Some random thoughtful/funny bits I collected over the years, and some pure entertainment
Table of contents
Humor
Introduction to Abject-Oriented Programming, a non-recent but all too timeless masterpiece about coding... and coders
My favorite episodes of xkcd, a webcomic of sarcasm, geekness and language:
My life sucks (but the Simpsons make it even more right).
Plug and Play
Plug and Play is not dead. If you're nostalgic about Y2K-era PC stickers, here's my own sticker about its evolution, which lives on in every PC running Windows:
Quotes
Twilight of the Idols (1888), Maxims and Arrows, 7 (Wie? ist der Mensch nur ein Fehlgriff Gottes? Oder Gott nur ein Fehlgriff des Menschen?)
A Lasting Peace through the Federation of Europe and The State of War, mid 1750s
Development
Tough Question
Computers Are Hard: building software with David Heinemeier Hansson
Wojtek Borowicz: You have also spoken in less than favorable terms about other trends that have emerged in software development, like microservices and serverless or Test-Driven Development. Are there any trends in software engineering that you actually find appealing?
David Heinemeier Hansson: That’s a tough question. It’s much easier to pick out all the shit that I don’t like.
Geek (software)
Games
My favorite games
Board
- Catan, turn-based strategy game. A little complex for a board game, but fairly short play times
Computer
- The "4X" Civilization game series (by Sid Meier). These turn-based management games featuring a steep learning curve leave little room to chance and are true tests for one's strategic and tactical skills. Having played all versions from the first to the sixth, I have seen the series evolve enormously, becoming multiplayer, more realistic and less and less focused on military conflicts, but in return more and more complex. I particularly enjoyed Civilization II and its spiritual sequel Alpha Centauri, high-quality, and more reasonably complex. These highly addictive games require great focus and feature extremely long play times, in particular when playing with friends. Thankfully, games are highly configurable and numerous difficulty levels are offered. Except for regular players, only the easiest levels are reasonable.
- Neverball. A very simple game which develops little more than dexterity, but an application which is free, multilingual and multi-platform, of high quality, not addictive at all and which requires no learning, without any violence. I eventually completed it back in the time where Mehdi's levels were the last, but I wouldn't dare trying to repeat the exploit with all the new levels added since!
Nature
Freedom is―like everything―something appreciated by those who lack it; Vanilla the chimpanzee discovering the outside
Poetry
The Solitary Chimney (political satire)