Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Here's my little Wirecard story: Back in the day when Camarades.com/ww.com was doing well we were through an intermediary approached by a German investor, one Paul Bauer-Schlichtegroll (I'll never forget that name), an - at that moment - successful German businessman, who was importing Vans sports shoes into Europe.

He became a 5% investor in our company through an entity called Max Madhouse GMBH with an option to buy a much larger share. The day after the deal was signed he turned around and tried to screw us - the founders - out of our own company through a minority shareholder lawsuit.

Eventually we got rid of him, but this cost us a lot of time, money and momentum. Two years later Bauer was one of the founding members of what eventually became Wirecard.

So I've always seen Wirecard as a bunch of crooks.

At the same time I have some sympathy for the BaFin people, there are way too few of them and the opposition was very well versed in showing one face whilst actually being something completely different, the length to which these characters would go to show a good face was beyond anything that I would have normally imagined. I'm still a touch paranoid because of it, and I'm sure the same goes for the rest of the former Camarades.com/ww.com team.

I don't know what happened to him, he seems to have disappeared as well, but I do know that anything that he's ever touched was rotten at some level.

I can also add some here. We worked for WD for a while. There was this weird thing going on. We requested MacBooks because we were working on Linux and cloud but the management had a policy that managers were entitled to have MacBooks while by default engineers had to use Windows laptops. As externals we were denied MacBooks.

So managers were running Powerpoints on Apple while engineers were running Python, aws-cli on Windows. Perfectly reasonable according to them. I could only estimate the amount of productivity lost on this. Of course WSL was not allowed because corporate security classified it insecure.

How did you guys solve it?

double boot and windows looking customized desktop ?

Management getting swaggy laptops and engineers having to work on the cheapest and shittiest windows laptops is a thing in every German company where the software isn't the core product(embedded, IoT, hardware, automotive, mechanical, chemical, finance etc.) because Macs are expensive and since beancounters are valued more than SW engineers they can make themselves look like heroes in front of management by showing them how much money they saved the company by leasing a fleet of cheap machines for everyone, regardless of their job, from the local HP/Dell/Lenovo dealer vs the productivity loss of their developers that they won't bother considering.

I only saw good machines in companies where only software was their business(mostly web shops) so management there knew the value of providing good laptops and monitors.

Not strictly true, but overall I'd say it is accurate. There are more and more companies in Germany that are becoming tech aware even though the tech is secondary and they realize there are productivity gains to be had from giving their tech employees proper tools.

Still, that's yet another version of the beancounters perspective.

The irony is that as I move into management, I less and less see the value of me personally having a powerful laptop. My job is Jira, Github, and Zoom; why should I carry around a 16” MBP for all the power I don’t need?

Well, to run Slack...

Zoom is the new culprit. Occasionally it’ll demand so much from my computer that the 100W charger won’t be able to keep up, causing my battery to begin to discharge.

Are you running the from the browser and not the app?

My biggest Zoom gripe is being unable to control how much bandwidth it uses. 360p is fine for the others and I on the call when we’re not sharing screens.

If it weren’t for that, I could télé-work from the cabin a lot more... stupid Canadian mobile providers...

I’m running from the app in OSX. The browser version is somehow even worse.

Wait until you need to run Microsoft Teams. You’ll need to carry an entire supercomputer to run that pile of shit and even then it won’t be smooth.

Even Jira is not too far off these days unfortunately despite being a relatively simple tool (but they needed to justify hiring tons of JavaScript developers).

Probably all the backend telemetry teams uses.

if you want teams to go through a proxy, they basically say "open all ports tcp and udp to microsoft.com + even more" I think it might be like 52.0.0.0/8 or something

At least we can be safe in the knowledge that Teams will be the only bloated Electron app Microsoft make a core part of the Office suite.

There is no way most company issue laptops can run two programs that resource heavy at once, without Windows 10 randomly closing other applications or flashing a black screen at you.

Nothing can possibly be slower than a heavily customized Jira instance.

I opened up the api recently to discover that every story I edited had close to 100 custom fields on them, most duplicative (presumably) and hidden.

What angers me about Jira isn’t the slowness of the backend - that I can wait. It’s the slowness of the frontend that’s the problem, which is a combination of a JS-heavy front end as well as its hard dependency on the backend, where as basic HTML forms & page navigations typically leave the previous page interactive until the response from the backend arrives so you can still look at the existing page as well as allowing you to cancel a page load and still keep the currently loaded page.

I don't know, Zoom seems to like to hang out using an entire CPU when you're not even in a meeting.

I work in a worlwide (german) industry / automotive company. The group leader can decide what Notebook, PC or Workstation his team gets. We can choose between a normal office HP Notebook/PC or a pretty good version of a HP Z-Book or a fast Workstation. Also I think most external tech guys who came to our company, they usually have real good hardware. At least in my company now, the managment has just normal office notebooks or convertibles.

Definitely not my observation (working in Germany in automotive). All of us are using one of the generic PC. To be honest, our PCs have been pretty reliable, suitable for the purpose. The service quality is also surprisingly adequate.

The only time I see MacBook are when we get the consultants visiting us. They are always decked out in the latest Apple gear.

Try running Solidworks on a 300€ laptop.

Switching everyone to laptops is the biggest productivity loss in engineering departments.

Engineer teams did switch to MacBooks in 2019. And managers slowly too, in 2020.

In your culture, at which point is it permitted (legally or not) to take someone like that out back and punch them a few times?

I only had to deal with one situation like this in my life, and the person responsible is now no longer welcome in my county, so we sorted it out.

I still dream about it. And it's 20 years ago. That guy and his buddies caused us so much misery it isn't funny.

Another Bauer story; prior to the investment: he had fear of flying, and was an asshole to the people that he perceived as lower on the social ladder than himself. So when he was nasty to the stewardess on a very small airplane (10 seater, twin prop) flying from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo and the pilots caught on to his fear they got their revenge on him by doing all kinds of borderline legal aerobatics with the plane.

Bauer and I were the only passengers, I had a great time but made sure to sit where it was safe. He was as white as a sheet when we landed, and made a great point of being polite to the stewardess on the way back.

One asshole deflated, props to those pilots (pun intended) for standing up for their colleague.

>One asshole deflated, props to those pilots (pun intended) for standing up for their colleague.

so, someone was socially rude, so some pilots decided to risk the lives of everybody on board to teach a lesson.

Aerobatics , even if 'borderline-legal', are still more stressful on the plane and components.

Stress still causes early failure, even if the stress was produced with legal maneuvers.

Hopping curbs in a passenger car is not usually illegal, it'll just destroy the car prematurely.

Spontaneous aerobatics still risk injury from gravity-flung objects in the cabin.

So, i'm glad the person you dislike had a lesson taught. I'm less glad that the crew acted unprofessionally.

I'm very glad that no incidents occurred as a result. The sky isn't the place for revenge and vengeance, especially on passenger flights.

I really hope that the crew has matured since then. There are plenty of ways companies and professionals can refuse service without risking collateral damage like that.

You're assuming that trained pilots somehow had no idea what they could safely do in their aircraft. Why?

The problem is that they put everyone lives at risk. It doesn't matter how convinced you are of your abilities if your life and the life of others is at immediate risk (like in a plane or on a bus)

Noone's life was at risk. It was just mildly more exciting than a normal flight and well within the range of permitted stresses on that particular plane.

GGP made an assumption and then reacted to that assumption as though it was a fact. We weren't doing loopings or Immelmans, just a couple of nice steep banks and a pretty steep ascent/descent. If the plane would have not been able to handle that it shouldn't have been flying in the first place. I've been through lots worse in single engine GA planes in rural Canada.

question : would the pilots be at fault if the victim of the prank had suffered a heart attack or stress-related stroke due to the thrill-ride?

Not legally, morally.

I tend to think so, given that creating a thrill-ride is outside the scope and purview of being a private pilot.

A professional, acting outside the scope of his profession, who seems to be acting with malice or disregard creates a situation that could quite literally kill a person who has certain conditions (even unknowingly).

>Noone's life was at risk.

I can't do the mental acrobatics that are necessary to see that as a zero risk situation.

It's not just the airframe that the pilot is tasked with worrying about, the safety of the occupants comes first.

Relax.

Wow, have you been keeping that un-ground axe in your back pocket for a while or something?

If planes cannot maneuver in the air without significant fear of fatal injury they should (and would) not be flying.

This goes beyond your comment: but sometimes it feels like there is a growing tendency to value safety - or perceived safety - over the rest of our humanity.

Does that second paragraph make sense?

Great story. During my life I've found that assholes of the narcissistic kind have fears or insecurities that clash with their bravado posturing (e.g., a primal fear of dogs, flying, paranoia of being talked about behind their back, cheated on, moving away from their hometown, being seen as bad dressers -- those are the ones I remember). I have always found this odd. I know nothing about psychology, but maybe there's a correlation there?

In Germany, even the slightest acceptance of violence usage against capitalists and Nazis is going to get you a shitstorm from the far right to the center/left left.

The result? Just look at how effective militant French protests have been in keeping neoliberal attacks on worker rights at bay, and how unsuccessful German protests have been.

Violence is unacceptable. Period.

It is sad that there are cultures where that's different.

So is the violence of the police and of other government agencies (think sheriffs enforcing eviction orders) acceptable? When is legitimate use of force crossing the line to abuse? When are people allowed to defend themselves?

It's funny to see how in many Western governments the (legitimate!) protest of the people in Hongkong is cheered upon, but BLM, Yellow Vests other domestic protests are discarded...

Saying "violence is unacceptable" is something one can only say as a member of the privileged majority. For minorities, for marginalized people, for poor people though... the lines are way more blurry than blanket black-and-white statements.

And for the record: I'm not a friend of pointless militant acts but I will not dare to judge over anyone not as privileged as I am to come to a different opinion.

Why did you make up that BLM, yellow vests and whatever random domestic protest you made up isn't supported and only HK is?

Alright, you are now arguing that in response to violence, counter violence may be acceptable and therefore my post must be coming from a position of privilege. My statement was about the original act of violence. It would benefit everybody to focus on that one, instead of immediately screaming "but I have to be allowed to punch back!!!1"

P.S.: You have no idea about my gender, skin color, sexual orientation or social class. Please don't just assume things.

On some level I agree ... but I can't in all honesty get behind this statement 100%. For example I enjoyed seeing the videos of Richard Spencer (the "dapper" white nationalist) and Billy Steele (guy shouting on the tube about how black people are "less than him") getting punched in the face.

Don't know if this makes me an asshole or a human.

On some level I agree ... but I can't in all honesty get behind this statement 100%.

I assume the GP was just abbreviating a more complex phrase that it's easy to guess, isn't it?

"Sometimes karma carries a lead pipe"

Violence is regulated (in essentially all of the world) - that's very different from unacceptable.

The state, perhaps through the police or military, can exercise violence often without consequence. You can legally be violent in self-defence, to varying extents.

The state defined by its monopoly on violence. Period.

No, the state has a monopoly on initiating violence. All citizens have the right to violence if it’s in self defense.

Some states will even let you carry firearms around in case you need to apply violence in self defense.

That's nitpicking. It is clear that failed states are those with nontrivial scale violence perpetually initiated by non-state actors. The strength of the state equates to its capacity to limit the scale of others' violence. US gun laws, globally speaking, are a statistical anomaly, and if you started using guns against others with any scale or frequency the government would surely intervene.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. - Goethe

It’s not nitpicking. Almost all states recognize the legitimate use of violence for self defense, even if the specific methods permitted vary on a state by state basis. Thus if your definition of a failed state is one in which the government doesn’t have sole right to violence, then you end up with the rather absurd position that all states are failed.

When generalizing it is taken for granted that one discusses the general case not an extreme case. It is not possible to hold a discussion in general terms with people who insist on nitpicking. All generalisations are invalid. Some are more invalid than others.

When engaging in discussion it's taken for granted that you agree with your own opinion.

It's useful to have additional conversational tools to engage positively, such as:

'oh yes, that is an improvement on what I said', or

'I appreciate what you said but I was trying to make a different point, which is:', or

'That's a useful way of capturing what I was trying to say', or even

'Yes, I see that what I said was not quite right, thank you'.

US gun laws are irrelevant, since the legality of using violence in self-defense (note that we aren't even talking about lethal force here!) is applicable to a lot more than guns. And yes, in most countries, it is legal, although certain limits of proportionality etc may be imposed, and there may be a duty to retreat if possible.

But also, US gun laws insofar as they pertain to the use of guns for self-defense aren't as anomalous as many people think they are. There are a few other countries in which it's possible for a regular citizen to get a permit to carry a handgun openly or concealed - Czechia, for example.

Violence is efficient though, otherwise why was Saddam Hussein deposed? If Country's cant settle their differences with politics, what else do you have left? At least our leaders show us what is acceptable behaviours in their books but it also demonstrates their hypocrisy when ordinary members of the public meter out their own violence, although I do acknowledge some violence is just plain mindless eg drug and alcohol fuelled.

Looking at Iraq now, does anyone think that was the right choice?

Difficult to say. The Iraq War and the occupation disaster afterwards were both inept catastrophes in so many ways for both the Iraqis and for the U.S population that had to piss away those trillions of dollars. But on the other hand, even the somewhat unstable modern Iraq is better off than it was under the rule of an extraordinarily violent, extremely brutal regime like Saddam's. He wasn't just some soft-touch authoritarian in the style of Turkey's president, for example. Hussein was more like a miniature Stalin (one of his personal heroes) in his sheer ruthlessness towards his own people. Just a couple examples: what his government did to the marsh Arabs of the Euphrates and the Halabja chemical attack along with other atrocities against the kurds in the north of the country.

None of this is in any way a defense of the monstrous collateral damage of the U.S occupation or of the U.S government's reasons for that war, but now that it's happened, the country is better off than it was under Saddam himself.

> otherwise why was Saddam Hussein deposed?

To transfer several trillion dollars of US wealth into the military and oil industries?

This is naive. Violence is the last resort. If the stakes are high enough and you’ve tried everything else, violence is the only remaining option.

Sometimes actions don't need to be acceptable, they just need to be impactful.

Violence and War is “the continuation of politics by other means.”

- Carl von Clausewitz

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

- Asimov

But one cannot be competent all the time.

Sometimes it's better to punch someone in the nose Monday to avoid a shootout on Friday.

This is shorter expressed as "The ends justify the means".

Not always, but sometimes they do.

When it comes to clear cut cases of survival, do whatever you have to do.

The problem is when the scenarios are not nearly so clear cut - even if they may seem to be to the people in the scenario at the time.

My post was a response to "even the slightest acceptance of violence usage against capitalists". So please take your straw man somewhere else.

Asterix and Obelix got it just right though.

Ah, Obelix! The original One Punch Man.

I love Bill Burr’s take on this. I can’t find the clip, but the resolution was that after receiving a punch, maybe you’ll reconsider “ehh maybe i was being a bit of a dick back there.”

I never punched anyone, but people who ruin your life as described by the commenter deserve it, maybe they’ll become better people.

> after receiving a punch ... maybe they’ll become better people.

That seems like the logic of a supervillain or sociopath. "When they did something bad, it's because they're a bad person that I'm allowed to hurt, but when I'm violent it's because I'm making the world a better place."

There may be times when that works, or it's the least bad option, but my instinct tells me that the sort of person that most deserves a punch is also the sort of person who is most likely to respond to that violence by doubling down and hurting more people (their victims often being those who can't defend themselves).

Generally I’d say that this could work on people that don't expect violence, like the racists who go around the city harassing immigrants.

Why are they making other people’s lives miserable? It’s not fair and the law doesn’t protect you.

This won’t change their opinion, but it might very well stop them from acting out again.

IMHO. I have no psychology background.

I punched a bully in the stomach at school (after many months of the school doing nothing to address it), and after that he completely left me alone. It was a small school, so I'm fairly sure he didn't move on to anyone else either. A few years later, we even became friends, our younger siblings (5 years younger in each case) become friends (without knowing about the incident in question), and since starting his own company has done paid work for our family (which we wouldn't have allowed had there still be any animosity).

I've no doubt violence begets violence in most cases, but it can also improve the situation for both sides in others.

A brawl is violent, and a gunfight is violent. Should English have different words for them? They are not at all the same kind of thing.

The legal term you're looking for is "serious bodily injury". Reasonable expectation thereof is the threshold for the use of lethal force in self-defense in most US jurisdictions, for example.

> Violence is unacceptable. Period.

The powers that be use the state to inflect violence on people that don't have rights and power and no one thinks that's illegitimate.

The guy moved to Switzerland, where he has multiple businesses. See https://www.moneyhouse.ch/de/person/bauer-schlichtegroll-pau...

So he's still around eh? Funny, last I heard (a few years ago) he was in Laos. Well, whatever.

These type of people morel likely to succeed in life, unfortunately.

That's an incredibly narrow definition of success.

> At the same time I have some sympathy for the BaFin people, there are way too few of them and the opposition was very well versed in showing one face whilst actually being something completely different, the length to which these characters would go to show a good face was beyond anything that I would have normally imagined.

I mean, they weren't versed enough to fool many Wirecard shorts or financial journalists, who had a lot less authority and power to investigate the inner workings of the company. Maybe in the absence of these warnings they could be excused for missing it. But when you get it handed to you on a silver platter?

To be clear, I'm not alleging this was the case and have no basis on which to suggest it, but it's not all that unlikely they could have been coerced or bribed, right? But that might be a stretch.

Let's face it, the FT is published in English, and I would not be irritated at all if BaFin was still looking to issue a call for proposals to find a translator to translate the FT articles into German, on the day the whole scam was finally exposed by EY deciding it was not worth the risk anymore.

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