Ryan D. Lewis @luckierdodge@mastodon.online

Hello world!

For those of you that don't know me, I'm a Computer Scientist and full-time student in the US. I have strong opinions on obscure technology topics, and I hope to share them with ya'll whenever I can find the time!

My personal struggle with tech is that I know the coolest, "best" gadgets and software and tech that I have always been passionate about is inextricably tied up in large, amoral, fundamentally profit-seeking and privacy-eradicating megacorporations with incentives that fundamentally do not align with their customer's and user's best interests. But I still love the tech, and then just end up feeling guilty and sad every time I think about it.

https://newrepublic.com/article/159339/biden-democrats-2020-campaign-promise-good-governance

"It is incumbent on those who reject revolution to make the current system not require it" and "simply fix shit and govern well". The most succinct summary of my feelings about the world I could ever hope to synthesize. Seriously, I just want a government that works well for all its citizens.

Every time I think about Oculus's acquisition by the unspeakable evil, it makes me a little sad for the future of VR. A once bright future tech already corrupted by the sins of it's forebears.

I want to love snap packages, but it's so damn hard when everything works just slightly worse than the non-snap version.

Bit the bullet and picked up a used OP-Z today. Never really done anything with synths before, but I'm excited to see if it's something I can get into. If nothing else, I'll just leave it on my desk and obsess over the beautiful hardware and design.

For someone who got into their field specifically for the programming...I don't do nearly enough programming 🤷‍♂️

Is it just me, or does every tech problem these days feel like it's really a monopoly problem?

I don't think I really grasped until this week how tremendously, incredibly fucked this academic year is going to be. Just...colossally messed up, from kindergarten all the way up to grad school. This is gonna set all of us back years.

Package managers are underrated and every computer is constantly a breath away from dependency hell. That is all.

I built a Big Ass Desk™ yesterday using an old door and some PVC pipe.

I want to love enterprise networking gear, but the never-ending onslaught of arcane licensing nonsense makes me want to scream into the abyss. I JUST WANT TO FIDDLE WITH SOME USED HARDWARE, NOT SELL YOU MY SOUL TO GET AN OUTDATED AP WORKING.

The worst part about being the sole developer on a project is that when there are bugs, you've got nobody to blame but yourself.

To rectify this unfortunate circumstance, I've switched to blaming "Past Ryan".