pew pew pew pew
Modern problems. Went to charge my phone this morning. The cable won't stay plugged in. Different cable, same thing. Oh crap, I broke the USB-C jack on the phone. Panik. Tried to hold it in with a rubber band. Nope. Looked closely at the jack, it's a bit dirty. Got out a magnifier and a pin. Dug out a little tiny piece of dirt. Plug stays connected now. Calm.
With a Presidential election days away, the biggest ways to record online statements are conspicuously broken.
Ads are filling the entirety of the Web -- websites, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. -- at an increasing rate. Prices for those ad placements are plummeting. Consumers are desperate to use ad-blockers to make the web palatable. Google (and others) are desperate to break and block ad-blockers. All of which results in... more ads and lower pay for creators.
It's a fascinatingly annoying cycle. And there's only one viable way out of it.
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Those in power with openSUSE make it clear they will not allow me anywhere near anything related to the openSUSE project. Ever. For any reason.
Well, that settles that, then! Guess I won't be contributing to openSUSE! 🤣
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My own company is warning us about our devices listening to us. How ironic.
Still, this is good advice.
How One Line of Code Led to Catastrophe: The Mars Polar Lander
In December 1999, NASA's Mars Polar Lander was on a pioneering mission to explore Mars' south pole, aiming to unlock secrets about the planet's climate and the possibility of water ice beneath its surface. Equipped with cutting-edge technology and years of meticulous planning, the spacecraft represented a significant leap forward in planetary exploration.
But as the lander approached the Martian atmosphere, an unseen flaw lurked within its software—a tiny error buried deep in the code controlling its descent and landing sequence. This subtle glitch caused the lander to misinterpret vibrations from its leg deployment as a confirmation of touchdown while it was still high above the Martian surface. Acting on this false signal, the onboard computer prematurely shut down the descent engines.
With its engines off and no parachute to slow its fall, the Mars Polar Lander plummeted silently to the Red Planet, disappearing ...
Another week, another flurry of weirdness in the Tech world.
The Shows
The Articles
Previous Few Months
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My favorite picture in this "Funny Programming Pictures" collection is the one with Al Bundy in it. In part because it contains a stupid grammatical error, and in part because it has absolutely nothing to do with programming.
But, mostly, because it's about Al Bundy.