# Rant

I need to update PHP for my webshop.

Haven’t used that clusterfuck of a programming language in quite a while and by now, it seems, even the PHP community has figured out, that it is probably a good idea to keep your application code out of the webroot after all. Of course, that means producing HTML output from templates instead of parsing HTML files with embedded code. But what was the unique selling point of PHP again? Oh, right!

It’s probably high time to finally retire PHP and forget that it ever existed…

Preventing developer burnout: it is OK for your open source project not to have a public bug tracker

A bit of perspective about silos, choosing beggars and psychological manipulation by platform owners. There's also a sneaky sixty four thousand dollar question at the end to flash your mind.

But we need Microsoft Exchange!

no, you don't.

It's going to cost four figures

Let's talk about pricing commissioned work (on existing open source projects). Or: things I learned the hard way from past mistakes.

Why I won't use Github for any new projects (and you probably shouldn't either)

There are these two sayings that go so horribly well hand in hand, 'those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it' and 'fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me'. Let's keep that in mind and add a 'told you so'.

Made a bit of progress on the bypass sms verification code when signing up for a new Google account. The whole system is breathtaking from a technical, legal as well as a psychological persepective.

At least on Android, the user is deliberately steered into a “sunk cost falacy” type of situation that suggests that s/he just wasted a couple hundred bucks on a toy that won’t work properly unless connected with a Google Account. Of course, the phone screen is too small to read the terms compfortably and the default is to skip reading your contract anyway. If you want to know what you actually agree to, you pretty much have to look at the wire protocol (it is a lot). How on earth is it that we don’t have laws against this?!

Gosh, I hate SSL/TLS. What most people don’t know is that it’s not a cryptographic protocol in itself, but rather a means for negotiating which cryptographic protocol you want to use. Of course, you have to be an expert in the field to choose wisely, so the general advice is to stick with the defaults. Obviously, I can’t do that, so now it’s Passierschein A38 hell.

Better not buy smartphones at a discounter

I'm in need of a new Smartphone to toy with. As far as I'm concerned it can be the cheapest piece of garbage available as long as it runs a current version of Android and isn't registered anywhere (particularly not with Google). I need a virgin device. With that in mind, I pay a visit to a local discounter...

*Poof* your GMail has been disabled

Can't happen? Does! Be careful what you sign up for (pun intended).