@onyx said in A new StackExchange site:
Basically poke at the endpoints
Point of order: query them using sound protocols, not physical interaction. Attaching untrustworthy peripherals to your system can result in viruses or total system shutdown.
@onyx said in A new StackExchange site:
Basically poke at the endpoints
Point of order: query them using sound protocols, not physical interaction. Attaching untrustworthy peripherals to your system can result in viruses or total system shutdown.
Continuing the discussion from On starting an unoriginal project:
I've got like four separate apps worth of rants bottled up here
So here's the writeup I did but decided not to post on my costuming blog:
#Emboidery Software Review: Embird
Embroidery programs are ridiculously expensive, and from the screenshots, aren't necessarily easy to use. So before I spent the money, I decided to snag a trial and make one project, thus giving me a good idea if I could get to use this software. After all, the demo has only a time restriction, no feature restrictions, according to their website:
A screenshot from http://www.embird.net/sw/embird/down64.htm
Hang onto that. I'll come back to it.
First of all, I installed Embird, the main program. It littered my desktop with icons:
Okay, I assume it's the one with the big scary elevation shield on it, since I have no idea what the other two icons do. I installed only the main program, as instructed -- so why are there random other icons on my desktop? Sure, whatever. I clicked on the bird and allowed it to elevate.
The first paragraph of the dialogue box is as expected. Yes, yes, demo version, okay... wait, what? Click ignore if you want to load all passwords... what? What? How is that ignoring anything? What the fuck? I clicked 'ok'.
No, I don't want to register now. Let me in the damn program!
Er... what am I doing? Okay, this seems to be some kind of file browser. I browsed through some files. Very handy for figuring out what files hold what patterns, I guess, but hardly worth $168. The interface is intimidating: I count 28 icon-only buttons across the top bar. From left to right, my guess would be....
stitches or something... something involving a needle... cross-stitch? Open file, um... copy? Delete, print, maybe some sort of send to machine feature, cut, paste, um... 1:1 scale? something about a screen? 3D mode of some kind? Um... an eye and a picasso nose? I think the rulers are mm versus inches display... Rotate? Trim eyelashes? left and right eye tattoo? Teardrop tattoo? Letters, cursive letters, artistic letters. Paste again, or maybe save? Filesystem browser maybe? Make letters bigger? Big red key is probably "unlock demo".
And all that before you even get into the menus! Where's my typical File, Options, View...? "Middle panel" would be great if I had any idea what the middle panel was meant to be displaying!
Somehow, I managed to figure out how to open a file for editing. It's been about three hours since I did that and I can't tell you how to do it, but I managed to figure it out, somehow. The editor's main window is no less intimidating:
In this screenshot I've managed to load the CZU's logo into the editor. I don't know how to make it go away, but I learned how to make it appear: Image -> Import Image. Cool, I thought to myself. I'll just let it automatically convert into an embroidery pattern. There's a convert image button, right?
Here's the first snag: I have a Brother PE770, which has a 5" by 7" hoop. The default hoop size it wants me to use for some reason is 100mm by 100mm. Okay, so I just need to adjust it, right?
....Have these clowns never heard of a goddamn combo box?! Oh wait, no, clearly they have:
Okay, so if I can just enter the size, why have four fucking tabs worth of radio buttons!? Ok, fine, I get my damn hoop size picked, and I go back to the image. At this point I'd grabbed a tutorial which mentioned resizing the image so it fits in my hoop. The manual says I'm looking at 180mm by 130mm, so I make the image slightly narrower than 130mm since it's wider than it is tall. Voila. Now the auto convert button.
Ok, that's.... maybe it won't look that bad stitched? Let's find out. I try to save as a .pes so it can be read by my machine.
Only to encounter a frusturating dialogue informing me that some of the stitches were outside the 100mm x 100mm area allowed for stitching in this file format. First of all, the fucking FILE FORMAT dictates the fucking HOOP SIZE?! Secondly, I CHANGED my motherfucking hoop size! Are you seriously telling me that my machine, the second cheapest model I could find that's widely available for home consumers, does not even exist?! And I know it's not brand fucking new, because the damn manual for the USB drive feature includes instructions on how to eject a USB pendrive in Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. Bull fucking shit.
Whatever. I'll make it tiny. I shrink the image to just under 100mm wide, and save. Let's get that stitched.
No, this is bullshit.
So I poke around and I look at some forums and it turns out that what I want, what I really really want, is the Studio plugin, which lets me actually create designs. As opposed to the editor, which..... I don't fucking know, really. I managed to paste three letters together to create a monogram in one file so I don't have to tweak the placement every time, but that's hardly worth $160 either, so I'm at a loss.
Whatever. Plugin download time. The studio plugin costs another $150, so off the bat, this is now costing double what it advertised. Now I understand what "plugin" means to them: "essential feature you need to pay extra for", as opposed to "useful but niche item like Iconizer" which fuck if I know what it does but it seems to be not an essential part of the editing process.
Anyway, so I get Studio 2015, which is a "Digitizing plug-in for Embird", which contains two plugins (!!!): " Digitizing Tools and Sfumato Stitch". "To turn into full version, each module needs its own password," the website informs me, which means more $$$ and I don't even fucking know if I like it yet. So I install and I open studio and I spend a few hours working on this thing.
I want an outline, since the logo is a line drawing. I eventually figure out how to trace the shape, creating a vector file which can be exported as an SVG (one file for each shape!!!!!), and then configure the stitch generator to make a "satin stitch" because that looks fancier than a straight border stitch. I then try to toy with some other options. The tutorial helpfully informs me that to close the shape, which is required for a "fill" shape, I have to make the last point somewhere off in space and then drag it on top of the first one, or else it'll select the first point. Isn't that useful.
I tried using the "column" tool as well. See those little column shapes in between the windows on the gondola? I grabbed the column tool, clicked in the upper left corner, then lower left, then lower right, then upper right. Wrong move. It says I only have one side, and I need two for a column. What? Readers, I fought with this tool for maybe 45 minutes. I managed to get it to let me accept the shape if I click "create second edge". One time that even made an edge along where I'd drawn my lines, creating a three-sided boxy shape. More commonly, though, it would shove the extra points way off into the middle of space, making some abstract curved shape. Which is nice and all but not the fucking box I wanted. Eventually I figured out the secret: It needs to go upper left, lower left, upper right, lower right. Sure. What the fuck ever.
I tried using the text tool to put in the letters. I even changed colors for the banner and letters, so I could stitch them in separate colors. I was feeling right proud of myself: all I had to do was put in the lettering and voila, I'd be golden.
...what? I start typing. Nothing happens. WTF am I doing? This tutorial page wasn't helpful: none of those items were on my screen. Frusturated, I decided to back out by pressing cancel.... and the entire bottom half of the zeppelin disappeared. Yup. It had somehow cancelled the last two fill shapes, four border shapes, and sixteen manual-stitch items I'd placed down. WTF!
So I decided, after this happened a few times, not to do the banner at all, just the top bit. Why not, I figured.
Easily four or five hours of work, ladies and gentlemen. Their stitch preview function is also really nice, as it helped me visualize what I was working with:Awesome, right! I can't wait to go plug it into my machine and try it out. Maybe I can learn to work with the frustration after all, if this turns out half as nice as it looks like it'll be.
So why is the save button greyed out?
...And so is the "export to editor" button that should bring me back to the main editor where I can fuck around with hoop sizes and save it as whatever format I want....?
Oh no.
Don't tell me.
THE FUCKING DEMO BLURB LIED TO ME. I CANNOT SAVE IN THE STUDIO IN THE DEMO.
Fuck this. I am done. There has got to be a better solution. Their UI is terrible, their options don't fucking work, fuck this, I'm out.
[14:56] <BenLubar> but it doesn't make sure each page has the full number of posts
[14:56] <BenLubar> imagine if you were reading a book and each page had a random number of lines of text on it
[14:59] <aliceif> ben ... have you ever read a book?
[14:59] <aliceif> EVER?
@Onyx said in Node JS Logos:
there weren't 104 questions!
There are 104 logos, but the game ends as soon as you get one wrong. Just like NodeJS terminates as soon as you look at it weird.
Shared to my company slack with the caption "Sums up software development"
Exact Instructions Challenge - THIS is why my kids hate me. | Josh Darnit – 06:46
— Josh Darnit
I don’t remember what the phone screen problem was about — some string manipulation algorithm problem — but it was neither interesting, nor memorable. No, I still didn’t understand the question, even after hanging up the phone.
The problem isn't the interview question here.
To be fair, I already knew about Google’s idiotic interview process that is optimized for hiring book-smart academic candidates who know their algorithms and data structures cold
Learning about your craft? What a horrible idea! You should wing it instead. Make sure to only do the fun parts, that'll really show your worth.
followed by a coding exercise — write a maze solving algorithm.
Being asked to write code in an interview? What are interviewers coming to these days? Next they'll be asking you to think about a problem you probably don't have the answer to memorized critically so they can evaluate your problem-solving skills, and then where will you be? Out on your ass!
I did not feel like they were prepared for an interview, as they started asking me for questions based on what I said earlier
How dare they!
If, and when, I need to know how tree-shaking is implemented, I will go look it up
Like every master craftsman, you have no need for true understanding or knowledge, merely Google.
instead of cancelling all my interview appointments (which I really wanted to do)
You got, what, two whole rejections? Poor thing! Ragequitting forever is clearly the right answer here.
I sent him my resume, we had a brief chat (didn’t sound like the friendliest recruiter), never heard from him again. If that’s any indication of their work culture, maybe I really dodged a bullet there.
A brief chat is clearly not enough to truly appreciate this man's genius. It takes at least four interviews and two lunches.
What the fuck?! You’ve got to be shitting me. How many people can actually write BFS on the spot, without preparing for it in advance?
Nobody ever. BFS doesn't even really exist. It's the hardest problem you can possibly give, as no answer exists.
What relevance does it have?
What relevance does thinking about the best way to solve a problem without wasting memory, resources, or time have to modern front-end Javascript? None whatsoever. Not even being sarcastic here. Crying a little inside, but no sarcasm.
Interviews shouldn’t be one-sided battles where a candidate must “prove” themselves in order to get hired.
They should take it on faith that he's the most awesome person in the universe.
The next round had some coding exercises, one of which was to implement a Tic-Tac-Toe game using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I was able to do it with 10 minutes to spare, although it was probably the most hacky solution I have ever coded.
Are you fucking kidding me. I wrote tic-tac-toe as my first formal programming exam ever when I was literally twelve. literally twelve. I can't even snark anymore. What the actual fuck.
rejection, rejection, rejection. It honestly feels as if I am a complete failure and an unhirable candidate. How is this possible
Literally. Twelve.
But one thing I do not understand is — why did they reach out to me in the first place, because nowhere does it say on my resume that I have any experience with video.
Does this man not understand how wide a net recruiters cast? Does he think getting a tech screen makes him special? Desirable?
@pie_flavor truefax, I'm better at dying than murdering :D
Status: I was mentioned twice since the last time I checked in. Both times were in the context of murdering someone. Uh.... thanks? Glad to know my skills are missed XD
Though I will say, we forked SMF as a base, so talk to @arantor about what plugins already exist to do what you want in an SMF forum
@ben_warre said in Forum Software with extras:
Is there anyone running storyBB that I can sign up for to see what it does?
we're pre-alpha currently, so the only running instance is our dogfood. I'll pop back by when we release an alpha build you can play with.
I dreamed I was a power ranger. We were just kind of starting out, and there was some mechanism involving dogs. So like, each of us had a dog that was the source of some of our abilities, and some of us had multiple dogs we could switch between, but it could be like any dog, so you could like, find a better one if you want different abilities. I'd bred a couple pit bulls, one that boosted jump a lot and one that boosted speed. We were getting the overview of how the zords worked. Including there being some kind of impervious capsule we would be inside as a cockpit to protect us from the damage they might take, and like.... apparently it came with a full range of medical care options inside too, so you could survive in there for weeks if you had to. (It was fun for the lads to discover it could insert a catheter, lol).
You had to synchronize with the others to be able to use the telepathy network and the combining bits, it was kind of like pacific rim that way. Some kind of mishap happened and the whole team minus me went on a time-travel adventure, so I got some practice with my zord, hung out with dogs, trained some kind of exotic beast friend as a pet, general stuff. There was this weird solo mission where I thought I was fighting a guy with a zord, but he actually had bonded with a magical beast instead, weird stuff. Then the others came back and I was like great, let's go! But I couldn't sync anymore, because they'd gone off and had adventures and I didn't know them as well as I used to. I was trying to get Blue (I was Red) to talk to me about his philosophy on life so I could kind of figure out how to sync back up when senpai woke me
@blek said in Why are people putting AMAs in Civilized Salon instead of Look At Me!:
I've been tempted, but I try to fight the impulse and hear people out. I try to only mute when either I can't keep my calm, or I don't think there's anything to be learned.
@blek This part:
@blek said in Why are people putting AMAs in Civilized Salon instead of Look At Me!:
People will mute anything that doesn't align with their views.
@blek I like to hope that's not entirely true, but it's just a vain hope for humanity being able to overcome political partisanship and share real conversations, not really based in any facts.
@tsaukpaetra I had mine at 0 for months, though I had the Garage muted. It's oddly freeing to let it go.
@blek I said I was having trouble participating in a discussion of trans people because it's very personal to me, so I'd need people to be gentle. Someone said being trans was a mental illness we just need to cure. So I left the thread, because I was getting emotional. Isn't that what you'd want?
But yeah, I didn't quit the salon so much as stop posting in the forums much overall outside of games. Unrelated to that thread.