Posts by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
(DIR) Post #B2SROCJSxzpUftU7Qu by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-19T23:00:43Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
RE: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/115924028281889489i did not understand this until I tried to run Linux on a new thinkpad after years of running it on old computers
(DIR) Post #B2W0ZsPmqvMuJ5cqIK by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-20T14:34:00Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
i like to make websites and I've been slowly realizing that my requirements for making websites might be a little weird- I have maybe 20 websites (mostly static but not all)- I want to spend basically 0 time maintaining them, maybe 5 minutes every 2 months at most- I need to be able to ignore a project for 3 years and then come back and be able to develop it easilyi feel like all of this stuff makes my choice of tech stack different than if I worked on one site full-time
(DIR) Post #B2W0a1LrcsZu1WrKvg by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-20T17:22:13Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
a few people have been asking what my typical setup is for "running websites that I can completely ignore and spend 0 time maintaining" so I wrote down a few thoughtshttps://gist.github.com/jvns/5bd9283d7abd5ceb26eb7ed28afe3030
(DIR) Post #B2W0aASvjyZuI3Ebh2 by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-20T17:29:17Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
it feels hard to talk about how to write websites that feel manageable to maintain with like 0.5% of my brain because there are a thousand tiny and not always logical decisions like "use bash scripts to run my local dev server, because then it's `bash scripts/run.sh` no matter what programming language the project is in" or "refuse to use any database other than SQLite because I had a bad experience operating Postgres once and I feel more comfortable with sqlite"
(DIR) Post #B2W0aJEj89Z3UbetIu by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-20T18:52:44Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
though I guess a big part of "how to make website in a way where it will keep working and be easy to develop in the future" is figuring what kind of backwards compatibility guarantees various software has (which I have realized is really a question about human processes and priorities and culture, and so isn't really straightforward)(4/?)
(DIR) Post #B2aAqcJDlOYrS60zrM by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-23T16:40:24Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
i’ve been learning Django and I feel like the docs are really good? normally I avoid reading docs but they’re so helpful
(DIR) Post #B2lFzL7BPiIsYgT5Oa by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-28T19:34:30Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
today i'm back to reading this paper by @grimalkina about contest cultures and brilliance traps in software and I'm going to try to live tweet some notes because reading papers is hardhttps://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/2gej5_v2(1/?)
(DIR) Post #B2lFzMLkp1YMOAIEkK by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-28T19:39:08Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
first I'm curious about how "contest culture" might be definedOne of the references is this paper on "Masculinity Contest Culture": https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12280 which has this list of factors"Admitting you don't know the answer looks weak" feels VERY familiar to me, I feel like I've said "I don't know X" on the internet and been weirdly attacked for it so many times ("how could she not know that??? what does that mean about what kind of programmer she is!!!!")(2/)
(DIR) Post #B2lFzUM33oXfDOUaJc by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-28T19:52:52Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
next: what does "brilliance trap" mean? they reference this: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-brilliance-paradox-what-really-keeps-women-and-minorities-from-excelling-in-academia/ which talks about a study they did on a possible explanation for why some academic fields have less women and Black people than others: the belief that you have to be innately "brilliant" to succeed in that field(3/?)
(DIR) Post #B2lFzcTmqvUAPiAsUK by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-28T19:58:56Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
I've heard a lot in the past about Carol Dweck's "growth mindsets" (which to me is the idea that having a growth mindset makes you more _effective_ at learning than if you have the attitude that brilliance is fixed)But I don't think I've ever heard that the attitude that "brilliance is fixed" could have an impact on representation before. that's interesting!(4?)
(DIR) Post #B2lFzjjzr3bww0oQE4 by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-28T20:05:47Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
okay I'm learning (thanks to Cat's clarification!!) that they uses scales called "measures" to measure things like "contest cultures" or "brilliance belief". Cool! Here are the measures from the paper in the first tweethttps://osf.io/cd874/files/wkch8(5/?)
(DIR) Post #B2lFzrXWrIOL7f2Zu4 by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-28T20:07:39Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
this is making me wonder if folks have studied whether "Imposterism" and "Contest Cultures" are connected, it feels like if you're in a culture where "admitting you don't know the answer looks weak" it would be extremely natural to be "afraid others will discover how much knowledge or ability I really lack"(I've been suspicious of "imposter syndrome" conversations that frame imposter syndrome as a personal issue for a long time)(6/?)
(DIR) Post #B2lFzz7weIgEed8G8W by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-28T20:17:50Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
i have never thought about how psychology research works and my extremely simplified model now is1) develop surveys ("measures") and look at how responses to one relates to responses to another with stats2) publish them so that other researchers can iterate on the measures you're using to discuss the conceptthis list of measures says "IS has been shown to have good internal consistency, reliability, and construct validity", which I guess are things we wanthttps://osf.io/cd874/files/wkch8(7/?)
(DIR) Post #B2lG07FKSjL9pqeGky by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-28T20:38:08Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
afaik this paper's main suggestion for how to combat "contest cultures" (admitting you don't know something is seen as weak) and the "brilliance trap" (there's an attitude that people are either "brilliant" or "not") is to prioritize a"strong culture of shared learning and [emphasize] that all people can belong in software development and should have the chance to succeed"building a culture of shared learning is my literal favourite thing so I'm very into thishttps://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/2gej5_v2(8/?)
(DIR) Post #B2lG0FcfJqlDoXd1F2 by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-28T20:56:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
this paper talks about workplace culture (which is so important!!) and it's making me very curious about how "contest cultures" affect online communities & spaces for learning, like programming forums (stack overflow, discords, HN, blogs, etc)personally I find it kind of impossible to participate in most public forums (HN, SO, reddit, etc), it just doesn't feel worth it. I have access to lots of other spaces but not everyone does? Feels like it has some kind of cost.(9/?)
(DIR) Post #B2lG0NZlkVCITsKoq0 by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-28T21:29:35Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
one thing I love about this paper is that it talks about "contest cultures" like "you will get attacked if you" as being a real systemic problem_ with actual effectsso often when I hear people talk about issues like this I hear the advice "just ignore those people, they suck" which to me is not helpful at all, because it tries to erase the problem instead of naming it or addressing iti like this quote from this post by @grimalkina https://www.drcathicks.com/post/expecting-success(10/?)
(DIR) Post #B2oXRzLzgJ2QA0WRHs by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-30T15:04:04Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
i'm curious about what it's like to be behind a CGNAT (where you share a single IPv4 address with many other people). are you in that situation? are they any downsides?
(DIR) Post #B2oZR0lZ90K69y93XU by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-30T15:15:15Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@SuperDicq yea that's part of why I'm curious about it, I feel like I don't notice that much of a difference between mobile browsing on my phone and on my home internet
(DIR) Post #B2opbdvA1NAHl5iyNk by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-30T15:13:09Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@sunbeam_rider would love to hear some examples of things that happens! I'm trying to explain why it sucks
(DIR) Post #B2orLWfrOePeYf0hhQ by b0rk@social.jvns.ca
2026-01-30T18:44:36Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@sunbeam_rider thanks, this all exactly the kind of thing I was interested in hearing about