• 0 Posts
  • 237 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: July 1st, 2023

help-circle
  • Captain Picard very much became a Captain to all of us, I think.

    Of course he’s got some flaws for sure (his stubbornness, for one!) but he really set the bar for what a civilised person and a good leader should be.

    He’s principled, fact-based, fair in his judgement, respects the differences of others (both individually and culturally), solves problems with understanding and empathy rather than force, and he’s forgiving of mistakes.

    And he does all that while still being a “strong” man. In fact, it’s these very traits which earn him the respect of his crew.

    I’m glad I had Captain Picard as an influence in my childhood, rather than whatever youtube channel trying to make me angry for all the wrong reasons.



  • VSCode is by far and away the best thing Microsoft has ever done. (I’m sure therefore they will ruin it eventually, but that’s a separate issue)

    Its good for two main reasons IMO:

    1. It is plugin-based

    2. It is (therefore) language-agnostic

    Plugins mean the DE starts as a very lightweight thing that is basically nothing more than a text editor. You can then add as much or as little as you want to get the level of features you are comfortable with but without being too bloated.

    And then, because it’s all plugins, you can work with any language and still stay within the same editor. Divine.

    I personally love how lightweight it is compared to a full IDE because I don’t like it when IDEs hide the magic behind UI. Press the button and it compiles huh? But how? What’s going on there? What toolchain and commands are being executed?

    I much prefer a good MAKEFILE where you know what your entry points are and what is going on, because it makes everything so much more portable and also improves your own knowledge and understanding.


  • Wireguard doesn’t necessarily need to have those limitations, but it will depend in part how your VPN profile is set up.

    If you configured your wireguard profile to always route all traffic over the VPN then yeah, you won’t be able to access local networks. And maybe that’s what you want, in which case fine :)

    But you can also set the profile to only route traffic that is destined for an address on the target network (I.e your home network) and the rest will route as normal.

    This second type of routing only works properly however when there are no address conflicts between the network you are on (i.e. someone else’s WiFi) and your home network.

    For this reason if you want to do this it’s best to avoid on your own home network the common ranges almost everyone uses as default, i.e. 192.168.0.* and 10.0.0.*

    I reconfigured my home network to 192.168.22.* for that reason. Now I never hit conflicts and VPN can stay on all the time but only traversed when needed :)







  • Even Andor is true to that formula.

    In one part, two characters are speaking over “radio” comms using code talk - presumably in case there are any Empire operatives listening in. And prior to that they kept missing each other because they weren’t at their radios at the same time. Derp!

    So you’ve got hyperspace travel and laser guns, but no data encryption, or text messaging. Alright then.

    Except of course, they do have those things when the plot calls for it, and that’s another reason to consider it fantasy. In most sci-fi the rules stay pretty consistent, but in fantasy it’s flexible.





  • I recently swapped my Dad’s Windows computer with my old machine, which I installed Linux on ahead of time.

    I told him it was a faster machine - which it was just slightly in the hardware sense, a very minor upgrade. A half-truth to encourage the transition.

    But of course, it’s running Linux, not Windows.

    Next day he phones me up really happy that it’s “so much faster than the old machine!”

    And it really is a lot faster, but it’s not the hardware. It’s just not getting bogged down with all the crap Windows constantly does in the background.

    Either way, mission accomplished.


  • I chose lemm.ee mostly by chance, but I think that it’s worked out okay for me.

    My impression is that it’s a mostly neutral instance which doesn’t really have a strong agenda, and federates with most other instances. This is definitely what I want, because it gives me access to the most content.

    If there are communities or users I find I have issues with, I can block them myself.





  • Unplugging the keyboard requires getting down on my hands and knees, groping around to find a plug I can’t visually see, and probably dislocating my shoulder in the process.

    And then even more luck required to get the plug I can’t see back IN, trying the USB every single way blind by feel only, and neither way wants to accept it’s the right one.

    It’s an absolute last resort.