sysop408

sysop408, 7 days ago to random

Popular opinion: people who preface not actually unpopular viewpoints with "unpopular opinion" kinda suck.

sysop408, 10 days ago to random

What's the best ordinary retail gift you've ever received? No rare or one of a kind gifts. I'm just talking about the most mundane of gifts that surprisingly has had an outsized effect on your life.

sysop408, 12 days ago (edited 5 days ago) to random

Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

#poll

sysop408, 14 days ago to random

Seasonal allergies are totally kicking my ass this year. When my eyes hurt, I get sleepy all the time and my eyes won’t stop watering.

sysop408, 14 days ago (edited 14 days ago) to random

I just published my first #Wix site today. I have limited experience with similar site builder services like Square Space and Weebly.

Is Wix typical of these kind of tools? I found it to be extremely difficult to use. On the plus side it almost gave me every ability I could produce as an actual developer... almost.

Less would have been more in the case of Wix. Just because you can stuff every possible feature into a Web based WYSIWYG builder doesn't mean you should.

It made it really hard to produce a simple and elegant site that is really what's needed by most people using such a service. If you truly have a need for the advanced features, trying to do those through multiple layers of nested menus is the worst way to do it. You might as well as hire a developer and do it the right way.

This site coulda been an email. Instead it was an insane toothpick tower that kept exploding on me b/c nothing played nicely with anything.

#WebDev

sysop408, 15 days ago (edited 15 days ago) to random

Today is a sucky day to have writer’s block because I have a site to finish.

It’s not even a complex site. It’s the first #Wix site I’ve ever done. I agreed to do this site so I could experience what Wix is like.

Wix is really hard to use, but the thing really holding me up is that I can’t string together enough coherent words to tie things together.

Just for fun I allowed Wix to #AI write my copy and it sounded like some meth-head who’s been freebasing exclamation points wrote it. I’m pretty sure whoever handled this site last used that feature because I’ve had to rewrite everything I came across.

I can push myself and produce code under the worst of circumstances, but can’t write unless I’m feeling it. Ugh.

sysop408, 19 days ago (edited 19 days ago) to random

In the summer of 96, I was picked up by police in Greensboro, NC for being brown at the wrong place and wrong time. If things were legit, I knew I'd be cleared, but was terrified they'd search my house.

That's because I lived with a drug dealer, an ex-con, a gang member, a teen girl who worked as a stripper, and a gay guy dying of AIDS who lounged about with a large boa constrictor. It was literally the villain's hideout from a movie.

What the hell was I doing there, you ask? Good question. I badly needed a place to stay so I took the first affordable one I found. It was in a great neighborhood so I didn't ask questions.

PRO TIP: Ask questions.

We hung out and enjoyed cookouts as unlikely friends. I heard life stories I was glad to never live. I also got close to being in a shootout.

A voice raging at me over the phone was 20 minutes away from eating a bullet from the ex-con's Glock. Then a gang girl who didn't finish high school took the phone from me and defused the situation.

What a summer.
#stories

sysop408, 23 days ago to ADHD

Just saw this ad for a magnetic tag that can be bound to your bags to allow you to leave handbags and backpacks hanging on any metal surface.

Anyone with #ADHD upon seeing this. 😳

I’m often seen carrying a messenger bag that never leaves my body. Even when I do put it down in public, I usually loop a strap around my leg.

There’s a reason for that.

A purse magnetically attached to the side of a car by way of a tag with a magnet inside it.
A magnetic tag on a purse holds the purse up against a magnetic door frame. Text overlay reads “in restrooms.”
A magnetic tag shaped like a leaf holds a backpack up against a bathroom stall door. Text reads “In restrooms”

sysop408, 25 days ago (edited 25 days ago) to random

Every now and then, I like to hand off my camera to someone who looks like they could handle a full sized camera with a large lens and a speedlight.

Usually the results aren't very good, but I picked the right person the other day for this assisted self portrait.

sysop408, 25 days ago to random

It's crazy that Truth Social lost $327.6 million on revenue of $770,500. That's a lot of zeroes going into the dumpster for a company that's not actually doing much.

I'm not at all surprised at low their revenue was, but the expenses are baffling. Is it a one-time charge from going public via a special purpose acquisition company?

I'm sure Elon Musk is like hold my beer company when talking about setting money on fire, but how the hell do you lose $327.6 million running a not that popular Mastodon fork?

#truthsocial #trump

https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/trump-truth-social-media-q1-2024-revenue-net-loss-1236010937/

sysop408, 26 days ago (edited 26 days ago) to photography

#silentsunday #photography #streetportrait #streetportraits #streetphotography

sysop408, 27 days ago to random

Me running into someone I know #today.

“Hey it’s me Abdullah.”

(I freeze. He looks familiar. Can’t recall so let’s just go along.)

Hey, Abdullah, sorry I didn’t recognize you for a moment because you look like a guy I know named Philip.

“I’m AM Philip.”

Oh, I thought you said you were Abdullah, LOL.

sysop408, 28 days ago (edited 28 days ago) to random

Shout out to every designer and developer who've ever had a client become severely distressed over Lorem Ipsum text.

Total solidarity with anyone who've had the same person freak out twice.

sysop408, 30 days ago (edited 30 days ago) to random

Exhibit 921 of what it's like to work with #SmallBiz. I asked some people for their logos converted into one color images for screen printing purposes. I also offered to do the conversion for anyone who couldn’t do it themselves.

I just got a logo back that looked like someone printed it out and then meticulously colored it in using a black fine point felt tip pen… an impressive effort to be sure.

The absurd and difficult parts of working with small businesses is also what I love about it. You'll never be bored and if you thought you've seen it all, just wait a minute.

sysop408, 1 month ago to sysadmin

DNS gurus, am I correct in believing that PTR records are primarily used for mail sending servers and servers that never send mail do not need one?

#DNS #sysadmin

sysop408, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to webdev

This is what it's like working with small businesses. I'm trying to help someone with their Wix account. I ask for their login info.

Of course they could assign a sub-account to me, but they don't know how that works so we do it the gangsta way.

A few minutes later, I get a stray 2FA access code texted to my phone. Ummm... wut?

OK, so for some unbeknownst reason, they made MY PHONE the recovery phone number and so now everytime they need to login, they now need to ask me to check my phone.

But wait, so I finally get what I need to login, but for whatever reason, the 2FA for me gets sent to their email (instead of my phone) and I have no idea how we got here.

Got that? We now have this ludicrous situation where anytime they need to login, they have to contact me and it's vice versa when I need to login.

Fortunately, I got in and create a separate account for myself so I can avoid this mess, but my phone is still their recovery number that's going to get 2FA codes.

#webdev #smallbiz

sysop408, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

So here's my little data point on the much discussed enshitification of Google Search.

I just randomly wondered today if Roy Rogers and Tim Horton were ever at all involved in the still thriving franchises that bear their names.

So I want to Google this:
"Was Tim Horton involved in operating restaurants."

Google does shit-autocomplete and suggests this:

"Was Tim Horton involved in Roy Rogers’ death?"

That's only slightly less ridiculous than wondering if Julius Caesar caused my friend's cancer.

Google loves itself some QAnon. How did we get here?

sysop408, 1 month ago to random

Do animals ever procrastinate? I mean is my cat ever like “Ugh, I really need to groom, but can’t get motivated so I’m going to kill time by playing with this toy even though I don’t care much for it.”

sysop408, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Regrets

#poll

sysop408, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to photography

There's a photography technique I use that I never see anyone else do so it's time I share it. I use it to capture action shots of people... typically dancing.

Most people would handle these situations by zooming in, spraying and praying, or being exceedingly patient for that ONE shot to materialize.

Those strategies were too unreliable for me so I learned to move with my subjects.

I pre-focus the lens for a set distance, wide-angle, full manual, and set the camera against my cheek. I move the camera only by moving my feet. If my subject twists, I twist. If they step toward me, I step back so they stay in focus.

Because I’m not using any viewfinder, my peripheral vision is good. You immerse yourself in the scene. When it feels right you shoot blind. With practice, your shots will line up.

You obviously will need good balance and confident footwork for this. I'm reaching back on years of Shaolin Kung Fu. If you've done dance or martial arts, you can get the hang of this.

#photography #dance #photographer

sysop408, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to retrocomputing

Anyone have any idea what kind of cable this is? One end looks like SCSI. It has markings that say Belkin F2N984.

#retrocomputing

sysop408, 1 month ago to random

Does anyone else get angry at their box of spare computer cables and power adapters?

sysop408, 1 month ago to threads

I've read a few posts recently from people who lament that 1) they miss their Twitter friends and 2) they couldn't convince them to follow them over to here.

I've spent a little more time exploring the other networks lately and I've found my old Twitter gang.

They're on #Threads. A lot of them are still on Twitter, but it looks like they're slowly drifting over to Threads as their platform of choice.

sysop408, 1 month ago to random

Well, it's 6am and I'm catching flak for captioning one of my photos as a "weird scene" when I really meant it was a very interesting scene. Some people took offense to the word "weird".

How's your day going?

#today

sysop408, 1 month ago to random

Wow. I am so totally unmotivated to do anything today.

I spent my whole weekend doing my business taxes and helping with my mother in law’s tax return.

I should just do a little something so the day’s not a waste, but the gap between what I need to get done and how much energy I have is huge.