Author | Lightnews

Damien Guard

@damieng.com

350 followers 220 following 170 posts

• Software engineer @MongoDB (EF/C#) • Was @Auth0 (SDKs), @GitHub (Atom), @Microsoft (EF), @Xbox (Web/Sec), @Netflix (Players) • Font designer, dad to twins, 8/16-bit fanatic, C# fan ❤️☮️

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Damien Guard @damieng.com · 1d

Was there in August for a concert. Impressive stadium but large enough that getting to the right area/entrance was both confusing for us and it seems, staff - mulitple false attempts and misinformation on going through the right gates even though it all joins up one way or another.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · 1d

"Rest assured..."

The universal sign of "You're going to be disappointed with my inability to resolve your issue in about 5-10 minutes."

Damien Guard @damieng.com · 1d

I left the USA and moved back to Guernsey in 2020.

1 1

Damien Guard @damieng.com · 1d

I loved that place soo much - was heartbroken that there was no long-term plan for its survival in place.

Here's a pic of my then 3-year-old son using a Xerox Alto! Where else in the world could that happen?

A small boy attempts to to hack the executive debugger environment on a Xerox Alto at the Living Computer Museum in Seattle circa 2019.

1 2

Reposted by Damien Guard

Arthur Vickers @ajcvickers.bsky.social · 2d

My first blog post for MongoDB: Vector search with embeddings using EF Core against MongoDB. Super easy to get started, everything running free and locally for no hassle trying stuff out! #EFCore #MongoDB #dotnet
dev.to/mongodb/mong...

MongoDB Vector Search With EF Core

This post was written by Arthur Vickers, Staff Engineer at MongoDB The 8.3.3 and 9.0.3 releases of...

dev.to

1 2

Damien Guard @damieng.com · 3d

I just shipped explicit transaction support in our MongoDB EF Core Provider.

Check out how to use it and how it differs implicit transactions (supported since 2024) and ambient transactions.

damieng.com/blog/2025/10...

Transactions in the MongoDB EF Core Provider - DamienG

Database transactions ensure that multi-record (or in our case multi-document) operations either all succeed or all fail together.

damieng.com

1 5

Damien Guard @damieng.com · 17d

Damien Guard @damieng.com · 28d

So when Alexa sends skill requests it has a userId (obviously) but also optionally it can have a personId if you have voice id enabled.

Which means requests can be individually tailored.

Why exactly do neither Spotify or Apple allow you to associate a person id with a family plan member?

Damien Guard @damieng.com · 29d

Being able to produce something in a week is not the flex you think it is.

It just lets people know how little it would take to come in and compete.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · 29d

I get it - you built something in a week using AI.

But do you really have a good product or SaaS startup now?

What's to stop anyone else doing what you just did?

Somebody less knowledgeable might be able to do it even better in 4 days with next months tools...

1 2

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Sep 15

"Your email address was found in a data breach."

At this point without more information these notifications and services are worse than useless.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Sep 15

Ferris hacks his grades in the opening scenes of Ferris Bueller's Day Of... 1986.

Sooo... almost 40 years ago.

Everything old is new.

Pile Of Garbage @pileofgarbage.net · Sep 15

This isn't news, kids have been doing this ever since computers were first installed in class rooms/school libraries. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Children hacking their own schools for 'fun', watchdog warns

The Information Commissioner's Office says schools face an "insider threat" from children as young as seven.

www.bbc.com

1 2

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Sep 10

Was the same nonsense with the MBP's getting thinner and thinner until the keyboard was an awful experience.

Thankfully they backpedaled on that.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Sep 10

I get why people want phones with better cameras.

Better battery life, definitely.

Lighter? Sure.

But this Apple obsession with making it everything thin..

I don't need to save 3mm in my pocket, if I did I wouldn't buy a big-screen phone.

Give me a bigger battery any day.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Sep 10

I don't necessarily believe I'm looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses.

I just think it had better colour grading.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Aug 28

It's like Microsoft Home all over again.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Aug 27

Seen similar things lately with Windows builtin "photo" viewer.

I'm guessing they're just using bilinear scaling by default even when in a 1:1 pixel mode?

1 2

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Aug 20

"Large diffs are not rendered by default."

Those 7 little words that make you take a deep breath before clicking.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Aug 20

Very nice little Trinitron CRT. Great for retro gaming.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Jun 27

Gorton was what was traditionally used sometimes people use VAG Rounded as a substitute.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Jun 18

Do not ever ever mandate a user be signed in to be able to send you any kind of support/contact request.

Unless of course you don't want to know your new user sign up flow is broken for some new users.

I'm looking at you Docusign.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Jun 17

There was me wondering if I should turn it on :D

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Jun 17

Oh, right, you have the higher enforcement checking on. Could have mentioned that in the starting post.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Jun 17

I'm still confused. Did you hex edit that out? Mine has the signature.

Damien Guard @damieng.com · Jun 17

Not signed? Is that the real opera setup.exe ? The one on their web site has a publisher/signature and just downloaded fine for me with Edge.