@masukomi@connectified.com
@masukomi@connectified.com avatar

masukomi

@masukomi@connectified.com

👉 Senior Back-End Dev. Seeking Remote Position 👈

Autodidactic, Autistic, ADHD, Trans, and Geeky Programmer.

Queer friend of Camellia Sinensis.

If you want to hear my ramblings about Tabletop Role Playing Games check out my other account: https://dice.camp/@masukomi

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

masukomi, to random
@masukomi@connectified.com avatar

Sat down to a lunch of leftovers, and this happened almost immediately

masukomi, to random
@masukomi@connectified.com avatar

TIL about the concept of an "approximate theory".

An approximate theory is one which works, until you look into it too deeply.

It's like flat earth theory. It's plausible (to anyone who never traveled). It can be incredibly convincing. It is "good enough" for most people's needs. It just falls apart the moment you actually start to apply real scientific study to it.

This has a lot of implications in everyday life. For example...
🧵1/6

masukomi,
@masukomi@connectified.com avatar

Commercial software projects eventually become sufficiently complex that normal humans can't understand - or even know - everything that's going on in them. This applies to the programmers working on them AND the users of the software.

At one co. our users had built up an approximate theory of how you had to accomplish a specific task. They all felt it was stupid, but it was never-the-less how you had to do the thing in order to succeed. This knowledge was passed on from user to user.
🧵2/6

masukomi,
@masukomi@connectified.com avatar

The thing was, their theory was based on an ancient workaround for a long fixed bug. The rituals they performed to appease the software in the cloud were just... rituals.
🧵3/6

masukomi,
@masukomi@connectified.com avatar

The infamous "Story about Magic" was an approximate theory that worked. https://users.cs.utah.edu/~elb/folklore/magic.html The switch was "magic" and if you turned it from the "more magic" to "magic" position the computer crashed. This switch "couldn't" have worked because it only had one wire, but it did work.

You could say that there was an approximate theory that what switch (which couldn't possibly work) was required in order to make the computer function.
🧵4/6

masukomi,
@masukomi@connectified.com avatar

Because the software is so complex, developers also come up with "working theories" about how "other" sections of the app work. Those theories can hold up for years but the problem comes when we need to fix a bug or add a feature in the section of software that theory covers. The problem is confirmation bias, and ego. Most people don't like being proven wrong (ego) and will latch on to anything that seems to confirm their beliefs.
🧵5/6

masukomi,
@masukomi@connectified.com avatar

We need to keep in mind that our beliefs are just "theories". They MAY be right, they may be wrong, or they may be "right until you really start digging in to them". We need to be open to the fact that we can be wrong, even when the world seems to conform to our beliefs.
🧵6/6

masukomi, to random
@masukomi@connectified.com avatar

Current doggo status

mbonsma, to random
@mbonsma@mastodon.social avatar

I'm 5'6"

The rent is too damn high meme with text saying "the hood is too damn high"

masukomi,
@masukomi@connectified.com avatar

@mbonsma if we get rid of the “Chicken Tax” that’s been preventing the import of small trucks and the broken emissions law that made them get bigger in the first place…

I feel like the chicken tax should be pretty easy to undo. It never achieved its goals as far as truck manufacturing in the US was concerned

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • megavids
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • tacticalgear
  • magazineikmin
  • khanakhh
  • everett
  • Youngstown
  • mdbf
  • slotface
  • rosin
  • ethstaker
  • InstantRegret
  • thenastyranch
  • JUstTest
  • ngwrru68w68
  • cisconetworking
  • cubers
  • osvaldo12
  • modclub
  • GTA5RPClips
  • tester
  • Durango
  • provamag3
  • anitta
  • Leos
  • normalnudes
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •