Had to go to HR today. They heard I was making disabled icons with Gimp. I told them that if I can't use Gimp it will handicap my efficiency and retard my progress.

Haha! This is fun!
https://youtube.com/watch/...

Somebody stole Ed's nuts...

Was moving my office a month or so ago and had to occupy a temporary cubicle for 2 weeks. In this cube I found a previous employee had left a jar of specialty peanuts. I thought: "You know who needs these specialty nuts? Ed." So I put them in Ed's office. He was gone that week. A coworker says "You know Ed is allergic to peanuts." Me: "Oh yeah, I forgot. That makes it even better!" Ed did get a good laugh about this.

Today I went into Ed's office with same coworker. I noticed the nuts were gone. I said, "Ed, where are your nuts?" He said: "Somebody stole them." So somebody did in fact steal Ed's nuts.

Ed is also the guy who had 3 US quarters on his desk. Someone replaced them with 3 Canadian quarters. Never did find out who did that. Legend.

The battle rages...

Been thinking about game design. Making things testable and modular. I think I have a lot to learn in this area. One idea popped up in my head. How can I design the game so that it can be networked later? One idea was an interface in the logic that gives authority to another set of code (module?). Basically include the abstraction as if networking was there. So if/when I decide the next version of the game or existing version should have online play. I think learning to create client/server would be instructional. Maybe networking could be a dlc or something.

We run 20.04 Ubuntu at work with fucking Gnome. I thought to myself "by now I should be able to easily make a desktop/launcher icon". Nope, fucking dark ages. What a pos window manager.

At work we have 2 networks. One is guest and one is for our work computers. I was trying to put a computer on the guest network to limit access to a vendor. I noticed when I logged in I could see all the computers on the work network. Surely this isn't so? I check on another computer on guest network. Yep I can see all the same servers and machines. Guest network has easily guessable password. How the fuck do you mess that up? We have someone doing IT work now. People were unsure if we needed dedicated IT. This is just another example of yes we fucking do need a dedicated IT person. Laughing and shaking head. It is not like we ever have foreign nationals from tentatively adversarial nations here...

I got past the barrier in Avorion on a normal play through. Was harder than in the past. I had already befriended a civilization that existed behind the barrier. So getting higher tech levels just cost about 15M credits. Avorion is getting better as a game over time. I like the economy sim and building stuff to make passive income in game.

One of the complaints about some games is heavily reliant on RNG. This can lead to a lot of wasted time trying to get a drop or structure. Maybe this can be solved to some degree through weighted RNG. This is done in slot machines in Vegas. The machine has to pay out over so much interaction. It doesn't have to act this way exclusively. If we look at biology the RNG for offspring is weighted by fitness. If anything is malformed it usually dies.

So time weighting, iteration weighting, some kind of fitness weighting (prevent shit drops). What are some other kinds of weighting we could use?

Question for all you Java devs out there (and a story). We have a customer that we interfacing with their machine. They sent us a simulator that runs in Windows written in Java. I did try running it in Linux, but the JVMs I have installed did not like it at all. Complained about missing deprecated stuff. I start up their sim in Windows and find it is opening between 50 and 100 network ports. Then I tell the simulator to run inside the gui for their program. It pegs all of my processor cores at 100%. I have pegged cores in software before, then corrected my errors in my code. However, I have never pegged all the cores at once. I am kind of in shock.

So, how hard is it to peg all the cores in a Java program? I assume they have a thread on every port or some nonsense?

On C++ forum and see reference to Type Erasure (TE). Search around, some Java shit bleeding into other programming languages. Finally find an article that not only explains what TE is, but why you would use it in C++. ITS JUST FUCKING DUCK TYPING. Please stop using stupid names for stuff. You don't sound smarter. You sound like an asshole. Anyway, thinking about it does make sense to call it Type Erasure, but I still think it sounds pretentious. Cool concept, stupid name. Will continue to confuse people saying: "oh, you mean duck typing?"

Cool article:
https://davekilian.com/cpp-type-era...

The wikipedia article about TE doesn't explain shit about why you would even use it. Just repeats the same word salad of words I first saw about TE. I get that its jargon, but from the outside it just sounds like bullshit. I have never heard anyone I work with spew out shit like that. Even the ones with masters degrees in computer science.

I am not even sure I want to learn more about CS than what keeps me employed. I don't want to sound like this when I talk. I have already said shit in meetings about modern C++ that has colleagues (other sparkies, and some CS people) wondering what I was smoking. It wasn't even that jargony.

Don't mind me, just a sparky starting to understand why the CS world is so fucked. Maybe its just academia I can't stand. I dunno.

I should ask in a meeting if someone can define a monad for me.

I support the idea that we rename devRant to WTFRant. I feel like the WTFs per rant is steadily increasing.

I feel fucking stupid about using a custom node system at work. It is designed to generate an xml file for configuration. However, when using a node I cannot add more to the node unless the node has data. So I gotta call a function to inject useless XML into the node for it to not be empty. I literally set the internal data to <key></key>. It is stupid and I hate it. Just let me create my node hierarchy damn it!

Is this some weird data pattern I should know about? Like what does preventing adding data to an empty structure do? I have the root node. Is that not enough. Remember, this is custom node system that is probably fucking 20 years old. The previous coders did a lot of walled garden shit that I also hate. Prevents reuse of code. This code might just be more of that shit.

Struggling with Linux driver bullshit today. Trying to update the graphics driver completely hosed the networking, second monitor (HDMI), and I assume a bunch of other stuff. I tried using the Additional Drivers utility and it nearly made my system non bootable. So on my second computer I had to look up how to unfuck my machine using the command line. Yet another classy set of bullshit from Gnome. The driver for all this was trying to fix some java programs that show wonky depending upon where the window is on my second display. After unfucking the machine I found that resetting all the display settings for both displays magically fixed the java program fuckery. How the fuck? Literally setting things like display resolution, default display, moving virtual displays around. This bullshit somehow fixed display problems with java apps.

So I decided there is a perfect OS out there somewhere, but it isn't iOS, it isn't Windows and it isn't Linux. I decided to make the Perfect OS, or P-OS for short. Gonna use P-OS as a fake OS in my games I make. lol

So I needed a software tool from ti.com. Most of the components I could just download. But one of them was export controlled. I had to create an account to login and answer some questions:
1. Are you a terrorist?
2. Will you use this for bombs and shit?
3. Do you live in any of these sketchy locations: Iran, China, Philadelphia?
4. Do you know any Javascript devs and/or are you a Javascript dev?

The usual stuff. So anyway, the fun part was creating an account. It was the most terrible UI experience I have ever had creating an account. If you want to experience pain and self loathing after having dirtied yourself by this experience then please tell up about it. Just go to ti.com and make an account.

Do we know what the berries were?

The handle on the faucet in one of the bathrooms broke off today. You can still operate the faucet with some finger strength. It is just difficult. We also got a reminder today that we are not to be streaming video or music using the company wifi. They ask that we use our own bandwidth on our phones.

So on the bathroom door where the faucet handle is broken I placed this sign:

I already knew that Disney was scum, but trying to use an EULA to claim immunity in a wrongful death is off the charts.

Imagine, you used WIndows once and then switched to Linux. Then Bill Gates accidentally runs you over while executing his duties at Microsoft. Well sucks for you. You agreed to some absurd terms in the Windows EULA. You waived your right to sue Microsoft for any reason. Now lets be less ridiculous. You are at a hospital and the machine that helps the doctors determine drug dose has a software bug. This software is made by Microsoft. Nope buddy, you are fucked. You used Windows once.

I realize the logic even for a lawyer was flawed, but the fact that these POS companies try this shit is so wtf. I am not even sure what to think. They are definitely not interested in your well being.

So I am working on some xslt code I use to generate html. Technically xslt is supposed to be Turing complete? So it is producing html. Am I programming or not since it is generating html?

Yes, I have loops and branching logic in my xslt file. Though I am not really touching those portions right now. Just generating more output from more data input provided to the source xml data.

Is this still a better love story than Javascript?

I updated git on my machine and set the default branch name to "massa".

Anyone else bounce games and you become obsessed about how to play the game for weeks?

Playing a space sandbox and I want to figure out the economy system to crank in the dough. Any chance I get I am reading about how to build systems, stations, ships, etc to feed my economy in game.

I think up dumb shit too. I should be a CEO...
https://msn.com/en-us/news/...

Logitech is my favorite mouse vendor. This is a stain on their reputation. This and the AI shit they are marketing. Why the fuck do companies ruin their products? I actively avoid subscriptions and companies that offer them.

It was this or a hellscape picture of when all software is written in Javascript:

Somebody posted about 2 wormholes on Avorion forum. I couldn't resist the Office Space reference:

Worse than Skynet?
Will @ostream be the ruler?

Thinking about including a file that is named: pleasedontdelete.cpp into the codebase. Don't include it in the project and put vague references to things in the code. Put variables that could be misconstrued as being related to bitcoin or some other cryptocoin. Put lots of comments saying: experimental.

Got a weird growth on my finger. Tried cutting if off with a razor blade. Now it is a stinging bleeding growth. Is not getting bigger. Just seems like a weird callous.

Found out gdscript has threading. Now I understand why Godot went away from Python. They actually wanting to do shit like threading. Every time I look into the gdscript library I find new gems. I mean it has a xml stuff in there. Found that today too.

Probably going to make a simple custom editor for a game I have been playing. I built a prototype a few years back on a weekend. Played the game again and now want it. I originally used Qt and C++. I think I will now try to make it in Godot.

I have been moved around the building as they move offices around. Now back upstairs instead of downstairs. Currently alone in a huge room that had cubicles. I am the only cube left. It feels like Davy Crocket at the Alamo. YOU WILL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!

Inspired by @EqualityCoder post aboutJjava:

I am going to make a prediction. C++ and Rust will be pitted against each other in a political manner. C++ will be likened to far right and Rust will be likened to far left.

It won't make sense, but it will be used to try and make language choice some political garbage. Rather than technical merits. There is already a Boomers use C/C++ and enlightened programmers use Rust kind of thing going. End of prediction.

DARPA has decided there is a consensus of programmers saying C needs to be replaced by Rust or some bullshit. Whenever I see "consensus" I automatically read "we decided for you".

Inspired by random updates of apps on my phone...

"I'm imploring you to help me start a war. It's an prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition." slightly modified quote

Based on @Lensflare saying not everyone should start low level.

Things I don't think I ever want to own. Large battery powered vehicles: bikes, cars, trucks, etc. They seem to be quite good for carbon reduction though. People don't seem to survive the fires they cause.