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127 pointsjacquesm54 comments

Author here. Thank you my long time hn friend, jacquesm, for posting this.

I've been programming my entire adult life (and then some). I worked at many enterprises and SMBs. As the character who I live vicariously says on https://eddiots.com/1, "I love programming but I hate going to work." I'll never stop programming but the people at work have worn me out.

I've been posting here for 16 years as well as several other sites. I've always had something to say but have found it increasingly harder to say what I'm thinking without sounding like I'm preaching. Thus the comics. Might as well get it off my chest in a way we can all have a little fun. If I wasn't able to laugh all these years, I probably would have gone back to work at McDonalds.

It's all software driven with only html, css, and svg. (I'll have the markup on every page next week.) No images or media queries. I kept it simple and post something new every weekday. It's just something I have to do. (And way better than all those CRUD apps and standups.)

Thanks to all of you for your kind (and other) words. My jokes are like the weather. If you don't like one, just click for another. Maybe that one will connect.

Hey, saw your comic from a comment you made on reddit recently, and glad to see it pop up here too. I felt that it was underappreciated, and glad to see it getting the recognition it deserves!

Thank you, romwell. reddit is a strange bird these days. I never know what to expect. I like it because I can post the art right in the thread, not like my feeble attempt here (below). eddiots is way more fun.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=202154

> My jokes are like the weather. If you don't like one, just click for another. Maybe that one will connect.

You're the Mikael Wulff of IT.. - http://wumo.com/wumo

Cool site. Looks like I'll be busy for a while. Thank you, Pedro!

What you've really captured is the banality and non-sequitur nature of corporate meetings where major participants are in charge of things well beyond their ken. Dilbert did it first, but you took it to new post-modern heights.

Thank you, dasi003! That's pretty much what I'm intending. I love your summary.

love your comic and sense of humour! glad i found this gem here

Hi, thank you for this wonderful thing. Please consider adding an RSS feed.

Thank you, ichik!

I just added this: http://eddiots.com/rss.xml

Is this sufficient or would it be better if I added anything else?

hey, the link under "tag" in eddiot news frame is broken:

https://eddiots.com/ArchiveCategory goes 404

Fixed (removed, deprecated). Thank you, svilen_dobrev.

A lot of Ed's writing will resonate if you've served as a programmer in an enterprise environment for a tour of duty or two. I found reading Ed's writing therapeutic while going through culture shock of working in an enterprise non-tech megacorp for the first time. There's a lot of hard-won wisdom & business & career advice, as well as the humour.

The classic: https://edw519.posthaven.com/it-takes-6-days-to-change-1-lin... "It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code"

This one explains the arc of my career more than I'd prefer to admit:

https://edw519.posthaven.com/willie-sutton-would-be-an-enter... "Willie Sutton would be an Enterprise Programmer"

Thank you, shoo, for this blast from the past. I had forgotten all about those. Hmmm, maybe another comic or two?

This is not only enterprise. This applies to sleuth of startups.

This triggers so many memories.

It's impressive that this appears to be done entirely with HTML and CSS. The humor, however, is opaque to me. I do have a lot to learn from this though, and I will be reading the source.

I clicked on random and it showed me a comic where a bear wasn't let into a bar because the bar has a "two bear minimum."

I don't think I'm the target audience

something something "I'm a frayed knot" and "arrrr it's driving me nuts".

Probably should be read through a lens of "dry sense of humor mixed with word play." Helps if you know anything about "working in IT" memes.

My problem is that if there was a two bear minimum, he'd let in more bears

I think it means you should have shown up with another bear.

And maybe is commentary on how a statement can be interpreted in two opposing ways, serving as a monkey wrench in the gears at times.

Don't you fulfill the bear minimum for understanding this pun? Try frequenting lower bars.

I spent two decades working out of carpet covered boxes. These comics are giving me flashbacks. Outside I'm chuckling, but inside I'm waiting for the on-call pager to go off.

This is all by HN'er edw519 who apparently has hidden talents.

I find myself a bit at a loss for words.

It's like rain on your wedding day.

In many cultures rain on your wedding day is a good omen, e.g. the Portuguese saying which translates as "wet wedding, blessed wedding", and the Italian saying which translates as "wet bride, lucky bride".

I don’t think the Italian one means what you think it means.

In contrast, Eastern European men will have frequently told me I've never got my wife wet. Presumably, this is to congratulate me on protecting her from the cars driving through puddles.

In case you dont know, the comment was a reference to the song "Ironic"

It's a free ride when you've already paid.

Good drawing. Gets the point across smoothly. Low noise.

Thank you, Swayvil.

Are you familiar with the works of Jim Woodring?

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=AB5stBjDzM_SzOQxiwfZz-2Z...

Too close for comfort with the big Co stuff I'm dealing with now..

Congratulations to the author. And too many people here seem to "not get it" which makes me even more depressed.

Oh they'll get it. They just haven't been in the industry long enough to get it. Give them some time :)

What is this? A Dilbert parody?

Haha, everyone's an idiot?

Looks like self-deprecating humor to me. Author's first name is Ed (presumably was called Eddie as a child).

First time I've come across this. It's fantastic! Is there not a RSS feed, or am I just missing it?

Thank you, pseufaux!

You didn't miss anything.

I just added this: http://eddiots.com/rss.xml

Is this sufficient or would it be better if I added anything else?

Awesome! Thank you! The only thing is I'm getting. A 404 when accessing any of the item urls. Looking at the xml, its adding a / at the end of each url which is causing the 404. If I remove the / it works. Is that an easy fix. The same thing happens if I try to go to any of the pages manually.

For context, I'm on an iPhone using Safari.

Fixed. Sorry about that. Please try again and let me know.

It's Sunday. I should be drinking beer and watching sports but I'm married to my fantasy project so these things happen.

I didn't think rss was important any more. Thanks for setting me straight.

And thanks again for the kind words. Please drop me an email (on my hn profile or in the footer of every eddiots webpage. I want to stay in touch with any hn friend who uses the word "fantastic". :-)

That did it. Working great now!

I for one am glad for your side project obsession. It's great to meet you. I'll shoot you that email shortly.

Everything is SVG/HTML. Nice!

Thanks, andersrs!

I added a "Show SVG Markup" button toward the bottom of every page so you can see how I did it. This may be a little less overwhelming for some people that View Page Source.

The humor is a bit of an acquired taste I guess.

all humor is acquired.

What I meant was that the humor of these comics did not appeal to me, but maybe that could change if I read more of it.

I don't know how long you've been in the industry but for me it's bittersweet and all too recognizable, so definitely funny but funny with an asterisk or quotes around it. Ed is passing on a ton of embedded wisdom here in the same way that a gifted comedian (say, George Carlin or Bill Hicks) would. You laugh, but it also hurts.

Thanks again, jacquesm for the kind words.

If you inspired others as well as you insprire me, you would change the world.

Oh wait. You already are. And you already are.

I am in the industry for a very very long time. Maybe that is the reason, as I have heard (or made) similar jokes made several times in meeting rooms, on coffe breaks etc. Maybe I got too numb in general.

I appreciate his comics, some are definitely alright.

You're at stage '3' ;)

Thanks mda, for the great feedback. (The greatness of feedback is not correlated with its positivity or negativity.)

I sort of anticipated this. I wrote the comic below just for times like this. Please stay in touch and let me know if any of this grows on you. I sure hope it does. That's what helped me get through it all.

https://eddiots.com/1725

The five stages of eddiotism:

- this isn't funny

- hahaha, I get it now, funny!

- meh, it's obvious

- this really isn't funny

- hahaha, I really get it now, funny!

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