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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • All the other comments are great advice. As an ex chemist who does quite a bit of code I’ll add:

    Do you want code that works, or code that works?! It’s reasonably easy to knock out ugly code that only works once, and that can be just what you need. It takes a little more effort however to make it robust. Think about how it can fail and trap the failures. If you’re sharing code with others, this is even more important a people do ‘interesting’ things.

    There’s a lot of temporary code that’s had a very long life in production, this has technical debt… Is it documented? Is it stable? Is it secure? Ideally it should be

    Code examples on the first page of Google tend to work ok, but are not generally secure, e.g doing SQL queries instead of using prepared statements. Doesn’t take much extra effort to do it properly and gives you peace of mind. We create sboms for our code now so we can easily check if a component has gained a vulnerability. Doesn’t mean our code is good, but it helps. You don’t really want to be the person who’s code helped let an attacker in.

    Any code you write, especially stuff you share will give you a support and maintenance task long term. Pirate for it!

    Code sometimes just stops working. - at least I’m my experience. Sacrifice something to the gods and all will be fine.

    Finally, you probably know more than you think. You’ve plenty of experience. Most of the time I can do what I need without e.g. classes, but sometimes I’ll intentionally use a technique in a project just to learn it. I can’t learn stuff if I don’t have a use for it.

    I’m still learning, so if I’ve got any part of the above wrong, please help me out.





  • The PI is always a good place to start, but they’re not cheap anymore. You can still do some useful things at the command line (not sure how fun, but a great education), python is there and very accessible. - get a camera and you could do some great things with open CV. Not sure what packages are out there though. Think you’d just have to follow some web tutorials.

    As an alternative, have you considered an Arduino kit? Lots of great projects, all very well documented. Playing with LEDs, sensors, motors etc may keep their attention longer than a bash prompt.


  • Practice is essential. My game improved when I started buying multiples of the same lock. As LPL said, learn to pick locks, not a lock. A range of tools helps, I have a few different tension wrenches I made out of wiper blade. With basic tools it’s easy and rewarding to make these and they do make life easier. Good tension control is really important as it lets you feel what is happening in the lock. I wouldn’t spend a fortune on picks at the start, your skills are probably weaker than your tools, though having said that, sometimes you do need the right pick for the job. I have an American Lock clone with such a tight keyway I’ve only picked it twice. With a thinner pick it would probably be easy. Bosnian Bill said “if what you are doing doesn’t work, try something else”, so try a different tension wrench or pick, or start on a different pin. It’s easy to keep picking the same lock and thinking you are improving in lock sport. You may have just learned how far to push each pin on that one lock to get an open.

    As with everything, practice, practice, practice, oh, and have fun.


  • many technical jobs are vocational in nature as it’s impossible to turn it off after work. As long as it’s not affecting your personal life & work life balance (and not affecting your friends and relations) then you are very lucky. Most people don’t enjoy their work so you’re in a good place. Importantly though, don’t feel obligated to do work problems on your own time and don’t let management expect it. Only do it if you want to.

    I like the saying “give a man a job he loves and he’ll never work again”. it’s been true for much of my working life.


  • It’s a while since I’ve wild camped so not sure if the status has changed. When I did it was more ‘accepted’ than ‘permitted’. Also, the good spots are closely guarded secrets, so you’re mostly on your own there! I don’t know you’re experience, but for anyone else thinking about wild camping: You want water relatively accessible and depending on the weather, some shelter. (I’ve always drunk from fast flowing streams, never pools and survived without treating the water. You also want seclusion as you really don’t want to be getting any attention from walkers or land owners.

    This time of year you won’t be getting much sleep, so decide if you want the evening or morning sun - I prefer the morning sun as it dries any dew off my kit. Looking at the map you should be able to plan a route and spot some quite nice spots if you think about the above. Only spend one night in a location.

    I used to leave work early, drive down, get half a walk in, a night camp, finish the walk and be back to work for 9AM. One memorable morning was waking up on top of one of the Carnedds.

    My preference was always to bivvi rather than tent as it was easier to carry and far easier to find a hidden spot. - The pleasure, as with most bivvying is generally retrospecive, but great fun. Pitch up at dusk and leave at first light, leave no trace bar some flattened grass and all is good. - Just make sure you pack enough calories and water.

    The first wild camp I ever did was on the side of Tryfan in just my sleeping bag on a clump of heather. It would had been perfect if I hadn’t put my hand in goat muck earlier in the evening. - Took two days to wash the stink out.

    Happy days. Have fun.


  • As a reddit refugee, this is my first post and it’s taken a few hours to get to this point. My work involves getting non technical users to use high end tech and agree that language and terminology can make or break a deployment. Reddit is easy, sign in here and away you go, not quite so with Lemmy. I have learned that if a system isn’t explained as simply as possible, in terms that your grandmother (or boss) can understand, adoption will be harder.

    I’m not saying dumb it down entirely, but nobody cares about servers. Providers may be too abstract. Maybe go as far as calling them ‘Homes’ - or something else real world tangible. Once a user gets that on board they can then understand that different homes can talk to each other to form a village or community.

    I enjoyed the ‘thing explainer’ books… Cut out all the technical jargon, focus on the user experience and save the detail for those who want to know.

    As I say, I’m new here so apologise if I have spoken out of turn out caused offence, I’m watching and learning, and thought my fresh first hand experience may be of use.