Congratulations on getting hired to this team! You probably count yourself lucky, but don't. We had been trying to fill this role for the past 5 months and every candidate would run away as soon as we showed them our homegrown auth framework. But don't run yet please, do give it a try.
So, you are still here? It must be a bad job market out there. Looks like you found the documentation for the project. Let me save you the trouble, it has not be updated since 3 years ago (about the time John quit). No worries, there are lots of usage examples in the Perforce repo. Perforce is like Git but that's for another day.
So you managed to checkout the code. Before you type "make", let me remind you to install this particular version of Python and set up your LD paths. Make sure you don't have anything else relying on Python because they will probably never work again.
If you hit the dreaded "std::vector<std::__cxx11::basic_string<char> > >'} is not derived from 'const char*'" error, ask Joe (if he is still around) to show you which header file you need to tweak. That's not checked in because it breaks the build on a legacy server we still have running for one of the customers.
… someone else please take over… :-)
This is why when I see some clever open source tool discussed on HN and I go to the repo and see it's written in Python I close the browser window and pretend I never saw it.
Yes I know there are ways to protect yourself when using Python in much the same way that lead-lined glove boxes protect you when working with plutonium, but I can never remember the proper CLI incantation to make the lead-lined glove box appear.
The only reason it isn't "usable" is because the wrapper script isn't on your system's path. Unless your tools actually depend on venv-related environment variables being set (for example, because they make subprocess calls and assume that `'python'` will use the currently running Python when they should correctly be using `sys.executable`), which IMX is very rare, you don't ever actually have to activate a venv to do anything with it. In particular, you don't need to activate it to use its REPL; you can instead directly specify the path to its Python executable.
The missing affordance basically looks like `ln -s path/to/venv/bin/tool ~/.local/bin`. Which is a big part of what Pipx does for you. (And once I realized that, I started using Pipx's vendored shared copy of pip: https://zahlman.github.io/posts/2025/01/07/python-packaging-...)
You can `uv tool install your_package`, add a dir to your PATH, and then you can launch the tool appropriately, with it installed in its own venv
$ virtualenv ~/venv/yt-dlp
$ . ~/venv/yt-dlp/bin/activate
$ pip install yt-dlp
$ ln -s ~/venv/yt-dlp/bin/yt-dlp ~/bin/yt-dlp
$ deactivate
$ yt-dlp ...(And you didn't handle getting an appropriate version of python installed.)
That's why I use pipx. But the activation and deactivation in that example are completely unnecessary, and the last line is just using the installed package. Installation actually looks like:
$ python -m venv ~/venv/yt-dlp
$ ~/venv/yt-dlp/bin/pip install yt-dlp
$ ln -s ~/venv/yt-dlp/bin/yt-dlp ~/bin/yt-dlp
Pip just happens to be laser focused on the actual installation of packages, so it doesn't provide that wrapper. (With PAPER I'm aiming for slightly broader scope, but still something intended specifically for users that's only one piece of a developer toolchain.)
> (And you didn't handle getting an appropriate version of python installed.)
When was the last time you tried to obtain an application that could be installed as a PyPI package and your system Python wasn't compatible? Everyone knows the CPython release cadence now and is strongly pressured to advance their own support in lock-step with that. Similarly for libraries. There's already a full set of wheels for the latest version of NumPy for 3.14, 22 of them. Even musl-based distributions are provided for. Even 32-bit Windows is provided for, for those few holdouts.
If your target audience doesn't have Python and understand on a basic level what that is, why will they be able to understand using the uv command line and accept using that to install a program?
One thing you can do (I'm not saying it's user friendly) is set up the tool in a virtualenv and then set up an alias like
alias foo-tool=/home/blah blah/tools/something/env/bin/python -m foo-toolCan you give a concrete example of an installation you attempted that failed?
The package versions are however fraught - our machine learning codebase at work only was stuck on the 1.x versions of numpy for more than a year, as scipy and ultralytics both took forever to upgrade, and that prevented us adopting packages that depend on the 2.x numpy.
But the language isn't designed to support multiple versions of the same library in the same runtime environment. If you get them both to load (and there are a lot of ways), they are different libraries (actual different module objects) with different names (or the same name in different namespaces). Packaging tools can't do anything meaningful about this. I write about this on HN more often than I'd like; see e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45467514 . It's also covered in https://zahlman.github.io/posts/2024/12/24/python-packaging-... .
python -m venv .
. bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
There's nothing wrong with easy solutions, but any python engineer worth their salt has long since solved and moved on from the issues that UV claims to solve.
I believe UV provides value, even significant value, to lite python users, but for those working with python day in and day out, maybe you're using a new tool, but life has not changed significantly for the better. Or you just sucked and didn't reach for any of the perfectly usable solutions to all of these problems that existed before UV showed up.
I consider myself to be fairly good with Python, and excellent with *nix. uv is far and away the best tool for managing Python projects, tools, and scripts, bar none. Sorry, Poetry - you had a good run.
It is just part of the job. Sure I am not a big fan of C# or PowerShell but a big part is just that I have no experience.
.Net was designed deliberately so that multiple versions could be installed side by side and an executable would pick the version most likely to work based on target version and compatibility. In most cases .Net is also forward compatible so e.g. a .Net 3 app continues to work on a PC where only .Net 4.8 is installed. In addition, libraries could be part of the application installation and in modern .Net, the framework can be part of the application installation.
In most cases, everything will just work, and when it doesn’t, one can just install the older .Net version needed and nothing will be broken.
My point is that if you do not know your platform things get complicated, either for yourself or for people that take over after you. For me personally python does not mark it self as extra hard to handle.
It's a developer/community problem - the language itself doesn't require it.
There are a lot of prototype integration projects in Python though and that is incredibly hard to get running. I know nothing about C# but as Linus Torvalds said the binary compatibility layer for Linux is Win32 because of Steam, so MS has worked on the problem before. Though I would like to point out that when you are talking about prototype integration projects Windows is as bad as Python, I have rebuilt test environment in Windows that had been left to rot for ten years.
So in my work life experience all programming languages suck at this, python might suck less or more but it is more of a skill issues than anything.
I stick with Python.org packages for macOS, and the official Python packages on Ubuntu, and everything seems to work just fine.
> 3 years ago (about the time John quit)
> ask John (if he is still around)
... you'll need to refer to these pages on Confluence, but they haven't all yet migrated to the new Confluence documentation structure, which is here, so you'll need to search both. And then the really detailed documentation is in Sharepoint here, but when we update these documents we'll also need to convert them to PDF and publish them to our Customer-accessible ticketing system using this specific ticket number, which you'll need to remember because search on that system doesn't work very well.
We didn't go under quite yet and it was my extreme pleasure to allow two more devs to write their own blurbs and edit the letter to help future others. The company later went under and was acquired by a competitor, so I'm sure they've seen the letter in order to figure out how to extract data from the system. Effort not wasted.
Welcome to $org. Up to this point in the hiring process, you may have believed that we are a principled, well-structured meritocracy where all talent and hard work are appropriately awarded.
Well I find it necessary to inform you...
Look at what these lead-lickers did https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CBgoi28hXoI
Obviously, I recovered the bike and repaired it only to nearly be killed by an Uber driver at which point I called it a day.
One of the things he stressed was all the ways people think motorcycles are stolen aren't they ways motorcycles are stolen, because those methods are used by would-be professional thieves who get caught. The professionals are the ones who don't get caught also don't use the same methods.
The thief mentioned replacing OEM ECUs with some sort of home-made jobber that was "good enough" to start the bike and ride it away--the actual way motorcycles are stolen--to a shielded transfer point, typically a delivery truck, where the buyer waits to collect and pay for the stolen bike.
It was on that day that I discovered that their brakes are thankfully equally potent as their engines. I finished the ride and realized that if I ever got a bike, I would either be jailed or dead in short order, so decided to not get one.
I know there are plenty of more reasonable bikes out there, but the problem is I would gain skills on those, and then talk myself into getting something faster.
I don’t have a problem with fast/fun cars; I’ve had a Datsun 280Z with an LS1 swap (waaaay too much power for the tires and aero - if you launched hard, it would start to hook up in 3rd, and by 110-120 MPH it started getting floaty), and used to daily a Honda S2000 (favorite car I’ve ever owned - they’re like big go-karts). But bikes are on another level. The only thing I’ve experienced like that was an acquaintance’s MKIV Supra, where every upshift feels like the hand of god shoving you back, there’s a cacophony of intake shriek, blow-off puff, and exhaust roar, and you’re doing your best to keep focus.
Man, I love engines. EVs are definitely the future for a variety of reasons, but I’m still sad about it. The sheer number of mechanical pieces all working together in perfect symphony is mind-boggling and beautiful.
Eventually his wife said "fine, commute by motorbike" - which was the original intention all along!
This seems to be how it goes. My own father used to ride a motorcycle back in the day - until it almost fell on me and my sister when we were screwing around on it.
Off that motorcycle went, never to be seen again after that.
Still can't stop turning my head whenever a StreetFighter or 1099 or something passes by.
When I came back out, the attendant that had parked it was nowhere to be seen. I handed him the tag, he retrieved the key and a few minutes later off in the distance I heard him trying to start it. He managed to get it out of the parking spot before he gave up and motioned for me to walk down to him. After some discussion, he gave up and let me drive it out of the lot.
> a state of disrepair I have become accustomed to with older British vehicles.
Figures. You MG owners! Did you have a hammer with you for when the points in the fuel pump needed smacking? ;) I drove a '65 Triumph Spitfire for about five years back in the early 00's and it was reliable as a top (after I repaired all the hack work that previous owners had done to it).
Growing up, a friends dad would use this as a ‘feature’ on his Datsun to move the car out of traffic when it wouldn’t restart.
Put it in first, release the clutch, crank the starter, and move the car out of the way.
In hindsight, stalling while crossing railroad tracks, like quicksand, is a much less common danger in adulthood than I was lead to believe as a younger person.
I was born in 1980 and it seemed people would get stuck in quicksand on tv regularly when I was a kid, but it seems a kind of danger that has almost disappeared from the collective narrative.
Why was it popular before? Why isn't it anymore? This baffles me.
Television moved on to lava in the interest of progress.
Most quicksand I'm aware of is in tidal flats [0] [1] and it really is dangerous to take a short cut over them. Come to think of it, most normal sand I encounter is in tidal flats, too.
[0] https://www.98fm.com/news/north-dublin-beaches-quicksand-war...
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/southend-on-sea-deadly-...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldust [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkholderia_pseudomallei
¹ yes I know soil is not sand
TV Tropes suggests the idea whilst even existing in fiction for hundred of years before TV, is now "discredited".
---
Personally I prefer more interesting madcap cultural theories. Here's one from the top of my head:
Quicksand refers to anxiety about the natural world from an increasingly urbanised and ecologically disconnected population. Or maybe Quicksand represents an increasing urban populations attitude towards nature. It represents the opposite of a safe, technology, capitalist, consumerist industrial world of the post WW2 era. Nature was literally seen as hostile. Nature can make a person stuck, capture them, and kill them. It's allied with getting lost in the woods stories, a trope which emphasizes both physical and existential disorientation in the face of nature's indifference
Quicksand on TV existed throughout the early ecological hippy inspired new age of the late 20th century but the seeds were being sown. This changed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as we witnessed the convergence of environmental concerns (e.g. plastic bags, straws, global warming) with the logic of neoliberal capitalism, together with an increase in bureaucratic management on behalf of people. Nature is not scary but something to be protected from harm. Nature is reconfigured from a place of danger to a place of stewardship. Avatar, the movie represents the change the most.
Thus, the role of cities and technology as agents of death and destruction have changed. It is not nature that entraps or destroys, but rather the infrastructures of urbanization, capitalism, and technological progress. Ironically this valorisation of nature is happening at the same time as increasingly technological manipulation of the rural environment - mechanisation of farming, house building, terraforming, weather modification. Nature is no longer wild, is not even tame, it's another resource to be shaped and used.
Quicksand not only is discredited as being inaccurate, it's ideologically impossible for nature to be dangerous anymore.
They did note that it’s only good for manual cars. Automatics were not standard in the UK in the 80s.
All from memory, so might be mangling the details :-)
*Or could have been the Australian version.
But I came really close to getting in trouble with a 1948 Chevy pickup. I backed it into my grandfather's garage, and then found out that it was a bit too far forward to be able to close the door. So I turned the ignition on, put it in reverse, and touched the starter.
Unfortunately, the engine caught with that brief touch of the starter, leaving me frantically stabbing for the clutch before I pushed through the back of the garage...
Fortunately, it idled very slowly, and I had (of course) given it no gas.
Did it many times when a starter or battery died; just need a bit of a hill or a good push.
I did a 3000km road trip with it. Lol
In a traditional automatic with a hydraulic torque converter between the engine and the gearing, you've got a problem: most transmissions use hydraulic pressure to actuate the gear selection, and hydraulic pressure is typically developed by turning of the input shaft. Some older automatics had a secondary pump to develop hydraulic pressure from turning of the output shaft. In those cars, you could select first gear, turn the ignition to run, and if you got it moving fast enough, it would develop pressure, actuate first gear, and then the transmission could turn the engine and off you were. Some references suggest pushing in neutral and selecting first when ready to start. References say you need to get up to about 15-25 mph for that; my VW Vanagon which shares the same engine type as the 914 (and is therefore a rear-engine sports car) can start the engine from a much slower roll; the speedometer rests at 10 mph, so who knows how fast I'm going, but probably walking speed.
Depends; what's lighting up the field coils in the alternator? A generator, which probably went out of cars in the '60s, sure. But something has to power the parts that create the magnetic field in an alternator, and if the battery's dead...
On top of the fact that the coils on top of the plugs these days are more finicky about the amount of power they receive. A battery with 11.5V probably isn't going to cut it. And as you point out, the ECM may want a healthy 12V, too.
I would hedge the original statement and say you could push start a newer manual transmission car, but don't count on it. Even as far back as 1999, I had a Honda VFR motorcycle that could not be push-started until its battery had some juice in it, for the reasons stated above.
On the basis of this experience, I'm not convinced the alternator actually comes into play in a typical push start. It's usually roll the car, clutch out, lurch and fire, clutch back in and let the engine get to a stable idle. At no point is the engine spinning fast enough to create much electricity with the alternator until after it's actually running. Provided the alternator is working in the first place, of course.
As an aside, in all of the vehicles where I've lost the alternator, the first warning sign has been the radio having a shit fit. I have never once seen the idiot light come on for a bad alternator, which really calls its utility into question.
I switched to an auto a few years back for reasons (UK, still not super popular here), and once or twice I've had the car cut out on me at speed, in traffic; had it been a manual, I could have just restarted it while moving, but it forces you to be stopped, foot on the brake and in park before you can push the button to start it.
Worth trying to start it in neutral? It might be checking neutral or park and foot on the brake, which you could probably do while still moving.
EDIT: The display specifically says "shift to park" if I try.
My CX-5 even has a wireless-pushbutton start, not a physical-key-in-the-ignition start, but I've still been able to roll-start it when the battery is too dead to crank the starter motor but still has enough juice for the electronics (lowest I've seen is ~8v if I recall correctly, but don't quote me on that).
The process is pretty much the same: put the car's ignition into the "ON" position (in my case, press the pushbutton twice without touching the pedals -- once to ACC mode, then once to move from ACC to ON), then it's the same as normal: clutch-in, shift to your preferred gear, get rolling, and pop the clutch. Engine computer sees "oh, looks like the engine's spinning, let's add gas and spark" and you're good to go.
Anecdotally, I've seen the described behavior of the engine computer ("detects spinning and adds gas/spark, even if the initial motion wasn't from the starter motor") on automatic transmission vehicles, too. On a 2008 Chevrolet, I found that if you revved the engine up a bit (for inertia), turned the key to OFF, then quickly turned the key back to ON (without turning all the way to START), the engine computer will catch it and keep it running.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternator#By_excitation
I do wonder how much current that requires, though. In a pinch, could a duct-taped string of AAs be enough to get you going?
You learn the same lesson (2nd gear starts) with motorcycles, which have much smaller batteries and fragile charging systems so the need to push-start is unfortunately common.
Then I realise in my consideration for the lady to guide her off the bike, I hadn't actually turned the ignition key off and the headlight had drained the battery.
Now a 2006 GSXR1000 idles in first gear at about 20km/hr (~12-14mph?). And a 100m quick-waddle found 1st no good for bump starting due to compression lockup...
Thankfully we'd stopped on a ridgeline and only another 300m away was the descent which allowed me to get to 40kmhr for a second gear bump start.
2nd gear lesson learned about this bike.
Date saved.
Probably safer not to introduce electricity to gasoline…
Ooookay. I've never even heard third-hand stories of an electric fuel pump lighting the gasoline on fire, if that's what you're getting at, and I was a professional mechanic at one point.
I suppose that a 1980s Corolla was the last car I drift-started, though.
DYK Miata is a recursive acronym? It stands for: Miata Is Always The Answer.
So, it turns out the breaks rotted off and fell off the car on the way to work. I had had it inspected the previous day... and they didn't mention anything was wrong. I did not go back to that inspection place again.
The brakes of a car in good working order should be able to overcome the engine and stop the car even if the engine is stuck at full power. But you have to do it decisively. Push the brake pedal to the floor and keep it there until you've stopped. What often happens is people are (very naturally) confused and not sure what to do, they'll brake but not hard enough, stop braking when it doesn't seem to work, try again, etc. This can heat up the brakes to the point where they're no longer effective enough to stop the car, and then you're really in for it.
I think stopping the power from going to the wheels needs to be an easy option. I wish there was more importance given to being able to easily do this.
I think the two options are shifting to neutral, or turning off the engine. I tested in a late-00s automatic BMW, and you had to hold the start/stop button for what felt like a very long time to turn the engine off if the car was in Drive. In an emergency, I think most people would give up long before it turned off. In that car, it was easy to change to neutral though, so I don't have a criticism about that design. What concerns me is cars with the same approach for the start/stop button, but where it is hard to get to neutral. I think in the Toyotas which had unintended acceleration issues, it wasn't easy/intuitive.
Edit: Another comment reminded me of something I forgot to mention above. You don't want turning off the engine to be the first resort because you lose power steering, and eventually, power assisted brakes.
That car was automatic, but he drove cars with manual transmissions a lot, so that would make it an obvious thing to do. I think in some of the famous unintended acceleration crashes, it has been unclear whether the person tried to change to neutral. A lot of newer cars have a much less intuitive method of doing so as well.
There's nothing as good in this regard as cars with manual transmissions though, in terms of having a dedicated pedal which disconnects the engine from the wheels, which you practice constantly during daily use.
Drove it home, brakes worked like a dream. Got up next morning, third stop light, brake goes all the way to the floor, I'm drifting into the intersection. I panic, look both ways and gun it through safely. Drove that thing with brakes barely working back to the shop. Calmly told them whatever they did? Didn't work.
Same thing. Another $800 bill, this time the brakes worked for a few more days, then it happened again. I took it to another shop. The mechanic asked what they told me they did and what they charged me for. I showed them both invoices. He pulled me aside with my car still on the lift and whispered to me, "Look man, they didn't do anything. They just filled the brake fluid up. When it all leaked back out is why your brakes kept going out. Imma fix this for a super discounted rate, but you need to get a lawyer, you got lucky not getting into an accident or killed."
I sued the shop, got all my money back and then some. About six months after they settled my suit, I got a call from the local paper asking why I sued them because they were doing a story on the shop scamming hundreds of people out of tens of thousands of dollars.
I owned a late 80s Corolla which had drum brakes on the rear, and they would fade by the bottom of a particularly long, windy, descent from a mountain range to a beach we used to go to. That was even with using lower gears to control speed. Everyone else on that road seemed to be in a modern pickup, following as close as possible to encourage me to drive faster.
Oh! And one traumatic towing experience. I'd forgotten what a real-life nightmare that was. I was helping a friend tow an early 90s Honda City with his pride and joy, Mitsubishi GTO. I was driving the tiny Honda. The rope we were using wasn't designed for the job. I think the ropes specifically designed for it have a little give. When this particular rope got slack, it snapped when tension was reapplied. And then it was retied, even shorter. It wasn't as long as I would have liked to begin with. I had to ride the brakes lightly to keep tension in it. And then of course, when it came time to stop at the traffic lights, the brakes were hot and faded. I would repeatedly, barely stop in time, coming slowly to a halt inches from the bumper of the GTO. Obviously, complaining to the kind of person who would think this was a good idea, wasn't particularly fruitful.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DreamInterpretation/comments/nnndju...
I drove her up there in my Toyota Corolla that I later rolled over on Summit Road. I didn't realize I was upside down until I heard a scraping sound from the roof and saw the top of the windshield crinkling.
Apparently that was a thing with the 1970s era Corollas. Several years later a buddy's girlfriend who I had a secret crush on rolled her Toyota too.
With the car upside down, someone drove up, we gave it a mighty push and rolled it back on its feet! Then someone else stopped by and held a joint out his car window and said, "You look like you could use a toke."
Back to the Bug. I followed Kate down the hill into town and noticed she wasn't slowing down much around the turns. Then we got to Junipero Serra Blvd and she didn't stop at the red light. A pickup trick sideswiped the Bug and that got it to stop.
The only real damage to the Bug was a front fender, so we bought a new one at a junkyard and bolted it on.
Besides the brakes, the engine wasn't running so great either. We bought a carburetor rebuild kit and got it running much smoother.
Emboldened by those successes, I decided to rebuild the engine too. I was a member of the Briarpatch auto repair collective, where you could rent a spot in the shop and use their tools to do your own work, or pay their mechanic to do it.
I got the engine torn apart, with nuts and bolts and parts strewn across the shop floor.
Then I realized I was in way over my head and had no idea where everything was supposed to go. I asked the mechanic if he could take over. He looked at the mess, shook his head, and said "I'll do it, but this is the worst way to get a job."
We named our cars in those days. The Bug was named Gus, and later I got an MGB-GT that I named Maggie. And after that, a Fiat 124 Spyder which already had a cool name.
Spyder developed a different brake problem. I think there were air bubbles in the brake lines that expanded as they warmed up. Then the brakes would slowly and gradually clamp down. You'd be driving on level ground and find yourself having to press down more on the gas, as if you were driving uphill. And then the the car would come to a complete stop.
Instead of getting the brake lines flushed and fixed, I did the sensible thing: Each wheel had a brake bleeder valve, and I started carrying a combination wrench that fit those valves. When the car stopped, I loosened one of the bleeder valves and brake fluid spurt out onto the ground. This relieved the pressure in the brake lines and I continued on my way.
Kate and I also had a thing for the Porsche 914. We knew it was a joint venture between Volkswagen and Porsche, so we scrambled up those two names. When we saw one on the highway, we'd call out "There's a Vorp!"
Her many friends, including myself, miss her dearly, but her memory lives on in all of us.
(Usually I would not share this kind of personal medical information in public, but Kate passed on nearly 50 years ago, and I didn't reveal her last name, so I think it's OK.)
Did you ever see the Pixar movie Coco? I have a feeling you will really enjoy it.
I stopped having that dream nearly as often when I bought my '05 Subaru Legacy GT wagon.
What's even stranger is that my current Kia Stinger (a fun car!) becomes an exotic Maserati or Aston Martin or Jaguar in my dreams..
- I am utterly fucking shitfaced drunk and having great difficulty with reality in general
- I am completely blind, albeit sober
- I am driving from the back seat, for some reason (trying, at least)
- I am going uphill, but the hill keeps getting steeper, until finally I am completely vertical, and to my surprise, traffic is passing me
- Don't ask me how I know, but I have entered a no-oxygen zone and have to get out of there before I pass out
Yeah, this one with the added bonus of having the whole family in the car - and for some reason I'm not steering at all for a lot of the time.
Weird dream.
That's the only driving dream I have ever had.
He was equally entertaining and knowledgeable in class.
For example, I mentioned that my speakers on my laptop sound like shit under Linux to a friend. I mentioned a few of the fixes I had tried, none of which really improved anything, and eventually the friend recommended I buy some headphones or an external speaker. Yes, that would "work" in the sense that I would have higher quality audio, but it doesn't really "fix" my problem, just makes it easier to ignore it.
This article shows the logical extreme of that thinking, I love it.
My favorite is this pattern that occurs in every big backend job-running script in every place I've worked: the success paths spams the log with expected errors. Something tries to connect to something else on start?
FATAL ERROR: COULD NOT CONNECT
debug: retrying... (1/3)
FATAL ERROR: COULD NOT CONNECT
debug: retrying... (2/3)
Service connected!
Startup succeeded
On the first day, one of the first things they had me do was set up email filters with an elaborate home-built email filtering system. The reason for this was because I would get thousands upon thousands of emails per day (not hyperbole), most of which were irrelevant to me, and if you didn't have fairly fine-grained and elaborate filtering your important emails would certainly be lost, often within minutes.
The solution to this problem, of course, would be to stop sending so many emails, or have better control over who was getting the emails, but instead the onus was put on everyone downstream to figure out which emails were spam (and to get yelled at if we didn't respond to an email because an important one got caught in the mix).
I complained about this a few times, and people's responses would always respond about how filters could solve this problem, and it always annoyed me. If someone is dumping a metric ton of trash in my backyard every day on top of my Amazon packages, the solution is not to figure out an optimal way to categorize and sort the trash to best differentiate it from my packages, the solution is to get that person to stop dumping garbage on me.
They were unimpressed by this reasoning.
But I am surprised this is (2022) I would have taken bets that it was more like 2016 if not earlier and was a repost the first time I saw it.
I was astonished, upon turning a corner and seeing one, to realize I had COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN that the 914 existed. It's one of those cars that was a dime a dozen in my 70s and 80s youth (along with MGs and proper, original VW Bugs) that slowly in inexorably vanished from the casual landscape.
Back then, I kind of hated them (the shared heritage with VW made them "not a real Porsche" in my eyes, which then as now preferred the lines of the 911s anyway), but now I find them charming little oddballs. We may take it as read that the examples at the show were in rather better running order than the one in the article. ;)
Great read. Several years ago I owned and drove a '67 Olds Cutlass for sixteen years. (Two door, auto-trans, AC, standard brakes.) I purchased the car in 1990 and everything was in working order. When the carburetor finally warped beyond repair, I cobbled together some other Olds carb body parts and, since the automatic choke parts were bad, I rigged up a manual choke line through the firewall. This made the car undriveable for the other drivers in my family! The sequence of gas pedal pumps and knowing when to disengage the choke was too much to surpass. :)
A few things to know before stealing my 914 (2022) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767092 - July 2023 (303 comments)
A few things to know before stealing my 914 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30878489 - April 2022 (417 comments)
Much more work, but much more worthwhile ... that and the joy of having a choice of entering one of the last places left not hooked up to the web.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Egan_(columnist)
For example: https://magazine.cycleworld.com/article/2016/11/1/the-very-l...
That sounds so familiar!
My first car was a barn-find 22 year old (at the time) 1964 Triumph TR4. It had a moderately bad oil leak, and the oil would land on the exhaust manifold and be blown along the transmission tunnel. Smoke would fill the interior around the shift lever. It would smoke more heavily the harder you pushed it.
Reminds me of the car I learned to drive manual on. It would only start when the drivers side door was open. So if you stalled the car the process was: open door, clutch in, start engine, clutch out and go, close door. You learned not to stall…
It would seem more effective if an LLM were used to paraphrase the concerns so it would be less amenable to automated filtering.
Funnily enough, I did not impress a date by roll-starting it when the starter was intermittently flaky.
I have a friend that had a 914, and sent it to him. Made his day.
The year is 2025. I still have it (never had the heart to sell it) and still use it so now I own it since 26 years. This thing is rock solid reliable. It's certainly a bit manly to drive (no assisted steering and no ABS) but every time I use for something mundane (like going to the pharmacy or to pick my kid at school) I keep thinking "it's insane that this thing is so reliable I could still use it as my daily if I wanted to".
Now of course a Porsche 911 from the 80s ain't a Porsche 914 from the seventies but still: quite a different experience over 26 years (and my car is now 37 years old) from the experience in TFA.