mrlyc · HackerTrans

3 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Thank you for writing the "How to Find Lemmy Communities" guide. It was very helpful.

https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-...

mrlyc

3 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

It got me my first programming job.

Back in 1984, I wrote a BBS for a Vic-20. It had multiple rooms (message areas) which users could create and make public or private, private email and an online game, all in 9.6K of BASIC. It was very popular with each user spending an average of 70 minutes on it. One of my users hired me as a programmer, saying "Anyone who can write a BBS for a Vic can program!"

Thirty years later, that same guy wanted me to work with him at Google.

mrlyc

4 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

I just wrote

  echo "open $mainframe\

  \nuser $mf_username $mf_password

  \nsite lr=160\

  \ncd ..\

  \nmput \*\

  \nquit" | ftp -i -n -v > $ftp_log 2>&1

The program collected data from the telephone company's Nortel MD110 switches, tidied it up and sent it to their mainframes.

mrlyc

4 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

I rewrote 2,650 lines of C as a seven line shell script. The previous programming team had written a data transfer program with its own implementation of ftp. I just used the one that was already on the computer.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

It depends on what you're used to. When I stated programming 42 years ago, it took two days between submitting the punched card deck to the computer centre and getting a printout of the results. Now I get concerned if my program takes longer than 20 seconds to compile.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

I live on my own so I prefer being with people at work.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Another interesting documentary about this topic is "Born Rich" by Jamie Johnson, one of the heirs to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. He interviews several of his peers. The film was nominated for two Emmys. It's available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km_JmxnzTvc.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

One thing to watch out for is when the board manufacturer changes its memory map without telling you. Boards built before April booted and the new ones didn't. Fortunately, the product was still in the development stage.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

For my dopamine hits, I prefer Reddit (frat party) to Hacker News (church).

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Zimbardo was an evil man who tried to justify his behaviour by setting up a sham experiment to "prove" that everyone can be evil, given the right circumstances.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

We're trying to do the same with the country.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

What worked for me was to tell my employer that I was taking the time off to get allergy shots.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

I'm cobbling together a language that is stock standard C with classes. Just classes, nothing more. I'm calling it C+.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Hacker News, The Register

Reddit

    Documentaries from https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/new/

    Lectures from https://www.reddit.com/r/lectures/new/

YouTube

    Subscriptions from https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions/

I download the videos, convert them to MP3s then add them to the podcasts I've downloaded.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Some years ago, Gmail changed so using Eudora with it became difficult. I've worked out the following procedure:

after checking email fails the second time,

Server SSL Certificate Rejected pops up

click on Yes

click on Tools then Options then Checking mail

click on Last SSL Info

click on Certificate Information Manager

under Server Certificates, keep expanding until you reach the bottom one

click on it then click on Add to trusted

click on File then Check Mail

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

That happened to me when I went for a job at Wang to work on Australia's EFTPOS network. The position required using protocol analysers but the recruiter had removed all references to them from my résumé. I gave the interviewer my original résumé and got the job.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Do what you love, what you are good at and what people are willing to pay for. Sometimes you have to do the first one as a hobby and the last two as a job.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

I started with a Vic-20. I wrote a BBS for it with multiple rooms (message areas), private mail and an online game. Users could start their own rooms and make them public or private. It was very popular with each user spending an average of 70 minutes on it.

That's how I got into programming professionally. One of my users said "Anyone who can write a BBS for a Vic can program!" and hired me as a programmer. Thirty-two years later, that same guy now wants me to work with him at Google.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Facebook is still moving fast and breaking things, just not their things. The morality of an organisation reflects that of its senior management. Zuckerberg doesn't care about breaching privacy so why should Facebook? He only cares that he was caught.

mrlyc

8 ปีที่แล้วdiscuss

Sometimes deleting code isn't enough and you have to do a rewrite. I once rewrote 2,650 lines of C as a seven line shell script. The previous programming team had written a data transfer program with its own implementation of ftp. I just used the one that was already on the computer.

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