Kelly

now https://ohthesetrees.com (run as a static site on my own server) and https://blog.ohthesetrees.com (run on bear blog) share a bunch of html and css so they feel cohesive even if they're completely separate servers.

it brings me peace.

i've been using tailscale for a while and it's be nice. i used it originally so my laptop could reach my (at-home) NAS remotely. however i've recently been finding even more uses for it:

• tailscale ssh allows me to remote into any connected machine, even things like connecting to my laptop from my desktop if i want to check on something
• tailscale ssh doesn't require me to setup SSH keys which was super neat when i setup a new VM the other day
  • i was able to block port 22 via ufw thus blocking all attempts at gaining ssh access from the outside, but since i'm hoping to setup my own oidc server for logging into tailscale at some point, that isn't really useful for this particular instance
• tailscale's magicdns + the above mean i was able to run git clone kelly@treesinthecloud:ohthesetrees.com to clone a git repo from my VM and then git push my changes without needing any ssh keys
• all of the above works completely as expected from a powershell prompt in windows which is SO NICE for when i'm in windows but want to check on something or make a small edit to my website

This is such good software. I'm just using it for some static site stuff but the configuration is trivial, it handles https for me, and it is crazy fast at invalidating its cache when I push updates to the html.

so i was working on a game. the game has haystacks sometimes. if you set fire to the haystack, there's a one in six chance that when it burns away, it turns out to contain a treasure chest! you can get some loot

i implement this. much later, QA reports a bug: the chance of a treasure chest spawning isn't one in six. uhhh ok. i have a look and can't repro. i look at the code and it's the same "random chance" code used everywhere, so if there was anything wrong with it, this wouldn't be where it came up. i have a bit more of a think and then send it back, CNR.

the bug bounces back and forth for 2 weeks as the tester keeps saying it's still not one in six. i am down a few rabbit holes thinking about, could we be not spawning the chest even though the result comes in true? is some other class destroying chests? are some levels containing instances of the haystack that are busted in some way? much to think about

eventually i'm like, ok, what exactly are you seeing in your repro. old mate says "i burn 6 haystacks. sometimes there's no treasure chest at all. sometimes i burn 6 haystacks and get more than one treasure chest. so that's not a 1 in 6 chance"

i now have a new, much more challenging task: explain this without embarassing anyone

classic fun with randomness