hold greedy murderers to account seem to be narrowing to the edge of a blade.

But the overall point is sound — just as wage theft dominates all other theft, social murder dominates all other murder. We just don't tend to call it that.

MaksiSanctum, to random
@MaksiSanctum@med-mastodon.com avatar

Is It Dangerous to Keep Getting COVID-19?
Spoiler - you bet it is

infectious-disease experts are warning that repeat infections could have cumulative, lasting effects.

... found that people who had gotten COVID-19 at least twice experienced higher rates of short- and long-term health effects, including heart, lung, and brain issues, compared to those who were only infected once.

https://time.com/6553340/covid-19-reinfection-risk/

donaldball,
@donaldball@triangletoot.party avatar

@MaksiSanctum When I applied for a new life and long-term disability insurance policy recently, they absolutely asked about the number of times I'd gotten COVID-19.

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