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steverb

1,824 karma · joined August 26, 2009

I'm Steve Barbour. I first fell in love with computers when I read a 1978 article describing Alan Kayes' vision of the Dynabook. After going through a succession of the early consoles I finally got my hands on an almost real computer in 1983, a Timex Sinclair TS-1000, which had a whopping 1K of memory, and no usable software. I worked my way up from there, through C, VB (don't hate), Perl, Cold Fusion, the .NET stack (mostly C#), Javascript + JQuery, and most recently Ruby on Rails.

I'm also loving Ubuntu, if that means anything to you.

Feel free to check out my CV at http://careers.stackoverflow.com/steverb.

http://strictlydev.com/devs/steverb

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steverb··on My salary as a full-stack developer
Yeah, you'd be looking at 80 - 100 here in TN. You might be able to get 150, but if you only have 6 years of experience you probably wouldn't be considered senior here either.
steverb··on The mortifying ordeal of pairing all day
I have used this at several work places for particularly thorny issues and architectural changes that require group buy in.

It's powerful, but it's also very expensive, especially if you have several opinionated devs on the team.

steverb··on Flu has disappeared worldwide during the Covid pandemic
I wonder if bed bug infestations also declined with less travel.
steverb··on Millions Are Skipping Their Second Doses of Covid Vaccines
Yeah, I need to make a personal rule about posting questions before I've had any caffeine.
steverb··on Millions Are Skipping Their Second Doses of Covid Vaccines
Nevermind, I see that I misread, they are comparing second shot rates of covid against second shot rates of the shingles vaccine.
steverb··on Millions Are Skipping Their Second Doses of Covid Vaccines
Wait... the second dose of the covid vaccine protects you from shingles? This is news to me.

Does anyone have a source for that? My quick google search doesn't give me any results that aren't about the Shingrix vaccine.

steverb··on Software Infrastructure 2.0: A Wishlist
I believe you can now query across DBs in Azure via a Linked Server. It still feels a little clunky to me though.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/li...

steverb··on Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical
Oh yeah, there are certain things that I know I am going to really care about the quality of.

Never ever buy cheap jack stands for instance. The extra money you spend on the good ones is just life insurance.

steverb··on Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical
The thing to remember with battery powered tools is that you are not just buying a tool. You are buying into a battery ecosystem. Plan accordingly.

Fortunately, you can buy batteries for most popular tool brands long after the brand stops supporting them, and in a pinch you can buy adapters to make brand a batteries work on brand b tools

steverb··on Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical
I have a rule for buying tools. The first one I buy, I buy the cheaper version (Harbor Freight house brand for instance). If I use it enough to break it within3 years, or become frustrated with its shortcomings, then I go buy a "pro" version.

Yes, it does mean I have spent more money than absolutely necessary, but on the other hand I have a lot of cheap tools that are perfectly serviceable for the two times a year I actually need to use them.

It works for me, you go do what works for you.

steverb··on Boy who said he developed narcolepsy after swine flu vaccine settles court case
I would think so, yes, although I doubt that "completely safe" is an achievable reality.
steverb··on Boy who said he developed narcolepsy after swine flu vaccine settles court case
To incentivize vaccine manufacturers to produce vaccines that are affordable to the general populace.

In the US you do still have some recourse for injuries caused by vaccination: "The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is a no-fault alternative to the traditional legal system for resolving vaccine injury petitions.

It was created in the 1980s, after lawsuits against vaccine companies and health care providers threatened to cause vaccine shortages and reduce U.S. vaccination rates, which could have caused a resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases."

https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html

steverb··on Voltswagen of America
"But my experience, and those among my friends (I was part of a local VW enthusiast club) is that the cars are fine. But the kicker is you need to stay on top of your maintenance. If you skimp on the regular work, you end up paying for it in the end. "

This is the absolute truth about most modern cars. The main thing I look for now in a used car is parts availability and how well the car has been maintained.

steverb··on Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)
I spent some serious time as teenager training myself out of my southern accent for this reason. You could have a PHD in Astrophysics, but if you speak with a southern accent people will assume you're an idiot.

The only downside, is that I have a slight speech impediment, but it's mild enough that most people don't notice.

And for some reason I still (25 years later) tend to pronounce hill as "heel".

steverb··on Conversations almost never end when both parties want them to: study
You might be coloring that one with your own perspective. "Failed to realize" and "Didn't see" both parse with the same emotional connotation for me personally.
steverb··on The ZX81 Turns 40
This is the computer I learned to program on (the TS1000 US Version). The manual for it still has place of honor on my bookshelf.
steverb··on Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco
Knoxville here, can anecdotally confirm an increase in the number of California plates I see around town.
steverb··on Myths about how the brain works
I would further add that those oversimplified concepts of how the brain works have hung around because they are useful for us as an abstraction to think about how our brain works.

They may be bad abstractions at a lower level of detail, but for general purposes they seem to be useful enough.

steverb··on Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams
My daughter has narcolepsy and (according to her) always lucid dreams, so I hope this isn't completely true.
steverb··on Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – 30th Anniversary Edition – Free Play Online
I actually had a T-shirt in the 80's that said "I got the Babel Fish". Bought it out of the back of some computer magazine(maybe Compute!)?

The original game came with some very cool props that I wish I still had. Peril Sensitive Sunglasses (Do not wear while driving.), A microscopic space fleet in a plastic bag, some lint, and a "Don't Panic" button.

steverb··on 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry'
I've never had to pay spotify a monthly fee to list a song. I've had to pay some one time costs to get the song listed (via a distributor), but I've never had to pay a maintenance fee of any sort.

And I assure you, the stuff I've put up does not make enough money to cover any fees (20 listens a month).

steverb··on Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries
Fair enough
steverb··on Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries
Fair enough.
steverb··on Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries
And somehow terrestrial radio stations, which have no subscription base manage to make it work.

As I said in the comment above, artists are free to NOT put their music on Spotify if they don't think it's a good deal, but regardless streaming services are only commercials for artists. Spotify is far from the worst offender. :-)

steverb··on Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries
From wikipedia: "Spotify pays royalties based on their "market share"—the number of streams for their songs as a proportion of total songs streamed on the service."

Regardless, Spotify is free to pay whatever they think is fair and artists are free to accept or reject that compensation as they will. But if you're an artist, Spotify (and the other streaming platforms, which mostly pay even less) are not going to be something that you can ever expect to be an income source.

steverb··on Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries
A radio play is around 9.5 cents per play. Assuming there are no royalty splits, then that would be 11 plays to earn a dollar.

I think royalties of 1 to 3 cents per stream are completely reasonable. Subcent royalties are just platforms taking advantage of the content creators.

Which is why most artists see all the streaming platforms as merely a way to advertise for live shows and merch. That's the only way to really make money without hitting Taylor Swift levels of streams.

steverb··on Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere while paying SF and NY salaries
It is pretty straightforward to get your music on Spotify and all the other streaming platforms. No record label needed. There are very inexpensive services that will do all the leg work for you, but it take approximately 230 streaming plays on spotify to earn a dollar.
steverb··on Ask HN: Why hasn't anyone made a bash-like shell that directly targets Windows?
You mean like https://www.cygwin.com/ ?
steverb··on TurboTax Tricked You into Paying to File Your Taxes (2019)
Having lived through my parents being audited multiple times I am definitely afraid of the IRS boogey man.

Merely dealing with an audit (even if everything you id was correct and above board) can be extremely stressful and time consuming.

My parents also thought their CPA was really good an knew what they were doing. Turns out that even CPAs screw up sometimes. :-)

steverb··on Experience synesthesia: Google tool lets you 'hear' colors and shapes
Question, is the association for you with a singular sound or with a series of sounds (as found in the simulator)?
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