Category Culture

On A Foot In The Door

How I Got a Foot In The Door Of Coding

Why don’t I strap on my job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into Jobland where jobs grow on jobbies! Charlie Kelly, It’s Always Sunny In Philidelphia I nervously walked through the doors of the…

On Automation

Pushing emails on time is hard, why not automate it?

I wonder. I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: ‘You’ve got mail’. Kathleen Kelly, You’ve Got Mail I sent the…

On Sane Tradeoffs

Jared Porcenaluk looking at two options: one a big dump truck, the other a sports car. Which makes sense to choose as a software engineer?

The design called for four tires in both the front and rear, together with four-wheel drive, which required a new suspension solution. Vladimir Zagorsky, Chief of BelAZ’s Suspension Design Engineering Department What’s better, a Lamborghini Aventador LP 780-4 Ultimae Roadster…

On Nightstands

Jared Porcenaluk, looking concerned, surrounded by books.

The man who does not read good books is no better than the man who can’t.* Mark Twain ­I didn’t read very much for a long time. I felt guilty about it, feeling that reading was part of my DNA…

On Toes In The Water

Jared Porcenaluk thinking about all the time he has spent working on vacation, a waste of both.

Toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hands. Toes, Zac Brown Band I had to finish the 3D CAD design I was working on so it could get…

On The God File

Jared Porcenaluk pleading to the God File for mercy. It hath no mercy.

The mouse wheel flicked, and the page scrolled down. Into the depths of the page the sidebar slid, until finally, silently resting at the bottom. 2,000 some lines of code in a single file. Untested code sitting static and dead.…

On Stack Overflow

Jared Porcenaluk with a brain overlaid on top of him.

In software, a stack overflow occurs if the call stack pointer exceeds the stack bound. Wikipedia A stack overflow is, in short, bad. It means that more information has been crammed into memory that can fit and there’s nowhere for new information to go. Stack Overflow,…

On Technological Debates

Jared Porcenaluk as debater, or ENTP personality.

A Debater (ENTP) is a person with the Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Prospecting personality traits. They tend to be bold and creative, deconstructing and rebuilding ideas with great mental agility. They pursue their goals vigorously despite any resistance they might encounter. 16personalities.com I was easily triggered into…

On Deciding Quickly

Making decisions quickly

Look at all this peanut butter! There must be three sizes of five brands of four consistencies! Who demands this much choice? I know! I’ll quit my job and devote my life to choosing peanut butter! Is ‘chunky’ chunky enough,…

On Motivation

We open on a young tomato. He’s had some tough times down at the farm. You know, rabbits, and… Eugene Dupree This possibly ad-libbed line is from the movie Elf. Eugene Dupree is played by Kyle Gass of Tenacious D…