Alexander Schoch

@alexander_schoch “At first glance, #Perl looks like PHP and bash had a child, which is not something I’d expect in a #programming language.”

What if I told you it was the other way around?

- Perl dates back a full two years before #Bash, originating as a better text manipulation option than #Unix commands while still looking familiar to #shell scripters
- #PHP dates from the mid 1990s, when it was heavily inspired by Perl, though with much more inconsistent syntax

@protonprivacy you appear to have removed your posts from Mastodon after everyone pointing out how unhinged it was yesterday, but the Reddit post is alive and well, and is yet to be orphaned after it was updated to double down on your position in the face of all of the criticism.

What I want to know is 1:

Do your social media accounts reflect the position of the Proton Foundation, or have they been hijacked for Andy Yen’s personal political soapboxing?

2:

Due to how toxic he’s become for the brand and how much damage he’s done and continues to do, in such a short space of time - given how much good will you’ve garnered over the years - will he be stepping down?

3:

Will the Proton Foundation be issuing a formal apology and clarification that statements made were objectively misleading and inaccurate, and actually parroted talking points initiated by far-right groups and nation states hostile towards the west and US specifically?

4:

Will the Proton Foundation clarify its overall position and strategy regarding non-profit status in light of this week’s events, and how do you intend to protect vulnerable and at-risk users from the effects of stated policies of the incoming administration?

I feel like either the Foundation (Andy himself) have entirely misread who their user base is, particularly paying customers - and there is a total misunderstanding that the majority of them will be at increased risk with the incoming administration, which is why cosying up to them is the *worst possible* look for you.

Your response matters to a lot of people. We have been passionate users and advocates for your products for many years and your recent public statements have decimated public trust in your organisation, particularly for those who need your services most.

Yesterday you failed them.

RSS needs a better name. People outside of tech will find it too nerdy to subscribe to an RSS feed. But if you could "follow my blog using Flooby" or some shit, it'd take off.

TIL that you can use the `type()` function in Python to create classes, like so:

```
MyClass = type('MyClass', (), {'var': None})

instance = MyClass()
instance.var = 5
```

that's pretty yucky, python.

#python #programming #code

Starlight Jazz Orchestra organizes a Jazz Dinner on January 24th/25th with a 3-course-menu and some nice BigBand music. Feel free to join :)

tickets: https://starlightjazzorchestra.ch
location: Küsnacht ZH (Switzerland)

#jazz #zurich #switzerland #concert

SumUp Rant:

So I set up SumUp for accepting card paymets for [my BigBand](https://starlightjazzorchestra.ch)'s events.

__(SumUp is a platform that can take card payments using their hardware and they'll transfer the amount they got through that.)__

First, I had to register the BigBand. Okay, we're an association (Verein), we do entertainment, specifically concerts. Nice. Now I have to enter our name, our website and, uhm, our VAT number (MwSt in CH), and this was a required field. So I just entered a dummy value and tried to tell the SumUp support to please remove it, as it would be illegal otherwise.

However, after chatting through the AI chatbot and it finding out that it can't help me (oh wonder!), SumUp told me that I could only talk to a real person after my "company" was certified (which takes a few days).

Now: Do I get certified with a made up VAT number? Probably not, but time will tell.

This is such asshole design, and it made me lose my marbles.

#sumup #software #rant #bigband #jazz

It's just a sticker on somebody's Laptop, it can't physically hurt you.

The sticker:

Zurich, you're amazingly pretty! #aerial #photography #switzerland #zurich #drone

in case Python is not JavaScript-y enough for you

#python #javascript #programming