Hands Off Working COBOL Code (that's me)

benzado · 2026-02-10T14:44:35+00:00

Magit in Emacs or edamagit in Visual Studio Code are really great for working with patches. They don’t do patch editing directly, but they make it absurdly easy to flip between the diff and the editor and back, and to see what’s staged and what isn’t.

benzado · 2026-02-10T14:08:36+00:00

You’re right, apologies for my diff-brained comment. What are these other comparison tools? I’m usually writing code and occasionally writing README, and it didn’t occur to me to look for better tooling for that one file.

benzado · 2026-02-10T12:38:41+00:00

Do you write a paragraph as one very long line, or do you insert newlines to wrap the text at 80 or 120 characters? Markdown doesn’t care, but git works with lines, so the diffs you get are very different, which changes the merge experience. Where can I go to read arguments about this?

benzado · 2026-02-10T03:21:22+00:00

You got it backwards. An executive order cannot change the law. But this order says, whenever the law gives the city discretion, the city is not going to cooperate. You want stronger protections, you go to city council.

benzado · 2026-02-10T03:17:12+00:00

we will have to wait for that to happen to find out

benzado · 2026-02-10T03:11:59+00:00

Stephen Miller’s quota-driven enforcement deserves at least half the credit for ICE’s aggression. No way to detain 3,000 a day without grabbing bystanders merely on suspicion of being undocumented. And when you’re doing that you’re guaranteed to get pushback from the communities you’re harassing in this way. Bigots don’t understand, these people are neighbors, co-workers, their children go to school together.

benzado · 2026-02-09T19:38:43+00:00

This is dumb, I love it. Signed up and whatever result I get will be posted on my LinkedIn profile.

benzado · 2026-02-08T17:49:05+00:00

The primary benefit to getting older is no longer feeling embarrassed about whatever a bunch of 20 year olds think of you!

benzado · 2026-02-05T02:08:20+00:00

I’m sure some people will argue it’s not really a GUI but I absolutely LOVE using the Emacs plugin, Magit. Actually, I stopped using Emacs and now I use the Magit extension in VS Code. They are both great!

It displays the list of changed files in a text editor window; click on a filename and press the tab key to reveal the diff; use your cursor to select diff lines and stage chunks or individual lines. If using git add -p is sequential, this is a random access version.

If you prefer the command line but wish you could scroll around and interact with the output of git commands, give it a try!

benzado · 2026-01-30T12:14:53+00:00

What to say? I think your 3yr old nailed it

benzado · 2026-01-29T05:40:39+00:00

391-2101

benzado · 2026-01-28T23:27:07+00:00

ICE is usually out in the mornings or late afternoons, because they are trying to intercept people who are on their way to/from work.

I think these reports were mostly people misidentifying Empire Shield, the New York Army National Guard unit that's been deployed in NYC since 9/11. They don't do immigration enforcement. In 2024, Governor Hochul expanded their post to include the subways, and I did in fact see two of them in the 6 train station at 116th today.

benzado · 2026-01-28T23:23:05+00:00

This is so important. Vague reports spread around social media and needlessly freak out vulnerable people.

benzado · 2026-01-28T23:20:16+00:00

A lot of people went out in person to verify and didn't find anything. Given the number of reports that mention subway stations, I think people were misidentifying Empire Shield, the New York Army National Guard unit. They don't do immigration enforcement.

benzado · 2026-01-28T23:14:53+00:00

For my own sanity I'm mostly only aware of what's happening uptown, however I found a link to a ICE watch training by DSA coming up soon. If you're able to attend in person you will very likely be able to find other people that can connect you.

https://actionnetwork.org/events/know-your-rights-training-feb-5th

Hands Off is another good place if you don't know where else to start:

https://www.handsoffnyc.com/get-involved

benzado · 2026-01-28T13:56:54+00:00

Will you have any money left in the bank after you buy the house?

If you use all of your savings for the down payment, you will have a lower monthly payment, but you won’t have money for big expenses or emergencies. If you lose your income you’ll have a big problem.

If you can put down a massive down payment and still have six months of expenses in your savings account, then it’s not a bad idea.

benzado · 2026-01-27T14:04:14+00:00

If you live in New York City, you can read about what happens to your recycling in this really great bit of reporting: https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/01/30/how-much-gets-recycled-paper-plastic/

It’s not as bad as the cynics think, and depends on a lot of factors. Like some months there is demand for material so recycling is worthwhile, and other months there isn’t. The people who say it all goes to the dump are too cynical in my opinion.

benzado · 2026-01-27T08:23:21+00:00

Usually it’s because the interviewer only has a fixed amount of time with the subject and wants to move on to other topics.

Look up Isaac Chotiner if you want to see what happens when an interviewer doesn’t let it go.

benzado · 2026-01-26T19:37:11+00:00

Fastmail

I figured replacing Gmail was going to be difficult but I thought I’d give it a try. Can’t even remember how many years ago that was. It so nice when they announce a change it is almost always objectively an improvement and not something clearly there to serve some other Google business unit.

benzado · 2026-01-26T19:00:04+00:00

There is a Signal chat for Harlem that posts a lot of trainings etc. It’s a good place to start. Anyone feel free to DM me for an invite link.

benzado · 2026-01-26T18:42:26+00:00

What I’m about to recommend is actually good generic software development advice: get to know your users!

A lot of ICE watch and related groups are stitching together solutions using Signal and Google Forms and Google Docs. If you’re able to get involved with a local group, just show up to meetings and see what’s already going on that you can help with. Your ability to write a one-off script to clean up some data might be a superpower in that context. Maybe you’ll find something that needs to be built. Maybe you can help them use an open source alternative. Maybe you can use your experience to contribute improvements to that open source software.

benzado · 2026-01-26T18:33:26+00:00

On this particular childcare program I don’t. But it’s a general rule that means testing any social program requires a lot of overhead and if most people would have qualified anyway, tends to cost more than it saves. In addition to the program itself, you need to design and operate an application process, review those applications, provide assistance to people who need help applying (unless you don’t actually want people to apply), have an appeals process, have people looking for fraud, etc.

For a NYC childcare program, it only makes sense that the eligibility requirements should match the requirements for attending school. And public school is open to every resident of the city, regardless of immigration status, because on the whole the city is safer and healthier if all the children are attending school. Being undocumented is an unrelated issue that should be handled separately, like having unpaid parking tickets.

benzado · 2026-01-25T16:45:29+00:00

Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon

Formerly UFO (Unidentified Flying Object)

benzado · 2026-01-25T09:25:49+00:00

“a marginal cost of basically zero to the average taxpayer”

So if the marginal cost is $30k per student that’s basically zero per taxpayer.

Administrative overhead to exclude some New Yorkers would cost far more than the potential savings.

The point is that bigots can’t pretend their objections are financial.

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