• 0 Posts
  • 4 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 15th, 2023
  • phase_change@beehaw.orgtoTechnology@beehaw.org•Why the Internet Isn’t Fun AnymoreEnglish
    36·
    1 year ago

    I’m old school. Sometimes when I’m doing a deep dive into a new technical topic, I like to print to paper, go off and sit in my back yard with a beer and a pen to make margin notes. Today, I was trying to understand some web framework esoterica. I found what would have been a 14 page very deep dive article with code samples.

    I haven’t written code more complex than simple scripting to automate stuff for years. I can still understand code. I wanted to understand this better to make some decisions about security setting in Apache for the devs who are interacting with this framework.

    Hit print, and the preview window popped up. As I said, it was 14 pages. Before sending the the printer, I glanced at the first page. There was this big, square blank space on the bottom right, obscuring text. I canceled the print preview. There was a big ad overlay on the bottom right of the screen. I closed it and went back the print preview. I could see the first page.

    I scrolled through the preview. Every other page had a different blank section obscuring the text. They were all smaller than the first, but made it unreadable. I’m assuming it’s some other overlay designed to come up as I scroll.

    I could likely have pulled up the developer view and started editing so I could get a readable printed copy.

    It wasn’t worth it. I closed the page and moved on.

    Like I said I’m old school. I absolutely appreciate that someone took the time to do what looked like a very technical deep dive on what I was looking for. I do not want to read that type of deep technical material on a site with constantly popping up animated ads interrupting my conversation. I’m not even that upset, I just see it as another example of why I don’t like the timeline we’re in.

  • phase_change@beehaw.orgtoScience@beehaw.org•A Common Diabetes Drug Has a Surprising Side Gig: Muscle Protector
    7·
    1 year ago

    Metformin has a strange history. There was evidence in animal studies as early as the 1920’s that it could lower blood sugar, but wasn’t approved as a diabetic treatment until the 50’s. The US didn’t approve it until the 90’s.

    It’s still not clear how it works. There continue to be articles like this hinting that it could have other beneficial effects, including a lower incidence of cancer and longer life, which again no one can explain how. All the research pointing at other effects besides blood sugar are observational and longitudinal in nature.

    Lest someone think it’s a wonder drug, all these effects are relatively subtle, and side effects for many include things like explosive diarrhea.