Michael Toppa

@[email protected]
55 Followers
114 Following
116 Posts
Founder, CEO - Digital Verification Research Group, Inc. (DIVERG)
Digital Verification Research Group, Inc.https://diverg.com
Bloghttps://toppaware.com
Githubhttps://github.com/toppa
LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-toppa
Michael ToppaMar 1
This may only ever matter to 1 or 2 people out there with an HP m1217nfw MFP (printer & scanner) from 2011 that's still going strong. There haven't been new Mac drivers for it since 2018. Using Claude Code I was able to get the old drivers for the scanner working on Tahoe (the current MacOS) running Apple Silicon. I put it up on Github with instructions: https://github.com/toppa/hp-m1217nfw-mfp-mac-scanner-driver
Michael ToppaFeb 19, 2025
Justin SearlsFeb 19, 2025
New Junior Developers Can’t Actually Code https://justin.searls.co/links/2025-02-18-new-junior-developers-can-t-actually-code/
Michael ToppaJan 31, 2025
Max LeibmanJan 30, 2025
What do I do for a living? Like many of you, my primary occupation is entering passwords and two-factor codes into a variety of apps and websites all day long.
Michael ToppaDec 21, 2024
TIL it's tough to be a Kevin in Europe, after a wave of boys got the name when "Home Alone" was a hit in the early 90s: "...in England 'Kev' has become a synonym for working-class wastrel, a denigration as severe as being a Karen in America." https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/12/19/we-need-to-talk-about-europes-kevins
We need to talk about Europe’s Kevins

How an American name became a European diagnosis

The Economist
Michael ToppaNov 4, 2024
Julia EvansNov 4, 2024
I feel like half of programming is remembering how weird stuff works and the other half is setting things up so that you do not have to remember the weird stuff
Michael ToppaOct 28, 2024
This is a great walk through of all the assumptions (i.e. educated guesses) that go into modeling the 2024 Presidential polls. A better take-away from all the polls isn't how close they are, but how uncertain they are https://goodauthority.org/news/election-poll-vote2024-data-pollster-choices-weighting/
Polling paradox: what actually shapes the numbers?

Likely voters, past voters, demographics and more – how pollsters weight 2024 election poll data matters a great deal.

Good Authority
Michael ToppaOct 8, 2024
TaggartOct 8, 2024

For very good reasons, the .io TLD is (likely) going away.

Once this treaty is signed, the British Indian Ocean Territory will cease to exist. Various international bodies will update their records. In particular, the International Standard for Organization (ISO) will remove country code “IO” from its specification. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which creates and delegates top-level domains, uses this specification to determine which top-level country domains should exist. Once IO is removed, the IANA will refuse to allow any new registrations with a .io domain. It will also automatically begin the process of retiring existing ones. (There is no official count of the number of extant .io domains.)

https://every.to/p/the-disappearance-of-an-internet-domain

(H/t @mwl )

The Disappearance of an Internet Domain

How geopolitics can alter digital infrastructure

Michael ToppaSep 12, 2024
Going down a rabbit hole debugging a small Ruby on #Rails Rspec test failure, with the hope this helps someone (quite possibly me in the future when I run into this again but don't remember the solution) - "Rails views, internationalization, special characters, and testing with Rspec" https://www.toppaware.com/2024/rails-views-internationalization-special-characters-and-testing-with-rspec/
Rails views, internationalization, special characters, and testing with Rspec | ToppaWare

File this under small problems that take more time than they should to solve, and I couldn’t find an answer with a web search. Let’s use a simple example. If you have text like this in your…

ToppaWare
Michael ToppaSep 10, 2024
Jason GormanSep 9, 2024
A degree in computer science prepares you for a career in software development in much the same way a degree in biochemistry prepares you for a career in nursing.
Michael ToppaJul 23, 2024
mccJul 22, 2024

EFF's "privacy badger" extension today expanded its effects on your Chrome settings to disable the Google "Ad Sandbox". This disables not just Topics (the worst of Ad Sandbox's features so far) but also the other two features— including "Ad Measurement", a feature that Apple copied a couple years back and Firefox adopted as an "experiment" this month.

https://mastodon.social/@eff/112831156838249955

The EFF here succinctly argues why all of these ad features should not be running on your computer: