Sven Slootweg (soft-deprecated) @joepie91@pixie.town

Oh man, just reminded of the existence of 'internet keyboards' that had physical buttons for browser navigation

I'm starting to feel like there should be an explicit semantic distinction in software development between "automation" (manipulating existing tools to make someone's workflow easier) and "tool development" (making new tools for people to use).

And I don't mean a rigid technical distinction, or necessarily even a career distinction, but a *semantic* distinction when talking about what you or someone else are currently doing with a computer. Right now these two are often grouped together into "software development" (or one is ignored entirely) even though they have very different needs and audiences.

Also wondering how this relates to the huge tool quality gap that currently exists between 'office automation' with Excel and such, and application development.

I am getting real tired of having to reconsider my approach and choice of personal projects constantly due to tech industry hypes ruining a subject or a community...

It only just occurred to me that "you are less likely to have an accident in a theme park than on the drive towards it" says just as much about the risk of driving as it does about the safety of theme parks

@riley So apparently the reason it's a problem specifically with rice, is that there's a protective thing around the sensor to prevent stuff sticking to it, an indent - but rice grains are small enough that they can still get in there (and other food particles are not, or dissolve much more easily)

(The problem in that case was that modern dishwashers apparently tend to have optical sensors that get confused by swollen bits of rice getting stuck in front of the sensor, and so rice is the one thing you really need to make sure you remove from plates before putting them in)

And this is not an exception, this time I paid them out of pocket to fix a machine I bought elsewhere, but previously I've called up their repairfolks for a warranty call on something purchased there, and it was just as good.

Show up, look at machine, test a few things, establish problem without even opening up the machine based on a deep knowledge of how it works internally, fix it and provide recommendations on how to reduce the chance of failure in the future. Done.

Just had the repairpeople from the local electronics store over to look at my broken washing machine, and it's such a breath of fresh air to deal with *competent* repairpeople...

I can see why this is one of the few electronics stores in the country that's doing well financially

Was solicited yesterday by a married guy, ended up giving a mini-lesson about healthy relationship dynamics, polyamory and non-binary gender identity to a willing listener instead.

(We did not end up hooking up; it seems that my dire warnings about what the consequences would eventually be for him put him off enough to reconsider...)