tabris

Google are killing it recently, broken installers, bricked chromecasts, ai slop masquerading as search results. Absolutely killing it.

I use Qobuz, and I like it a lot. You can easily download music for offline listening, there's a lot of high def on there, and from what information is known about how much streaming services pay back to record labels, Qobuz appears to be the biggest payer per stream.

The app is no frills, they only added auto generated playlists a year or so ago. Their recommendations are less tailored, but high quality if you're wanting to explore outside your usual tastes.

Plus, it's just music. No podcasts, no audiobooks, no games, no generative ai for some reason.

So glad I made the switch to GrapheneOS, and hurridly pulling my data out of Google's services. It may take me another month or two before I'm just down to migrating the rest of my email from gmail (reckon that might take me all year) but these articles just spur me on more.

Just finished Red Shirts by Jon Scalzi, a Star Trek satire about the disposability of side characters in sci-fi. Not a bad book, by any regards, but had a very simplistic writing style that got tedious at times. The best part of the book was when the narrative finished 75% of the way through the novel, then it spent three chapters exploring three of the minor characters from the narrative and the repercussions the plot had on them. This made the book worth reading, but I still felt a little unsatisfied at the end.

I'm now reading Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I'm only two chapters in, but so far, this looks much more up my street. Earth has become a fascist technocracy that sends its political prisoners to far off planets to endure forced labour. The descriptions of acceptable losses in the first chapter made the tense descent of the main character to his new prison planet all the more so. Interested to see where this one goes.

Good luck. I'm also on that process. Just changing email provider is enough work with over 300 accounts using my Gmail address. Don't give up, but be aware it's a lot of work.

I'm over 20 years into my career, so I think I'm technically (and literally) a grey beard now. I always make time for junior devs if they need it or request it. Often I try to softly inspire them to a good solution, or challenge their thinking when I think they're going down the wrong path or are creating too much work for themselves through over-engineering.

Pair programming is an invaluable learning tool for any team. It produces great results as you are both challenging each other while also quickly spotting those silly mistakes we all make.

Rubber Duck Debugging is also a fantastic way to solve issues quickly, as just talking through how you think the code works while reviewing it, you often spot the issue with almost no input from the person acting as the duck.

I'd also recommend doing code katas like codewars for any skill level, as solving problems that you wouldn't usually come across in day to day work can lead to ways of thinking that you wouldn't get otherwise. If you can, get more people on your team to do the same katas and then all talk through your solutions as a group. We would often use languages we were less familiar with to solve the kata in order to pick up new skills as well.

You never stop learning in this industry. There's always new tech, new languages, and new ways to solve a problem that will make you a better programmer.

We watched Slay, a 2024 camp horror comedy where a group of drag queens who booked the wrong venue have to defend the bar and its biker patrons from a horde of vampires.

It's silly, but with some very charming characters, lots of references to other cult vampire flicks, and kept us laughing throughout. A cult classic in the making.

Replace the NASA website with a continuous stream of the movie Hidden Figures with a scrolling banner above it saying "Fuck off Elon"

Specifically, control of women, their bodies and their freedom.

Yep, there's been no repeal of the GDPR laws, so they are still officially on the books in the UK.

Surely it's the other way around?

I mean, this isn't that dissimilar to a Persona game: normal school kid by day, with requirements on time; superhero badass at night delving into the digital world to fight bad guys.