Avris
Today I realised how two completelly opposite techniques can be used together to manipulate people in a really consistent way. That’s what the Catholic Church (and religions in general) do: they make complex issues look simple, but they digress for ages about really simple stuff – overall turning the reality upside-down.
(~2 min read)
One Galleon is 17 Sickles and one Sickle is 29 Knuts... The wizarding currency isn’t too simple or practical, is it? Muggles also have struggled for ages with overcomplicated, inconsistent systems of units. But then we adapted the SI – and since then we got used to using this simple, decimal system.
There is one thing though that we still measure in strange units. 60 seconds go in a minute, 60 minutes go in an hour, 24 hours go in a day. There’s 365 days in a year, except when it’s 366, and they can be divided into 52 weeks of 7 days, with some days left over, or alternatively into 12 months of 28, 29, 30 or 31 days each, depending on... reasons.
Could we simplify all that mess?
(~7 min read)
Religious people often threaten atheists with what will happen to them after death, if they don’t convert. Yeah, cause out of all the different made-up stories about what happens after death, it’s specifically yours that’s gonna be the right one. Right...
Let’s revert that question into “what if you’re wasting your life on religious bullshit”. It’s not as scary, because if it’s the case, you won’t notice you were wrong (that’s how being dead works). Still, your current life is the only one that you know for sure you’re gonna get. Are you really willing to waste it?
(~3 min read)
I’ve lived in three countries so far, and for me it’s really interesting to see how differently they do some things that I’ve never even thought could be done differently. Today: addresses.
Almost everyone knows that in Japan you use blocks instead of street names and that buildings within a block are numbered chronologically, not geographically. But that’s Asia, right? How much can one European country be different from another?
(~3 min read)
15 września ulicami mojego rodzinnego Szczecina przejdzie pierwszy w historii Marsz Równości. Trzymam kciuki za Lambdę, by wreszcie się to udało!
Tymczasem “środowisko patriotyczne i kombatanckie” śle do prezydenta Krzystka list, który jest tak absurdalny, że aż nie wiem, czy się z niego śmiać, czy położyć się i czekać na śmierć z zażenowania.
(~5 min read)
I’ve lived in three countries so far, and I got some official documents from all of them (Germans definitely spam way more than the others). I think it’s interesting to compare, how different approaches they have to the design of those documents.
I baked a cake. It wasn’t hard, it wasn’t impressive, I don’t have a picture to share, I’m not planning to use this recipe ever again or even to eat it whole.
But still, it was quite an important cake for me.
(~3 min read)
There is a website I’ve created many years ago, Stosłowia (Polish only), which collects stories of up to a hundred words. It never got any users, but I didn’t really care to promote it in any way either.
Last week I’ve decided to rewrite it from scratch, because so many things were wrong about it – from an ancient backend in plain PHP with hardcoded credentials and no separation of concerns, to login with Facebook (and only Facebook) that stopped working... Now it’s a fresh Symfony 4.1 with Encore with some new features (like automatic screenshot generation, seen for instance on Twitter).
But what I’d like to show you, is how a couple of pretty small design changes have made the whole website way nicer visually (IMHO).
(~3 min read)
There is a song by Faun (“Tanz mit mir”) in which a girl agrees to dance with a guy and then spend the night with him, but only if he is “faithful” and “doesn’t kiss any other girl”.
It got me thinking... From a perspective of a non-monogramist that sounds like an extremely low bar for cheating. Really, a kiss is too much already? Maybe he can’t even check out a girl? Oh, right, he probably can’t.
If we counted how many kisses or hugs me and my husband have given out to other guys, we’d have to get divorced repeatedly... Does it mean people in open relationships have no bar whatsoever? Hell no! We can feel cheated too!
(~2 min read)
Pope Francis wrote a letter to all Catholics, in which he vows no more sexual abuse cover-ups. Cool... So when pope does it, it’s called “a Letter to the People of God”? If I vowed not to cover for criminals, it would be called “basic human decency”.
(~2 min read)
It’s honestly diffucult being a webdeveloper in the world of shitty websites. I guess that’s how hairdressers feel when they see my pathetic hair after it’s been a while since my last visit...
But the thing is, even though it’s technically easy to use scissors and clippers, I don’t do that on my own hair, I leave that to the professionals.
(~5 min read)
Jak już chyba wszyscy w polskich internetach wiedzą, redaktor Frondy, wstydzący się podpisać nazwiskiem pod swoim tekstem, trzęsie portami przed “szatanem” kryjącym się w autobusie linii 666 na Hel i żąda od “świeckiego” państwa interwencji ze względu na swoją mitologię.
Mam do niego parę (retorycznych) pytań, bo chyba nie przemyślał za dobrze swoich żądań...
I’m sick and tired of biggots treating me hatefully because of my sexual orientation.
Especially, if they are catholic. Why? Because they have even less of a moral highground than the other biggots. Here’s the logic:
(~2 min read)
As you might know, I’m in an open relationship and I’m even asking How is monogamy still a thing? in one blog post. But when I got asked for an advice on how to open a relationship, I realised I have honestly no idea what to say.
But after some thought, it boils down to that, more or less:
(~3 min read)
Yeah, you have some cool photos... But do you have a photo of yourself biking naked in front of the Iamsterdam sign in the centre of Amsterdam? 
It was definitelly the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life – and I enjoyed every single second of it!
(~3 min read)
I had to learn Git as a programmer. If you want to easily collaborate on a codebase, you really need either Git or something similar. But as a non-programmer, you’ve probably never even heard that name, have you? Then why would you ever need it?
Well, for exactly the same reasons!
(~2 min read)
As much as I try not to brag, there is one thing I just cannot stop bragging about: how awesome my relationship is. Seriously, whenever I see some other couple fighting about some petty thing or struggling to communicate about the simplest issues, I wonder, what the hell are they doing wrong? To us it comes so naturally...
And I think I’ve managed to boil it down to a short list od advices:
(~2 min read)
Jakby ktoś miał problem z deklinacją #hashtagów i @mentionsów,
albo tym, że Twitter traktuje skrót „m.in.” jako link,
polecam wklejenie znaku “ Zero Width Space” 
Wejście w życie RODO/GDPR napawa mnie wielką radością. Już masowo nakazałem usunięcie moich danych osobowych firmom, o których już dawno zapomniałem, albo o których nawet nie wiedziałem, że mają ze mną cokolwiek wspólnego.
To też okazja, by trochę się pośmiać i ponarzekać:
Portal nofluffjobs.com jest zajebisty. Rzadko gdzie można znaleźć ogłoszenia o pracę w IT, gdzie jasno będzie podana nie tylko stawka, ale i szczegółowe warunki pracy w danej firmie.
I need to rant.
I’ve had enough of Germany. I know, I know, it’s given me opportunities that I could never expect in my homeland of Poland, I’ve spent amazing three years here, I married the love of my life here... But now it’s not time for good stuff. Now it’s time for a complaint.
Here’s (some of) the reasons why I want to move out from this country.
(~12 min read)
I’m sick and tired of the idiots on the Internet and on TV, who keep babbling about how “nowadays you can’t even hug a woman without harassing her” or how “in some countries you now need a written consent form before having sex” (like in the fake post below or in this 9gag post). Someone even created https://legalfling.io/ that uses blockchain to sign such a form...
It’s all bullshit. Consent is not at all a complicated issue!
(~2 min read)
Razem od 4,5 roku. Z tego absolutnie pewni, że to właśnie ze sobą chcemy spędzić resztę życia – już nawet nie wiem od jak dawna, może coś koło trzech lat? Ale ślub wzięliśmy raptem parę tygodni temu. Trochę nam zeszło zbieranie się do niego, no nie?
Cóż, Polska nawet nie chciała o tym słyszeć, Niemcy ociągały się z wprowadzeniem pełnej równości małżeńskiej, a my baliśmy się tej całej międzynarodowej biurokracji i nie do końca widzieliśmy potrzebę... Tak się jakoś odkładało i odkładało na potem...
Teraz, gdy mamy to już za sobą, wiemy, że to nie aż takie straszne. I że warto. Stąd też ten mały tutorial, który być może pomoże komuś w podobnym kroku. Jak to wszystko pozałatwiać, ile to kosztuje, ile to trwa, od czego zacząć?
(~10 min read)
The story I described in here finally has a bittersweet ending – I finally got my computer back! After over two months, after lots of stress and fighting, and after having paid them 130€ (only 25% of what they first requested, but still 100% more than I should have paid)...
(~2 min read) Part 1
“No dobra, możesz nie podzielać mojej wiary w Jezusa/Allaha/kogokolwiek, ale czy musisz od razu ją wyśmiewać?”
Ano wcale nie muszę. Ale czuję taką (wręcz moralną) potrzebę. Dlaczego?
(~2 min read)
Aby wyjechać za granicę potrzebuję paszportu. W najlepszym przypadku mi go nie skontrolują, ale i tak muszę go mieć przy sobie. Aby zostać tam na stałe, muszę odwiedzić parę urzędów po obu stronach. W najlepszym przypadku po prostu zgłosić, że to robię. W najgorszym – spędzić całe lata na ubieganiu się o wizy, pozwolenia, azyle...
A zwierzęta mają to wszystko w dupie.
Migrują kiedy chcą i dokąd chcą. Byle tylko dały radę się tam dostać i dostosować do warunków na miejscu.
W czym jesteśmy od nich gorsi? Dlaczego sami siebie ograniczamy nawzajem? Dlaczego koniecznie musimy sobie dzielić planetę na terytoria?
(~2 min read)
– Morning! How was your weekend?
– Morning! Well, we went do Poland to visit my boyfriend’s family and we...
– Oh, so you have a boyfriend? That’s ok. You know, I have gay friends.
– Erm... OK... So what? I have gay friends too. And straight friends... What’s your point?
(~3 min read)
Nie, nie jestem grzesznikiem. Dla niektórych jest to jedna z najbardziej zuchwałuch rzeczy, jaką człowiek może powiedzieć. Bo to na tym kłamstwie opiera się cała ich religia: że wszyscy jesteśmy skażeni grzechem, że bez boga jesteśmy niczym, że jak byśmy się nie starali, to i tak jesteśmy prochem marnym, który bez jego łaski nie jest w stanie być “zbawionym”.
A ja mam to w dupie.
(~2 min read)
Meinen Rechner hab ich von mySN.de / Schenker Technologies gekauft. Es scheinte eine gute Idee zu sein. Was es aber gar nicht. Ich fühle micht von mySN betrogen und we Müll behandelt. Ihre Kundenservice ist voll unprofessionel, ihre Hardware ist Scheiße und sie scheinen sogar nicht zu wissen, was sie im Lager haben und wie viel ihre Teile kosten. Im Ernsts!
Das ist mein (verkürztes) Geschichte:
(~3 min read) A bittersweet ending of this story
I’ve bought my laptop from mySN.de / Schenker Technologies. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But it definitely was not. I feel scammed by them, I feel treated like trash by them. Their customer service is unprofessional, their hardware is crap and they don’t even seem to know what they have in storage and how much do their parts cost. Seriously!
Here’s my story in short:
(~3 min read) A bittersweet ending of this story
Step 1: Get naked.
Step 2: Enjoy!
There’s a reason we don’t teach astrology, fortune-telling, horoscopes, telepathy or homeopathy at schools – they’re bullshit, they are claims not supported by any credible evidence. Yet when it comes to religion, some countries are fine with teaching it in schools. What the fuck?
Z jakichś powodów nie uczymy astrologii, wróżbiarstwa, horoskopów, telepatii czy homeopatii w szkołach – ponieważ są bzdurami, są twierdzeniami niewspartymi przez żadne wiarygodne dowody. Jednak w przypadku religii niektóre kraje nie widzą problemu z nauczaniem ich w szkołach. What the fuck?
While working on Avris Forms v4.0, I’ve decided to migrate some code from CoffeScript with jQuery to Vanilla JS. And I guess it might be a good idea to share this transition
(~3 min read)
Keeping your classes immutable and stateless makes your code way less prone to bugs. Yet somehow this clean code rule isn’t as popular and as often invoked as SRP, YAGNI, DRY, KISS and others... Maybe it’s because of the lack of a catchy acronym?
Anyways, I’d like to take a look at two examples of when sticking to this rule could save your ass (or at least save you some time debugging).
(~5 min read)
I was checking out some wedding vows to then write mine on my own. And I realised how much are they saying about one’s definition of what marriage means to them...
(~3 min read)