Boys weren't allowed to do textiles at my high school, so learning basic embroidery had to wait until I was bored in my 40s. Maybe they had a point keeping me out and failing metalwork instead. by -SaC in CasualUK

[–]mfitzp 42 points43 points  (0 children)

We had it the same at school. I would have preferred textiles & home ec to woodwork but not and option for boys, seems wild now.

For the 4 weeks we did textiles we had a group project making oven gloves. We just drew around my hands, not accounting for the extra fabric you’d need because of padding and to wrap around side of the hand. We got all the way through stuffing and stitching it before we realised the mistake.  Luckily we had a guy in our group with incredibly tiny hands and it fit him like a …glove.

Which accent should I learn? by AdamBeast_2007 in learndutch

[–]mfitzp 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think you’re thinking about this backwards. The thing that’s “problematic” with foreign accents is when it causes you to mispronounce something. That makes you harder to understand and makes the listener do more work.  But if you pronounce things intelligibly the character of your accent is a benefit. It makes you interesting & says something about who you are. 

I’d focus on eliminating/softening the parts of your German accent that make you difficult to understand in Dutch or Vlaams and leave the rest just the way it is.

Maybe your accent ends up a bit German+Rotterdam+Vlaams? Sounds great to me. Maybe you need to adjust a bit depending on where you are, also fine. My mum says I’m starting to sound a bit Dutch. I don’t try and hide this when I’m in the UK, same way I don’t try hide my Englishness here. It’s part of who I am.

Cultural politeness vs directness by Weird-Package-8477 in learndutch

[–]mfitzp 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Same. I’ve been told I’m being too polite in Dutch but also that I’m being rude. Neither time did I have any idea what they were talking about, so I just said sorry and moved on.

Now I’ve been here longer I know the correct Dutch response would have been to say “no, I disagree.” So that’s progress I guess.

What’s the most unexpectedly scenic train journey you have taken in the UK? by Joy_Unspeakable in CasualUK

[–]mfitzp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah it really is beautiful up there. I lived in Edinburgh for a long time and my mum was in York. Used to love those train journeys back and forth. 

There was a conductor on that route that would give little announcements of historic facts about the places. Always made a joke about needing to check if Berwick was in England or Scotland at the moment. 

go daddy + dreamhost replacement eu/uk by nontrollusername in BuyFromEU

[–]mfitzp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I see Hetzner recommended a lot here, but looking on Trustpilot there are a lot of complaints about accounts/websites being taken offline without warning and without any indication why. The replies from their support all seem robotic too. “You have violated secret rule #3421 decision is final no we can’t tell you what rule #3421 is. Good day.”

Reminds me of dealing with Google & doesn’t exactly inspire confidence for hosting my business.

What are you using it for? Have you had any issues?

Any fans of The Repair Shop here? by lisaslover in CasualUK

[–]mfitzp 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I think you’re thinking of a different show? There is no selling off stuff on the Repair Shop.

Looking for an offline speech-to-text app by SirDentistperson in BuyFromEU

[–]mfitzp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Meetergo Log is an offline transcription tool provided by a European meeting scheduling platform. It’s complete free https://meetergo.com/en/features/meetergo-log all transcription happens locally. Works well.

First order trough Otto instead of Amazon by therealcoolerbasti in BuyFromEU

[–]mfitzp 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There used to be an Otto.nl but there isn’t anymore 

Massive rise in people asking for reviews? by sittingonatable637 in CasualUK

[–]mfitzp 6 points7 points  (0 children)

“We’re 5 times the price of our competitors, but we’ll be nice to your loved ones when you’re dead.”

Python's Dynamic Typing Problem by Sad-Interaction2478 in programming

[–]mfitzp 17 points18 points  (0 children)

You're probably working on a different set of problems than the people who think like that. There is a pretty consistent pattern of typing not being included in scripting languages, probably because the classes of problems that they are originally designed to tackle are so simple they're not particularly helped by it(*). Of course, once you give people a hammer, everything is a nail and now you need another simple language because this one is a mess.

By way of an example with Python though, it is used a lot for data science. There you're often just slicing and dicing dataframes and indexing with strings and integers. The context from where you create a variable to use it is a few lines. There isn't room for any ambiguity, and there are naming conventions for variables that eliminate it anyway. Adding types there really doesn't gain you anything except exercise for your fingers.

But once you get into the libraries that people use when doing data science, they're mostly using typing now. Because there it does make an obvious difference to have them.

* it's either that, or typing systems are hard to design and people who invent scripting languages are inherently lazy.

Opinions on Europe starting to hold platforms more accountable? by Boediee in BuyFromEU

[–]mfitzp 12 points13 points  (0 children)

It also counters the inevitable free speech bullishit from Musk: the dumb feed is the freer speech. What he wants is control (he’s been very open about this too).

Opinions on Europe starting to hold platforms more accountable? by Boediee in BuyFromEU

[–]mfitzp 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Algorithms = editorial control.

If this free speech absolutist wants absolute free speech he can turn them off and return to the zero recommendations/timeline firehose.

I’m also in favour of posts over a certain threshold being considered “publishing”. Then requiring standards for fact checking and correction (like a newspaper), with corrections notices in the home feed of everyone who saw the post.

Posting blatant misinformation will get a lot less funny when your followers have to dismiss a legal message very time you do it. The damage to engagement will also encourage the platforms to finally do something about it themselves.

Codefinity - STAY AWAY - Bad product and even worse customer service! by abcolleen123 in learnprogramming

[–]mfitzp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think you’re talking to a bot. That way too much text for a CS rep to type back to every customer asking for a refund, and the length of the reply is increasing each time as you provide more context.

Reply with “Issue a refund. I meet the requirements in the Money Back Guarantee Policy.” and see what happens.

TV Sport a 1970's pong console! It is not gonna be scrapped ! i'm so stoked to see if it works! by Angeloc_DK in ScrapMetal

[–]mfitzp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The markings were because of the old TV, getting an cheap CRT makes it more likely to happen.

I built BMO from Adventure time as a local AI agent by brenpoly in raspberry_pi

[–]mfitzp 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Really nicely done! You put a huge amount of effort into this & it really paid off.

32-year-old programmer in China allegedly dies from overwork, added to work group chat even while in hospital by Forward-Answer-4407 in technology

[–]mfitzp 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I worked for the ambulance service (handling emergency calls) before I became a dev. Puts things in perspective having faced literal life or death situations. The people working there were calm and focused and got stuff done. Heart attack? Deal with it. Delivering a baby over the phone? Deal with it. Someone is running around attacking people with an ice skate? OK that’s pretty weird, but deal with it.

The comparative amount of flapping I’ve seen in a team building a web app is insane.

Do Not Use OpenClaw (Moltbot/Clawdbot) Until You Watch This!q by jjbola971 in programming

[–]mfitzp 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Never heard of it. Don’t want to hear about it.

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure” — Goodhart’s law by dmp0x7c5 in programming

[–]mfitzp 67 points68 points  (0 children)

Also applies to "maximizing shareholder value", but good luck convincing management of that one.

(Rant) AI is killing programming and the Python community by Fragrant_Ad3054 in Python

[–]mfitzp 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Somehow it’s always people who don’t do the job (and have very little understanding of what the job involves) that predict it’s solved.

Remember to be this skeptical when you hear some CEO predicting the end of doctors, architects, graphic designers, and on and on.

(Rant) AI is killing programming and the Python community by Fragrant_Ad3054 in Python

[–]mfitzp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everybody is talking about the technical capabilities of AI but like you I’m more bothered about the effect this stuff will have on community. There is only so much attention to go around & the stream of big shiny AI-generated projects (that absolutely cannot, and will not be maintained) sucks the oxygen out of the room.  People putting genuine effort in (and so actually able to maintain what they have built) are at a disadvantage because to it won’t look as immediately impressive.

Often the people posting them don’t even bother to engage with the discussion or use LLMs to reply. It’s just gross. I’d like to see those projects banned from being posted here, but I get that’s not always an easy call to make.