I had a bunch of Linux-loving, anti-ad, tinfoil hat employees in the early 00s. They tried to convince me of how bad things will become. It turns out that their tinfoil hats weren’t nearly thick enough.

How long before so much of daily life is governed by such algorithms, models, dark patterns? “Oh, you didn’t pay rapt attention to the entire chain of ads. Guess your car is going to have to break down this week and your egg prices will go up 25% at every grocery store.”

Based on what I’ve seen, most homebuilders don’t understand how to build a house. :D

Well, that’s just plain statistics of entropy: if there are two possible outcomes, there is a 95% chance of it being the wrong outcome. :D

Throw in some Sturgeon’s Law (90% of everything is shit), and we are all running to stand still.

Don’t bother addressing anything else I said. And I don’t need to pretend. When everyone you meet seems to be an asshole, the problem isn’t other people; it’s you. Your whole profile is vitriol, bitterness, logical fallacies, and bad faith argumentation. Secret life pro-tip: examine that in yourself and remedy the underlying issues. I’m speaking here with the experience of my own journey through embittered anger.

Address the core reasons for all your anger and everything will go a lot better for you. You might even be able to effect more of the changes you would like to see in the world.

I get it. It’s easy to be angry; it takes real effort to remain positive and maintain forward progress.

I don’t believe you.

That’s fair. In contrast, I completely believe that you have managed to surround yourself with misery and rage. Gee, I wonder why nobody will adopt the values you’re espousing.

You do know that all the things I discussed exist, right? A simple search will show you that these community initiatives are real and happen all over the place. Yes, I’m very lucky to live among people who are receptive to these efforts. When they don’t exist in your community, make them yourself.

You sound like you live in a utopia

That’s the goal. It takes constant work rather than spewing dogma of “just do things my way.”

where everyone is right and no one supports evil billionares or politicians

Now you’re just being a dick. You know (or should know) it’s not that simple. It’s impossible to have 100% moral consumption under capitalism. But don’t let perfect be the enemy of progress and Good Enough.

You have your experience, and I have mine. I’ve seen noticeable progress within my communities. Freecycle, Buy Nothing, repair parties, food banks, timebanks, work parties, upcycling, bicycle commuting/micro-mobility, small-scale hydroponics and gardening, local cleanups… All of these move the needle and show people a better way of doing things, ways to improve their own communities.

Clearly your way isn’t working, but you seem unwilling to hear anything that doesn’t align perfectly with your perspective.

Lead by example. Stop preaching, start showing a better way to be. Don’t talk about it; just live by your ethics and be contented. If your way is truly better, people will start to adopt how you are doing things.

Happy to help!

I suppose that all laundry is finding the balance between preserving the clothes vs. getting them clean.

Right?! Start adding in energy and water consumption concerns, and the variables quickly spiral out of control. I started using a manual washer (imagine a giant salad spinner) for some of my gear. Manually washed bibs and jerseys have now lasted about 12 years. It’s a pain and takes a bunch of time, but saves a bunch of electricity, a genuine concern on a sailboat with only solar to recharge. So that’s a heavily qualified bonus. :D

I always wash my technical gear in cold water, delicate cycle. Line dry. Actually, I wash everything except my rags in cold water. I’ve had the same shirts and pants for 25 years. My clothes should be coming back in style any day now. :D

Thanks for the tip! Some of my bibs are starting to show their age.

Never skimp on interfaces. Anything that goes between your skin and something else, anywhere energy is changing medium, this is where money is well-spent. Tires, handlebar tape, speakers/headphones, bicycle saddle, hand tools, work gloves, climbing shoes, keyboard, mouse, monitors, seat cushions, you get the idea… finding what works well for you regardless of cost reaps serious benefits. More money does not necessarily mean better performance for you, but time invested in the trial and error process does mean better results.

In the case of bicycling shorts: these are the sacrificial layer. Your skin is pretty valuable, but at least it can heal. Your comfort on a bike ride is invaluable.

Regarding the stink factor, you mentioned elsewhere in this thread about getting the stink out of technical fabrics. And some people talked stupid shit in response. Anyone who claims “I just wash my stuff and it don’t stink no more.” Uh, yeah, their noses don’t work so well. Getting the tenacious stink out of polyester is a special set of skills. Polyester has a unique affinity for molecules that contribute to stink. Cotton-poly blend exhibits a similar tenacious stink. Very briefly: the polar nature of polyester makes it good for wicking sweat, but also makes it good for hanging onto stinky molecules; standard washing and laundry detergents won’t cut it. You need to overcome that molecular-level affinity; vinegar in your first rinse cycle is strong enough. Washing soda (sodium carbonate, not to be confused with sodium bicarbonate AKA baking soda) is a strong alkaline that can strip a bunch of shit out of all your fabrics; it’s also pretty harsh. The other alternative is to use sunlight, e.g. line drying, to denature the stinky molecules. But the UV light is hard on fabrics.

On something like a long bike tour, this is not an option. As it is, good shorts are too expensive and too delicate to be washing every single time you wear them. Start with a clean crack and taint, let the shorts dry between wearing. No problems.

Bag Balm is petrolatum, lanolin, and hydroxyquinoline sulfate, an antiseptic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bag_Balm It’s great for an anti-chafe and on skin wounds, especially abrasions. I mostly use pure lanolin (usually marketed as an ointment for nursing mothers) on wounds now, but also keep a small tin of Bag Balm in my bike kit for all kinds of things.

I’ve met some hippy types that use soap sparingly for this reason

TL;DR: This is exactly what I’m talking about.

I am one of those dirtbag hippie types.

Some background: My skin is so oily, I could singlehandedly solve the Suez Canal blockade. I struggled my whole life with blackheads and boils, especially crotch boils from cycling and blackheads just about everywhere else. No exaggeration, when I was commuting 52 miles every day, I always had at least two crotch boils going, despite showering before and after my ride at both ends of my commute. I also always had at least one boil on my head, face, or back.

About 20 years ago, I met a dermatological researcher at a party, and he was talking about his latest clinical work. He mentioned a bunch of testing with disrupting vs maintaining skin flora and microbiota. Stuff like S. aureus and Prevotella being held in check by [other micro-organisms, can’t remember the names], but that the skin also produces antimicrobial substances (catechins? or is that the stuff in green tea?). The pH of skin also tends acidic, but soap is alkaline. His tentative hypothesis at the time was that most people shower too much and too vigorously, and that creates a whole host of downstream issues. He mentioned that based on his early findings, he stopped showering every day, instead opting to sponge-bathe with showers being a rarer occurrence. And then only to rinse off sweat from a serious workout.

With nothing to lose, I gave it a try. Sponge-bathe the foldy bits every day, and before and after rides. No more chlorhexidine soap, no more Bag Balm on my crotch before rides, only Dr Bronner’s soap. I only take quick, cold showers to rinse off from heavy sweating. Every couple days, I’ll exfoliate the long bits with just a damp cloth. My skin cleared up almost in the same week, the blackheads all went away, and no more visible puddles of skin oil. I haven’t had a crotch boil since, despite plenty of crotch abrasion and more than a few skin tears from crashing my mountain bike. I also haven’t had skin infection since changing up my wash routine.

Extra bonus points: lower water and electricity bills. Or when I lived on my sailboat, less power required for water generator and hot water heater.

I sponge-bathe or use a French showerhead, washing all of the bits that are going to be in the shorts. I’m not so worried about fecal matter, even though I don’t want to skid-mark an expensive pair of shorts. But I am concerned with the skin flora balance.

Absolutely. I do this all the time for lighter camping trips. I still can make hot smashburgers without packing a flattop and propane tank. Separate them with parchment or wax paper for easy portioning.

I also do this with bacon. Cook off five pounds at a time, freeze, and have bacon ready to go anytime. Added bonus: you get a bunch of bacon fat.

Just… don’t do that?

This is part of Common Sense

Kinda. For people like you and me, sure this sense is common. How many normies do you know that have your level of technical paranoia?

Here’s an outlier example: I recently bought a carded, new micro SD card from the local brick and mortar because urgent reasons that don’t matter for this story. I went to load up the card, and its capacity was only 8MB, rather than 256GB. More than that, it was also loaded with 3 different auto-run malware. I was prepared for something like this (well, not the inconvenience of a counterfeit card). How many here are genuinely prepared to deal with brand new card that came from a trusted retailer with malware? Do YOU genuinely expect malware in this context?

I think a little empathy and education can go much further than “I’m smarter, just git gud.”

Fully agreed. We’ve all had those colleagues, and their lack of deep understanding of memory management propagates up the stack. </bad pun> Can a developer know only managed frameworks and still be good at their job? Absolutely, but in my experience they are the rarity. I think it is tricky to truly understand, say, garbage collection, reference/dereference, etc without understanding direct memory management.

Extending the driver aid metaphor, features such as ABS, traction control, and lane assist allow good drivers to use their finite attention on quality, rapid decisions. But those good drivers know how to handle the edge cases where the machine fails or is unable to handle the current situation. Managed frameworks are a bucket of super sweet driver aids. There are good reasons why .NET added pointers, because sometimes we need to disable the traction control. Weird COM Interops leap to mind. Sometimes you just need to grab control of that array and be able to do so in memory-safe ways.

And to throw myself under this bus, could I whiteboard a doubly-linked list in C++ with needed methods? Gawd, no, not in the time allotted to a tech interview. But I could spot the bugs in one in seconds.

If you’re looking to network within software development communities, a user group is a good starting point. For example, I am a .NET software engineer, and the Portland Area .NET User Group was instrumental in building out my PacNW professional network. Plus their meetups are generally a fun time.

Look for API meetups in your area, it doesn’t matter what kind of APIs. Even if you have no interest in API development, API meetups are usually run by Developer Relations (DevRel) engineers. It is the job of DevRels to help software engineers become better and to connect people to resources. Source: used to be a DevRel.

And even if you live in a small or low-density region, there is probably some kind of computer users, web development, and IT group. Again, even if you’re not exactly interested in those aspects, these people tend to know senior or principal software engineers who can either connect you to resources or directly take you on for mentoring.

All that said, I frequently say “we are not meant to engineer alone,” however self-motivation is a prerequisite to programming and software engineering. Go to the library and immerse yourself in some books on software development; off the top of my head: “Modern C++ Programming with Test-Driven Development,” Refactoring, Design Patterns, “The Pragmatic Programmer,” “Code Complete,” “The Missing Readme,” “Object Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications.” A lot of these are going to go over your head at first, but just take a look at them.

Some people will take issue that I suggest learning C++ first, but I’ve been at this a while (34 years). I liken it to learning to drive a manual transmission car with no synchromesh. The difference between a software engineer who understands memory pointers and one who learned only managed languages is always immediately apparent.

Good luck out there.

Designer’s Republic was the graphic design firm. Their work is so distinctive and, for me, the apex of 90s graphic design.

https://passwordentropy.com/

For your example string: