Weeknotes 80

This was the best “back to work” after Christmas that I’ve had in a while. Chiefly because I was only working 3 days. What a difference. Two days a week for the rest of January, I could get used to this. But it can’t last, I’ll be looking to start something new in February or March. Spread the word!

TIL You can subscribe to Google Alerts using RSS 👌

Go has never appealed to me. All that if err != nil business in a supposedly modern language. However, it is very popular and I have considered learning it for that reason.

Amos has written an interesting follow up, Lies we tell ourselves to keep using Golang, to I want off Mr. Golang’s Wild Ride and it is very compelling. I don’t understand all of the technical details, but his observations on the arguments people make to dismiss any criticism of Go are right on.

When you don’t want to hear something, one easy way to not have to think about it at all is to convince yourself that whoever is saying it is incompetent, or that they have ulterior motives.

I copied a lot of the kickstart.nvim config that I found the other day. It was fairly straight forward to setup, but if I’m honest I’m now left with quite an overwhelming learning curve. I will need to learn and tweak to get the most out of it.

RocketSim for Xcode Simulator – this is interesting, a third party iOS simulator. I don’t have the need for the simulator an awful lot but I was intrigued at this being offered outside of Apple. Might be worth a look if you use the Simulator a lot.

I know WhatsApp is not most secure messaging app, but I still find it the best app to use, and the majority of people I message still favour it. It can only be positive that Meta have introduced proxy support for people who live under oppressive regimes.

For those who want an Apple Display but can’t stomach Apple’s pricing take a look at these two serious alternatives from Samsung with their ViewFinity S9 and Dell with the UltraSharp 32 6K. Pricing has not yet been announced, but they surely can’t be more than Apple’s offerings.

Creative founder Sim Wong Hoo, the man behind Sound Blaster, has died

It might seem hard for younger readers to believe, but there was a time that computer sound wasn’t guaranteed. If you wanted to plug in headphones or speakers that could do more than bloops or bleeps, you probably needed a sound card.

The Sound Blaster was a big deal back in the day.

Study suggests that hardware buttons in cars are safer and quicker to use than touchscreens

I am nearly certain that everyone knows this is true, especially the designers at car companies. The reason that cars are largely switching to mostly touchscreen controls is the same reason phones switched — software is more flexible than hardware. Cars today do more than cars from 2005 did. But in the same way that all phones still have some hardware buttons (volume, power, mute), cars should too. The trick is getting the balance right. A couple of recent cars I’ve driven have definitely gotten that balance wrong.

Would you like to read a long and interesting thread about Conan The Barbarian? Well, you’re in luck.