Nevkontakte
@me@m.nevkontakte.com
Lawful neutral. Definitely not a cat in a hat. Opinions are of Cthulhu. what/why.
Rabbit holes all the way down...
- I need to go fiddle on a server to adjust some of the containers I run there...
- Meh, I don't have tmux set up there, and ssh'ing multiple times is for n00bs...
- Let me try this new terminal I heard can replace tmux but better...
- Let me spend two evenings reading through its configs to get keymapping the way I'm use to...
- Now this is complex enough config I ought to store it in my dotfiles repo...
- Let me double-check my dotfiles repo tests haven't regressed in the last couple of months...
- They did. Let's fix that first...
- Oh, neovim plugin wants a newer neovim version than the one Ubuntu 24.04 has, let me add a ppa...
- Oh I never had tree-sitter CLI installed, no wonder syntax highlighting looked wonky...
git commit -m "add the new config to dotfiles, finally"
So, where was I?..
Nevkontakte shared a day ago
Nevkontakte shared 14 days ago
What if we ban computers from using kids instead?
Well, that's a first. I've dealt with slop pull requests before. Today for the first time I got a slop review in response to my pull requests.
Unachievenent unlocked 
Nevkontakte shared a month ago
Nevkontakte shared a month ago
I feel like this whole Anthropic export ban thing should be a wakeup call to anyone outside the US that if you've been newly developing a dependency on a proprietary US cloud service the government could decide to restrict export access to at any moment, you've made a strategic error and should probably reconsider that.
Asciiticism is a digital lifestyle characterized by voluntary abstinence from using any unnecessary characters that weren’t present in the original ascii table.
I think 2038 would be a fine year for me to take a sabbatical.
Nevkontakte shared a month ago
After enough years in software, you learn that LGTM doesn't actually stand for "Looks Good To Me".
Only the pros know its real meaning:
"Looked. Got tired. Merged."
Nevkontakte shared a month agoGitHub Copilot got 25x more expensive over night.
I just felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of low-effort PRs suddenly cried out and were silenced.
Maintainers worldwide breathe a sigh of relief. Businesses are about to wake up to some very interesting invoices.
I wish YouTube supported word banlist for suggested videos. "Reacts to" would go straight on that.
Yes, there are a few informative videos where someone knowledgeable does an actual analysis of the thing, and shares useful information that isn't readily apparent in the original.
But the vast majority is just "ooooh" and "woooow" and "this is nuts" and rehashing the obvious.
It irritates me to no end that a lot of folks seem to believe that since we have the AI, only velocity matters, and all the engineering principles of abstraction, encapsulation, access control and good architecture can go out the window. Because AI can bridge the gap or something.
Yes, AI is a powerful tool. No, it won't be fine if you ignore all lessons computer science has learned in the last 70 or so years.
Nevkontakte shared 2 months ago
Nevkontakte shared 2 months ago
Dear politicians,
your push for surveillance is wrong! Not just morally, but also from a strategic perspective. In a geopolitical environment shaped by digital warfare, the data you collect on citizens will become a threat. Adversaries will try to weaponize those data, and sooner or later, they will succeed.
A transparent society is vulnerable to all sorts of malicious influence.
Privacy supports resilience! Data you don't have cannot be used by or against anyone!
--
#privacy #DataProtection
Nevkontakte shared 3 months ago
Tired: “Dogfooding”: Using the software you work on with unbridled happiness and glee, no consideration what it is
Wired: “Catfooding”: Looking at the software and saying “Fuck that shit. I ain’t using that”, and then going for a nap.
I think I've reached the point in my career where "pivot" has become a swear word for me 
Nevkontakte shared 3 months ago
🌟 Project Release Announcement Time! 🎉
I wrote a WebUSB extension for Firefox.
This lets web pages access USB devices (with your permission). This has long been supported by Chrome, but Mozilla has not wanted it, at least by default. Fortunately, because add-ons are a thing (for now. make sure to keep fighting for this!), it's possible to change that!
Common reasons for wanting this include programming microcontrollers, 3d-printers, smartphone bootloaders, and similar "physical computing" projects.
This works on Windows, Linux, and macOS
You can get the source code here: https://github.com/ArcaneNibble/awawausb
In order to make this work, you will need to install a small program on your computer. This is explained in the README. You can then install the .xpi file (on the GitHub Releases page) into your browser (which was _just_ auto-approved while I was typing this announcement up).
Please boost (if you want), test, report bugs, etc. etc. (although do keep in mind that this code is entirely written by a single catgirl)
i think this is the perfect type of project to drop late on a sunday / very early on a monday?
Me: update and shutdown. Windows 10: restarting…
So here's a funny thing. Maybe 4 or 5 years ago someone told me that using capitalized sentences with punctuation conveys angry/annoyed emotion. To which I laughed and said that you don't need to be angry to appreciate proper grammar.
Now, 5 years later chat messages with a period at the end feel angry to me 
hello.
Nevkontakte shared 3 months ago
1. GenAI is probably going to impact us but how? Nobody knows.
2. The worst thing about GenAI isn't the technology, it's the shitty people: https://karlbode.com/the-problem-with-ai-is-shitty-human-beings [<must-read]
3. We can’t have a grown-up conversation on the subject because the trillion-dollar bet’s fear+greed pressure crowds out truth.
4. When the bubble pops, the shitty people will melt away. Then we can maybe figure it out.
5. We so *SO* need that bubble to pop. Next week would be ideal.
