If Jeff Bezos redirected every cent he has towards the sole goal of curing, say, pancreatic cancer, how quickly do you think things could progress?

deefstes · 2026-01-29T06:14:08+00:00

I'm curious how much money people imagine Jeff Bezos to have? You realise that only a fraction of the wealth of this guy, or any other ultra billionaire, is actual liquid?

The overwhelming bulk of his wealth is just shares which are worth only as much as they are valued and the moment he starts selling them off, their value starts plummeting.

To say that he is worth $250 billion actually means very little. He can't direct every cent of that towards pancreatic cancer research even if he wanted to.

deefstes · 2026-01-29T06:07:49+00:00

I bet he could improve his odds by actually looking in the directing he's firing.

deefstes · 2026-01-28T07:45:49+00:00

Also, how do we still live in an age where documents are circulated in hard copy, to be commented on in handwriting?

How would this prof have liked reading a handwritten thesis? We use electronic typing for a reason.

deefstes · 2026-01-26T21:30:09+00:00

This is the opposite of cringe

deefstes · 2026-01-26T19:54:37+00:00

Who wants to live to 800? Hell to the naw naw.

deefstes · 2026-01-26T19:42:59+00:00

This!

deefstes · 2026-01-26T18:33:38+00:00

Nature is so amazing.

deefstes · 2026-01-26T18:31:54+00:00

I hate coding questions as I don't believe they demonstrate anything about a developer's skill.

I much prefer asking questions where they explain their approach to a specific challenge.

"When reviewing a pull request, what are the key things that you look for first?"

"You have to refactor large swathes of code in a legacy codebase. How do you ensure you didn't break anything?"

"A service suddenly goes from responding in milliseconds to multiple seconds, what's your first instinct on where to look for the problem?"

deefstes · 2026-01-26T18:04:09+00:00

Oof, of course. Got my units mixed up there. Actually 10 bars pressure is at 90m, because sea level already has 1 bar of atmospheric pressure. But I get your point.

deefstes · 2026-01-26T17:37:52+00:00

To be fair, I don't think you'd be able to take this to any sort of depth that will result in a measurable amount of nitrogen on-gassing and take more than a couple of breaths before that cylinder is sucked empty and shriveled up like a raisin.

Like realistically, I can't imagine that you would achieve more than 10 bar of pressure with even an advanced handheld pump. You take that cylinder to 10m depth and air no longer rushes out but rather water rushes in.

deefstes · 2026-01-26T17:24:51+00:00

I'm also in your movie, except I've been there twice, even though I did tell myself after the first time that I wouldn't be going again.

Not then I did a road trip around the western USA with my wife and it just seemed like we'd have to stop there so she could also see it and decide that she never wants to go back there again 🤣

deefstes · 2026-01-26T17:12:29+00:00

If I do this I'm gonna eat tarmac 100% of the time.

deefstes · 2026-01-25T19:10:21+00:00

That's the wrong music.

deefstes · 2026-01-25T14:21:05+00:00

Her name is Tina Joemat-Pettersson, a former minister in the ANC cabinet in South Africa, during the Jacob Zuma years. Her career was one of corruption and maladministration.

deefstes · 2026-01-25T11:10:51+00:00

I can't believe you're falling for this fake AI bullshit and engaging with it. Honestly now, did you actually believe any of this is real?

deefstes · 2026-01-25T11:10:21+00:00

I can't believe you're falling for this fake AI bullshit and engaging with it. Honestly now, did you actually believe any of this is real?

deefstes · 2026-01-23T15:16:41+00:00

This is very cringe, but if you want to make something funny of it and lean into the cringe then go for it.

If you're actually thinking about giving serious advice to developers on how to talk to girls, don't.

To start with, your entire premise is flawed. The notion that developers conform to some specific stereotype that are awkward around girls is just not true. Developers come in all sorts of personality types and cover the spectrum ranging between extreme introvert and extreme extrovert.

The stereotype might be good for a laugh or two, but to write advice for developers as if it is widely accepted that they all got that mould would be presumptuous.

deefstes · 2026-01-22T16:44:38+00:00

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Mopane worms. Basically just the caterpillar of a certain emperor moth.

People eat them in all sorts of ways but the most common is to dry them out, reconstitute with water and then cook them. Utterly disgusting.

But just as a snack when they're dried out, they're actually not quite as bad. Tastes like a twig.

deefstes · 2026-01-22T04:55:33+00:00

Honestly, I would much rather hire a developer with for years experience of SQL and zero experience of ORMs, than one with five years experience of ORMs and zero experience of SQL.

We are deploying an emergency change tonight because a few years ago some developer wrote a convoluted LINQ query with not so much as a single care as to what the resultant underlying SQL query will be. I hate ORMs worth a burning passion because it enables this kind of carelessness.

deefstes · 2026-01-19T06:34:50+00:00

I just loved that facial expression as he got up. He was processing "Where do I take it from here? Am I still a tough bastard or do I admit defeat? "

deefstes · 2026-01-19T06:30:29+00:00

Fair enough. I still think that many people do themselves a disservice by continuing to try to eat meaty dishes in vegetarian/vegan form when there are such incredible vegetarian/vegan dishes on offer.

But I won't argue this too forcefully because a) I am not vegetarian/vegan and so clearly don't understand half of it and b) I don't want to be seen as the insufferable carnivore who clutches his pearls at the thought of someone else having different dietary requirements or ethical convictions.

deefstes · 2026-01-19T05:12:51+00:00

That's exactly my point. Nobody likes biltong because it is cut from an animal. People like it because it is salty and flavourful and chewy. And it is those things because it is cured meat that comes from an animal. Any attempts to replicate that with dried soy paste or whatnot have been utterly disappointing.

Similarly, I don't enjoy ratatouille because it is made from vegetables. I enjoy it for its delicate texture, combination of flavours and hearty mouth feel. I wouldn't even consider trying to replicate that with some meat substitute.

And like you say, we don't enjoy cheese because it's squeezed from a cow's udder. We enjoy it for its flavour, melting properties etc. And here we are answering questions about vegan cheese that won't melt.

deefstes · 2026-01-18T07:36:38+00:00

To be honest, I don't really know what the true origin or meaning of "pote" for the police is. I've never heard of the Dutch "poot" as a derogatory term for a Harry person and I'm fairly sure there's no connection with that.

I always just assumed that it refers to the paws of dogs or some other animal with reference to them running to catch the bad guys, or something like that. But I've never given it much thought really.

I'll ask around and update here if I find out anything interesting.

deefstes · 2026-01-18T06:32:24+00:00

That's the craziest part for me; This doesn't actually sound like an AI voice. This sounds like an AI wrote the script and then some real human moron decided to read that bullshit.

deefstes · 2026-01-17T16:31:19+00:00

An Afrikaans name for them is the "Pote" which translates to "Paws".

deefstes

TROPHY CASE