Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 1hOld guy at McDonald’s #1: Yeah, White Sox lost last night, I don’t know who they play next. Me: They go to Cleveland to play the Guardians. Old Guy #2: (chuckling) Heh, don’t you mean the Indians? Me: No. (Pause) I mean the Guardians. OG #2: (shuts up) 010
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 05/05/2026Back in 1989, SSI warned us about the perils of cloud vendor lock-in. 010
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 10/03/2026Looking for books/articles on best practices for integrating #ClaudeCode into existing legacy department, systems and lifecycle. So much firehose, please point me to the good stuff. 100
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 19/01/2026I think the Liberty Mutual commercials should be require to say that EVERY insurance company customizes your coverage so you only pay for what you need. It’s like saying “At Jewel, we let you choose your own groceries so you don’t buy things you don’t want.” 010
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 07/01/2026If I didn’t know better, I would say those are headphones. 010
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 23/12/2025I love this 1984 ad for a radar detector where the driver is going to cruise past a cop while clearly holding a telephone. Things change in 40 years. 020
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 16/12/2025Who else sits in large video conferences secretly hoping someone accidentally goes to the bathroom while forgetting to mute first? 010
Reposted by Andy LesterJosephScrimshaw @josephscrimshaw.bsky.social · 11/12/2025I saw a clip of an old sitcom with a canned laugh track. That’s what generative AI feels like. Taking something vital & organic and making it hollow & mechanical. Here’s hoping AI’s fate will be the same as laugh tracks. A mocked relic of a time people accepted soulless absurdity for true emotion 920557
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 27/11/2025Ten pounds of spuds peeled, only four peels on the floor. I also took the opportunity to explain to my daughter why you can’t send any sorts of peels down the garbage disposal. The dad gene is strong in me. 000
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 21/11/2025Subversion ‘n’ Perl for my day job, but different places have different needs. 010
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 13/11/2025Does the company-wide email with the subject “PLEASE READ” mean that we can ignore the other ones? 011
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 01/11/2025I wore my rainbow White Sox hat today. A guy in the train said “I like your hat”. I said “Thanks, is that because you like the Sox, or because you believe all people have value regardless of who they love?” He said “the latter” & woman w/him said “we believe you have value even if you like the Sox.” 018327
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 27/10/2025Blog posts about tech topics without date stamps are next to useless. 010
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 08/09/2025Solid advice no matter what kind of machine you mean. 030
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 29/08/2025At the eye doc next to the giant retina photo machine was this note. Tech support is universal. 110
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 26/08/2025Can't exceed 99 characters? Sounds like someone's storing the cleartext passwords. :-( 020
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 30/07/2025Every time Excel asks me if I’m enjoying it, I give it a one star rating. 010
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 28/07/2025I use eza, an alternative to ls. I also work on macOS and Linux both. So in my bash startup I don't care if I am using eza or ls. I just set up my aliases based on if eza is installed, and which OS I'm running on. My alias setup is at gist.github.com/petdance/6a5...gist.github.comSet up ls aliases in my bash startupSet up ls aliases in my bash startup. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets. 000
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 02/07/2025The argon truck supports your need to discuss difficult or negative feelings. 171
Reposted by Andy LesterMarco Foster @marcofoster.bsky.social · 16/05/2025The Boss knows a real boss when he sees one 838253
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 17/05/2025That was before he transferred to Our Lady of Butterscotch. 000
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 07/04/2025The “Trump put a tariff on an uninhabited island lolol 😆” is noise and a distraction. We need to stop discussing it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was intentionally put in specifically to be a distraction. 000
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 25/03/2025Every single government official in that group chat is culpable because every one of them knowingly ignored security rules and regulations. 010
Reposted by Andy LesterPopehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 16/03/2025A reminder in dark times: kindness, mercy, decency, and respect towards the least of us enrages Trumpists. It burns them. It’s like a mirror that shows them how they fall short of humanity. Kindness and decency towards the people Trumpists hate is not just right; it torments Trumpists. 250138653206
Reposted by Andy Lesterℳatt @matttomic.bsky.social · 04/03/2025When Richard Nixon was recorded calling Pierre Trudeau "that asshole Trudeau" on the White House Watergate tapes, Pierre famously responded to the press: "I’ve been called worse things by better people." A great line, then and now. 252138471
Reposted by Andy Lesterkottke.org @kottke.org · 04/03/2025Bellingcat’s Eliot Higgins on disordered discourse (which is not mere misinformation). “When truth is no longer a shared foundation, power shifts to those who control the most compelling narrative — no matter how detached from reality it is.” [bsky.app] 0356
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 23/02/2025Another Sunday morning, another random taco place where I write about regular expressions. 000
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 23/02/2025I will buy any Mad magazine paperback. This was only $3 and turned out to include a bookplate on the inside cover, the adhesive long having given up its hold on George’s claim to his property. #madmagazine 220
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 11/02/2025Trump to Blago: “Someday - and that day may never come - I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as gift on my daughter's wedding day.” 000
Reposted by Andy LesterJay @jaycastaldi.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Thanks to @hollywoodtheatr.bsky.social for letting me make this dumb joke a reality. #thebrutalist #popcornbucket #brutalistpopcornbucket #seemoviesinmovietheaters 0133
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 19/01/2025I have some #Python and data science books I’d really like to read. 010
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 01/01/2025Arithmetically 2025 is great. It’s the product of two squares, and one of the squares is a square squared. Plus you can represent it with the first 5 integers: 1 x (5^2) x (3^4) 020
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 27/12/2024We have the most festive hydrant in Illinois and I’ll not hear otherwise. 011
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 05/12/2024From 1999, Michael Moore’s TV show The Awful Truth takes on Humana and denial of care. youtu.be/45-lv0WUXAI?...youtu.beMichael Moore's The Awful Truth: HMO FuneralYouTube video by Michael Moore 010
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 05/12/2024It should be easy to find the killer of the United Healthcare CEO. Go thru records and find a guy who was denied coverage and was bankrupted, or maybe a child or spouse was denied coverage and died an unnecessary painful death. There can’t be more than one, or two cases like that, right? Right? 040
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 21/11/2024Whoa. The dentist’s waiting room is showing Food Network, not HGTV. They have only EVER had HGTV on. My dentist visits are the only time I watch house buying shows. I’m not sure I can handle this shift in the world. 000
Reposted by Andy LesterRose from Poster Children @rosepkid.bsky.social · 08/09/2023With over a year of gender neutral bathroom experience now, I’d like to propose an alternative: separate bathrooms by those who pee sitting and those who pee standing. 271
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 18/11/2024There is no reason to use the word “learnings”. You can use the perfectly cromulent word “lessons”. 000
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 18/11/2024I called my sister the other day and I said “Hi, are you home” and it struck me that not too long ago that would have been a dumb question to ask someone you had just called. 000
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 18/05/2024Amen x 1000. Related: My daughter doesn’t want a STEM career. Has no interest. If she can grow up with me as a dad and have no interest in STEM, it ain’t gonna happen, and that’s OK. 100
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 12/05/2024Pro tip: If your power cord is just a liiiittle bit short, a USB hub is a fine extension cord. 000
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 18/02/2024People say regular expressions are too hard to read. They're not. They just don't know them yet. If you can learn to read $f = (9/5)*$c+32; then you can learn to read /^[A-Z]{4}-\d{2}$/ From my talk about what every beginning developer should know. www.slideshare.net/petdance/wha... 030
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 23/12/2023The lesson here for developers is that not capping the size of the input field, and not verifying the size constraints on the server side, has led to a successful denial-of-service attack. 142
Andy Lester @petdance.bsky.social · 30/11/2023Another anti-Shibboleth to exclude recruiters: Equating git and GitHub. I just got email for a job where part of the application process is to include my “GIT login” for code examples. I have to assume they mean my GitHub username. 000
