My mom died when I was 7, after which my dad bought me a Commodore 64 so I had something to lose myself in during the mourning process.

I learned everything about that system, from my first GOTO statement to sprite buffers, to soldering my own EPROM cartridges. My dad didn't deal with the loss so well, and became a missing person 5 years later when I was 12.

I got into foster care with a bunch of strict religious cultists who wouldn't allow electronics in the house.

So I ran away at 14, sub-rented a closet in a student apartment using my orphan benefits and bought a secondhand IBM computer. I spent about 16 hours a day learning about BSD and Linux, C, C++, Fortran, ADA, Haskell, Livescript and even more awful things like Visual Basic, ASP, Windows NT, and Active Directory.

I faked my ID (back then it was just a laminated sheet of paper), and got a job at 15-pretending-to-be-17 at one of the first ISPs in my country. I wrote the firmware and admin panel for their router, full of shitty CGI-bin ASP code and vulnerabilities.

That somehow got me into a job at Microsoft, building the MS Office language pack for my country, and as an official "conflict resolver" for their shitty version control system. Yes, they had fulltime people employed just to resolve VCS conflicts.

After that I worked at Arianespace (X-ray NDT, visualizing/tagging dicom scans, image recognition of faulty propellant tank welds), and after that I switched to biotech, first phytogenetics, then immunology, then pharmacokynetics.

In between I have grown & synthesized and sold large quantities of recreational drugs, taken care of some big felines, got a pilot license, taught IT at an elementary school, renovated a house, and procreated.

A lot of it was to prove myself to the world -- prove that a nearly-broke-orphan-high-school-dropout could succeed at life.

But hey, now I work for a "startup", so I guess I failed after all.

If you think you know the most idiot person in the world, you haven't met my brother.

His brain absolutely can't comprehend anything!

He forgot his Roblox password and told me to do something. I said I can't do anything about it. Then he yelled at the top of his lungs saying, "you don't know technology! You're too stupid and selfish. Fix it!"

I said I can't do anything about it. He throws the mouse at me and says, "I never get to have fun. You ruin my life!"

He's not a little kid btw. He's fucking 14.

Today my mom forgot to pay the wifi password, and she thinks its better not to pay it today so it can stop my brother from playing games. (He plays it from morning to night. No homework, no cleaning, no nothing. Just games all day.)

So he told me to fix it. I said I cant. There's nothing I can do. Then he punches my arm really hard. (He's taller and stronger than me so it really hurt) then he threw a shoe and said, "you're useless and stupid! You have your laptop so you can have fun but I never get to have fun. You ruin my life, and I hate you. I hate my life."

Then he ran to mess up my room by tossing things from the self, removing clothes from my closet, and messed up my bed. He pushed my sister, pulled my hair, and ran to his room, slamming the door.

Please. Please someone give him a brain! He desperately needs one. I said I can't fix it, and that my mom has to pay the WiFi bill, but he thinks I'm being mean.

He has the mind of a 5 year old. Dropping to the ground crying.

I was 15 years old and the first year of high school. Everything was new to me and I was such a newbie. At that time I had 2-3 year of programming behind me at an institution where they taught competitive programming. And I knew something about computers. Not much but more than most of my school mates. At that time I wanted to become "super cool hacker".

So we had this very very thought teacher for history which was also our form master. She really knows how to explained everything about history and in an interesting way. But while she was teaching we also had to write down notes from her powerpoints that were on a projector. And occasionally she would wait for us to copy everything and then move on with her lecture. But sometimes she didn't. This was frustrating as hell. The whole class would complain about this because you couldn't take notes down normal, you had to do it at double speed.

But she got one weak spot. She was not very good with computers. Our school computers were locked in some kinda closet so that students didn't have physical access to a computer and were also password protected. So I came up with the plan to plant wireless mouse in her computer so that I could control her mouse. At that time it seemed like SUPER HACKER MASTER PLAN.

So I got an opportunity one time when she left the classroom and let closet where the computer was open. I quickly sneaked the USB of the wireless mouse in the computer and then go back to the seat.

So THE FUN began.

Firstly I would only go back in powerpoint so that all my schoolmates could write down notes including me. And it was hilarious to watch when she didn't know what is happening. So then I would move her mouse when she tried to close some window. I would just move it slightly so she wouldn't notice that somebody else is controlling mouse. And by missing X button just by slight she would click other things and other things would pop up and now she had to close this thing so it became a nightmare for her. And she would become angry at the mouse and start complaining how the computer doesn't work and that mouse doesn't obey her.

One time when she didn't pay attention to her computer and projector I went to paint program and drew a heart and wrote we love you (In Slovenian Imamo vas radi -> See the picture below) and one of my school mates has the picture of it. We were all giggling and she didn't know what is was for. And I managed to close everything before she even noticed.

So it got to the point where she couldn't hand it more so she called our school IT guy so that he would check her computer (2 or 3 weeks passed before she called IT guy). And he didn't find anything. He was really crappy IT guy in general. So one week passed by and I still had messed with her mouse. So she got a replacement computer. Who would guessed all the problems went away (because I didn't have another mouse like that). I guess when our IT guy took the computer to his room and really thoroughly check it he found my USB.

So he told her what was the problem she was so pissed off really I didn't see her pissed off so much in all my 4 years in high school. She demanded the apology from whom did it. And at that moment my mind went through all possible scenarios... And the most likely one was that I was going to be expelled... And I didn't have the balls to say that I did it and I was too afraid... Thanks to God nobody from my school mates didn't tell that it was me.

While she waited that somebody would come forward there was one moment when our looks met and at that moment both of us knew that I was the one that did it.

Next day the whole class wrote the apology letter and she accepted it. But for the rest of 4 years whenever was there a problem with the computer I had to fixed it and she didn't trust anybody not even our IT guy at school. It was our unwritten contract that I would repair her computer to pay off my sin that I did. And she once even trusted me with her personal laptop.

So to end this story I have really high respect for her because she is a great teacher and great persons that guide me through my teen years. And we stayed in contact.

I’m kind of pissy, so let’s get into this.
My apologies though: it’s kind of scattered.

Family support?
For @Root? Fucking never.

Maybe if I wanted to be a business major my mother might have cared. Maybe the other one (whom I call Dick because fuck him, and because it’s accurate) would have cared if I suddenly wanted to become a mechanic. But in both cases, I really doubt it. I’d probably just have been berated for not being perfect, or better at their respective fields than they were at 3x my age.

Anyway.
Support being a dev?
Not even a little.

I had hand-me-down computers that were outmoded when they originally bought them: cutting-edge discount resale tech like Win95, 33/66mhz, 404mb hd. It wouldn’t even play an MP3 without stuttering.

(The only time I had a decent one is when I built one for myself while in high school. They couldn’t believe I spent so much money on what they saw as a silly toy.)

Using a computer for anything other than email or “real world” work was bad in their eyes. Whenever I was on the computer, they accused me of playing games, and constantly yelled at me for wasting my time, for rotting in my room, etc. We moved so often I never had any friends, and they were simply awful to be around, so what was my alternative? I also got into trouble for reading too much (seriously), and with computers I could at least make things.

If they got mad at me for any (real or imagined) reason (which happened almost every other day) they would steal my things, throw them out, or get mad and destroy them. Desk, books, decorations, posters, jewelry, perfume, containers, my chair, etc. Sometimes they would just steal my power cables or network cables. If they left the house, they would sometimes unplug the internet altogether, and claim they didn’t know why it was down. (Stealing/unplugging cables continued until I was 16.) If they found my game CDs, those would disappear, too. They would go through my room, my backpack and its notes/binders/folders/assignments, my closet, my drawers, my journals (of course my journals), and my computer, too. And if they found anything at all they didn’t like, they would confront me about it, and often would bring it up for months telling me how wrong/bad I was. Related: I got all A’s and a B one year in high school, and didn’t hear the end of it for the entire summer vacation.

It got to the point that I invented my own language with its own vocabulary, grammar, and alphabet just so I could have just a little bit of privacy. (I’m still fluent in it.) I would only store everything important from my computer on my only Zip disk so that I could take it to school with me every day and keep it out of their hands. I was terrified of losing all of my work, and carrying a Zip disk around in my backpack (with no backups) was safer than leaving it at home.

I continued to experiment and learn whatever I could about computers and programming, and also started taking CS classes when I reached high school. Amusingly, I didn’t even like computers despite all of this — they were simply an escape.

Around the same time (freshman in high school) I was a decent enough dev to actually write useful software, and made a little bit of money doing that. I also made some for my parents, both for personal use and for their businesses. They never trusted it, and continually trashtalked it. They would only begrudgingly use the business software because the alternatives were many thousands of dollars. And, despite never ever having a problem with any of it, they insisted I accompany them every time, and these were often at 3am. Instead of being thankful, they would be sarcastically amazed when nothing went wrong for the nth time. Two of the larger projects I made for them were: an inventory management system that interfaced with hand scanners (VB), and another inventory management system for government facility audits (Access). Several websites, too. I actually got paid for the Access application thanks to a contract!

To put this into perspective, I was selected to work on a government software project about a year later, while still in high school. That didn’t impress them, either.

They continued to see computers as a useless waste of time, and kept telling me that I would be unemployable, and end up alone.

When they learned I was dating someone long-distance, and that it was a she, they simply took my computer and didn’t let me use it again for six months. Really freaking hard to do senior projects without a computer. They begrudgingly allowed me to use theirs for schoolwork, but it had a fraction of the specs — and some projects required Flash, which the computer could barely run.

Between the constant insults, yelling, abuse (not mentioned here), total lack of privacy, and the theft, destruction, etc. I still managed to teach myself about computers and programming.

In short, I am a dev despite my parents’ best efforts to the contrary.

Bought new headphones because my current ones' input fucked up again. Already ordered a new one for free but hours of traveling today without music isn't really an option for me.

New headphones don't work on devices without usb ports! 😭.

Went back to the store because I didn't know that and thought they were just failing and got it explained there. No money back because they were working fine.

Me: "well fuck me right now, then I'll just travel without music today :'(".
Guy: *grabs something from a closet thingy* "Here you go, a pair of earphones!"
Me: "Awesome! How much?"
Guy: "Enjoy your traveling man!".

😮

Thanks a thousand times to that guy!

I'm moving to a new place soon meaning that I'll have to get a new desk/chair. (current ones suck)

I need a good one of both but I'm not rich so was looking for more cheap options.

The guy next to me is moving out soon as well appearantly and he came to me and another roommate like "hey I'm going to buy everything new, fresh start! If you guys would like to have anything, let me know!"

Me: also a desk/chair by any chance?
Guy: yup, take a look :)
*takes a look*
Me: the damn they look very good! Are you sure you want to get rid of them? I'd think they cost quite some money.
Guy: yeah, you can also have the couch table/clothing closet if you'd like! (all designer/quality stuffs)

😍

Look at what I just found reorganizing my closet!
Ubuntu 5.10 from when they actually used to mail a free physical copy to try it. It's the third release of the OS and the one that started the alphabetical naming convention with Breezy Badger. Might give it a nostalgic try tomorrow 😁

Rebuttal to all these beautiful wiring closet shots. This was taken at my first internship in 2002. As green as I was, I still knew this was awful.

(Pardon the low fidelity; it's a snap of a 14 year old printout!)

Root encounters HR at her new job.

So, I left my job a few weeks ago. I was pretty sad about it, so I didn't want to write anything about it. It was a great place to work, with great managers, decent coworkers, and interesting work. I also had free reign over how I built things, what to improve, etc. Within about four months, I authored over half of the total commits on their backend repo, added a testing suite with 90% coverage, significantly improved the security (more accurately: added security), etc. but I got a job offer that allowed me to work remotely, and make well over six figures (usd). I couldn't turn it down, even though I wanted to. So, I left. I'm still genuinely sad about that. I had emotions and everything. 🙁 I stayed on long enough to finish the last of the features for their new product launch, and make sure everything was stable. I'm welcome back whenever, though they don't want to have remote employees, and I want to move, so. that's probably not going to happen. sigh.

Anyway, I started my new job this week. Rented an office (read: professional closet) and everything! It's been veritable mountains of HR paperwork so far. That's all I've done besides some accounts setup. I've seriously only worked on and completed one ticket so far in two and a half days, and I still have six documents/contracts to sign! (and benefits; that'll probably take my weekend.)

But getting an I9 thing notarized? Apparently I only have three days before I'm legally unemployable by them or something, idk. HR made it sound ridiculously dire and important, and reminded me like five or more times. I figured it was just some notary service; that takes like 10 minutes, right? So I put it off until my second day so I didn't have to disappear in the middle of my first day. Anyway, I called a bunch of notary services on day 2, and apparently only like 5% of them both do notary services this time of year and aren't booked full. And of those, probably another 5% will notarize I9 documents.. No idea why it's rare, but whatever, I'm not a notary.

The HR lady assured me that I didn't need any special documents; I should just go there, present my IDs, and the notary will provide or draft documents for everything else. Totally doesn't sound right, but fine; I'm not a notary nor will I ever work in HR, so I'm not very knowledgeable about this. So, against my better judgement I decided to just go anyway. I called around and finally found a place that wasn't closed, busy, or refusing, and drove over there. Waited. Waited. Waited. Notary lady was super slow in every single action. (I should mention that it's now 10am, and I have a meeting with the Senior VP of Engineering [a stern, stubborn old goat who enjoys making people feel inadequate] at 12:30pm.) The notary lady looks like she's an npc updating in slow motion (maybe at 0.25x speed?) and can't seem to understand what I need. Eventually, she tells me exactly what I had assumed: if there's no document, she can't notarize said document, and she doesn't have an I9 for the company I'm trying to work for. (like, duh.) So I thank her for proving the flow of time is variable, which she ignores in slow motion, and drive back home. It's now about 11.

I message the same HR lady, and the useless wench gawks in surprise and says she's never heard of that ridiculous request before. It took prodding to get her to respond every time, but after some (very slow) back and forth, she says she wants to call the notary personally and ask what they need. I waited around for another response that never came, and eventually just drove to the notary place again to have them notarize the required ID documents. That plus my chat history with HR should be enough to show that I bloody well tried, and HR just shit the bed instead. I finally got them notarized at like 12:10, and totally broke the speed limit the entire way to the office, found the last remaining parking spot, and made it to my office just in time for the meeting. seriously, less than two minutes to spare. Meeting was interesting (mostly about security), but totally made me facepalm, shout "Seriously!? What the hell are you thinking!?" and make slapping motions at some of the people talking. I will probably rant about that next.

But anyway, I'm willing to bet that the useless wench won't get back to me before the notary closes, if at all, and will somehow try to blame it completely on me if I bring it up again. Passive aggressive bitch. She's probably thinking: "If I don't help her with these mandatory legal processes, it'll be her fault she didn't get them done in time. I mean, they're so easy! She's just doing it wrong." I fucking hate HR.

(important details for this 'rant': people often put their tv on/in a piece of furniture that we (dutchies) often call a 'kast' (tv kast(je)) which translates to closet)

*at a birthday party, mate plugs a Chromecast into the tv and lays it in the tv 'closet'.

Me: that's definitely a Chromekast now!

Everyone: 😑

😅

Today I visited a partnered company, best summarized as "our people are the best at what they do, although we haven't figured out what it is that we do".

It was fucking awful.

Halfway a presentation about "capitalization on the internet of things" which featured nothing about hardware or protocols at all, a guy stood up and started talking about improvements on ecdsa and schnorr encryption or something... for no apparent reason. Then followed a bunch of pretty slides about the sharing economy... after which the CEO concluded with some vague speech about decentralized management of assets in a globalist world or whatever...

It was like a bunch of pretty smart people all had been locked up in some kind of closet with mirrors on the inside for six months, discussed their best ideas with their own reflections, then immediately grouped up and convinced an investor to fund their startup.

Ugh, I have to wash my ears and eyes with bleach. My brain is flooded with pretentious bullshit buzz and over the top startup decadence.

Actually, I think this sums it up best: There was a framed oil painting of the CEO with his dogs in the conference room, and the bathroom had a large marble Charizard statue watching me pee.

Sick.
Worst sleep of my life last night.
Freezing cold, weak, sore, can’t think, starving but can’t eat or drink, as low energy as a dead Chinese “heavy duty” battery.

Finished some changes to my feature today anyway; everything should be done now. Refactored some specs, and got them all to pass.

Falling asleep on my closet floor. Heavy winter coat, fuzzy pants, space heater. It’s warm in here and there’s a shelf for my lappy. Floor is uncomfortable but idc. I’m so tired and out of it I don’t even notice.

This sucks.

At least I have the rest of the week off.

!dev

Tired, went to bed early. Took two melatonin because I haven’t been sleeping well. Layed down at 9:30pm, tried to sleep for hours, couldn’t, and ended up feeling wide awake at like 11:30. Memories of my parents and their endless shit resurfaced and flooded into my mind, and made me various combinations of livid and sad and distraught. Got up and sat in the closet at 2am to try and clear my head, and eventually gave up and started my work day at 2:45. Got quite a bit done, and it cleared my head. Yay!

But it’s now 6:25am and I have standup at 10:30, and a day full of meetings. :<

… and plenty of memories I would very much rather not remember.

!dev

So the ceiling in our (upstairs) laundry room started leaking. After some troubleshooting, we determined it was the A/C, and not the water pipes. (The house is cheap as hell and fucking stupid.) We did some troubleshooting and research, and tried fixing it ourselves; no luck. Cleaning the pipes from outside: no joy. Cleaning the pipes from inside: no access. The attic is ... small. Maybe half a small closet? and doesn’t give access to fucking anything. The builders must have installed everything before putting up the walls and ceilings, sealing everything off, because there is no access. It’s fucking stupid. Also, the usual maintenance openings aren’t even there either because why the fuck would they be?

But fucking whatever.

We called an a/c repair guy, who never showed. We assumed he was busy (it’s fucking hot), so we called him again the next day; two days later he showed.

Busy. Whatever.

Guy didn’t bring a ladder. Whatever, we have one right there in the hallway because we’ve been trying in vain to fix it.

Guy didn’t bring a wrench of any kind. Guy didn’t bring a screwdriver. Guy didn’t bring a bucket. Guy didn’t bring any pipe. Or any pipe sealant. Or fucking anything but his sagging fucking pants, fat belly, and fat stench. We had to supply everything, which fortunately we had on hand as we were already trying to fix it. Hoorah for being proactive.

Guy said he drained both primary and secondary pans. Somehow. Without access. I’m not even convinced it HAS a secondary pan. Guy said he cleaned out the pipes, too. From inside the house. Without access. Somehow. Maybe he did that from outside, without tools, while I was chasing the brats and someone else was watching the fat bastard. Who knows; I wasn’t with him most of the time.

When he was done, the guy said “pay whatever you think it’s worth” (or whatever). Fine, if he actually cleaned the pipes out and it isn’t leaking anymore, that’s great.

Guy leaves.

We go up to check. AND THE FUCKING A/C IS STILL LEAKING. BUT NOW IT’S FROM BEFORE THE PIPES, TOO. AND HALF AN HOUR LATER, THE LAUDRY ROOM CEILING IS ALSO LEAKING, WHICH MEANS THE PIPES ARE STILL LEAKING.

It turns out the asshole broke the pan.

We call him back, he goes blah blah blah, we send him a video. Drip, drip, drip.

His response?
“The pan must be rusted.” IT’S FUCKING PLASTIC.

“Oh, in that case, it’s probably a rusted coil that’s leaking.”

a) HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW IT WAS FUCKING PLASTIC IF YOU DRAINED IT?

b) THE COILS CARRY FREON, NOT WATER, AND THE A/C IS STILL WORKING. IF THERE WAS A LEAK, SHIT WOULD BE HOT. AND RANK. FREON SMELLS NASTY AND DOESN’T CAUSE IT TO RAIN IN THE FUCKING HOUSE.

REPLACING A COIL IS ALSO A $2000 FUCKING REPAIR.

THE FAT BASTARD PROBABLY BROKE THE PAN INTENTIONALLY JUST TO UPSELL. I WANT TO FUCKING MURDER HIS LYING FUCKING FACE OFF.

It’s possible he didn’t break the pan intentionally, so I’ll tentatively remove that from his charges. BUT TO FUCKING LIE?

LIE AND DIE, FUCKER.

For security purposes, it should be good practice to lock your pc when you walk away. At my office, we practice harmless pranks when someone forgets, to "teach them a lesson". Usually just involves reversing/inverting displays, reversing mouse buttons, or changing the desktop background like this (because everyone is a closet bronie apparently)

During the last couple of days, I got to hear quite a horrible story...

So we start at the beginning, where I have a dev-related chat with some other strangers on the internet. One of them was working on a custom protocol implementation with an API to go with it, written in Python. There were plans to migrate the codebase to another language like Rust in the long term. So the project seemed to be going well.

Another guy and the main subject of this chimed in on various of our messages, and long story short - he uses Express.js for everything he does, and he doesn't know jack shit on what he's talking about. Yet he still does.

Later we got the delight to hear that he had beaten up his mother, and that she's now in the hospital because of it, with broken arms, hands, fingers and severe bleeding. Yet he has the audacity to complain about his sore throat, caused by all his shouting. He refuses to seek any help, or to take medicines he's been given. This has been going on for several days now.

As much as I hate to even think about it, these too are "developers". I too have skeletons in my closet, but goddamn.. that these people even exist. The very idea that you may be talking to them every day. It disgusts me.

It was a Monday morning, and I did what most people do - I got up late. When I came to senses, I realized I have an important client meeting today.
I ran towards my closet and grabbed my favorite shirt, but it was a mess, badly wrinkled.

But no problem, I decided to put this task on my old but trusty laptop, I waked up my laptop (Which has just celebrated its 12th birthday yesterday), it literally coughed 100 times as i opened 3-4 chrome tabs and android studio on it. Within a minute , my newly found laptop-iron become as hot as the surface of sun, i gently placed my shirt under it and in 5 seconds my shirt was looking brand new !!! I quickly got dressed up , while my laptop was cursing me at the back.

Luckily my meeting went well and we secured a new project, on my way home I was happy and satisfied that my oldy has found a new purpose of life as a makeshift iron.

I returned home, and to my surprise my laptop was'nt turning on....!!! I though maybe its tired from todays work so i let him rest..........

Had to change my avatars clothes, dont want people thinking i dont wash.

Went to check my closet on the app, shit... Im a poor bastard. Dont have enough money, cough i mean points to get that new pair of shoes ive been eyeing.

Got me thinking, we are all essentially sugar mommies and daddies. I always wanted to give that a go, so far im liking it.

Long story short - thanks for this space everyone including the community

#liveLongAndProsper Dev Rant

Is common decency too much to expect?

If you give someone a job in the company you work for, do you expect them to badmouth you? Or to try to humiliate you? Why do people do this?

I hate people who dog on wsl

Windows subsystem Linux

I use it. It has been wonderful. No problems that Google couldn't fix. Always a patch or an update.

And I can use Windows just fine.

No dual boot needed, no bullshit wine needed, no having to do without Photoshop

There,.. I'm out of the closet

My uncle showed me how to use it ok mom and dad

I'm starting a wsl parade who's in

About 8 years ago I had a choice, go developer or system administrator. I chose developer and never looked back.

Then I've spent the last week or so - on and off - perfecting a Boxstarter script to setup our Software Developer laptops, right down to the Visual Studio Code extensions and Visual Studio Code Standards.

Boot up a new computer, join it to the domain and start the script. It's therapeutic to watch.

I actually enjoyed it... am I a closet system administrator?

I practice stress-debugging.
It means that while I'm debugging and still in the phase where I have lots of ideas about what possibly went wrong (thanks to my loyal diagnostic team of ducks), I intentionally increase my discomfort level, forcing my brain to work faster and solve the issue. I don't drink, eat, or go to the loo no matter how desperately I need to, until the bug is fixed.
My colleagues and managers think I'm insane or a closet masochist but nevertheless, they acknowledge it actually works for me.
How weird is that?

I tend to go hide in the IT closet. It's dark and the only noise is the fans on the server rack. Very relaxing and no one has figured out that's where I disappeared to.

... Yet

I’m working at an architecture firm these days, so I don’t have many “dev” stories to tell. However, I’d like to share this anecdote to reassure (or demoralize) you all that the kind of nonsense we’ve all dealt with as software developers isn’t limited to the software industry.

I’ve been working on a project to build townhomes and apartments on vacant lots in an urban environment.
Space is limited, so the client assured us early on that they would be centralizing all the mechanical equipment (water heaters, air conditioners, etc.) in the basement of each building. We finally got all the apartments laid out and presented them to the client last week. During that meeting, we get a casual “oh, by the way, we need a 3-foot by 3-foot mechanical closet in each apartment.” Did the project manager push back? Of course not. Have our deadlines been adjusted as a result of changing requirements? Don’t be silly! Starting tomorrow morning, the team gets to feverishly search for an extra 9 square feet in each of a couple dozen different apartment layouts that are already “cozy” in time to meet our next deliverable.

Clients suck.
Changing requirements suck.
Pushover PMs suck.
In every industry.

!rant
I want to present to you:

My new server closet!

It's called "SaaSBox" from a German meme. Pls don't rate my cable management 😂

It isn't finished jet there is missing an AP and a dedicated modem.

What a wiring closet at a tech school looks like

I have a dedicated office space at home with a huge desk that was given to me by my mom and stepdad as a gift with a really nice chair that my wife got for me. It has a nice long whiteboard to write whatever it is I am doing, a bookshelf with tons of coding books and guitar magazines and shit. A closet with good space and in a corner sits my guitar and amp.

Where can I be located during coding hours? In the floor, on the living room, using a box to put one of my laptops in.

Why am I like this?

Random story, I was working on a project a few years ago that had a very tight deadline and a lot of code to write. I had been working late in the office most evenings but one night myself and a colleague had stayed later than usual as we got carried away with supporting peripherals​ in the epos.
The cleaner came in on evenings and we had seen her that night, but had not heard anything for a while so when it came time to leave we figured we best lockup the 2 offices.

After making a quick pass through the building we couldn't see her so proceeded to lock up. Fortunately before setting the alarm we spotted her motorbike in the adjacent car park and decided to have another look.

I'm not quite sure why I decided to look in the tiny supply room/closet but fortunately I did as I found the cleaner standing in this tiny room​playing games on her phone 😂

This is workstation setup.
Put icebags in the closet to have mainframe cooled setup.

Unluckily not me

I was setting up a small home server running CentOS to my closet and was fighting with a USB Wifi adapter that wouldn't stay "awake". Googled the error messages and nothing...

Decided to about it on the CentOS forums and mentioned (MENTIONED, WASNT THE POINT) CWP (CentOS WebPanel) in my question, an admin came, COMMENTED A LINK TO A FORUM POST THAT TOLD "CWP IS NO WAY LINKED TO CENTOS" AND CLOSED THE QUESTION!
FUUUCKKKKK, i wanted to hit something sooo hard. The admin basically turned my point from A to X.

The networking closet I had the pleasure of working in most of last night. That's all very loud, very warm air compressors at the bottom, and the switch, firewall, and modem up near the top. And all they had was a small step stool...

Still new to dev, so I'm only used to windows but I want to try Linux. Don't want chance messing up my expensive pc, so instead, installing on old laptop I've been keeping in the closet. Installing Ubuntu Gnome, looked like a safe choice for beginner. This way I can try it out without consequence and possibly get new life out of an old machine.
Incidentally, any Linux specific apps/programs you'd recommend to a newbie?

fuck it; at 10K updoots i'll reveal my identity

then everyone will know i'm a closet psychopath

it may be risky!

it may be ruinious to my career!

let's do it!

Laptop as server in a networking rack in a reasonably well ventilated closet?

I have to say one of the most annoying things in software development is building tools that will never be really used by clients, sometimes clients just want something new and shiny and once they get it off it goes into a dark closet of no use to gather webs

Condemning my HP stream to server-tude
going to host a minecraft server on that one on the subwoofer - let's pray that my sick beats don't cause a crash
(i'd put it in the closet, but the charger won't reach that far, and the closet has no outlet)

So... My parent's house is 40 years old.
I'm cleaning the corners... and my father as a DIY guy and a man that was never afraid to learn and update, there is so must useful junk, but also soooo many card boxes. He never throws them away, in case he needs to return the item.
So... I've been cleaning a 3 shelf open closet.
- have around 8 bags of cardboard, paper and newspappers for recycling.
- plus 2 bags of plastic.
- 4 bags filled with books for the local community center.
- a bag full of electronics to salvage.
And this only in 2 rows...
Man how could he store so much stuff in there I don't know, but this ends up being fun.
Also, one printer to salvage. :D
When it's over I get to own the shelf to store my stuff :D

Deleting useless code is almost as enjoyable as discontinuing a domain name you spent hundreds on and never really used it.

i often do tech support in chat rooms in my free time (because i like spreading good will,) so here's a tech horror story

"""

"hey, can you help me fix something?"

sure?

"so i dug my old XP machine out of my closet and replaced the bad Ethernet card with a different one and when i plug in the ethernet cable the PC bluescreens."

# oboi

did you install the drivers? Sounds like it needs drivers

"no"

then install them

"no"

why not?

"it doesn't need any"

why do you say that?

"it said \"This device is set up and ready to use.\" in the balloon in the corner"

it has generic drivers to deal with devices before the real drivers can be found

"shouldn't they work?"

some devices need the extra support provided by the intended drivers, so the generic ones cause issues in those cases

"ok, well, where do I find them?"

do you have a model number?

"yes, it's " # scrubbed for... privacy? i dunno

gimme a few minutes

<insert 45 minutes of aggressive Googling for (str(DEVICE_MODEL_NUMBER) + " xp drivers")>

alright i have the drivers, go here:
# again, removed for... idk.

"they don't work"

# oh here we go

why not?

"These drivers are not compatible with your system architecture."

what version of XP are you using?

"XP Pro"

x86 or x64?

"x64"

# fucking...

ok so this is gonna get real complicated real fast: use x86 XP or I can't help you, none exist for x64 XP.

"oh ok"

<User left the IRC channel.>

"""

How long should one stay in a new role before... Well.. You know... letting all the rants out off the closet?

Went into the office today to turn in my badge and gun (security badge/parking pass and yubikeys really) since I'm pretty much being given my last week before changing jobs to do brain dumps for knowledge transfer, and fuck all else.

Found a jar of moonshine in a closet when I went to take my things. IT said I could keep it. Not a bad parting gift.

What's your most trusted computer part manufacturer list? Personally, it goes something like this:

CPU: AMD. They're performing at or above Intel's spec, without the weekly IME holes. Sometimes cost a little more, but they last way longer.

GPU: AMD, ASUS, MSI. MSI is usually over-priced but performs a smidge better, ASUS is usually a good middle-ground. Anything with an AMD chipset's usually gonna hold together fairly well, though, and won't require massively-unstable closed-source drivers for decent Linux performance. "but muh cuda" doesn't fly when OpenCL is actually, well, open.

Storage: Seagate, obviously, and SanDisk for cheap SSDs. SanDisk SSDs, especially their cheapest ones, are durable as shit for price. As for the Seagate pick... is that not self-explanatory?

Mobo: ASUS, ASRock if you need garbage in a pinch. ASUS boards are usually fairly tough, and ASRock is cheap trash for that backup tower that's gone bad in the closet.

PSU: EVGA, accept no substitute. EVGA PSUs are durable as fuck and fairly cheap, compared to other "ultra-durable" brands.

found all my DDR1 that went missing recently

my dad stole it, put it in a RAM hardcase, then packed it in the back of his closet

he doesn't even have anything that accepts DDR1

what an asshole

So I have a semi big project ongoing:

Because my modem+router combo sucks dick and gets buttfucked to much I want to make my own Router with PPPoE.

So I ordered an 8 euro used switch, 24ports for management, but our IP TV provider is sucking cock too! He uses multicasting to send the fucking IP TV signal. So the switch is not VLan ready and so the network will be flodded.

But that's not the worst...

I don't know how to route VOIP over QoS correctly... So I just hope that part work's!

I also ordered another network switch Wich is manageable + an God damn networking closet. 80 bucks gone again! Wish me luck this works better...

BUT THATS NOT THE WORST BECAUSE NOW COMES THE HEAVY PART!

I wanted to use my old AMD Athlon X2 64bit and 4 gigs of RAM PC to be my powerhouse of the router. I plugged it into the wall, booted, screen error... Thought it might be the integrated graphics card... Unplugged my old one, inserted it.... AND IT WOR... NOPE NOPE IT DIDN'T NOW MY DAMN MOTHERBOARD IS FUCKING FRIED TO DUST BECAUSE OF THE GOD DAMN ... I DONT EVEN KNOW! AAAAA

So I thought I could temporarily use my raspberry pi one model b, a good fellow with multiple years of usage! I plugged in the sd card into my girls laptop, wasn't at home, and her God damn internet downloaded that shitty raspbian (sorry raspi but your servers sometimes are very slow) and after the download I realized her GOD DAMN SD READER DIDNT FUCKING WORK!!!

SO I GUESS I WILL WAIT!

!dev

TL: DR - This year is not good so far.

One important thing that I learned this year is you understand a certain person's importance after they are no more.

My grandfather, whom I've always hated, ignored, made my distance from him, just because he was unfair with me and my mother since my childhood, passed away a few days before. Only then I realized what kind of a fucking idiot I am.

On top of that, 2 of my best friends stop being friends with me, for one I had gone too far with a practical joke and for another, I proposed her.

But 2 months from now I expect things to be left behind, locked away in a closet, and throw away the key.

So, I'll just say this, that acknowledge person while they are here, don't hold any grudge towards any fucking one.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire:
So in my first job, I thought it's just us operating so crazy: meddling with arcane C/C++ code from the 80's, shooting our code to production without testing, fixing hundred of customers data base entries by hand, letting an intern alter some core component (to have more logging) and directly push it to prod...
Silly me.
I mean I suspected, that maybe it's not only this tiny little company acting wild, that also the bigger companies with all their ISO certified processes, agile blabla, professional tooling whatsoever - will also have their skeleton in the closet,.. like some obscure assembler part buried in the heart of your code base nobody dares to touch...
How Pieter Hintjens asked about the state of the industry and all the fads so bluntly put it:
"It's all bullshit."
But we are humans, so we better jump on the bandwagon if we want to keep our jobs... and somehow try to keep that trashy house of cards from crashing down.

Oh, hello dear PO. You suddenly wanted a change to be done after being silent for months?

Silly, silly you. I'm not some kind of rack you drag out of the closet whenever it suits you.

I am now assigned to another project. Your project can't be completed for months, and it ain't my fault.

TL:DR I wanna scare the shit out of intruders, do you recommend Arduino or Raspberry Pi?

So, I live in a place kinda like a college, but everyone get their own room. There's staff 24/7, and obviously, I really dislike some of them. Otheres I just like to joke with.

Sometimes, I've thought of putting together a "system" which will probably make them shit a brick.
The way I would do this, is have an Arduino or Raspberry Pi connected to a sensor, which will trigger an airhorn somehow. Yes, and airhorn. They should shit bricks, remember?

That's the beginning tho. Later, if this ever becomes something, I plan on adding some system so it wont trigger when I open the door, along with flashing red lights when intruders opens the door.

I attached a picture. The smaller rectangle is my closet. First circle is the sensor, which I assume can just tell when the door moves, if I place it correctly.
The rectangle is the Arduino or Raspberry Pi, which should control it all as you probably already know.
The second circle is the airhorn. Not sure how I'm gonna trigger that yet.

So, does any of you have some advice or recommendations on how I can make this dream become true? Or even additional components to make it more efficient?
Last and most importantly, would Arduino or Raspberry Pi be best for this, is there a specific model thats better fit?

We could make (broom closet) a place on earth

Was moving some equipment into my closet/attic space to reduce noise and had to use a laptop with SSH to reconfigure a few things. It was dark with only a laptop screen to guide the way.

Recently joined new Android app (product) based project & got source code of existing prod app version.

Product source code must be easy to understand so that it could be supported for long term. In contrast to that, existing source structure is much difficult to understand.

Package structure is flat only 3 packages ui, service, utils. No module based grouped classes.

No memory release is done. So on each screen launch new memory leaks keep going on & on.

Too much duplication of code. Some lazy developer in the past had not even made wrappers to avoid direct usage of core classes like Shared Preference etc. So at each place same 4-5 lines were written.

Too much if-else ladders (4-5 blocks) & unnecessary repetitions of outer if condition in inner if condition. It looks like the owner of this nested if block implementation has trust issues, like that person thought computer 'forgets' about outer if when inside inner if.

Too much misuse of broadcast receiver to track activities' state in the era of activity, apપ life cycle related Android library.

Sometimes I think why people waste soooo... much efforts in the wrong direction & why can't just use library?!!

These things are found without even deep diving into the code, I don't know how much horrific things may come out of the closet.

This same app is being used by many companies in many different fields like banking, finance, insurance, govt. agencies etc.

Sometimes I surprise how this source passed review & reached the production.

In a quiet, closed space unhindered by distractions.

For me (and I'd imagine, many others here), constant conversations in the background, people walking by, etc absolutely kill my focus and keep me from getting work done. Working from home helps a bit, but my neighbors provide plenty of their own distractions.

Honestly, I'll take a broom closet with a laptop, headphones and an Ethernet jack over any other open office design.

My in-laws seem allergic to keeping fruit on the fridge. In a 40° heat. No wonder half the fruit are spoiled by next morning.

My algorithm for storing produce:

Is it fresh produce? => (No) use another algo. (X)
Is it potatoes or onions? => (Yes) put it in a bowl in a closet (X)
::: Put it all in the fridge, dammit.