Notices by Samuel Chase (samebchase@fantastic.earth)

In the TV show Archer, there are many quotes like this:

Archer: "I’m not just a pretty face. (he said, with a hint of desperation)."

where Archer acts as the narrator in a humorous way by actually saying out what's in the parentheses.

What is this literary device called?

It's a form of metatheatre in the same way as "Breaking the fourth wall", but what is this particular type called when a character also makes narration notes for comedic effect?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metatheatre

@annika I went to the website and read multiple articles, but I am not able to understand how they work.

Is it some noise cancellation thing that requires them to be charged, or is it some physical device that permits less sound into your ears?

Never mind, found this https://www.reddit.com/r/neurodiversity/comments/1kd3v0p/do_loop_earplugs_actually_cancel_noise_or_are/

Did a test video call with Magicall yesterday https://magicall.online/

The framerate was good and the audio was clear. I'll be using this for any video call links I need to share.

Worth reading: https://hachyderm.io/@skinnylatte/115808747899929301

@annika I am going to do it tomorrow! 😣

After a decade of procrastination https://samebchase.com/ is also readable on mobile.

What would you recommend to someone learning to cook Indian food?

These are my top ten:

1. Chai/tea (seriouseats has a great recipe)
2. Dal (toor dal with a pressure cooker)
3. Rice (in a pressure cooker).
4. Chicken curry (pressure cooker)
5. Fish fry (shallow fry, semolina coat is optional)
6. Chapati/Roti
7. Dosa/Idli/Uthappam (store bought batter)
8. Dal Khichdi
9. Coconut Rice
10. Raita (to eat with a biriyani or veg pulao)

If you can make these and are able to enjoy them, that's a great start.

This is prescience. 🤯

https://mst3k.interlinked.me/@artemis/103593164283415630

Finally, I got an idea to see if there are any male-to-female USB-C cables which would serve to extend the inaccessible USB-C port to somewhere closer to me so that I wouldn't have to crawl under the table with a torch.

This cable arrived today, and I tried it out. It works beautifully. Now, to switch I need to unplug and plug a single USB-C cable into whichever computer I want to use.

https://www.amazon.in/UGREEN-Extension-Extender-Nintendo-MacBook/dp/B08NTCD6VQ

I've also decided to hold off on the KVM switch, because I am almost certainly going to buy a Dell UltraSharp 27-inch monitor sometime in the future which has KVM features, making redundant the expensive KVM switch that I may have bought.

Such a relief. Sometimes, there are low tech solutions available, and doing something in a hurry can cause you to burn a lot of $COIN. These kind of setup issues are not easy/straightforward. It took me years to figure this out. I am a software engineer with 11+ years experience in the industry. 🙈

I have a desktop and my work laptop sharing a single Dell P-Series USB-C monitor.

Every time I had to switch between machines, I had to connect the mouse, keyboard, and webcam cables (all USB-A) to the PC case. It was a chore.

After some time, I thought I could get a cheap USB dock/switcher https://www.amazon.in/UGREEN-Computers-Peripheral-Switcher-One-Button/dp/B01MXXQKGM which had four ports and a button that needed to be pressed when I wanted to switch machines. I also, had to use the monitors On-Screen-Display (OSD) to switch the video input. So that's 1 button press on the USB switcher and 4 button presses on the OSD.

I thought that was good enough for a while, until I realised the cheap USB switch used to repeatedly connect and disconnect. This led to audio going to mute in a few interview calls where I would spend a panicked few minutes figuring out where the microphone volume needed to be unmuted. (I use the microphone on the webcam).

This was untenable, obviously.

I moved back to manually connecting the mouse and keyboard cable to the ports available on the front of the PC case. The PC case is in a recessed location in a wall niche, so I have to feel for the ports and do it blind.

What about the webcam, you may ask? Well for that I have to crawl under my computer table use my phone torch and connect it at the back of the PC case.

At this point I started researching about KVM switches. I wanted to buy something high quality instead of the cheap USB switch I got earlier. Found https://www.avaccess.com/products/idock-m10/ which costs $269 + $100 for shipping to India. I will need to get it through someone traveling from the US, but this is prohibitively expensive.

Later on I realised that I could connect all the peripherals to the 4 available ports on the monitor and only had to crawl underground to plug the USB-C cable to the back of the PC case. With this method, I will only need to plug one USB-C cable either into the PC case or the work Mac laptop, to switch.

Still annoying to crawl.

Beautiful comment about #perl

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44758403

@abnv I would strongly recommend against using a pre-packaged setup.

1. You can get a lot of mileage with default emacs. It's perfectly usable as a text editor from day 1.
2. Explore use-package and install a handful of packages you need, maybe haskell-mode, magit etc.
3. Try out org mode, maybe try using it to drive your day as a todo list.
4. Someday, you'll need to do X. Check if there's an emacs package for X, and see if that makes anything smoother for you. e.g. I needed to write a short script (as in a skit), and I found fountain-mode which turned out to make the process enjoyable.
5. You'll need to write yourself a small function to save you some time.
6. Finally, you may release an emacs package for others to use.

I am at 5. I hope to hit 6 someday.

Someone with a 50 piece drum-kit, is not automatically superior than a djembe or tabla player. The whole point is to make music.

@abnv I agree that the defaults and the keybindings and the initial experience are unhelpful/bad/jarring/surprising for a newbie. In the initial days it's better to not fight it, and to go with the idiosyncrasies ("M-w" to copy stuff and not the usual Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V copy-paste), and with no expectation of a conventional/familiar experience. It is 50+ years old after all.

As you begin to use it despite these quirks it soon becomes clear that it is extremely and infinitely customizable. You can then begin to accept less and less of its quirks, and gradually (yak) shave away those parts.

Soon enough, you'll find something entirely tailored to how you operate and what you expect. It takes time.

The problem about opinionated defaults, is that it someday those extra packages will surely break or refuse to do what you need them to. That will be a lot harder to debug than incrementally building up a configuration that you deeply understand.

@annika how do you like it?!

once I buy a piano
and a cuckoo clock
I'd have bought everything
I have ever wanted

#freeverse

I'm samebchase on #izzzzi

Feel free to add me!

on a thread about sad things
someone said
"one day you will carry your kid for the last time"
since then I carry them as much as possible
even picked up my wife

#freeverse

@crmsnbleyd

Static Websites

0. Learn basic HTML + CSS.
1. Build (or use) a static site generator.
2. Use it to generate the static web pages.
3. Deploy those pages to a VPS, that is running a web server like NGINX (or whatever).
4. In the process learn about ssh, git, rsync, TLS, certs etc.

Dynamic Web Applications

1. Learn any programming language. Building your own SSG in Step 1 from the previous section ensures this.
2. Use it to create a basic backend API server.
3. Make a basic UI, and some JS which communicates with the backend, dynamically updates the UI.
4. Maybe have a database for some persistence.
5. Learn about auth/security, request validation, API design.

This is a great comic that finally made me realise some things that I was not able to understand even after years of marriage.

https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/

#comic #relationships