Amitai Schleier
@schmonz@schmonz.com
If your business makes software, I might be good for your business.
Here's my setup: https://schmonz.com/2025/11/12/small-macs/
(Writing... muscles... loosening.)
Hey #NetBSD 🚩community! There's been discussion over the years about whether the NetBSD project should have its own unique mascot (separate from the general BSD Beastie).
I outlined a proposal for one back in 2021, including some concepts:
https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-advocacy/2021/01/21/msg000828.html
What's the general feeling today? #RunBSD #OpenSource #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #DragonflyBSD
| Yes, we need a unique mascot!: | 31 |
| No, the flag/Beastie is enough.: | 30 |
| I'm not sure / No opinion.: | 9 |
| Just show me the results.: | 9 |
Closes in 22:19:12:21
Yes, a cute mascot would be nice... But why an orange pickle for yours? 🤓
(I probably would not do much better than this though, but now I want to draw a cute mascot!)
@ParadeGrotesque there are other options as well along email trail :)
https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-advocacy/2021/01/22/msg000832.html
boosted@jaypatelani I thought this was canon https://analognowhere.com/techno-mage/pocket-daemons/
I blogged about the system we have used for years to teach our #kids about saving #money: https://www.rainskit.com/blog/kids_money/
I've been very happy with it, and maybe this system will be useful for you, too!
boosted@alexthurow @rjbs At ZipRecruiter people sometimes said “I'm sorry I broke your program” which I still find a bit shocking. I always tried to say back something like “It was broken all along, you just showed me how.”
@alexthurow @rjbs debugging is the art of invalidating your cached mental model of how the code works
An asteroid born out of wedlock is a basteroid.
An asteroid with greater than average speed is a fasteroid.
An asteroid that lacks courage and principle is a dasteroid.
An asteroid that’s missing its front bit is just a steroid.
I will be taking no questions at this time.
@schmonz An asteroid that goes boom is a blasteroid.
@schmonz an asteroid that is strong with the force is a Jedi asteroid.
@schmonz An asteroid that is rendered pixel by pixel is a rasteroid.
To enable #greylisting, simply uncomment "greylisting-spp-wrapper" in control/smtpplugins. That’s it.
(Add any exempt recipient addresses to control/greylist/exemptrcpts, or entire recipient domains to control/greylist/exemptrcpthosts.)
\# chown qmaild:nofiles control/servercert.pem
\# chmod 640 control/servercert.pem
\# ln -s control/servercert.pem control/clientcert.pem
\# update_tmprsadh
\# /etc/rc.d/qmail restart
🔐
echo srs.dom.ain > control/srs_domain
echo "$SECRET" > control/srs_secrets
echo srs.dom.ain >> control/rcpthosts
echo srs.dom.ain:srs >> control/virtualdomains
echo "| srsfilter" > alias/.qmail-srs-default
+ MX for srs.dom.ain
If there is one thing I could pass along to folk:
Your career will outlive every bad decision that someone in upper management will make. Your role is to learn what you can, not just the task or tech, but what to watch out for next time. Help the folk who will get caught up in the next bad decision, because they will help when you get hit.
And if you are in the position to make bad decisions, have a failure plan that protects your team. It’s easy to get someone to follow you once.
Getting them to follow you the second time makes you a leader.
You should know #pkgsrc 2025Q3 was released yesterday:
https://mail-index.netbsd.org/pkgsrc-users/2025/09/25/msg042016.html
For the same reasons, some published authors are better at describing than at enacting.
Maybe an author really knows, in context, under stress, how to do the thing. Maybe not.
Alt...
Dahlia
Alt...
A gif of Dahlia Hawthorne, a character from the Ace Attorney trilogy of games. She's a dinky, princess-like red-haired young woman in a light summer dress with a gauze shawl and a parasol/umbrella, all of it white and pink and very cute and girly. The result is stunning and innocent-looking. Spoiler: she's the overarching villain mastermind for the whole trilogy and probably the most evil and twisted character you'll encounter in a while.
1. Become Director of Engineering
2. Tell org and stakeholders that XP will fix longstanding problems
3. Regularly interfere with devs’ learning
4. Design projects to delay ROI
5. Find scapegoats
Maybe they’ll blame #XP.
If the only bits of #ExtremeProgramming you’ve mastered are the technical ones, you’re not an XP expert. Especially if you’re sure you are.
@schmonz No, it’s a post of yours referencing a specific article (something about XP that wasn’t)
@schmonz The only code I'm ever satisfied with (with very rare exceptions) is my own, and that is exactly why I'm not qualified for "technical leadership" and have always avoided climbing the management ladder. I want no other responsibilities than technical ones and that's where I'm at my best.
Unfortunately, society in general does not value that.
I appreciate the reminder to consider systemic factors that push people to make such choices. The systemic factors suck. But also people who make any part of others' lives miserable suck.
@schmonz I understand the goal and targeted audience of your toot, don't worry. I just wanted to provide you with my slightly different perspective 😉
@schmonz I am almost never satisfied with neither "my", nor "others'" code. That's why I insist on the code to be maintained relentlessly (TDD, refactoring and CI above all) and that's what I expect from others. Because currently most of the others act as if the code they write is perfect (the write once mentality and the notion that the code can be "done" which it never is).
Lastly, there should be no such thing as my and your code.
Some years after learning TDD, I had a coding interview. TDD was not widely known. I delivered TDD code.
They said it was the best code they had ever seen.
A few years later, I decided to pull up my submission and take a look at it.
I was *seriously embarrassed* that I would have submitted this code for a job application. It would need a fair number of changes before I would consider it *minimally acceptable.*
I like to think I've continued with improvement.
Maybe in your case it’ll be what it sounds like. I hope so. But beware. https://schmonz.com/snac/schmonz/p/1757721641.814818
@schmonz I’m really interested in your story since it’s multiple mistakes I’ve made, but it looks like it is all looping back to the landing page?
@thirstybear @schmonz I’d like to read this story, too, but the link doesn’t take me to the story when followed on my phone.
If you’re still sure of your understanding, regardless of cost to you and others… clownshoes.
In January I ordered a fancy mandolin from Japan. The “nice” one that hadn’t been redesigned just to cut costs. It was actually cheaper, but I had to wait an unknown amount of time before it would ship.
…8 months later…
It arrived!
How long until I cut myself on it?
About 5 minutes. 🤦 (Nothing major.)
@schmonz right! This one came with a good plastic thing to keep fingers away from the blades. And I bought special gloves to use with it. And yet… 😂
What does this feedback reveal about the giver? Would you expect them to be a skilled leader or manager?
@schmonz Need more context to judge. Was it a real "maybe", as in, the manager is acknowledging that the recommendations are only a heuristic, and the rest of the feedback was positive or neutral? Or was it a sample of overall negative feedback to the employee? My assessment of the manager would largely depend on that parameter.
@schmonz then it comes off as a gratuitous, non-substantive, non-technical and non-actionable demeaning attack (and not a very good one either since it kinda implies the manager is just as bad as the employee) and I would not like to be working with that manager.
@schmonz sounds like giving with one hand and taking with the other. No matter how good their other leadership skills, creating this kind of un-safety will reduce their team's effectiveness.
@schmonz they said this to someone directly? If so, I would expect them to be a terrible manager who needs to learn that words matter.
@schmonz That comment raises a lot of questions for me.
- Do they prefer people who aren't admired for their abilities?
- What is their relationship with their "network" that they don't trust the recommendations?
- Does they have any observations of their own?
All of these aspects undermine my expectations of them as a leader or manager. I would keep my eyes open.
@schmonz This is incompetence either way, IMO. Either:
1. Their shared network is actually a mutual admiration society, and THEY CULTIVATED THAT NETWORK AND TOOK ITS ADVICE; or
2. The recommendations from the shared network were correct, but the manager either hired the person for a job for which they are unsuited, or the manager is blind to what the employee is actually accomplishing.
Either way, the statement adds nothing of value if their objective is to improve the performance of the employee or the team, and probably makes things worse. It also dodges responsibility for the hiring decision.
Based on learning this about someone, I would update my Bayesian about them towards "bad leader".
If you do this while claiming to be an #XP expert, that’s clownshoes.
Leaders are not obligated to value such feedback.
But if they don’t, they oughtn’t claim to value #ExtremeProgramming. They value something incompatible.
@bentsukun with pkgsrc freeze coming, are we still allowed to add a new package? low impact, sysutils/nitro https://github.com/leahneukirchen/nitro
@imil I have been looking at nitro. Currently, I have a setup where I supervise some daemons with daemon tools, but I am liking it less than I thought I would. Is nitro good?
boosted@bentsukun I've been trying runit https://github.com/NetBSDfr/smolBSD/tree/main/service/runbsd and dinit https://github.com/NetBSDfr/smolBSD/tree/main/service/systembsd (which you saw in action at FOSDEM ;) ) but I like nitro more, cleaner code, nice and slick design, and upstream is really friendly
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