ukoms

Urge to hit stupid people...

The only regret after buying M! MBA is that year later Apple released MacBookPro version :( besides that - for my needs (web development, novel writing, running small business) it's fantastic.

In all approaches to therapy, regardless of the psychological flow behind them, it's the patient who heals himself (or herself). Therapist role is not exactly to be a blank screen, more like responsive socratic human mirror. It's up to experience, knowledge and gut feeling of the therapist to know when be quiet, when ask questions and what may have better chances to help given patient.

In general, inner monologue is fantastic tool for self-reflection. Yet, if one is struggling with living, it's a good approach to seek help of other human being, rather than relying solely on oneself.

Yes, it reduced harassment. Especially towards youtube's rewinds and other crap. Totally understandable. NOT!

I understand (to some degree) if someone is willing to enforce things you shouldn't say. Although right to free speech is/should be universal, but it doesn't mean free of consequences of what has been spoken. But I strongly oppose situation and any attempts to enforce what I should say. No. No pasarán. Ni wuja. Claiming power over what one should or ought to be saying is claiming power over what one should or is allowed to think. "1984" of Orwell's says hi.

Perl is not a bad language. Neither is PHP. I'm using both. And to be honest - it's all about collaboration. Writing something for myself? Perl. Writing anything which will involve anyone else? PHP.

1. Prepare agenda - write in points what topics are going to be at the meeting.

2. Set time frame - meeting longer than hour is counterproductive.

3. Invite proper people - include those who are actually needed (don't invite anyone "just in case").

4. Moderate!!! - have someone who will moderate meeting, will be in charge of presenting queued topics (asking questions and asking for answers) and will cut extending off-topics.

5. Write summary - sum up everything was said during meeting and send to everyone who was participating.

Encode html code as Base64, use link shortener, and viola - static page "hosted".

Indicator that this is well written - text is long, subject is challenging, but you read it with pleasure.

Along with being software dev - political sciences major, high school teacher, writer...

Progress not perfection. Which in this context should be read as willingness to getting know new solutions, new technologies and new applications; You delve into things, get some of the ideas, think about them, implement parts of them, fidget with them. BUT! Do not let them overwhelm You. It's virtually impossible for a person who isn't genius engineer to be fluent in all known technologies, languages, libraries and rest of the stuff. You focus on setting in your head memory anchors to different solutions, different approaches, and when the time is done You will end up with bigger knowledge and skill set. You don't need to remember all the details, You just need to remember where to find them.

Second thing - constantly improve communication. Be as humble as You possibly can, because people have their own struggles we are not aware of, and those affect the way they write and speak. That's why You need to remind your self everyday - "is this what I understood really the thing the person has said?". And ask for their understanding of given information. It's basically 70 to 80% work of good SE.

Finally, take care of your physical and mental health. You cannot be productive 24/7. Your body and mind need breaks and maintenance. Treat yourself in this aspect as any other high-grade, professional, top-quality tool. Your mind, your body are your tools - take care of them, so they can perform for life.

Oh! And be nice to yourself. Harsh treating You will most likely get from others. If You don't be kind to yourself, who will be?

TL;DR: It didn't.

Blogging hasn't helped me throughout me career at all.

We're not in very different situation - in fact we can be literally minutes, days, weeks or months before our time is out. We all know that we're going to die at some point, but we live with attitude - "but, not today". So when we find out when we're going to be dead, we change our perspective.

What I would/will do? First of all - say goodbye to all people I know. If we were in bad terms for whatever reasons - I would try to say my farewell knowing I apologised for what I did and forgive for what was done to me. I'd like to have clean head from human affairs on my last breath.

Then - I'll go to reconcile with God. Maybe first time in my life truly and honestly. I'm a believer in Jesus Christ so this will be best and last time for it.

After that - I would spent all the left time on being with my dearest one. Talk to them, hug them, take tons of photos. And also - this is what I plan for some time - write a long letter to each of my dearest, telling them how much I love them, how much I received from them, how much they mean to me, how wonderful people they are in my eyes.

And when the time comes, when it'll be the last breath - I really hope God will came for my soul and we all meet once again.

Short answer: anything I can.

Longer answer: If I have to struggle for hours with something someone else can do it like Daft Pank (better, faster...) AND I can afford their time - will go for it. From car repair, through web hosting, to healthcare.

Longest answer: There is a reason why we as humans went into specialisations through the ages. Of course most of the people can handle most of the tasks on their own. But - do we have time for that? I think - we don't. This is only thing we in fact truly have in this world as currency - time. Best/worst part is - we don't really know how much do we have. So every hour, every minute, every second - counts.

I'm quite confident in my craftwork skills, yet if I face pipe problem in my flat I'll call a plumber (preferably not the one in red cap). Why? He had fixed more pipes in past year than I have. So he'll do it better and faster. And the question I always ask myself - what is more worth for me - spend couple tens for professional services and enjoy my time with family or spend hours from my time with family to keep couple tens in my pocket? Usually I choose to pay.

Also - and here were it's getting really weird for most of the people - I do not argue with decisions of the specialists. Plumber say I need to get such and such connectors? Ok, he knows better. So what there are cheaper ones? Taxi driver is riding me the longer route? OK, he is on the road whole day, he knows better. Maybe there are some road works ahead, there was an accident, whatever. And so on.

Yes. I know I probably will be cheated sometimes. I know I will be overpriced sometimes. No big deal - I'll find another specialist who hopefully won't screw me up. But - and this is the win for me - I respect their skills in their fields. They spent who knows how long to learn and practice and get experience. They know, I can assume.

As a developer I expected the same. I constantly learn for last two decades. I've written more code, than most of the people wrote words in their whole studies. And I encountered more mistakes in my work than they have. So when I have customer, I expect him to tell me what he want to have and how this have to work. But I don't expect advices how to do my work or questioning my pricing. If you cannot afford me - find somebody else. If you are a dentist I don't question your choice of dental tools or your technique or your prices. Either I can afford you or don't. If I can afford you and I'm satisfied with the outcome - I'll be Schwarzenegger, I'll be back. If I aren't - sayonara! I'll find someone else.

Here are steps, that helped me:

1. ensure you don't have diabetic - very often one of the consequences of diabetics are problems with feet (so called "diabetic foot").

2. ensure you don't have neurological problems - caused by many factors (from side-effects of diabetics to low potasium level)

3. ensure you don't have any cardiac/veins problems (myself being overweighted [fat, lets call it straight] is have high blood pressure which can silently make tremendous damage to your body - even feet)

4. you HAVE TO take breaks from sitting! Stand up and take few steps every hour. This will cause better blood flow in your legs.

5. keep focus on your posture - probably most of the programmers and it workers tend to do work in half-laying position (which itself is not so bad to be clear), but if you correct your self once in a while and try to sit with your back straight - this will also improve overall health of your spine and blood circulating system.

6. Less coffeine, more water.

7. I personally have a condition were I constantly move my legs when sitting. Some of my friends are telling me I lullaby a devil on my knee. Some call it Restless Leg Syndrome. Whatever it is - my legs are for most part of the day in motion. But, I know that not everyone have this kind of feature build in themselves. Investigate things like under desk bikes or steppers. I even saw one time device which looked like some kind of underdesk swing for feet - you would place each foot on wobbly platform and through the day you would move them in every direction.

8. If above point is not for you (for whatever reason) search for rubber spiky pillows. They look like round pillow, with lots of little rubber connes. Often advertised as lower back stress relievers. Put one under the desk and keep your feet on it through the day - it will increase blood flow.

9. Keep your feet at comfy temperature. Some are heat-likers some are cold-likers. Whom ever you are - adjust how you keep your feet through the day. Either ware a comfy, fluffy socks or very thin one. Maybe slippers aren't a bad idea.

10. Take good care of hygene of your feet. And by that I don't only mean washing them. Also ensure you are fungus infection free, keep them soft by some cream of hot, salt water rinsing.

Finally - invest in the comfiest shoes You can afford. I cannot stress this enough. Bad shoes can do long lasting discomfort for your feet.

And thats it from me :)

[blade|black]smith :) I love making tools from metal by hands, yet I seriously doubt I could earn my livings out of this craft right now :/

Guy in the team, shame on him, send me link. Aaand the day went by...

I used to work for over 6 years in company with 200+ employees, where only 30 people were developers. Why? Well, mainly because it was - at the time - hard to find a good job in my town, and this company trained me as specialist in not-so popular in my country programing language to maintain hermetic, monolitic and ogrish system.

They paid moderately. It was not-so-bad salary if you were looking at earnings in town, but it was low if you would compare it to other cities and other companies.

But it wasn't the main reason I left and find myself a new, better, job. Yes - financial reason was important but only as last nail to seal the coffin (so to speak).

In my previous job I was told I am needed, but no one from mid and higher managment act like it was so. When they insist to tell them about problems, when they ask about solutions, when they thrive to change, you give them all of that just to hear you are a nuisance - you became frustrated. And when your frustration level reach certain point - you quit. Took me four years to make this decision (I've got very high boiling temperature).

I don't know how other small and medium sized companies keep people longer than 3 years, but my current employer act immidiately as I ask for tools or suggest changes. Owners, co-CEOs have direct contact with team all the time. People don't work in stress ("something happend on production? well, that's rather bad news. Fix it, please, and avoid those errors in the future. Hey! Anyone for darts?"). And hey - they pay better which is good thing (despite everything you may say - you sell your most valuable thing - hours of your life, it's rather smart to sell them at proper price). And they keep working this way for 13 years. With 30+ people.

Turns out - you can.

From my point of view - and I've gone through almost each available antidepressants in 10 years battle with depression - every new solution, that will relieve patients from their struggles (even for short part of time) - is a bless. Sure ketamine won't solve problem permanently, but todays 2nd and 3rd generation medicaments dont do it either. There is a moment, when you simply want to feel a relief - from sorrow, stagnation, fear, guilt and hopelessness. If it's true, that ketamine gives you this relief, then sign me up! :) And it don't have to do anything else. Because, there are people who simply cannot remember how it feels to live without depression - if you can somehow remind them how it is not to feel anything depressing, this may be powerfull boost for keep fighting.

So I'm not alone :) Perl and C everyday ;)

Long time ago, when I was young and stupid I've mastered in politcal sciense. So, now (when I'm only stupid), let me tell you this - question do you vote or not is pointless. Only when you ask for motives right after makes any sense. Because those two questions can show who you are and what your politicals class is.

There is quite pleasant theory about what political systems are. It state that you can represent all political systems as segment, on which both ends are dictatorship and democracy. But, this theory also states that those two systems are unachievable in our world, they are like asymptotes - all political systems tends towards them, but never actually get there. If you take a look at democracy - even Greek democracy weren't this perfect one - yeah, everybody could vote. Except for a women, those who hasn't finished their army service, those who haven't got status of a citizen and those who were slaves.

Having this in mind, I personaly always go to elections and always vote. Sometimes - in local elections - I know who had done something for my district or city, and this gives me clear options. This man did this and that, he seems fair and honest, he claims he can do few things better - yup, I'll give him my vote so he can try his best. Other times - especially when it comes to parliment or presiden elections I go to election but I don't have clear options. I don't know those people and to be truly honest - most of them has been on political scene for far to long - so I don't vote for them who have the biggest election budgets. And it happened twice to this day - I made invalid votes on purpose. Here, in Poland, we can't add our option to the vote card. There were two cases where none of candidates on my voting card weren't good enough to have my voice, so I write my types down which made my voice invalid.

What does the first paragraph have to do with the second? I choose people who will drag our political system towards this version of political system which is nearest my opinions and preference.

And to all people who say that qoing to election won't change antyhing - yes, it will. But it require some maturity and effort. It require to make a choice and quite possibly to regret given voice. And then it require consideration - "who I'll vote for if my previous choice was bad?". In some sense it's quite biblical - be hot or be cold, not lukewarm. But... this would mean handling the consequences of our choice, and we humans don't like to do that...

septerr - if you feel down and thinking about antidepressants, you should go to doctor. Not always it is needed to use antidepressants per se (this is very wide definition). But only a psychiatrist can tell which is suited for your condition.

I'm on antidepressants for over ten years. During that time I've been using SSRIs and SNRI is what I take currently. Each of those have side effects - but every one of them depends on individual conditions. In my case - my productivity is lowered to the point I sometimes feel like I do only what I have to do. Before I started - I wrote story a week, each day I made some new scripts testing this or that. Currently - I struggle with writing stories, I lost interest in solving intelectual puzzles. Well, I do draw a bit more than I used to.

From my point of view - I dont shake with fear and panic every moment of the day, but then again I dont create as many things I used to. Everyday cosyness at the price of productivity/creativity.

In company I work, we've developed through years quite complex code review. First of all - we're programming in Perl 5.21 and because of this we made coding standards to ensure people will code in simmilar manner. Second - we have mailing list where summary of all commits is send - code, reason, project description etc. Every developer is allowed to read those commits and if he find anything suspicious - he can rand code check (or wtf) message and authour of questioned code has to respond (either by correcting his code or explaining why he did what he did). Third - we do partial reviews during project. Whenever sprint is finished - there goes minireview. Fourth - after project is finished - there is inner team project code review, where developers take step back and look themselves on their and theirs teammates code. Fifth - when inner-team review is finished and all issues are fixed - there is outer-team review. Senior Engineer or Software Architect is appointed to overview whole code, but at this point any developer from any team is allowed to join outer-team review.

Leading reviewer after finishing his work decide about eventual after-fix review (if something was really messed up despite all precautions).

And - just for sure - before releasing code to production releasing architect take quick eye look on git diff. If nothing sting him on his eye - code is like Dobby - free!

Dear You! Don't kill yourself. This one thing we all cannot escape, it's true. But don't rush to it. I've got diagnosed mind sickness which is commonly reffered as "depression". I live in constantinous fear of dying. I was once in point where i was so afraid o death I wanted to kill myself. Then it hit me - killing myself because of fear of death is... illogical (yeah, I know - weird, but hey - this is HN, you get it...).

I didn't believe in medicine, psychiatrists and all "you can live with that" crap. Yet, i went to doctor. I went to therapist. And for about five weeks it was hell. I was affraid more than before, I was so narrowed my vision was almost all blackfield with small, foggy point of view. This was hardest thing I did in my grownup life - endure it.

Guess what - it got better. No, my life hasn't changed a bit - my credits wasn't payd off, my fears didn't vanished, I still had to go to work every morning and I knew I am going to die one day. BUT - and this is most important thing - MY PERSPECTIVE CHANGED. I know I can face all this.

I don't know anything about You. I don't know what had happened to You. Yet I know one thing - you always have a choice. Yes, on the one hand - you can kill yourself, BUT! - on the other hand - you can live. I won't tell you - think about others before you harm yourself. This is bullshit, when you are facing live-or-die choice. In death we all are alone so we can think only by ourselves. So I'm asking you, begging you for real - think about everything you are. You are far better than you think! You are the only one in the world!

You managed to make someone laugh, you did good in your life, you faced tens and thousands problems and won over them, you can do something no one else can do in a way no one else can replicate (even if it's eating a cookie with knife and fork), you have dreams that are waiting to be fulfilled, you have so many tortillas to eat, you can become millionare in a blink of an eye, you can meet love of your life, you have all your life waiting for you.

Please - choose yourself living. God be with You.

- [domain] - [what it supposed to be]:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- descr.me - overview of ones opinions about anything one chose,

- uuk.nu - shortener for polish fantasy fans (GNU Terry Pratchett),

- prat.tl - yet another chat based on women chatting system,

- datza.click - tool for creating occurances counters,

- wai.uno - tool for creating "Y U NO..." memes (y.uno was unavailable... o(╥﹏╥)o) on the fly.

Maybe one day... I'll finally make use of them.

EDIT: BTW - I own domain "uko.ms" which I use for my personal link shortener and e-mail [email protected]. This is my favourite domain I own ୧། ☉ ౪ ☉ །୨

Dead. Hopefully in Heaven.

in this way, we could say Python philosophy is opposite to Perl's. If in Python motto is 'There should be one way to do it', Perl always was 'There is more than one way to do it' (timtoady).

You are right - ajuc, lmm, ObviousScience - text as digital form is most convenient form of communication. Also - thanks to all kind of text tools You were able to understand all those messages, and to be honest - I also used Google Translate to make them. Medium is important. My point is the text itselft, each letter, is kind of picture. We learned that particular pictures can be placed together and they will represent some words. We make tools which can write in those pictures allowing us to communicate. Author of this post make difference between pictures and text. And of course - on simple level - there is obvious difference. But using more metathinking about communication - text, letters, signs like in japanese or jidish, are in fact simplified images. We just made them usable at different way than paintings or ilustrations and called it "text".

Every letter, number or any sign is a "picture". In fact every written text is in fact structured array of simplified pictures, which happens to be understandable under conditions of given language rules. What should be bet is information. It doesn't really matter what communication tool will be used - information is the creme de la creme. Think about this - I can write simple text: "Mother should love their childrens". Would you still bet on text, if i wrote this in different language? "Każda matka powinna kochać swoje dzieci" or "Kila mama lazima kuwapenda watoto wao" isn't as understandable by most of people, despite the fact letter I used are almost identical. And how about other characters? "יעדער מוטער זאָל ליבע זייער קינדער" or "すべての母親が子どもを愛する必要があります" (thanks google translate ;))? In the end what matter is not text itself, but message behind it.

I'm politic science MA and currently goes my 14th year in programming for living. From my experience - and I've been working with self-taught passionates and academic-taught masters over the years - you can assume sort of rule about your future employer. If he's wise and know programming market he'll never toss out anyone who doesn't have academic degree in programming. Best specialists I know had no science degree in IT field. They were all crazy about programming, fascinated about possibilities and they were always improving themselves. Wise employer will know this and take advantage of it. So - yes, You should state fact You have no college degree in programming. I do and I had never regreted it :)