iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I've kind of got used to Windows being a pretty decent OS (unlike the good old days). Then along comes a face-palm moment. Windows 10 has no way to tell you how hot your CPU is. Seriously? I need a third-party app?

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Why? Just Why? Why does Gmail call a folder (a term every person on the planet recognises) a label? That is an Apple-level pointless design decision.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Yesterday, as part of installing Qwen on my Ubuntu box, I needed Python 3.12 installed. I decided to uninstall the existing Python (3.10) and upgrade. That was a very, very bad idea.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

As an experiment, I set up Qwen 3.6:27b to run locally on my development machine with 40 cores (hyperthreading), 128GB RAM and 1,920 CUDA cores. I asked Qwen what day of the week it is. This required 2 minutes of thought. I am definitely not scared that I'm in danger of creating SkyNet 🤔

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

I have arrived in the land of the electric toilet! Konnichiwa.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

How is this not possible in this day and age? I want to stop Microsoft Word from running the spell checker on words that start with a capital letter because they are proper nouns (so won't be in the dictionary).

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Sometimes... I just tried to copy ~23GB of data from my Mac to a Windows share. It said it would take 3 hours. After reconfiguring the stupid Mac network settings to turn off packet signing and get rid of those ridiculous .DS_Store files, it now takes 8 minutes. Really, Apple? Really?

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Today is quite significant for me personally. It marks the 30th anniversary of the day I started working at Sun Microsystems. I try to imagine how I would explain to younger me where I would be in thirty years. 😀

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

It's been a while since Windows has really annoyed me but something seems to have changed... Why is there no way to tell Windows that I have a FAT-formatted USB key and I DON'T CARE ABOUT NTFS PROPERTIES NOT BEING COPIED? Every time I copy a file, I get the pop-up. Every. Bloody. Time. 😠

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

I'm very sceptical about so-called Vibe Coding for creating entire enterprise applications using only natural language prompts. However... I'm using Claude to generate classes that I'm assembling into a test application, and it is incredible how quickly (and efficiently) I can do this.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Today marks exactly ten years since I joined Azul. It's been a lot of fun and lots of Java. Here's to the next ten years. Maybe!

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

I'm here at @devoxx.com, and I've worked out that this is the 15th time I've attended the conference. Join me this afternoon for a fun retrospective on 30 years of Java. At 1745, I'll be doing a BoF session on Modern Java Puzzlers.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

I'm on my way to #Dev2Next via Calgary, where I'll be meeting some customers. Looking forward to meeting lots of Java developers.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Seriously, what is wrong with the UI designers at Apple? I want to see NO file extensions. I go to Finder and deselect "show all file name extensions", which doesn't do what it says, because the extensions are still shown. That is, unless you manually turn it off for EVERY SINGLE FILE!

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

I have just arrived in Oslo for JavaZone @javazone.bsky.social. According to my records, this will be my tenth appearance at this great conference. Join me tomorrow for two sessions: 30 Years of Java and my Java Patterns Details and Puzzles session.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Currently trying to install some ancient software. "Ant version: 1.10.12 lower than required: 1.6.5" Sigh...

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

Here's a brilliant example of how Apple have lost their ability to design a decent UI/UX. Apple Notes. How is it possible that you can't highlight text? I mean that is like a *fundamental* requirement for a notes app, and you just can't do it. 🤦

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

It is said that the two hardest things in Computer Science are cache invalidation and naming things. I want to add a third: version numbering. Case in point: Apple is releasing the next version of iOS, which is 26 instead of 19. Java has also had many, many version numbering schemes. 🤔

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Currently watching @starbuxman.joshlong.com present at @jnationconf.bsky.social. It's been a while since I've seen Josh present, and his level of energy and enthusiasm is just off the scale! 😀

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Steve Elliott was my host manager when I joined Sun back in 1996. He and I share an obsession with keeping Java memorabilia; he has way more than I do. Check out his 30 years of Java photo compilation here: www.flickr.com/photos/jabbe...

flickr.com

Java 30

Java's 30th Birthday. I thought a few words of context were in order today to go with these pictures… worked for Sun Microsystems from 1993 until 2016 (it became part of Oracle in 2010). I j...

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

I've been writing code since the age of 12, so 48 years (yes, I really am that old). In the early days of my career, I wrote C on a Wyse 50 terminal, using vi and make. Today, I use @intellijidea.com with AI for code completion. A good metaphor is travelling by horse and cart versus a Lamborghini.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Starting my journey to Bangalore for The Great International Developer Summit. I'll be talking about JVM warmup (and how to reduce it) on Tuesday and The Art of Java Patterns on Wednesday. Looking forward to meeting many Java developers.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Can anybody explain why my MacBook continually drops shared Windows filesystems but never does so for SAMBA shares from my Linux box? 🤨🤦

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Java puzzler for the day. The newarray bytecode takes an argument (atype) to indicate what primitive type the array will store. atype has defined values from 4 (boolean) to 11 (long). What are the mysterious atype values of 0, 1, 2 or 3? 🤔

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Genuine question here. Is there a single cyclist in London that stops for red lights? Literally every single cyclist I see happily pedals through a red light, whether it's a junction or a pedestrian crossing.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

It’s incredible to see the Java community thriving after 30 years! I’m honored to keynote Duke Turns 30 and take a look back at Java’s journey - from its humble beginnings to its impact today. Let’s celebrate together and explore how Java continues to shape our world. www.azul.com/duke-turns-3...

azul.com

Duke Turns 30

Celebrate 30 years of Java with Azul! Register for Duke Turns 30, a free online event featuring seminars with Java thought leaders & experts.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Tipping in the U.S. has become ridiculous. I got an Uber today, which cost $43.65. The three default tips offered were $10, $13 and $15. That's 23%, 30% or a whopping 34%!!!

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

If you'd like to watch my "30 Years of Java: How Did We Get Here" session from @jfokus.se, you can find it on YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcTm...

youtube.com

30 Years of Java - How Did We Get Here? by Simon Ritter

YouTube video by Jfokus

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

I'm flying from Nashville to Atlanta tomorrow (ready for @devnexus.bsky.social!) It's a 42 minute flight and Delta is offering me a "fantastic" deal to upgrade to First class for only $692 😱. I think I'll pass 😂

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Yesterday, when I left Stockholm, the border control agent looked at how many EU stamps I have in my passport (80, as it turns out) and asked if I was keeping track of how long I had stayed. This was a first; now, I must create a spreadsheet in case I get asked again. Just one more Brexit bonus...

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

30 Years of #Java at @jfokus.se. Really enjoyed myself, and I thinik the audience did too!

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

I'll be presenting "30 Years of Java: How Did We Get Here" on Wednesday at 2pm at @jfokus.se. Come along and share some (probably a lot) of nostalgia. Here's my collection of JavaOne badges. I think we got a bit carried away with ribbons in 2017 (@sharatchander.bsky.social) 😀

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Continuing the #Java memories, here's my collection of Java pins.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

Deep Seek v ChatGPT. My son said, "ask them how many r's are in strwaberry?" Deep Seek: 3 in the 3rd, 8th and 9th positions ChatGPT: There is only one "R" in the word strawberry I guess SkyNet won't be running on ChatGPT 😱😂

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

My 30 Years of #Java talk for @jfokus.se is now ready (although will doubtless get tweaked until just before I present). 75 slides in an hour means I'm going to have to keep up a decent pace!

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

Ahhh! Apple!!! I connect an external SSD and there is a pop-up to confirm I want to allow it to connect. Which appears for just long enough for my retina to register it, but no chance to click accept. What kind of crappy UI is this? I have now found the setting to disable this 'feature'.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

I just saw this on Twitter, and it made me laugh. "Who'd have thought ChatGPT would have lost its job to AI." 😂

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

As part of my #Java research, I'm using the MKS Korn shell on Windows XP. It has taken me all day to remember ESC \ to complete file names. How many times have I used that in the past? Although I did love ksh, bash is significantly better, IMHO.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Continuing the trip down #Java memory lane... Here's a selection of Dukes I found and a copy of Java Workshop from 1997 (version 2.0 Dev1). I had to set the clock back to 1997 on my VirtualBox Windows XP to make it run! 😂

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Essential #Java coffee cup collection (with the Palm Pilot in the background).

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

I've started work on my "30 Years of Java" talk for @jfokus.se, and it's proving to be a lot of fun. I just showed my son the Java ring and explained it had a computer in it. He did not seem convinced 😀 I've also got my PalmPilot up and running for the KVM and even a Livescribe Pulse smartpen.

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

How on earth did someone manage to run Doom inside a PDF document? I am impressed!

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Help me out. Should it be open-source or open source? Does it really matter? 😀

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Simon Ritter @speakjava.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

I think I can say I've adapted to being a Canadian. Here's me last night working the BBQ in the snow. It's -7C, and I didn't even feel the need to wear a jacket!

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