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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • I worked in a heavily regulated industry. Everything required a manual test. Let’s say you have an employee ID that is 10 digits long which they use to log in. You had to have some else (couldn’t be the developer) to write a series of tests, get those tests approved by 5 people(with specific titles) then a third person to execute the test, then the second person had to write a report saying it all passed, then that report had to be approved by the same 5 people.

    That typically wasn’t the delay. The delay was to execute the tests we needed to stop production. That typically was a 6 week wait(unless urgent for “reasons”) and changes like “I will drop scrap by 83%” was typically told wait till July 4th or Christmas breaks. Why? Because production would be down for 3-4 days typically. Someone had to start the system, ok no entry produces error, executor and developer have to sign a physical paper, restart the whole system, now an entry of 1 digit produces an error, sign the form, repeat for all digit quantities up to 9, repeat for all digit quantities up to the choosen value(based on severity if an issue occurred), 2 people sign for each one, system restarted between each. If you had say an enter button and a cancel button each had to be checked for each quantities of digits. Oh but wait what if someone just types there name… Now repeat everything for alphabet values… What if someone does combination, more tests, more restarts, more signing.

    Reports easily surpassed 1000 pages, no one really had time to check all that so I saw so many missed signatures and missed tests. I asked the “senior validation expert” can I just automate a lot of these tests using unit tests and attach a computer generated report of all tests passing and the source code of the tests? " the response I got was" what’s a unit test? "they still don’t use any of them to my knowledge.


  • Took about 2 hours just to make the spaetzle… I will say I took 3 10 minute breaks because of how sore my arm got. Bowl of batter, scoop 1-2 spoon fulls, then squeeze till no more came out. Had to be careful though, because by time about 3 squeezes worth were in the oil the first squeezer worth was already cooked so we then had to alternate squeezing and picking them out with a slotted spatula.

    The recipe I found on the internet was for 10 servings but there was only 3 of us so we I told my girlfriend to cut it in half. Somehow there was a miscommunication and instead of halving it, she doubled it.

    We both loved the final result but agreed to never make it again due to the effort it took.



  • I made spaetzle for the first time at Thanksgiving. It was spaetzle and green beans with bacon in a garlic butter sauce.

    It was delicious but almost killed me making it. I didn’t have a colander(I think it got thrown out last time I moved) so tried to use a strainer, the holes were too small and wouldn’t work. I ended up using a Manual lemon juicer. My girlfriend misread the recipe and made 20 servings of the batter.

    By the time I dinner was ready I was barely able to lift my fork from trying to make all the spaetzle.














  • Except you also have to have your card/phone and know your pin. It’s actually one of the hardest places to steal from.

    I have an uncle who used to do security for a major department store. This was over 40 years ago. They had an issue where entire racks of clothes were going missing. One time it was even two complete pallets, not even unpacked yet, they were received and then just missing. After the investigation they discovered a guy had clothes that looked similar to their uniform walked in confidently, released the locks on the wheels of the rack, rolled it into the back, another guy pulled up in a van, they put the whole rack in the back and drive off. He kinda looked like he belonged so no one questioned him.

    The pallets, again same guy just walked into back room found a forklift, picked them up, loaded them into a rental truck and drove off.

    Stealing is easy, it’s not getting greedy and being able to not get caught is the issue.




  • I saw a talk recently, I can find the video if you like but pretty sure it was the most recent ND conference, where they made the point that a lot of lack of efficiency in modern code is because of large companies. Basically in alot of cases it’s more important to get a product out ASAP then to care if it was well done. Ok, a poorly written program may cost an extra $10,000 a month to run but if it earns them a million a month and saves 6 months of development time it pays for itself and they can eat the cost.

    This seems like the case with renting vdis instead of fixing the program.