RUG3Y

I'm glad you found a good unit. My company probably wasn't that bad, but bad enough. Part of the problem I think is that careerists naturally have a certain conflict of interest that affects how they treat their troops.

I mentioned China in another comment and I think you're correct.

I was in an infantry unit, Marines. In general politics weren't a thing, if you mean American politics. Internal politics on the other hand are a big deal and it's astounding what people will do to one another to get promoted.

I did have a family to support, and a crummy old computer. And I never implied that someone who couldn't do it is less deserving, just that it can be done. Computers are ubiquitous and while not everyone has one, a great many people do.

I did dirty blue collar jobs for years. Then I would sit on my couch with a laptop and learn Python every night, from 6 or 7PM until I couldn't stay awake any longer. It was no picnic but it can be done.

It's the $10 per hour part is the killer. No one wants to do dirty work for that much. I did plenty of construction, landscaping, painting, and other dirty jobs. Hours were long, often 10 - 12 hours per day. I remember the day I started making $12 per hour and I felt like a king. I taught myself to code and got out of that game as soon as I could manage.

The purpose of school seems to be to crush your spirit in anticipation of the job you'll get after school, which will crush it even further. By the time you reach the workforce, you're hopefully zombified enough to "endure" it.

Capturing one guy is a symbolic gesture anyway.

"Well, we had thousands of civilian and US military casualties, but we got Bin Laden! It was totally worth it!"

It's also highly immoral. Destabilization and war in foreign lands results in devastating consequences for the civilian population. The US Government has a lot to answer for, and likely never will.

Spot on. I don't think the military is a place for people who think too hard. I don't want to make blanket judgements though because I met a few excellent people that earned my respect and I'm happy to know them.

I think that's a pretty good analysis.

Nothing is certain but IMO the whole Al Qaida narrative is questionable. Now, it looks like we're there for heavy metals / opium / contracting $$$ and to possibly block China from exerting further influence in the region.

Well spoken. I made it to Sergeant - I was actually promoted my last week, which was a surprise to everyone. Apparently I was the only person in the company to complete all the prerequisites for promotion that quarter. A nice "fuck you" on my way out the door.

Yeah that's what I was referring to.

The whole Al Qaida thing is murky with CIA engineering and scapegoating. Maybe I sound like a conspiracy theorist, I don't know. They were a pretty convenient foil for us to invade a whole bunch of countries that we had no business invading.

These infantry officers really buy their own bullshit. I've never met one who didn't. It's like religion - the cost of facing the music is just too high for some people. Cognitive dissonance etc.

I asked the question ~2009. What never made sense to me is that with unsecured borders, what's the point of invaded a poor country of goat farmers? Ok yeah, so Al Qaeda supposedly attacked us and they were allegedly being harbored in Afghanistan. But the guys in the planes were Saudi. Why didn't we invade Saudi Arabia? (That's a rhetorical question). If someone wants to come here and hurt us, they can do it pretty easily. Invading Afghanistan doesn't solve that problem. The whole thing is a joke.

Now I'm aware of a host of reasons for us to be there, none of them good. Of course we're in Afghanistan for some purpose.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

I've studied the box model etc and I've been CSS'ing for a while now but it's still not clicking for me.

After returning from Iraq, I was jaded. Young when I started, I thought we were doing a good thing. My idealism was stripped away pretty quickly.

After being stateside for a while, there were rumors that our unit would be deploying to Afghanistan. A Lt. Colonel came and gave a presentation to the company about conditions there. During the Q.A., I stood up and asked, "Sir, what are we really doing there? For the life of me, I can't understand the strategic purpose of invading Afghanistan. They're not even the ones who attacked us on 9/11."

To put it mildly, that did not go well. I exited the Corps after my first enlistment and I'm a bitter old veteran now.

The point I want to make here is that the voice of integrity in the military are in the lowest ranks, and they leave as soon as they can, as the situation is intolerable for them. You don't rise in the ranks as a career officer or NCO if you don't believe in the mission.

Same here. Two years ago DDG just wasn't cutting it. Today, I'm just fine with it.

I especially like how programming questions usually provide a top result from Stack Overflow, a lot of times I don't even need to click the link to see the answer I'm looking for.

A step in the right direction.

Interesting that you ask -- I was just researching this last night and this morning. I don't have an answer but I'm curious to see if there's anything like this out there.

I'm pretty much steeling myself to write my own youtube clone. I was thinking a "Wordpress" for video sites, something that could be easily re-used for numerous different vid sites.

Try ReactOS. I think it's a cool idea and I'm actually very surprised at how far it's come in the last year or two.

I'm either using my 27" monitor or my laptop monitor. I don't use two monitors, so for me, Ubuntu is working.

Regardless of resolution or display, Windows will not work for me, I've got to have Linux/shell/ sane Python environment etc.

I've tried numerous times to get away from Ubuntu but nothing else seems to support HiDPI displays well enough. I hoping this changes soonish.

Sorry, BIL == "Buy It for Life". Jansport will repair or replace any damaged backpack, forever, even after they no longer manufacture that style. If they don't make the style anymore and it needs to be replaced, they'll replace it with an equivalent.

I love this backpack and there aren't any drawbacks that I've noticed. I carry it everyday and have done so for a little over a year now.

I have this bag. It meets all your requirements and is relatively inexpensive. Jansport is BIL too. https://www.amazon.com/JanSport-Outside-Specialty-Night-Back...

I'll PM you a link to my blog if you send an email to rug3y@teknik.io. It's still a work in progress but I think it looks alright. If you decide you want to do something similar, I can help you do what I've done.

I want that too. Any ideas about how to do that without a lot of extra income? Moustache guy has great ideas for people who make a lot of money.

I started by manually QA testing pos systems and mobile apps for a company at $11 an hour. I did that for a few years while teaching myself to code. Now I'm doing ok somewhere else, but it took a layoff to push me there.

This is exactly what I decided to do. Adding some posts manually to an html file is really not onerous, and the setup time and complexity of the project directory are near zero. Plus, I don't have to take the time to understand someone else's theme in order to make changes. Whipping up a simple css theme is really not difficult.

If you're not already set up with a Ruby development environment, I'd use pick Hugo over Jekyll. Jekyll is nice but getting all the Ruby junk going was annoying, IMO. Maybe it's trivial for someone better than me.