Yet another refugee who washed up on the shore after the great Reddit disaster of 2023

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • I’m case you’re wondering:

    Chekhov’s gun (or Chekhov’s rifle; Russian: Чеховское ружьё) is a narrative principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary and irrelevant elements should be removed. For example, if a writer features a gun in a story, there must be a reason for it, such as it being fired some time later in the plot. All elements must eventually come into play at some point in the story. Some authors, such as Hemingway, do not agree with this principle.



  • Old guy checking in. I was a computer science major, graduating in 1985. My goal at the time was to go into computer animation (note that Toy story, the first full length computer animated movie, wasn’t released until ten years later). But there was a big computer animated project that was canceled or tabled just before my last semester, so the market was flooded with out of work animators and I decided I’d better do something different. I was getting married, and I needed a job.

    I had good grades, but I didn’t think there was much that made my resume stand out from my classmates, each of whom was making 100+ copies of theirs and applying to every software job they could find. So instead, I asked everyone I knew if they knew anyone who worked at a place that hired software people, and asked if they could get me a name of a hiring manager. I got seven or eight of those, and I sent each of them a letter with my resume, mentioning who pointed me their direction. Out of that I got three interviews and two job offers. My first job ended up being writing control software for the space shuttle main engines, and I stayed at the company almost 40 years. I just retired in January.







  • I signed up on the 12th, after spending a little time comparing with the information I had. My thought process was:

    • I was uncomfortable with the fact that .ml was hosted in Malaysia
    • I thought a larger instance might mean it sticks around longer, but didn’t really want to be on the largest (which .ml was)
    • Beehaw seemed otherwise a good fit, but their policies seemed too restrictive
    • .world seemed to have liberal policies, allowed NSFW, was large but not largest, and was hosted in a country that didn’t worry me