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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: June 3rd, 2025

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  • … because I can’t find the tab I opened 2 days ago, so it’s faster open it again… which just creates a negative feedback loop of having too many tabs and not able to find anything.

    Case and point: I’m in IT and we use github. Some code requires reviews (which needs “more time” to complete), then often I’m looking at other 3rd party repos’ for documentation/examples/etc. Some might be useful, some are related to my current problem. Oh, I get a ping - I need to finish that PR review: “which tab is it? They ALL say github!” … and I’m too impatient to hover over them. So, it’s faster to just type the URL in and go.

    I loved browser plugin, Vimperator. It was fantastic, I could (at anytime) type “:b <pattern>” and it would search through my open tabs. But I’ve tried a bunch of the “successor”, but universally they seem to get “stuck” when it comes to inputting text - either into text fields (like on a normal email form) or as input into the browser extension.

    Recently, I found an extension that would group tabs based on your rules (so, I could separate the company github tabs from the OSS). It’s far from perfect… but it’s endurable.

    … but what I really wish for is a Firefox plugin that’ll allow me to type parts of the tabs domain or title and it’ll filter the results.





  • For me the biggest question is: “Will these City-ran grocery stores, be able to complete with the Walmart juggernaut?”

    Yes, initially the city-ran stores will be placed in “food deserts”, but if the program is to succeed it need to go toe-to-toe with Walmart. Otherwise, the program won’t be able to reach the people who need it the most.

    … and based on the article you posted, I’m sure Walmart won’t take this lying down. Walmart will have no second thoughts or remorse to sacrifice their suppliers in order to compete (thus, keeping customers flocking to their store).


  • You have a good point… and I’ve worked on both sides of the fence. Currently, I’m at the “healthy culture” camp, but it wasn’t always that way.

    While I was working at companies that had a not-so healthy culture, there were things I did to “bring visibility” to these non-work tasks. However, I should add that at these types of companies didn’t really offer a lot of financial compensation for this non-work, but at no-time did anyone challenge my productivity.

    Basically, I’d suggest:

    1. Be (technically) opinioned and make it visible. Often, it’s not your boss you need to impress (as they see your work every day), it’s your boss’ boss. If you have a reputation within the company as a guru in something, it’s easier for your boss’ boss to “see” that you’re bringing “value” outside of you day-to-day tasks.
    2. Bring visibility to these (side quest) discussions. At one company, I created a chat room to use as a sort of “technical self-help”(for all Engineers) and any DMs I got, I would ask them to funnel the discussion into the chat room. I asked them to do it “so others can find the answers to similar questions” and more importantly “to bring visibility to these discussions”. You, your boss, your boss’ boss can see how much time you invest in these topics and they can see that this help does not come for free.
    3. If your not meeting your goals (or are stressed out) , due to these side-quests - tell your boss. Explain (as early as possible) that project X will slip if you keep focusing on unblocking others and let them decide what to do. If you followed-up with Point 2, you’ve got concrete evidence to justify where your time is being spent.
    4. When people ask you “what are you doing?” (like during your Stand Up). Do not answer “nothing” or “supporting others”. Be detailed, mention the actual technical topics (and if you’ve got this chat room, reminding yourself is much easier).
    5. Last bit, which might not be helpful. If it’s the same questions or some fundamental misunderstandings that your often answering: maybe offer a Dogo/training for anyone who’s interested. When you offer it, shout it from the highest tree top - it’ll go far in establishing yourself, in the company’s eyes, as a guru (even to those who don’t understand the topic) and it’ll (helpfully) reduce the amount of questions in that topic.

  • But from the companies perspective this is a net-gain.

    You’ve just unblocked 10 people so they can continue to work… and even if their weekly individual productivity is 25% of yours, combined they’re doing more than twice the amount of work you’re doing and it only cost the company a week of your time.

    Yeah, at times it’s frustrating and distracting, but hopefully you’re getting compensated for the knowledge you bring inaddition to the work you deliver.










  • Take a look at ssh-agent. It’s bundled with ssh-client and designed to solve this problem.

    The quick usage is, create a terminal and run:

    eval `ssh-agent`
    ssh-add /path/to/your/encrypted/key1
    #type in password
    ssh-add /path/to/your/encrypted/key2
    ... 
    
    # all commands in this terminal will use the keys above w/o asking you for a password 
    git clone [email protected]...
    git push... 
    etc
    

    So, basically you type your credentials once during the life cycle of your terminal.

    If you really want to go full power-user, simple run ssh-agent (without the eval) and you’ll see it just sets some env-vars, which can be imported into any terminal/shell you have open.

    So, if you put some logic in your shells rc file, you can effectively share a single ash-agent between all your shells, meaning you just need to type your password for your keys once when you log into your system… and your now passwordless for any future terminals you create (this is my setup).

    Also, if you’re interested take a peek at the man pages for ash-agent. It has a few interesting features (ie: adding a password lock for your agent, removing keys from the agent, etc).