𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍

Ah, a youngling.

My first programming language was Basic; my second, assembly; third, C. I didn’t get to new-fangled languages like Pascal until i was in college, long after I’d learned the only really useful fundamentals of programming and computer software.

Everything else is just gloss, convenience, and bloat.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Despite that, I’m surprised so little has changed. “Terrorism” wasn’t the big bad until 9/11.

Nice to see Trudeau weighing in. For better or worse, he always seems at his best when there’s an absurd war on.

Not that not all wars are absurd; just that some are more horrific in some dimensions than others.

Amen. A-fucking-nen.

It honestly wouldn’t be nearly as bad if it weren’t for the fact that every store blasts the scent so that it’s inescapable.

We will all become crab.

Contrasts on having a girlfriend who shares her awesome dreams with you in real-time.

It sucks the same way Python sucks. Some people just really don’t like indentation-based syntax. I’m one of them, so I dislike both formats. However, if you groove on that sort of thing, I don’t think YAML is any worse than any other markup.

Oddly, I get along with Haskell, which also used indentation for scoping/delimiting; I can’t explain that, except that, somehow, indentation-based syntax seems to fit better with functional languages. But I have no clear argument about why; it’s just an oddity in my aesthetics.

Oh, no. I hate Pumpkin Spice. Pumpkin Pie at Thanksgiving is my bane. It’s probably why I hate Pumpkin Spice. I could live with the stink it for a couple of days, but after StarFucks came out with Pumpkin Spice, it started getting everywhere starting October and running through Christmas.

And it really does smell more strongly than other things. It’s invasive.

How about you having to work next to someone who slathers himself in surstromming every morning for three months, and then come tell me how OK it is for people to invade your space with “a little smell.”

TIL people love their Pumpkin Spice.

It doesn’t smell “a bit.” It pervades a space. You can’t smell someone’s coffee, or their caramel macchiato, or their OJ, unless you stick your face in their cup. But if someone comes into an office with a pumpkin spice, you know it because it stinks up there entire room.

It wouldn’t be so bad, by itself. What makes it aggregious is that stores start pumping out the pumpkin spice scent around October; it’s everywhere. It’s inescapable. It’s like a crowded Austrian bar in the 1980’s, where there’s a literal cloud ceiling of cigarette snake at a meter high and an impenetrable haze that limits visibility to 2 meters. Candles. Infusers and incense.

“Smell a bit.” That’s like calling a nuclear holocaust “a little fire.”

djot for text markup. It addresses a lot of the issues in Common mark (and of course far more of the issues of Markdown).

I love that there’s someone out there who’s that passionate about JSON.

Love, love, opus. It’s a fantastic format.

Minnesotan here. Can confirm that 32 is still long-sleeve shirt weather.

I regularly see people here walking into a store from the parking lot in T-shirts, in 32° weather. Wind chill makes a far greater difference. 38° from wind chill is far colder than 32° with no wind.

The week-of-year is far more relevant in Western Europe, and is used quite a bit in business. I have a Junghans watch that has a week complication.

It’s an important format outside of the US, and gives ISO-8601 an edge as a standard of conformance.

Absolutely. In the late '80s I was part of an anti-tank guided missile evaluation; each rocket cost around $70k then, so around $185k per today.

Yes?

I mean, I don’t think we need to tiptoe around voicing opinions about things, especially in context (in a coffee shop that sells the thing) as casual conversation. Things like “I’ve never understood the appeal of pumpkin spice, and how is went from a corporate marketing flavor to an inescapable and pervasive social phenomenon that assaults my senses everywhere I go in public starting in September and persisting through to Christmas.” Put that in your comic speech bubble.

But, yeah, mocking people who are buying sugary caffeinated drinks is as silly as mocking people for drinking hot cocoa. My objection to pumpkin spice is that people drinking them are may as well be walking around with thuribles; it’s as stinky as second-hand smoke.

There are already quantum resistant algorithms available as open source libraries, and some tools which already use them. It’s nice to see some standards emerging, although I’ll be more confident after external reviews pronounce them “clear.”

Wow, this reminds me of something I learned when I was a kid. Which religion is it that believes that, when you die, you continue doing the last thing you were doing, for eternity? It was something like that.

Lately, my wife’s been doing now international travel than I have, and she reports that foreign airport security for flights to the US are far more strict than domestic flights. For example, TSA in the US is pretty loosey-goosey about the liquids rules - not the amounts, but having everything in ziplock bags that can be closed. I haven’t put my liquids in ziplocks for a domestic flight in years, but foreign security enforcing the TSA checks are anal-retentive about stuff like that.

Part may be because we’ve had pre-check since it first came out, so I may just be seeing only the less strict rules of pre-check, but I suspect the US is just more strict with airport security for incoming, non-domestic flights, and foreign airports are just doing what TSA is demanding, to the letter.

Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle, and MUC’s security are way more lax than any US airport. Where they get strict is when you get to the gates for the US flights and have to go through security - TSA, this time - a second time. The only airport I thought had general security as strict as a US airport was Singapore, and their TSA at-gate security is insane. Dubai, too. Only airport I’ve been in where the entire gate for a flight was enclosed in glass, like a snake terrarium. And god forbid you wanted to go back out for food or something, because you had to go through that TSA checkpoint again. I hate flying through Dubai to get home.

If they work for you, great! I’ve never owned one that shaved anywhere nearly as close as a blade, or that I didn’t have to use twice a day if I wanted to be clean-shaven in the evening. Plus, I don’t particularly find them comfortable, or precise; they’re all a little bit like using fine-grain sandpaper.

But everyone is different, and if you like the shave, you’re fortunate.

For years I carried a AA battery powered one in my glove compartment for emergencies, like when I was in a rush and had to shave on the road. It was an absolutely horrible shaver, but better than the alternative. I only used it a couple of times within ten years, so I stopped doing that.

They’re not allowed in carry-on. I’ve gotten through a check point with a blade on once, but I’ve also been pulled out and asked to verify there’s no blade. It’s low risk because all you lose is some time and you might have to toss a blade. But then I’m left with a useless razor until I can find a pharmacy to buy whatever crappy generic blades they have, which I then have to dial in for aggressiveness, and it’s just way more trouble than it’s worth.

When I was heavy business traveling, it was absolutely not worth it, because I didn’t pad my airport arrival and boarding time by many minutes, and getting pulled out for a check meant I’d have to run for the gate. Plus, I’d have to make time during the trip to find a pharmacy, pay for an Uber to go get blades. Not worth it.

On the much more rare occasion that I an checking a bag, like for a longer trip, sure; I’ll pack a safety razor or shavette, but then I worry about light-fingered TSA inspectors. Anything stolen from your luggage, you’re never getting back. I have a couple of cheap-o safety’s I wouldn’t mind losing, but they’re not my favorite shaves either.

All in all, for traveling, I just take cartridge razors. It’s easier.