Damien Guard
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damieng.com
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 ❤️☮️
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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.
"Rest assured..."

The universal sign of "You're going to be disappointed with my inability to resolve your issue in about 5-10 minutes."
I left the USA and moved back to Guernsey in 2020.
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?
Reposted by Damien Guard
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
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
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?
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.
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...
"Your email address was found in a data breach."

At this point without more information these notifications and services are worse than useless.
Ferris hacks his grades in the opening scenes of Ferris Bueller's Day Of... 1986.

Sooo... almost 40 years ago.

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

Thankfully they backpedaled on that.
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.
I don't necessarily believe I'm looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses.

I just think it had better colour grading.
It's like Microsoft Home all over again.
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?
"Large diffs are not rendered by default."

Those 7 little words that make you take a deep breath before clicking.
Very nice little Trinitron CRT. Great for retro gaming.
Gorton was what was traditionally used sometimes people use VAG Rounded as a substitute.
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.
There was me wondering if I should turn it on :D
Oh, right, you have the higher enforcement checking on. Could have mentioned that in the starting post.
I'm still confused. Did you hex edit that out? Mine has the signature.
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.