@ovid@fosstodon.org
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

ovid

@ovid@fosstodon.org

Well-known software developer. American living in France.

I have a poetic license to kill.

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

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

I am so sick and tired of sites see my IP address geolocates to Paris, I am forced into the French version of their site without the possibility to switch to English.

J'en ai tellement marre des sites qui voient mon adresse IP géolocalisée à Paris, je suis obligé d'aller dans la version française de leur site sans possibilité de passer en anglais.

ovid, to Software
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

How backend developers, like myself, see software development.

After working for scores of clients over my career as a consultant sorting out software issues, I know that the frontend is often as bad as the backend, but no one wants to admit it because the end result looks pretty.

ovid, to apple
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Updated my Pro and it again replaced my backticks with the useless § symbol. I've also lost my tilde. Really, really ticked off that keeps doing this.

Doesn't help that I'm using a French keyboard remapped to a US one and system settings doesn't seem to let me actually set the damned things.

ovid, to ChatGPT
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

The end is nigh.

Boston Dynamics has added to their robots.

It's both amazing and terrifying. These are the science-fiction robots we dreamed of, but now they're here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djzOBZUFzTw&ab_channel=BostonDynamics

ovid, to Amazon
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Very annoyed with . I pre-ordered "A City on Mars" by @ZachWeinersmith and his wife. The book was released two weeks ago and Amazon still can't give me a delivery date.

Apparently, this is a known issue for Amazon delivering in . :(

ovid, to Software
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

One of our team leads as a good programmer, but not a great one. The people under him were awesome. So he would have them laboriously explain their technical proposals. They would have to oversimply explanations so that he could understand. It was painful.

It was also amazing how many times this revealed overarchitecting of the code. Best team lead ever.

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

In the original Star Trek series, the episode "The Naked Time" (S1E4) has Sulu, bare-chested, carrying an epée, wrap his arms around Uhura's waist and saying, "I'll protect you, fair maiden."

Uhura replies, "Sorry, neither."

She's neither "fair" nor a "maiden." I never clocked onto that when I was a boy.

https://youtu.be/M58aP5DtNqY?si=8WEer0WFcyiEGrtK&t=161

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Learned of a company that is still developing their business using OS/2. All of their hardware is terribly out-of-date, down to their keyboards!

The justification isn't the cost of upgrading. The company points out that they have no viruses and OS/2 is such a small target that threat actors ignore them.

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

In 2006, when I last lived in the US, I had a housekeeper come to my place every Wednesday.

When I told her I was moving to the UK, she asked me if I would have to learn Russian.

This level of confusion is not common, but also not unknown for Americans.

ovid, to space
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

I know our science education is abysmal, so I don't want to fault anyone for not knowing the basics, but this made me sad.

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

IVR systems are "choose your own adventure" games for masochists.

(IVR is "Interactive Voice Response," those irritating phone menu systems which say things like "Press 4 to continue to be ignored")

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

The Night the Brains Went Out in Georgia.

"I'm a Christian," [Marjorie Taylor Green] explained, "and I believe the Bible. I think that, to me, honestly, I've looked into [UFOs], and I think we have to question if it's more of the spiritual. Angels or fallen angels."

I wonder how she's going to square that with Jewish Space Lazers.

https://www.rawstory.com/amp/marjorie-taylor-greene-ufo-aliens-2662314493?ad=lite

ovid, to programming
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

If wasn't dying out, I'd want to learn more and seek work. The world's largest telephony over ATM network ran on Erlang and had 9 nines (!) of availability. That's 31 milliseconds of downtime per year.

Part of why it was so reliable is that it's a language which basically makes you write for all functionality, but with much of the infrastructure support built in. What an amazing technology.

, and are written in Erlang.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_(programming_language)

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Loftily insisting the US is a republic and not a democracy is like loftily insisting the orange flesh is your sushi roll is salmon, not fish.

ovid, to philosophy
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

I used to be a very devout . I carried my bible with me everywhere.

I became an at 13 when I saw that the other Christians in my church were merely playing a role and didn't believe in the morals they were being taught. The last straw was when they kicked out the pastor for the heresy of saying that gay people have a right to seek god. Realizing they didn't believe made me examine myself.

It's good to know that not all Christians have forgotten their beliefs.

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

isn't getting a jury trial in his New York fraud case.

Instead, the judge who's already passed summary judgment against him and sanctioned his legal team is going to be deciding the case. There's no way Trump wins this.

This is insane. Trump desperately needs a trial by jurors who, unlike the judge, will have trouble following this complex case.

So why isn't Trump going to have a jury?

His lawyers forgot to ask for one.

https://boingboing.net/2023/10/02/trumps-lawyers-appear-to-have-really-screwed-up-in-his-fraud-trial.html

ovid, to space
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

desperately needs to update their web site.

Note that they even have non-functional "Text Only Site" and "Non-Flash Version" links. Flash has been dead for years.

Now how do I convince them to hire us to do a redesign? I don't even mean rebuild the site. Just redoing the HTML and the CSS alone would make it much, much nicer.

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/rocket/rktpow.html

ovid, to windows
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

ActiveState on is a solid product, but I recommend you NOT use it unless you pay for it. We had a multi-billion dollar client whose build pipeline broke when they upgraded ActiveState Perl.

https://www.activestate.com/products/perl/

"ActiveState’s Perl downloads are free, but there are some limits on use: you can use no more than one “active runtime” for free. An active runtime is the number of instances of software from the ActiveState Platform that are run in a 24 hour period."

ovid, to France
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Due to rising costs, my surgeon is now charging me 500€ for my surgery. That's if I don't have a « mutuelle » (insurance). If I have one, there is no out-of-pocket cost. The monthly cost of the mutuelle is 30€ to 100€ a month.

The same surgery in the US costs around $20,000 without insurance. With it, you have co-pays, deductibles, partial coverage and potentially uncovered procedures.

I will pay less without insurance in than with in the .

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

Direct , where voters can propose and vote in legislation sounds great—ignoring the bought-and-paid-for politicians. Turns out it's not so great for two big reasons.

  1. Corporations are often behind those voter initiatives, with the "will of the people" directly serving the wealthy.

  2. Even when it's not, poorly thought-out laws get written (for Oregonians, think "Bill Sizemore") that can gut the government's ability to function.

https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1119939

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

This is the San Francisco Catholic Archbishop, awkwardly explaining how they’re going to screw over 500 alleged child sexual abuse victims by declaring bankruptcy.

He’s standing in front of a fresco with a man, naked from the waist down, his penis hanging out.

How did this happen?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TgNNNKU-D0o

ovid, to ai
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

When goes awry.

I received this message on a while ago. I think their facial recognition software needs some fine-tuning.

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

So many people say that adblock and friends is a bad thing because companies would do more than sell ad space to make a profit.

I'm struggling to see how that's a bad thing.

Yes, for news sites, it might be a disaster, but aren't they already a disaster?

Very torn on this one.

ovid, to random
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

I want Jane Fonda to run for the presidency. It's not that I want her to win. And I don't want her to take votes from Biden.

I just want to see the campaign slogan "A Wish Called Fonda."

ovid, to Software
@ovid@fosstodon.org avatar

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing Steve Jobs a case-insensitive file system was a good idea.”⁣

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