Notices by Mark Dominus (mjd@mathstodon.xyz)

@nikitonsky I'm looking at Zed with Alabaster, and the docstrings are colored like strings, not like comments:

@nikitonsky Excellent, thanks. I prefer dark.

My only complaint about the current one is that it colors docstrings like regular strings, rather than like comments.

I realize that in principle they're strings, and it might be syntactically difficult to distinguish docstrings from regular strings that happen to be triple-quoted.

But I think a better compromise would be to render all triple-quoted strings as comments.

@nikitonsky I installed for Zed for the first time yesterday. When I saw the built-in theme with its violent secondary colors I said “Geez, I'm going to have to fix this right away. I wonder if Tonsky has something that can help.”

So, great timing, thanks!

“Glacier mice are colonies of mosses found on some glaciers and adjacent ecosystems. … [They] are notable for their movement across the ice, which appears to be non-random, taking the form of herd-like behavior.”

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

#mosstodon

“Herd Of Fuzzy Green 'Glacier Mice' Baffles Scientists” #mosstodon

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/22/858800112/herd-like-movement-of-fuzzy-green-glacier-mice-baffles-scientists

Even a dumbass like me can see that this Anguissola painting is really, really good. It's worth zooming in on.

Check out the city in the background that fades into the distance, then look at it up close and notice how it doesn't look like a city at all, just smudges that somehow resolve into a city when you see it at the proper scale. And similarly the waterfalls below it.

Check out the way Anguissola depicts the texture of the tablecloth in the foreground, and how she captures the way light reflects off the gold trim on the girls’ sleeves.

It's incredible how the artist can achieve all these textures and light effects just by smearing around paint in different ways.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Chess_Game_(Sofonisba_Anguissola)_1555_(4096x3236px).jpg

Dennis Ritchie had someone type in all the headwords from Webster's Dictionary (Second Edition) so that he would have a big word list for word games, spell checkers, and so on. I've had a copy of this word list since forever.

But today I discovered it's missing “atrede”.

Not sure what to make of this. Maybe Ritchie's typist just missed this one? Or maybe they had some slightly different printing?

#dictionary #unix #trivia

Did you know? If you want to _mention_ a hashtag like #lichenSubscribe, but you don't want followers of that hashtag to be alerted to your post (because it isn't actually about lichen) you can set the post's “visibility” to “quiet public”?

It will still be visible to everyone, including your own followers as usual, it just won't alert strangers who are following the hashtag and it won't show up in searches for that hashtag.

@nikitonsky In my mind there's a general principle that forms and such should be defined so that the user can go through them in one direction, from top to bottom.

In particular, if there's a "save" button, it should be at the _end_, and not (only) at the beginning, because if it's at the beginning, the user will get to the end of the form and then it won't be clear what they should do next, and even if they figure it out they still have to scroll all the way back to the top to click the “save” button.

In your field is there a standard term for this principle or anything like it?

Today I wondered: Why is there a disconnected portion of Michigan? Why isn't that area part of Wisconsin, which it adjoins?

And it turns out that while Michigan was being recognized for statehood, it was involved in an actual armed conflict with Ohio over whether Toledo would be in Michigan or Ohio. The compromise was that Ohio would get that strip of land between Ohio and Michigan, including Toldeo, and in compensation Michigan would get the upper peninsula.

Early U.S. history is full of this sort of regional quarrel. From 1776–1790 Vermont was considered by Vermonters to be an independent and sovereign nation, not part of the USA, but (by the State of New York) to be a breakaway part of New York, in rebellion.

@evan https://mathstodon.xyz/@mjd/116036387808224516

“Temporarily suspended”

The “at 16:28” reminds me of the Russian guy trying to schedule the electrician visit.

“Da, March 18, 2292 is okay, but only in late afternoon. Plumber is coming that morning.”

I'm looking for work, please boost!

I'm a senior software engineer with 35 years of experience. I've worked across an unusually wide range of domains: mobile game backends, privacy-preserving data platforms, high-throughput COVID testing infrastructure, email and account systems, e-payment processing, job marketplace systems, and bioinformatics. I pick up new domains quickly and have a track record of doing it repeatedly. I understand how to turn business needs into engineering requirements.

I've worked remotely since the 1990s and can operate with minimal supervision. I don't need hand-holding to find the right problem to solve. Several of my most valued projects were self-directed: I identified the need, built the thing, and shipped it.

Some of the technologies I'm familiar with include: Python, Perl, TypeScript/JavaScript, Haskell, Go, C, Java. Postgres, MySQL, SQLite. Flask, SQLAlchemy. AWS (Lambda, S3, RDS, SQS, EC2). Docker, Git. Github and Gitlab.

I've also repeatedly picked up new languages and stacks as needed: Haskell for differential privacy research, TypeScript for a 24/7 AWS Lambda system, Flask for my most recent employer. I've become productive with new systems over and over, and I can do it quickly.

I'm also a published author (Higher-Order Perl, Morgan Kaufmann), longtime blogger, and conference speaker with a reputation for making complex ideas clear.

My résumé is at https://plover.com/~mjd/cv/Mark%20Jason%20Dominus.pdf

mjd@pobox.com

Thanks for your attention!

#OpenToWork #remoteWork #softwareEngineering #Python #backend #hiring

#fediHire #getFediHired

Of course the converse is that if you're delegating your authentication to Google, then Google can authenticate anyone they feel like, whether or not that person is you.

Does it sometimes happen to people that they have been using Google Auth everywhere, and then one day Google revokes their account and refuses to vouch for them, and they're locked out of everything?

I'm not just being paranoid, am I? I'll be happy to hear it if this never happens.

Today I learned that the earliest designs for #trafficLights used a single bulb for each phase. The same bulb shone through a green lens on the main street and, at the same time, through a red lens on the cross street.

Source: https://www.kbrhorse.net/signals/history06.html

An example of a newer medium imitating an older one is when video game graphics have lens flare. Lens flare isn't something anyone has ever seen outside of a camera image. And the video game has no lenses. But people are used to seeing lens flare in movies, so video game programmers insert fake lens flare-like effects to make the games look more like movie, even though that makes them look less realistic.

@nikitonsky Today's enraging software experience is:

1. My camera took a photo upside-down. OK, but…
2. I uploaded it to Google Photos figuring I would fix it later
3. The Google Photos phone app will let me rotate the picture, and save the rotated version, but not overwrite the original
4. I figured the web app would be better
5. It wasn't
6. It didn't even have an option to save the rotated version
7. And when displaying the properly rotated version it reverted automatically to the upside-down version after two seconds

If we're going to have multi-billion-dollar oligopoly, it would be nice if we got basically functional software out of it, but instead what we get is a multi-billion-dollar oligopoly backing up two middle fingers.

@nikitonsky Yes, it cleverly alphabetizes `U.S. ` differently from `USA`.

I forget, did I show you this already? https://blog.plover.com/prog/crap-warning-signs-2.html