Any recommendations for a good note taking tablet?
I want to be able to write and sync notes with syncthing. Digitization would be a good plus.
And read notes, papers, books. Not necessarily bought on the device.

Is Remarkable the holy grail?

I wasn't too into the cold brew thing. Tasted shitty and why do it when you can have a good espresso?

But.

I bought a cold brew bottle couple of weeks ago and I am enjoying it too much. Cool in summer, better than cola, cheaper caffeine and all I need is just a glass. And tastes good if it is not chilled!
I hope my coffee packs don't go stale while I indulge myself.

Dealing with work hangover.
I'm in a state of lull and daze and don't know what to do next.

Y'all got any suggestions?

Been away for sometime. What is with the spam in every second post? Feels like the return of Nigerian prince.

What was wrong with restart that devops started calling it bounce?
What does bounce add that restart didn't, other than sounding cool?

Why do game studios force social/multiplayer in single player games?
Single player sandbox? How about we make it a multiplayer co-op?
Just fine 1 on 1 brawl? Hey how about you find a team and tag team? No? Too bad fuck you, no points to you for a whole fucking season.

Ugh.

I tried mate!
I'm not sure if I like it that much!

@darksideofyay got me into mate tea and I just had to try it for some unknown reason.
I didn't get the pot and bombilla because that seemed unnecessarily expensive for a tea I had not tried.

I got the tea leaves, brewed them like green tea and it didn't work at all. The flavour was lacking and it was a letdown.
But I knew I was drinking it wrong. I needed bombilla. But hold on, @darksideofyay was brewing her toasted mate like tea. So I toasted a handful of leaves and brewed it.
And yay! I like that thicc tobacco aroma. The taste profile is better than green tea but nowhere near the black teas. All in all I'm convinced I need to try it with bombilla.

Fun times.

Can somebody tell me why people put pics of someone else in their profile photo??
Pics of kids/spouse/friends and the like.

I don't know why I'm so annoyed by it.

That moment when you think you are earning above average salary and levels.fyi punctures that ego by showing that you are well below the median.
*sigh
But hey at least I'm not dependent on esops. That's good, right? Right?

Guys...watch the cppcon21 keynotes.
That is good stuff.

The insights and ideas in these talks are not just for c++. They apply to CS in general.

The presenters have done a phenomenal job with the content. There is a good deal of philosophy for what it means to code and how it should look like (not specifically in c++). Most of it is distilled insights collated right from the times when computer science was a domain of mathematicians and ee majors to the modern age.
It is like Dr.Dobbs but in video. Even book like. Certainly very dense.

Has anyone taken filteredai interview test?
I have an invite that I'm planning to reject because while I might be a commodity to the company I don't want to feel like one.

The process is ridiculous to say the least. I'm supposed to record answers on video for a couple of questions, take another couple of programming challenges and then fucking record myself explaining the code.
And that's not enough. I need to 'authenticate' with my social media creds like LinkedIn for instance. Oh and I also need to install a Firefox extension for the interview.

The hell? I checked out their website (filteredai's) and they claim that they cut down on interview costs and hiring time. It's a fucking shitty way of achieving that. I'm not a cam model ffs.

How do you guys keep up with new concepts and tech? Or what is your preferred source for this activity?

Conferences(in person or youtube)
ACM journals/SIGs
Research papers
Blogs/hackernews or the like
Books
Something else
?

I have two potential offers. A is too good (pay, hours, stability, perks). B is decent (good pay but not so stable, no idea on perks but the work seems cool). Despite better work I'm not inclined to go for B. It is from my previous interview experience rant. People seem shitty, or at least as bad as the ones I'm leaving.
I don't wanna accept A either because they are expecting a longer stay and right now I'm in a state where I don't want to commit more than 6-7 months to anything. 😞

But I don't have any other offers and there aren't any short term projects coming up in my search.

Ugh.

Last job search experience?

I just had an interview today.
15 minutes in, the interviewer isn't done with the dumb questions and is consistent in using incorrect C++ terms. I was close to texting mates about this awful interview but I had camera on, so didn't. (Side rant: hate those entitled interviewing fucks who ask you to turn on your cam while never turning on theirs, and when you ask them, they'll say their connection is weak).

Twice he suggested something wrong or just bad. Corrected his wrong, but he didn't seem to be convinced. Allowed the bad.

Then he asked why am I looking for a change and his reactions to my answers made me realize he hadn't read my resume that was attached with the meeting invite. I assumed he was asking why I'm leaving my current shithole so soon but he was just generally asking why I'm looking for a change. And then he seemed not to believe me when I said I quit because of the stress. Kept asking about other offers and such.

In the end he asked if I'm cool with relocating, and I said not right now, maybe later. All in all, it's not the kind of place that's vibing with me even on short term.

So I'll be back on this week's topic next week too. Perhaps.

Spent 5+ years tolerating the bullshit of this guy (ex boss) and looks like it was a useless addition to my network.

I always got high praise from him and my colleagues and PMs. However, that never translated to good hikes/promotions/any favours of any type. Except for one time I never protested this because I saved the mental stress for other more important things (and that worked out well for me). It allowed me to sort of strut about the place like I own it and that was cool.

But today I needed to encash a favour from this reptile. And it was trivial enough that I thought I could count on that snake. But he did what he always does. Offered a useless alternative to any actual help.
So he helped, tried 'his best' according to 'policy', but I have to refuse it because it's like asking for water but getting air in return. Fucking chode.

I can now leave freely without any regrets!
The slight misgivings I had about leaving this place over the toys they provide, is now gone because I re-realized that while this place adopts new tech, it doesn't adapt to it. So they have shiny tools but the people and processes won't change.
It seems to me that due to pressure to deliver, there is little thought/analysis behind any tech change.

They don't plan to change their wretched delivery pipelines. Everything will be same but on git. So no velocity gains, and same bureaucratic review request process. Such a waste. This attitude applies to their other tools too. They are using a unit test library to write tests that don't use mock. They are using modern languages but without modern idioms. It's like writing C code in C++. And of course theoretically we are agile but actually we're just a waterfall team with managers on our ass everyday and tighter release schedules.

Reminds me of @boombodies recent posts and discussion about business spaghetti reflecting in code.

There are possibly multiple reasons for these problems but I think a large part of it is a lack of empathy/mutual respect. Everyone's too insecure, noone cares for anyone but themselves and people just try to outwit each other.

Starting to learn Haskell/type theory. I have put it off long enough and I hope this time I can get past the 5 minute intro/overview.

So far the only functional programming I have done is trying to write/use functions that take state in parameters only and limiting side effects (that I know of).
Expecting to have my mind blown and to get a monocle too.

Looking for a new job and it's like that toy story meme.

Shitholes. Shitholes everywhere.

On top of that most have plans to restart offices next year and some want me to relocate and change cities. But now I don't want to go to office for more than two days a week.

Sigh'

Ugh.

I'm leaving this shitfest but these people have all the good toys. I just learnt they are moving to git organization wide! They are in the middle of an ongoing transition and if the management were decent, this would be a really kicker place to work at, in another year or so.

Poor attitude but good money and tools. I never thought I'd value work environment over tools and money but here I am.

Let's see.

1. Scott Meyers.
He has a gift at teaching. Easily simplifies and structures complex concepts into memorable bits. And he has that charisma/strategy that you could watch/read any of his presentation/tutorial without prior context and it would still be interesting and fun (and of course improves your understanding on that topic).

2. My trainer at the first company I worked at. Fantastic guy. He would never answer a question right away. He would take a minute, go on to explain an abstract concept and then sort of derive the answer to the original question. Always, towards the end, we would be beaming at each other. I, because the answer would 'click' just before his reveal and him, because of the joy that his explanation worked.
He also emphasized working with the absolute minimal examples just like Meyers.

I was just waiting for it to happen. The gaslighting charade finally crumbles.

Tldr: was strongly asked to work overtime again for no reason, refused it (weakly, but it is a start).

(Boss isn't actually my boss, just my unofficial lead at the moment.)

1.4 hours after regular work hours:

Me: boss, this issue is still not resolved but I am out of ideas for it. Already shared my last resort idea twice with you but you don't agree to it. If you are available I can meet you for a short call before logging off for the weekend.

.
10 minutes later, just as I am about to log off.
.

Boss: let's meet. The problem implies something wrong with your code. Let's check.

Me: [ugh] okay

.
Boss then rambles on about a juvenile nsfw joke to describe the situation and I force a laugh, we get to the topic. I manage to explain the situation despite the interruptions from him. Then he shares his genius idea. We agree it might work but the implementation will be slightly tricky. It is now 2 hours outside of work hours.
.

Boss: can you try it out and let me know if it works?

Me: sure, I'll try it out on Monday and keep you posted.

Boss: Monday?!! Look, it is getting on my nerves now, this has been going on for too long (false, since the issue is from a day before not a week before and I had asked for help multiple times before today).
I don't even know what big boss is going to be like. This needs to be done.

Me:. ...
[ You manipulative asshole, I'm not doing overtime for you, I owe you nothing and don't give a shit about your senile nerves. Fuck you and your shit codebase and clusterfuck development environment which makes the hairballs in a public toilet look well engineered.]
Look, it is difficult for me too...

Boss: If not now, I can accept weekend. Because I don't know how big boss will take it. You understand right what I'm saying. This needs to be done.

Me: [Fuck off scum chod! Take your acceptance, fuck it hard, and take it away with you! ]
Hmm. Let's see what can be done.
Thanks for your help.

Logged off.

I can't express the tone of his righteous rage in words.
I have never had to face such revolting attitude before from people at work. I just don't get how people can be so ridiculous. The whole team is filled with chodebags of different sizes.

Oh gee whiz fellas. I lived through my nightmare. Recently too.

(Multiple rants over last few months are merged in this one. Couldn't rant earlier because my login didn't work.)

I joined a new shithole recently.
It was a huge change because my whole tech stack changed, and on top of that the application domain was new too.

Boss: ho hey newbie, here take this task which is a core service redesign and implementation and finish it in two weeks because it has to be in production for a client.

Normally I'd be able to provide a reasonable analysis and estimate. But being new and unaware of how things work here, I just said 'cool, I'll try my best.' (I was aware that it was a big undertaking but didn't realize the scope and the alarming lack of support I'd get and the bullshit egos I'd have to deal with)
Like a mad man I worked 17+ hours a day with barely a day off every week and changed and produced a lot of code, most of it of decent quality.

Deadline came and went by. Got extended because it was impossible (and fake).

All the time my manager is continuously building pressure on me. When I asked questions I never got any direct/clear answers. On asking for help, I'd get an elaborate word vomit of what was already known/visible. Yet I finally managed to have an implementation ready.

Reviewer: You haven't added parameter comments on your functions and there aren't enough comments in code. We follow standards. Clean code and whatnot. Care for the craft verbal diarrhea.

Boss: Ho hey anux, do you think we'll be able to push the code to production?

Me: Nope. We care for the craft and have standards. We need to add redundant comments to self documented code first, because that is of utmost importance as Nuthead reviewer explained.
(what I wish I had said)

What I actually said: No, code is not reviewed yet.

And despite examples of functions which were not documented (which were written by the reviewer nut), I added 6-7 lines of comments for my single line functions describing how e.g. Sum takes two input integers and returns their sum and asked for a review again.

Reviewer: See this comment is better written as this same-meaning-but-slightly-longer way. Can we please add full stops everywhere even though they were not there to begin with? Can we please not follow this pattern and instead promote our anti-pattern? Thanks.

Me: Changed the comments. Added full stops. Here's a link for why this anti-pattern is bad.

Reviewer: you have written such beautiful code with such little gems. Brilliant. It's great to see how my mentoring has honed your skills.
.
.
.
I swear I would have broken a CRT on his stupid face if we weren't working remotely (and if I had a CRT).

It infuriates me how the solution to every problem with this guy is 'add a comment'.

What enrages me more is that I actually thought I could learn from this guy (in the beginning). My self doubt just made me burnout for little in return.

Thankfully this living nightmare will soon be over.

Hey @dfox

I am unable to login or reset password on my original account @dr-ant

I tried resetting password but I never get the password reset email.

Can you please help?