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“vendored my library”
I’m unfamiliar with this phrase, are you able to explain what it means (or point me towards an explanation)? Is it relating to forking?
“vendored my library”
I’m unfamiliar with this phrase, are you able to explain what it means (or point me towards an explanation)? Is it relating to forking?
I was talking to a friend recently who was frustrated because they felt like tech support had been treating them like an idiot. They’re a reasonably techy person and had gone through all the troubleshooting steps in the documentation, but the person on the phone had them do it all again. I tried to explain the perspective of the tech support guy — the fact that people often refuse to restart their PC because it feels like too simple of a step and they feel patronised by the suggestion, to the extent that people lie about whether they’ve done a particular troubleshooting step.
I told them that it was valid to feel frustrated with how long the call took when it could’ve been much quicker and simpler, but that they should attribute their frustration at people who repeatedly refuse to read the docs, rather than the tech support guy. My friend wasn’t an idiot, but they were tarred with the same brush because of how many people seeking tech support are belligerent idiots.
It’s a bit more complex.
The bacteria causing this (Streptococcus pyogenes) causes hundreds of millions of illnesses each year, ranging from the mild “strep throat” to the extremely severe scarlet fever. Whilst there have been a few outbreaks of antibiotic resistant strains of this bacterium, that doesn’t appear to be what’s going on in this outbreak, so thankfully the underlying streptococcus infection should be treatable with standard antibiotics.
Unfortunately, the condition that’s actually killing people (Streptococcal Toxic Shock Syndrome (STSS)) is caused by exotoxins released by the bacteria, and killing the bacteria only stops further exotoxins from being produced — antibiotics can’t do anything about the exotoxins that have already been secreted by the bacteria. If you’ve ever wondered why we can’t cook spoiled food to make it safe to eat, this is a large part of why — exotoxins are often better at sticking around than the bacteria that produce them. It doesn’t help that exotoxins are often super potent toxins (Botulism is a particularly potent and well known example).
It’s not clear what causes some cases of Streptococcus pyogenes to escalate and non-eventful cases of strep are common enough that treating every case with antibiotics is implausible. It’s tricky because if symptoms are severe enough to warrant a diagnosis of STSS, then things will have already progressed enough that the exotoxins present s risk to health even if antibiotics are administered. This outbreak of many cases of the severe STSS is concerning because it might indicate that the strep bacteria has evolved to be more deadly, but we really don’t know why there’s such a cluster of severe illness in one place.
I wonder what would facilitate people to make their own solutions in this way. Like, I have made a few apps or automation things myself, but if I look at my “normie” friends who don’t have the level of tech familiarity that I do, they struggle with whatever out of the box solutions they can find. Poor IT education is a big part of this, and I’ve been wondering a lot about what would need to change for the average “normie” to be empowered to tinker
When I was at university, the student union had a small fund for creative projects that weren’t related to your degree. Many of the people who applied for cameras also included Adobe licenses on their funding application, because many of them were new to film or photography so they defaulted to what is “industry standard”, because that’s what the majority of online tutorials are available for.
I’d love to learn how. Do you have any resources you could share? Beautiful work!
That was very cool, thanks for sharing.
I would argue seeing the barn makes it even sillier, but in a good way.
Oh my gosh, that’s hilarious. It’s a baby shredder. What gets me is imagining a bunch of people in an office figuring out what scale to print out the UN charter so it would fit in the tiny shredder.
Those are some great stories, thanks for sharing. Imagining him coming out and saying hi made me smile
I was learning python as a wee scientist in training, and my variables were beyond dreadful. I tried naming a list “list” and the interpreter told me I couldn’t, so I opted for “listy”. When I needed to name a new list but listy was taken, I’d often resort to “listyy”.
Scientists who work with computers without having much (if any) targeted training on how to code can write the most horrendous programs.
One of my favourite Yorkshire dialect jokes is how “tin tin tin” can mean the complete sentence “It isn’t in the tin”
It reminds me of an article I read recently about Ukrainian porn actress Josephine Jackson, who used her notoriety to raise money and awareness for disabled veterans
This post and the discussion on it made me think of Moon Duchin’s essay "The Sexual Politics of Genius
It’s a long read, at 34 pages, but is easier to read than the title might suggest, possibly because Duchin is a mathematician, which I speculate contributes to her pretty straightforward prose.
Neat idea, I hope I’ll remember this when I’m setting up my next server.
(RTFM = Read the Fucking Manual)
Adding this because I only learned this acronym just last week, and wish to share the knowledge with anyone else like me)
Oh man, Clockwork mod, that takes me back. Although I had my android phone for a while before I built up the courage to root it, in part due to stories like yours
Not got any computer related stories from my messed up family, but I can relate to many of the vibes here. Solidarity on the family front.
Oh no, that’s horrifying.
I didn’t know that. Thanks for sharing.