DevRant seems terrible slow. Wonder if someone is crawling/data mining it.

I avoided blogging about /pol for most of the year, until summer hit. I'd rather be writing tech articles, but I'm glad I got this out this week:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/...

No matter where you are in the political spectrum, it will probably make you mad. 😇 But it will hopefully also make you think. 🤔

The most radical position in America today is the one that rejects both political parties.

Started a new job in logistics at the beginning of this month. I was laid off in March. New job is all in C#/.NET; the first time I've not used a Linux machine at work since 2012!

First time on Windows 11 too. It is really horrible. I've started using GlazeWM and it's okay. I plan on making a blog post about making Windows usable.

It's also the first company I've been at in a decade where they gave me a used laptop. Most shops order new ones for new devs. I'm not a snob and wouldn't have minded if they had cleaned it first. I had to wipe it down, get some stuff out from around the keys. Took all of 30 seconds to make it not disgusting.

All the other devs use the same laptops; old ass 11th Gen Intel Dells. Literally the worst generation of Intel chips next to the massive 13/14th failures (which didn't affect laptops). It's got CrowdStrike and it's so damn slow.

Also, Local Admin is limited to a week or two. You have to reapply via ticket just to get admin access and update your tools.

Judging by my coworkers, it does seem like expectations are low at least.

After over 20 years, I finally got around to beating Final Fantasy VIII

https://battlepenguin.com/gaming/...

I finally got a refund for my Purism Libre 5. It only took SIX FUCKING YEARS!

Fuck Purism. That company should die in a fire.

https://battlepenguin.com/tech/...

If anyone needs a casual game that's not long, and that you can play after you put the kids to bed, I recommend Neva. It's a fun, indie, left-to-right platformer.

My full review: https://battlepenguin.com/gaming/...

Stack Overflow has really gone to shit. I had a bad experience with a recent Qt6/Python question, or really two questions both of which were closed and deleted!

I was just going to ignore it, but some recent talk on the Fediverse made me write up a full post about it:

https://battlepenguin.com/tech/...

I finished Hogwarts Legacy. This game had so much potential, but was an ultimate disappointment.

https://battlepenguin.com/gaming/...

I haven't been on in a while because I got laid off two weeks ago. I made it three years and survived two layoffs. I'm relieved honestly; got a decent severance package. Technically I got an extra week of "PTO" where I still had access to two Slack rooms if I wanted to say goodbye to people.

I've taken two weeks to unwind. Time to update my cover sheet and get back into the flow of contacting old buddies to see what work is available.

I've been at it for over 20 years at this point: Java, Scala, Python, Ruby and even a couple of years of devops/sys admin. Let's see how bad the remote and local job markets suck now.

I've been off caffeine for over two months*. I've also had a ton of 8am/9am meetings and they hurt so much. Last week I picked up a vape for the nicotine because I desperately need a stimulant for focus as I'm behind on tasks at work. I'm hoping I won't need another vape once this runs out.

Thankfully the US has the daylight savings switch next week, so my 8ams move to 9. It lasts for three weeks before they move back to 8 since they're scheduled by someone in the UK and their DST comes later.

I'm also going to talk to my manager about the 3x 8am meetings last week and how I'm not doing that again.

I hope I can get this PR done today.

* (with the exception of 1 Dr Pepper Blackberry Zero, and 1 Coke Orange Cream Zero because they're new and I wanted to try them)

Does anyone actually like Notion? My current job uses it for all our documentation and I hate it. The organization is a mess, the search isn't great, and the UI sucks.

It's like a massive step backwards from tools like Confluence. I've had to use it for over three years and I still hate it.

I woke up early for an 8am today that got moved to tomorrow because one frontend dev couldn't make it.

I was angry enough I responded, "Could you do this the night before in the future?" with 😴 😩 emoji.

I had an 8am Monday, 9am Tuesday, got up for an 8am that didn't happen today and now there's an 8am tomorrow.

One of the devs was let go after his probation period. Today was his last day. I didn't review a lot of his code, but it seemed to be fine. I'm not sure if his output was just slow.

Either he wasn't working out or the startup decided maybe they shouldn't have hired new people yet. There's been a freeze for a while and this guy started in October. The company's revenue targets keep slipping. Profitability was moved from 2026 to 2027.

We're on a slowly sinking ship.

Why does the girl in the Google Meet permission dialog have anal beads for hair?

I wonder if the devRant devs have ever considered implementing ActivityPub and opening this site up to the Fediverse, in the same way Minds (🧠) or Threads (🤢) did.

It would make this a less isolated corner of the Internet for sure.

I'm on the 2nd week of a support rotation. One of the support reps contacted my manager about two tickets, one that is about an automated e-mail that didn't go out (which .. doesn't even seem necessary since the action has been completed?) and one because I accidentally put in the postcode on the 2nd line of an address field (which I immediately fixed when he commented on the ticket, minutes after, the same fucking day!)

We also had a super cringe all hands meeting today. I got plenty of sleep and am already exhausted.

My old roommate/landlord/co-worker sent me a text about his company needing devops people. I should probably finish updating me resume today.

Best UI...

You should build your next project in G

There's a guy in our all-hands who always does a magic trick on camera before starting. It's always very cringe.

I finally finished up my post on Bibilobunny, my book note extraction tool for Kindle and Play Books:

https://battlepenguin.com/tech/...

I hope to add support for getting notes off Nook and Kobo next. You can follow the instructions to create your own book quote bot, and you can follow mine here: https://tweeflood.com/@bookquotebot

8am meeting on Monday. It gets cancelled at 5am (while I'm asleep) and gets moved to tomorrow .. at 8am 😪 😡

I hate working with Europeans

I've been using Void Linux on servers for years. I decided to finally contribute some packages, and wrote a tool to make it easier to build packages outside of the standard repository. This post covers some useful tools in Void, my voidup package building tool, and many of the issues I encountered which make me wonder if I should keep support Void Linux.

https://battlepenguin.com/tech/...

I'm not one of those people who can just buy a phone and use it. I have to unlock it, flash it, de-google it and customize it before first use. I don't changes phones often, but my 2019 phone is slowly dying.

Here's my whole new setup with a Sony Xperia 1 V:

https://battlepenguin.com/tech/...

Is there anything more demoralizing and cringe than the All Hands Meeting?

What is up with the Internet Archive?

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/...

Performance review again. I don't know why our company bothers. We're a startup, everyone here has survived two rounds of layoffs, and we barely hire anyone new to fill vacant slots even as we got series D funding.

At every other company I've been with, a performance review is like two forums, or a single page essay .. maybe a round of 1 paragraph feedback reports from some teammates.

At my current shop, it's a full on Pando assessment. It takes an hour to get through. Then it takes two hours to go through it with your manager, only for maybe 3 people to get promotions every year and less than 5% of people get any type of pay change.

It's so exhausting.

A job description that looks like it was written by actual developers

I've been at this company 2 years and 9 months. I never use e-mail. Evolution just runs for the calendar notices.

Man, this guy really hates the nano editor:

https://github.com/rwxrob/nano

I archive a lot of shit. I've been archiving YouToob videos for the past few years. Nearly 20% of my archived collection is no longer available on YouTube:

https://battlepenguin.com/tech/...

I wrote a tool if you want to check your collection too:

https://gitlab.com/djsumdog/youboot