pards's comments

On: Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It

[pards]

> And in coding, L.L.M.s take away the drudgery and leave the human, soulful parts to you.

Strong disagree. Coding was the fun part. Reviewing PRs is not.

On: Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It

[pards]

https://archive.is/S2nMA

On: Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

[pards]

The 47 Lansdowne bus in Toronto has this problem with at least three locations (on the short section of the route that I take):

1. In the Dundas/College triangle, there are are 2 stops less than 100m apart. 2. At the Queen St turnaround, there are 4 stops all within 150m of each other 3. At Bloor St, there are 2 stops 100m apart

These are all within a single 2km section of the bus's 10km route.

On: You Want to Visit the UK? You Better Have a Google Play or App Store Account

[pards]

I encountered this on the NYC subway trying to buy 4 metrocards with one credit card. No bueno.

On: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026

[pards]

One of my large enterprise clients currently requires all tech staff to complete 18h (yes, eighteen hours!) of "agile training", in addition to speed-running 14 separate mandatory online courses.

This time would be much better spent watching these 9h of lectures.

On: We mourn our craft

[pards]

> They prefer working to non-working.

This sums up many things perfectly. I'll be stealing this.

On: Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

[pards]

It sounds like you didn't have a very good coach. My first coach wasn't very helpful, my second was amazing. Keep looking!

Open mic nights at your local bar are a great source of data. Approach people after their performance, compliment them, and ask them if they have a coach they'd be willing recommend.

On: Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

[pards]

Got any youtubers you'd recommend?

[kbrkbr → pards]

Bob Smeenk helped me personally a lot. But I guess it depends a lot on your background, experience and goals.

On: Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

[pards]

Ed Sheeran used to be bad at singing [0]. So was Jon Bon Jovi.

In-person vocal lessons and consistent practice have dramatically improved my voice from terrible to half-decent.

[0]: https://youtube.com/shorts/I05Ahr0tpAc

On: I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

[pards]

I assume all social media ads are also scams.

[ljm → pards]

Every now and then there's a post on Reddit like "I ordered this thing from UNARFI and it is nothing like the pictures" and I'm like, what do you expect when ordering from a site named after an incorrect guess on wordle?

[mrweasel → pards]

Right, unless we're talking ads for a brand I already know and trust, I just assume that all ads are scams. Even Googles ads, which was previous very good at finding me the products I wanted, from good sources, a now overrun by scams (or borderline scams).

The online adverting industry is raking in billions on scamming people, while providing questionable value for actual good brands. Even if your company is honest and makes good products, you're competing with the scammers for ad space and that pushes up your cost.

I've said this on multiple occasions, but I do not believe that the honest companies are able to fund the tech industry in it's current form. Meta, Google, Apple and everyone else, expects increasing revenue, year on year, most of which is suppose to be delivered by ads, bought by other companies. Those companies just aren't see the same level of growth, nor do they see enough value from ads to increase their advertising. So the big websites take in more and more questionable ads to pad their numbers. So what if consumers get scammed? They should have been more critical.