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benc666

23 karma · joined December 29, 2018

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benc666··on Billionaires Build
Thank you for this well-thought (and written) comment. Human nature - ignored at own peril.
benc666··on Chronic alcohol use reshapes the brain’s immune landscape
That's a valid view, but some alcohol in moderation certainly helps grease the wheels of social interaction.

This is probably why alcohol was known since ancient times. I'll cite: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcoholic_drinks] [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/02/alcohol-...]

benc666··on No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This
Surely home insurance is going to make it whole?
benc666··on IPv6 Is a Nightmare
A layered approach to security (onion model) is the only sane approach because any given layer will always have flaws.

The notion I get from the article is that security becomes a huge problem when every node is exposed to almost every other node by design intent. That's why NAT is mentioned several times.

benc666··on Why most African countries are not prospering
"the primary reason, at the core of it all, the wrong people are in the wrong positions".

South Africa in 2020 is a case study for that. Inheriting the most industrialized economy in the whole of Africa in 1994, the ANC government's methodology of deploying cadres - instead of the most capable person for the job - led to exactly where the country is at make-or-break point due to an incapable state unable to deliver services it taxes the citizens still able to pay taxes, so dearly for.

benc666··on I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35
reminds me of another one:

nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.

For me it just pushes the point that every situation is a negotiation.

benc666··on I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35
You're so right - video games shouldn't even have been mentioned. As human ingenuity goes, there's infinite ways to "waste time".

I've spent many hours with the family playing MineCraft, and it's an amazing way to teach things like not being selfish, being cooperative, etc. to children because they experience the effects or lack of in compacted real time without permanent real-world impact.

benc666··on Seniority in Software Engineering
There's a term for that ..."expert beginner"
benc666··on A U.S. Citizen Was Detained While Trying to Pay for a Gift for His Daughter
Gestapo in the making.
benc666··on The Provocations of Camille Paglia
Morality is a human construct. Nature has no morality, only survival matters - by any means. That's why such cruelty (from human moral viewpoint) is found in Nature.
benc666··on Sunsetting Mercurial Support in Bitbucket
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil" means: make it work correctly first, and then - if anybody cares - make it fast. Readability/maintainability, then only as needed trade it off for speed, because not all code needs to be highly performant.
benc666··on Preventing the Collapse of Civilization [video]
Many programming languages start out as 'experiments' by their creators, to combine or extend the capabilities and attributes of some prior ones.

That seems like a very healthy evolutionary approach to me.

benc666··on Why Do People with Depression Like Listening to Sad Music?
Electric Light Orchestra. Music with a futuristic, but mixed pessimistic and bright outlook. And the orchestral contribution makes the backbone of it.

If you like Science Fiction (especially reading it) you might like this too.

benc666··on On Being a Principal Engineer
There's kinds of authority. "personal authority" can easily work better than "org chart" authority since it usually has respect and trust attached - which no mere org chart can grant.

Admittedly some org charts do grant "respect" - the same sort you give a rattlesnake.

benc666··on What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars
In Afrikaans - spoken in ZA (south africa) - that is pretty much the actual word :) "voetganger"

"voet" - foot/feet "ganger" - someone who moves along using the former noun

The Latin Root is what connects many European languages.