harkyns_castle

Fair enough, and I have and will continue to not really want to invest time into learning Microsoft's stuff, based on past experiences (my first being wanting to develop for the platform as a scrub, and they charged thousands of dollars for a dev environment/compiler). I honestly don't think it'll serve me well going forward, when there are better alternatives.

They have had decades now to get on board with developers, and cmd.exe is still their go-to console. They still strike me as a company of greedy corporate business folk, who happen to run a software company, as opposed to a software company that has to suffer greedy corporate drones to survive in our current race to the bottom.

I basically do my best yes, whilst having to earn a living in my chosen field. FreeBSD and Linux where I can advocate them.

Part of my current contract is migrating a customer away from SQL Server to Postgres, and it feels good. Automating powershell on aws instances doesn't feel so good, but it's temporary pain.

Pleasantly surprised by powershell? I don't know what to say. I have to essentially copy and paste fragments of things that work, it's so arcane. Its like writing 90's Java on a command line. Its revolting.

Still to this day I can't even fscking grep.

Personally, I'll never forgive them for their practices. They deliberately stifled competition, shafted developers, abused their position, and rubbed it in our faces.

There's no coming back from that, and I'll gladly educate newcomers to IT on their ways.

Let them die. The new CEO could be the second coming, you can't fix that cancerous attitude that is entrenched.

They deserve to become obsolete, at the very least.

Perhaps, it just sounded like you thought these very intelligent (for the most part) doctors, were unaware of what they were accepting, which isn't the case.

It's very clear in the industry that it goes on, and anyone that partakes is a scumbag, in full knowledge of what they're doing.

This in an industry that is meant to heal people, not be part of the problem we're facing with rampant corporatism and out of control greed.

They're not falling for anything, its just plain and simple greed. My father was in the radiology area and he constantly received 'bribes' (didn't accept them, but had the offers).

I'm guessing Brazil.

Well, the religion is nonsense. Not that that differentiates itself from others. Love one another, as you would have banks do to you.

It sucks to watch corruption and violence win the day. We seem to be seeing it. Where an economy can be based on maintaining a military force in other countries, to maintain the petrodollar and central banks. And a lot of good people losing their lives, brought up in the belief, they're helping freedom. What a mindfuck that is.

A good point. It seems to me an increase in people annoying you throughout the flying process is only going to have increased costs, coupled with expensive hardware and presumably billions in software too.

Speaking for Tasmania, there's a desolate looking guy on the Hobart bomb scanner device every time that flags me over. His face says it all, "I know this is a bullshit job, just submit and it will be over with quickly, I collect a paycheck, you feel bad for a little while."

I'd do it if I have cause to fly into the States again, but I can't help but think its not really going to help much. From my youthful experiences at being a knob, I'd say don't piss off food makers/deliverers, or airline staff. I once annoyed a Qantas security lady, and I noticed it for a fair few trips afterwards. Then again, with wealthy interests controlling the US, I can't really see what will help at this stage. Its a descent into corruption and mess, but I can't judge how quickly it'll crumble.

Definitely a way to find a silver lining hehe. Maybe we're getting better at shining a light on things, and they'll crawl back into the slime over a generation or two.

It's bizarre it can happen. Surely the wheels have to fall off that out of control cart soon.

Well, all of the Five Eyes are complicit, no argument there. Certainly a top-heavy weighting from the US though, with basically control of the net, and a stellar budget. The peons just follow the marching orders.

Any time I read this type of article, I keep recalling what irritated the hell out of me with the Snowden leaks and responses of US citizens. To paraphrase: "It's terrible they're spying on US citizens (but everyone else is fair game, geez, whack a splicer in that fibre channel asap)".

The US has reinvented the concept of borderlines on the Internet with what the NSA/TLAs have been up to. I'd say that's a distinct step backwards.

Seems to still be a lot being done in the name of security theater in the US, and just wasting dollars on the TSA, for what appears to be very little effect.

Who's really profiting there? Is it just for the employment of people that otherwise wouldn't have a job? Or are the majority of citizens there really made to feel more secure by having them? I'd have to say some defense contractor is getting a bit fatter off this.

Seems like a ridiculous waste of money.

> Quite a lot of the stranger aspects aren't so much "features" as blast craters of past disasters.

Cracked me up, very well said. In general I agree that the document-centric browser has been abused horribly. Then we get obscene beasts like node.js, because, well, the browser does it, so must we.

There's createdb from memory (?), but for other bits and pieces, it might be worth spending a bit of time on a thin wrapper script e.g. "create-pg-user foo" that just wraps the annoying parts, but using your environment specific bits and pieces if needed, or using a C/Python/Ruby/Java/etc api. At a bit of a different level maybe some Ansible playbooks that hide away the psql level stuff, so they can be reused.

I fully agree though and in thinking about it, a range of CLI level tools would be nice. I guess then the team would have to play catch up with any syntax/api changes for those tools too, so its adding that annoying extra bit (albeit fairly small probably). But I guess its the annoying extra bit getting down in one place, and not hand-crafted by everyone.

I think the problem is, its a bit more complicated than that.

There are a myriad of factors that might influence that IQ score, and I haven't looked at the studies. Lack of wealth/opportunity I think is definitely a factor in the healthy development of the grey matter, as is access to good education.

Long/short, not sure. I'd be surprised if the colour of your skin objectively made a difference in IQ. Same with gender. Though, if the latter is true, I would probably use it with great exuberance on certain people I know e.g. my ex.

True. As a consumer, I'd have to subscribe to three+ different providers, all charging a monthly cost, to get at everything now. Or more specifically, just the things I want to watch.

The 'old' Foxtel model was similar; you want to watch a few things? Well, you'll have to buy all the channels for $100+ per month just to see the bits you want.

It doesn't seem like a sensible situation for the people that want to sell content. Seems very sensible for the people that want to control the content though, in terms of making out like gangbusters.

Its fairly poor comparatively. The way things are going though, I wouldn't be surprised to see VPN's banned, or attempted to.

I'm not against paying for content I must say, there needs to be an incentive to make it after all. Just not one repulsively rich prick doing it. You'd think after your 2nd billion you'd pull back and think, "I've probably got enough now, I can live happily".

I'm thinking nonsense. We have to descend to the lowest common denominator to make things work? That seems lazy to me.

The system we have at the moment is geared towards a few, extremely wealthy individuals and companies, and they basically created the system and need to see it continue. And its from the US it came and gets enforced.

There is absolutely no need to have a system we have in the US where the corporations basically call the shots, via campaign funding and revolving door bribery, or for the warmongering. Its like someone holding a gun to your face complaining that the other person "just won't see sense, they refuse to put their gun down". Small wonder, when they're being threatened.

What would make sense for me is for a few people in powerful positions to grow a backbone and start to demand changes; but I think the apparatus is so strong now, that those that do, meet an untimely fate, and the remaining few have courage in the face of certain death/social destruction.

I think we've been had, basically, in a really large way, and I don't see a way out of it. Its a successful, long game play that has won out. Nice if you're part of it, sucks if you're not.

If they get the data? Hehe. Its a hosepipe direct to the people you don't want having that data.

It's really beyond me why anyone would sign up for Facebook nowadays. Feels like we need to reboot the Internet honestly.

My immediate reaction is, if they hire someone that has great security knowledge, they'll be better placed to compromise mine; their business model seems to be pillaging my data and selling ads, same with Google.

Why the excitement?

No grads worth hiring globally? I don't hire, but that seems a bit rough anecdotally knowing a few.

I had a quick read of some parts, but I'll have to sit down and read it properly tomorrow once the beer has taken its course. I didn't find the bits I browsed particularly revelatory, and focused fairly narrowly on erlang.

Any particular sections you think would turn those unhirable grads into hirable ones?

They'll have to lift their game in Australia then, their offerings are fairly stale and generally B-grade stuff. I've cut the cord, but the old guard are holding onto some of the content at least.

I suspect that is Uncle Rupert's doing though. For the last decade or so Foxtel have been trying to extort Australians by grabbing all the content and charging ridiculous rates, its good to see some competition.

I suspect the corrupt, wizened old greedbag's next move will be in some paragraph of the TPP, where it'll be against the treaty to do what Netflix do and he'll be able to sue the Australian government for anything that restricts his greedy ways.

That's a surprise to me, I hadn't heard any of that. Not that I've followed things that closely.

What I found so far is [1], in which he seems to just be doing a bit of a "show me the data" thing wrt global warming (its fairly old I guess in defense). In [2] he's definitely saying IQ is race-related, and gender related to a lesser extent, in my quick readings.

I quite like that he doesn't mince his words, sugar coat things or seem to take any notice of popular opinion/political correctness. Not agreeing with him, but I find that refreshing.

[1] http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1436 [2] http://esr.ibiblio.org/?m=200311

I guess Wolf of Wall St puts that behaviour on a bit of a pedestal. I personally don't know anyone that is that kind of a prick, but presumably they exist.

I think we all know what is selfish, and what is greedy. Some will choose to ignore it though, and/or justify it.

I don't see any light either, that is what is very depressing.

We're ruled by very greedy, short-sighted people, that don't care what you think, or care what they are doing.

Idk, but longer term I'd think a co-operative approach would make more sense, and stop destroying the planet for elfish short-term gains.

Crazy idea though. Can't have anything compete with those beautiful oil, fracking, banking, warring people though - they mean well! I mean, its just short term, we'll just cut down all the forests, ruin all the topsoil, drill all the oil, frack all the rocks and lpg, and ... well, we don't care, go fuck yourselves, we made money, and we don't care about children or grandchildren. Cya.