teddyc

I'm just waiting for a laser printer to show up at a local Goodwill, but so far it's just dozens of inkjet printers.

The Goodwill stores in my area offer a 7 day return period for electronics. I imagine I'll get this for $10-30 and support the community when I make the purchase.

If this doesn't work out for me, I might break down and buy something new.

I bought the hp p1102w 8 years ago and it's been great. I get generic toner off amazon for about $9, which works in it just fine. It can hook up to Google for printing via the internet so you can print from ChromeOS / Android. It feels a little sturdier than the Brother laser printers in the same price point. It supports Bonjour for MacOS printing. It connects over wifi or ethernet.

I dislike Windows too, but PowerShell is pretty nice if you are stuck in the Windows environment. It's not really a Unix-like shell, but it is comfortable enough compared to the rest of the ecosystem.

I thought it was just me. I've ended up with a stash of mid-2015 MBP in my office too.

Docker runs native. You get instant file sync.

On Mac my options are dinghy or docker-sync, both of which drive me insane by either being too slow (former) or not syncing files fast enough or good enough (latter).

This is probably the number one reason that I love Linux for development these days.

Trying to name some more obscure ones that I love.

Tizonia is a CLI music player that can play music from your Google Music library. I like it bc I don't have to use a browser.

Pianobar is a CLI client for Pandora, but I can run this on a Mac too so not sure if it counts. Same no browser required benefit.

I love CLI music players bc they help you extend battery life vs browser based.

Gpaste is a clipboard manager. It even stores images copied to the clipboard.

Not sure if it counts but when I do a rectangle select screenshot in Ubuntu, it puts it in the clipboard (instead of putting a file on the desktop like Mac does) and then I can just paste it in the Jira ticket / GitHub pull request / Slack / etc.

Probably a bit more that deserve mention that I am not considering right now.

I used to work in higher ed and dealt with the awful Blackboard system.

For reference as to how bad it was, different modules used different database vendors (MSSQL vs Oracle).

Also here's a comment I had left myself about how to work with dates in the Oracle db (aka the Blackboard Transaction System, aka BBTS):

  # BBTS doesn't use a date,datetime, or time column from its database.  

  # Instead, it uses a float that is the number of days since 12-30-1899.

  # The Ruby Time class is ideal for handling this, but the Ruby Time 

  # class doesn't work for dates before 01-01-1970.

  # The magic number is: TransactionSystem::MAGIC_DATE_NUMBER (25,569)

  # If BBTS is below that number, we must use the Date class.

  # If BBTS is above that number, we will subtract 25,569 from the BBTS 

  # and start counting from 01-01-1970 instead of 12-30-1899.

  # Dealing with dates before 1970 will take much longer to process.

It was quite a challenge to make use of it.

It travels faster because it travels "as the crow flies" instead of snaking through all the conduit for a fiber connection.

Nobody mentions:

"Hi, I'm Cortana. A little sign in here, touch of wifi there..."

Not now. Not ever.

https://www.reddit.com/r/iiiiiiitttttttttttt/comments/a36m6j...

Restaurants do this. They are required to pay minimum wage if the $2.15/hr + tips doesn't average out to be at least minimum wage. As a restaurant owner, you can add lots of hours at $2.15/hr before you have to pay anything extra out of pocket.

That's how they are able to force waitstaff / bartenders to do setup / cleanup for $2.15/hr.

Love this: "back when dongles were dongles"

Very good to have on the job. Employers will take advantage of autistic work habits, attention to detail, lack of time wasted with water cooler talk, etc. But you need to have a diagnosis in hand to get an accommodation or a free pass when you say something stupid that you are not supposed to say.

You almost need a dedicated 15-amp circuit to run this or have 20-amp circuits so you have some overhead for the rest of your electronics (or a cubicle neighbor).

The power supply draws 1280W. A 15-amp circuit provides 1800W, but you are really supposed to keep steady loads at no more than 80%, which is 1440W. I bet some circuit breakers are going to start tripping when these go live.

OpenWRT ships with dnsmasq. You just need to edit /etc/hosts to have all the unwanted domains resolve to 0.0.0.0

I like to get my host list from https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Taking notes in meetings can help you stay focused.

You can also record meetings on your phone for reference later.

Lots of other good suggestions here too.

December of the current year works for expired credit cards. If a new card was issued with the same number but a different expiration date, you can get a successful payment authorization. It's a little trick.

I love Termux too. I used it on my Chromebook while I waited for Crostini to land for my hardware.

It's on my phone though I don't really do much besides to play around. It's pretty awesome if you have a bluetooth keyboard.

I resurrected a little NUC computer from a former employee. It has 16GB RAM and a 256GB SSD drive. It runs Ubuntu 18.10 fine. The display port runs my 4k monitor @ 60Hz.

I bought a USB bluetooth dongle and the smallest microphone I could find on the internet so I can use my old bluetooth mouse and do audio conference calls.

I am really loving it for Docker based development b/c it feels like it runs a lot faster.

I also love the Home, End PgUp and PgDn keys. Keyboard shortcuts are tough. As is muscle memory going back and forth.

My goal is to keep my macbook in my backpack and never take it out during the workday. On most days, that's what happens.

I am really excited about crostini on Chromebooks. I think a year from now a lot of us 2012 MBP users will find a new home in the Chromebook world.

ChromeOS + Android Emulation covers a lot of ground for UI needs in the developer workflow. For everything else, you have Linux via Crostini.

Trees rejoice!

Lot's of good advice here, but another thing to keep in mind is that dealing with legacy code can be fun sometimes. It's quite a challenge to deal with and the victories you achieve, even small ones, feel pretty good.

Also meditation is good. Sometimes I get so upset at legacy code that I have to stop and meditate.

Cumberland Island is an awesome place to camp. I have some very fond memories of it.

You don't know how well functioning these kids will be as adults. There are plenty of adults on the spectrum who seem rather high functioning now but can tell you stories similar to the ones you have heard about their own childhood.

I am autistic and this is a fascinating read. Haven't finished it yet, but needed to comment to encourage others.

One thing I learned early on in IT is: It is now how you fix the problem, it is how people feel when you fixed it.

This is tough to deal with b/c you can fix the "problem" but still have fallout from the situation b/c the way people felt from interacting with you.

same

I used to work in University IT and registration time is the worst. The systems never handle the load well and everyone freaks out. I think your work might anger the sysadmins b/c of the increased load.

Yes, that is really how it is. State legislatures controlled by Republicans do everything in their power to disenfranchise minority voters. This includes gerrymandered districts, removing early voting days, not allowing early voting on Sundays, requiring an ID to vote, and calling into question the validity of the voter registration of minorities.

I love Sublime. It is cross platform and has a great array of plugins from the community. I have used it for years. I know plenty of keyboard shortcuts and I am productive using it.

It never crashes on me, but maybe I am just not an edge case user of it.

Whenever version 3 is released for purchase, I do not anticipate having any problems getting my employer to pay for a license and I don't mind paying out of pocket if necessary.

Yeah, I did that, and then some of the buttons stopped working on the keyboard from too much smashing from the children. In the end, I removed the cable from the keyboard and it became a toy. I never let the kids play with the replacement one, but they do love having their own real keyboard.

I worked in IT at a university for 7 years. I do not see this saving money over the 5 year term. It probably would have made more sense to relocate the IT staff out of the Bay area to a less costly location, but still be in the same time zone and able to be on site if needed. Looking at the map, the university looks land-locked and unable to expand. The idea of getting more office or classroom space by eliminating onsite IT was probably enticing, in addition to the expected cost savings.