Gabor Javorszky – Thoughts

Gabor Javorszky

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Metal sculpture of a man in a boat saving another man from water.

Care, end of 2024 edition

Care, genuine care about people and things seems hard to come by in 2024. We should care more. About other people as well.

A huge fork statue that's stabbing a lake with mountains in the background.

Contribute or fork?

Would you fix or fork an open source project? What gets you to contribute back to someone else’s project? Why should you? Why shouldn’t you?

Two bison headbutting in a fight.

I can no longer trust WordPress

WordPress's latest move of hijacking the ACF plugin firmly solidified that it can't be trusted, regardless of the reasoning behind it.

Folio of paper tax forms, cup of coffee, a pen, and the calculator app on an iPhone.

RSU of a US company under UK tax law

I live and work in the UK, and got some RSUs of a US company trading on the NASDAQ. The experience was wild, and the calculations wilder.

3D render of wooden looking blocks of computers

Running WebAssembly code on NGINX Unit

NGINX Unit 1.33 just got released, and it has an up to date version of wasmtime. Here's how to run your component in Unit.

One of the canals in Amsterdam taken from the middle of a bridge. Bicycles in the foreground.

So you want to visit Amsterdam

If you plan on visiting Amsterdam in the near future, I put together a bunch of tips I wish I’d known before I went. You may find them helpful.

Drawing of a medieval key that’s been snapped in two.

SQLite General error 1: foreign key mismatch

Foreign key constraints are fun, but there are a bunch of requirements you need to pay attention to. One of them was kind of sneaky in Laravel.

Two adult monkeys and a baby monkey on a stone fence.

Communicating peacefully

How do you deal with someone at work who keeps asking something you've already answered? Or a passive aggressive colleague? You don't play.

Signs in an airport with pictograms and text in English and Spanish.

Anything language agnostic is just a new language

Anything language agnostic just means that someone wrote down what things mean, and created a whole lot of adapters to different languages for it.

Mechanical keyboard in a wooden resin case with a wood/resin wrist rest.

On personal knowledge management systems

Are you supposed to use the tool you're being told you should be using? Are you comfortable not using that tool? Where does your discomfort come from?

Mural of David Hasselhoff in the Hasselhoff museum in the cellar of one of the hostels in Berlin.

MERGE Berlin 2024

MERGE Berlin 2024 was a very useful developer expiernce conference! Here are my 7 takeaways from it. Number 5 will surprise you!

Inside of a well lit museum showing off anthropological finds from the ancient world.

Anthropology and the mundane

How much of your day to day life is possible because everyone shares in common knowledge that's not written down? Can that be lost?

Picture of a page from a dictionary with the word “technology” being in focus.

Shorthands

Shorthands are useful to communicate lots with few words, but assumes that everyone has the same understanding of the shorthands.

Photo of a guy doing an ollie at a skate park with a crowd of people in the background.

Your authentic self at work

Something I learned later than I should have about bringing your whole self to work.

Neon sign that says "Go up and never stop" with a neon arrow pointing right under it.

Going from nothing to $200 is harder than from $200 to $5000

Going from 0 to 200 is harder than 200 to 5000 even though the differences would imply the opposite.

A very old encryption machine with typewriter keys and rotary dials built into a really wide suitcase.

“Encrypted” emails

I went to a cybersecurity conference, and turns out encrypted emails aren't encrypted at all. They aren't even emails any more!

White guy on beach looking into a camera with a microphone on a tripod explaining something for a recording.

I don’t think I can be a content creator

Hi guys to my channel! Don’t forget to like and subscribe and hit that bell icon to receive all notifications! This is not going to happen.

Two men looking at a laptop in a brightly lit modern art gallery. One of them is explaining something to the other.

Take care of your non-customers

How you treat people coming into your store who aren’t going to buy anything from you is super important to how you’re viewed. Take care of them.

Couple at a table, guy is angry at woman.

Boomer humour

I hate boomer humour. Why do folks think it’s okay to joke by bullying someone else, or telling them they’re trash? Seek help instead.

Photo of a picnic. Woman is sitting on a blanket, a water bottle rests on the ground, she's writing a signature on a phone.

Back to signing git commits with GPG

Decided to move back to GPG for commit signing from SSH. Here are the steps I took and why I took them.

Man and dog sitting on stone overlooking hills and valleys together.

Dads and the pet they didn’t want

They will take care of it anyways and do a good job, because not doing that would make them a bad person. Doesn't mean they wanted the pet.

Red mug with yellow writing on it that says go get'em! It has steaming coffee in it. Pot of plant next to it.

Side projects and The Internet

Business advice is weird, they are often conflicting. So what do you do with it? Which one do you listen to?

Photo of a meeting room in a corporate office behind glass walls. Four people are sitting at a table with laptops.

Side projects and corpo job

If you’re thinking about side projects, and you have a full time job, are you even allowed to do your side projects?

Photo of a polar bear on an ice sheet looking at the camera standing on its hind legs waving.

Say the Weird Thing

Be who you really are to help people looking for you to find you. Let out your nerd side, embrace knowing weird things!

Upside down part of a rollercoaster loop with the coaster right there and the name Turbo on top.

Watching videos at speed

I watch videos at 2.0x speed. That is all.