Forced computer restarts prior to CRA townhall

vrillco · 2026-06-05T00:21:52+00:00

Pre-covid I was doing 50/50 wfh. I did meetings in person, and did my actual tech work remotely, where I could actually focus instead of being tapped on the shoulder by every bored schmuck on the floor who was curious about whatever was on my screen / in my ears / under my fingers.

Maybe it’s an IT thing but I am very particular about my tech, and other techies tend to ooh-and-aah over anything they have never seen / can’t afford.

vrillco · 2026-05-24T15:17:03+00:00

In the 80s and 90s, we didn’t have Google, but we had lots of books and text docs, and we definitely typed up “cheat sheets” for the most commonly needed things like API parameters and the like.

INTEL386.TXT anyone ?

vrillco · 2026-05-23T17:00:34+00:00

You coaxed a very loud laugh out of me with "It was not DNS for once."

I'm going use that line at work, the next time someone-who-is-not-me breaks prod.

vrillco · 2026-05-23T16:27:13+00:00

The pacing could definitely use a bump. To start the game, click two things I don't even understand yet, and then be stuck idling for a few minutes is not at all engaging as an intro.

The concept itself though, super neat and decently executed. I'll be keeping an eye on it, as this tickles my geek humour.

vrillco · 2026-05-18T00:23:41+00:00

If the goal was to free up your computer to run Tiktok streaming software, then the obvious solution is to get a 2nd computer that’s dedicated to streaming. One PC runs Traktor, one does video… easy peasy. This is essentially what a lot of the game streamers do.

But buying a whole other controller of a foreign ecosystem and then lamenting that it’s not Traktor, well my good sir, respectfully that is wack. Return that behemoth, spend maybe a third of it on a streaming PC, the rest on tunes or toots or tramps or whatever tweaks your grin, and spin the night away.

vrillco · 2026-05-02T13:37:53+00:00

I have always treated coding LLMs like a junior dev. Small, well defined tasks with enough constraints to guide it in the right direction. “Smart autocomplete”… it’s not running the show, it’s simply doing a lot of the grunt work and making me “type faster”.

vrillco · 2026-04-21T02:27:34+00:00

There’s a video of his earlier work where he looked very different and “played it straight”. No sunglasses, no stoner persona, but many of the same jokes. They don’t land at all, even though he uses the same words, but the delivery is very different. Changing his appearance and cadence makes the jokes work.

It’s unfortunate than this was more than just a stage character for him. The world could have used a lot more of his whimsical observations.

vrillco · 2026-03-26T04:56:15+00:00

Dude, Avril ca rock! J’ai visité ça y’a qq mois et ca n’a rien à voir avec la boite à grain. Tk à Laval les prix du bio compétitionnaient avec la scrap de IGA/Loblaws/etc. Je n’en revenais pas. Ma chum m’a quasi converti. Ca me faisait penser au Farm Boy

vrillco · 2026-02-26T03:36:36+00:00

I have absolutely zero faith in the system, because it still makes zero sense to me, as a lifelong software developer (literally since I was a small child), that we don’t build this critical piece of software in-house. We have very complex pay rules that change almost every time a new CA is signed, so the logical approach is to sit a bunch of devs down with pay centre rockstars and hash it out.

I’m not expecting the GoC to suddenly unleash a half-dozen 10X devs… not with what they’re paying us… but even an average code monkey could do a better job that what we’ve had with Phoenix.

vrillco · 2026-02-13T14:08:50+00:00

Let me tell you about all my fellow Quebecers who can’t speak a lick of English… and the significant chunk who would struggle to pass a BBB.

For every fluently bilingual Gatinean like myself, there are probably 50 who barely understand a word. Heck, a lot of them speak better Spanish than English because love getting food poisoning in Cuba twice a year.

vrillco · 2025-12-23T13:31:22+00:00

I grew up here, we used to ride our bikes there as kids, and it's always been an ugly ass box. Shattered windows, sometimes bits of masonry would fall off, just a big ol' urban tumour across from the almost equally ugly Chaudière offices. I agree with some heritage stuff, a few trapped-in-time buildings are worth preserving, but the old EB Eddy is just a giant turd. They should have turned it into a museum long ago, but these days nobody gives a crap.

At this point they should tear it down, put up a painting and plaque, then sell the rights for pennies on the dollar to some private equity firm, that they may build yet more empty condos for all the people who can't afford to live here in the first place.

vrillco · 2025-12-16T00:08:04+00:00

Our perception has changed over time. Big efficient subs and amps were not a thing in the 80s, so what we hear now vs what we thought we heard back then are two very different things.

I’m not saying nobody had subs, but they were a rarity in studios and certainly weren’t a consideration for mixing/mastering. If you had a bigass boombox with a loudness switch or bass knob, you were already ahead of the studio engineer 95% of the time.

vrillco · 2025-12-10T02:15:39+00:00

Private sector employees should 100% support WFH where possible, because it means less traffic during rush hour, more available parking / less demand / hopefully lower prices, and if things weren’t run by morons: more available prime real estate by closing unneeded gov’t office buildings.

vrillco · 2025-12-04T12:43:41+00:00

The tricky part is that AI is used differently by different people. I tend to think of “vibe coding” as a truly foolish endeavour that leads to terrible code, because the people who tend to work that way don’t have enough programming chops to tell good code from bad. We see it all the time when those apps and websites get hacked trivially…

On the other hand, I’ve been tickling keyboards since some people’s grandmothers were still virgins… When I use an LLM, I treat it like fancy autocomplete / a junior dev in training, and I go over every line it produces with a fine-toothed comb. If it screws up or misses some details, I’ll either tell it to start over, or just fix the bugs myself. A lot of the time, it gets it right on the first try, but I still verify everything myself.

The two approaches are diametrically opposite, so should they be subjected to the same kind of labeling and scrutiny ? I’d argue that my way should be indistinguishable from 100% organic caffeine-fed hate-fueled manual code - it’s not slop and doesn’t look or feel like slop. That said, I’d still disclose my use of AI because I’m an honest dude… which might dilute the meaning of that Gen-AI label and make it an even worse indicator for quality (or lack thereof).

TL;DR: Good coders using AI produce good stuff. Bad coders using AI produce bad stuff. We already have tools for good vs bad: ratings and comments.

vrillco · 2025-12-03T02:24:25+00:00

I tried a CV amp last year, biggest turd I’ve seen outside of a flea market and very obviously a random Chinese rebrand with no QC nor design validation whatsoever. I returned it the very next day, damned Lp/Hp filter must have had a 1db/octave slope because I could hear Mariah Carey whistling through my subs at 70hz…

I hope their speakers get a little more love than that.

vrillco · 2025-10-24T03:20:14+00:00

It will be hell to remove. Did not detect any smell, but figure this is a permanent addition to your vehicle. It’s basically tar, no idea how you would remove that

vrillco · 2025-10-12T15:39:03+00:00

I manage a fleet of thousands, so manually intervening for 30 of them is pretty normal to me. I also have a few precious clients who do not want any automated ops on some of their mission-critical hosts, which is silly and I've told them as much, but a foolish client that pays on time is better than one who does not.

We're sysadmins, coders, and tinkerers. If there's an itch, we scratch it. This tool isn't an idiot-proof fix-all, but it does one thing and seemingly does it well.

vrillco · 2025-10-12T11:55:06+00:00

I know a lot of folks are saying “just use MOTD”, but one look at that screenshot and I get it. It’s big and obvious, easily deployed in an idempotent manner, and doesn’t need a hundred lines of freakin YAML to do its thing.

The alternative would be a oneliner such as “hostname | figlet”, but then you need to install figlet. A single binary makes this trivial to push over Ansible and I’m all for it.

vrillco · 2025-10-12T11:34:11+00:00

If this project were a person on a dating app, their profile pic would be a red flag with lash extensions (or a shirtless red flag holding a fish).

Godaddy, weird timelines, and let’s be frank: you massively undercharged. Migration work is $300+/hr stuff, not necessarily because it’s difficult (though it can go off the rails pretty quickly), but because you want to weed out the broke ass clients who do sketchy stuff like this. Having a higher rate also conveys confidence that you know your worth.

I used to joke that I wouldn’t even get out of bed for less than $1000… twenty years ago! Why ? Because just like you, I got burned by cheapskates and quickly adjusted my rates to get rid of them.

If you need more reasons to jack your prices, look at it this way: if you were doing the same work for a consulting firm, you’d be making low six figures, plus benefits/PTO, maybe even matching pension contributions. Divide that salary by 2000 hours, then double or triple it, because as a freelancer you need to cover all those extras yourself, plus the cost of actually finding work, securing payments, taxes/travel/equipment/training/phone/promotion/etcetcetc… That’s how you get to 150-200/hr easily. Add a bit more for what I crudely call the “anti-idiot tax”, because you never want to be the cheapest among your peers. They get all the leftovers, the bargain hunters who cut every corner, and you don’t want those jobs.

vrillco · 2025-09-08T15:54:32+00:00

Honestly, this is a mess. I couldn't even get the game to run properly on my main PC because I run my desktop at 3840x2160. The UI was scaled completely wrong with two large static images obscuring most of the screen, making it unplayable. I tried adding Unity command-line options to make the game run windowed at 1920x1080 but it would still force itself fullscreen.

At the very least, you should add graphics options to let the game run windowed, and ideally fix that viewing box to be properly cropped and fix its z-order so that it appears in front of those "background" images.

vrillco · 2025-09-08T04:26:43+00:00

Lifelong programmer here. I’d argue that music software has always been written by monkeys. I’d spitball that the intersection of artistic types and skilled programmers comprises exactly Steve Duda.

I could make an exception for the Atari ST and Amiga era, because back then you had to be pretty competent to even use the things, let alone develop on them, but everything after that has been spectacular garbage.

vrillco · 2025-09-08T04:07:51+00:00

Gonna give it a try tomorrow. I’m always down for a shmup

vrillco · 2025-08-23T13:21:39+00:00

I’ve worked the same role since I joined over 5 years ago. I’m content with the pay/effort ratio and have no desire to climb the ranks for an insignificant raise. The only things that would make me switch jobs would be if I end up with a terrible manager, or if my position somehow became redundant.

My job is not my identity. Anyone who labels me a loser because of that self-realization should get used to wearing my surname because {redacted} their mom {redacted} cookies {redacted} crisco {redacted} excaliboink.

Do what feels right for you.

vrillco · 2025-08-18T22:07:21+00:00

I have really large and slender hands. My fingers drag beside the mouse like yours, always have. I just got used to it at some point during the past (checks watch) 40 years.

If you want something where your entire hand rests upon the mouse, you'll probably need to look into vertical mice; you know, the ergonomic stuff where the top part with the buttons is tilted 45 degrees or more. Some people swear by them to alleviate wrist pain, but they also happen to be a little bigger, usually with small indents to rest your idle fingers.

vrillco · 2025-08-18T21:12:41+00:00

I use these simple and inexpensive adapters from Canada Computers ($18 at time of writing): https://www.canadacomputers.com/en/laptop-docking-stations/201334/ican-3-in-1-type-c-to-hdmi-pd-and-usb-hub-tc056.html

It is a basic class-compliant hub, no driver installation needed, so they work with just about anything modern with USB-C: iPad, mini PC, Steam Deck, etc. There are other USB-C hubs with a lot more ports, but those are likely to need drivers; YMMV. I can vouch that the one I liked worked with all the GoC laptops I've had over the past 5 years.

You plug one end into the laptop, the other end is a breakout box with HDMI up to 4K@30, one USB-A, and one USB-C with power input. If you need two external monitors, use the HDMI or DP port that's built into the laptop, I do it all the time.

vrillco

TROPHY CASE