he is not the tool, he is the developer of the tools

• Amichay Oren

My girlfriend had an off-day today, which meant she spent her afternoon watching YouTube videos on the current Russian invasion of Ukraine. Through a segment on Seth Meyers, my gf found her way to the live recording of the United Nations Security Council giving their votes on a (largely symbolic) resolution. Here’s how she summarizes it:

It’s the tone. you have to watch the tone! Everyone is like “you suck!”, US was like “that’s right!”, UK was like “that’s right!”, but Brazil was like “we find the situation deeply troubling….”

It was cute. That’s all. Not a good day for many people today, so we should appreciate the treasures along the way.

So we heard the CVS on 3rd Ave near us will be closed. I was somehow under the impression that that location is a CVS franchise, and was saddened because the Chinese woman owner seemed like a hardworker. Now that I’ve done my research I am glad at the very least she’s just another worker and hopefully they didn’t lay her and her staff off.

Also, https://whimsicalkyle.wordpress.com/.

I just want to post about this sexy beast that is currently situated at the Mono No Aware film lab in Brooklyn, New York. Let me try colorfully recount what Steve Cossman, Mono’s director, tells me:

This is 1 of 18 machines in the world. The hardware is handbuilt by one guy and the software is handbuilt by another. Its full cost is $250,000 but they made one at $30,000 for Mono. It’s got 32TB of hard drive temporarily as the guy will come next week to upgrade that. It’s hooked up to a Windows PC that host the processing software, export to the data tower and we’ve got a Mac hooked up to that for ease of data transport. Scans 8 frame a second at 4K resolution. We drove it to the lab in the middle of a snow squall, and I have to thank a cinematography.com guru for helping set it up for us.

That’s it, just niche tech that most will not get to see. Unless they come to Mono No Aware.

You know your company is growing if your openvpn --max-client limit suddenly needs to be made bigger than the default 1024 or else the OpenVPN server suddenly dies and everyone thought it’s a firewall issue.

Read more

At my previous job, govtech/tax-tech, the database was just as important as the code. Now what do I mean by that? Mooney explained it best on this exact topic:

Given how much thought and effort goes into source code control and change management at many of these same companies, it is confusing and a little unsettling that so much less progress has been made on the database change management front. Many developers can give you a 15 minute explanation of their source code strategy, why they are doing certain things and referencing books and blog posts to support their approach, but when it comes to database changes it is usually just an ad-hoc system that has evolved over time and everyone is a little bit ashamed of it.

I believe the quote above is true. Admittedly, I’m only a 1+ YOE software engineer, but having jumped ship from a govtech consultancy to a startup, I find there is a lot to compare between how databases is treated and how this leads to a better developer experience.

What follows is a series of features I found missing at my current place of work.

1. Version Control

Schemas have version control. The system detects any changes made to the schema (In fact, the company never taught you to alter tables with SQL) because you would make table structure changes through the system. Deleting/removing columns, adding or editing comments, addibg/editing indexes (and probably many more), local changes are “synced” with the shared work server, where it assigns a version number for your structure. Migrations from local to testing environments and then, ultimately, to Prod, is simply having the environment point to the right version.

I feel anxious today. I feel anxious a lot actually. I feel as if I’m not as good as my peers. Or that I’m not achieving as much as them. Lot’s of comparisons being made lately. But need to remind myself from time to time that it’s all okay. It’s okay. Take your time. My existence is but a blip on this world. Who remembers the richest family and people of the 18th century, that’s right, not a lot.

I have a good life, a good gf, a good job. I’ll be grateful. Not fully satisfied, but I’ll always be grateful for what I have.

some words by /u/Oberon_Swanson

Read more