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mickt

114 karma · joined September 27, 2007

Django/Python/HPC, used to do Java/Oracle/DB2 in another life.

I'd like to start my own company and/or try out for Ycombinator (if they'd restart on the East coast).

I've an avid photographer, like hiking whenever I can get to the country, and try and walk everywhere I go (to counteract sitting at my desktop/laptop/workstation all day).

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mickt··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2018)
The only tech job that mentions remote work is the one titled "Open Source Engineer".
mickt··on The North Pole is 20°C warmer than normal as winter descends
PBS did a documentary about this in 2005:

https://cosmolearning.org/documentaries/scientific-american-...

mickt··on Systemd redux: The end of Linux
There does appear to be a lot of negativity around systemd, such as people giving out about binary logging. I'm sure there's got to be a way to enable text logging along with binary logging.

This lad seems really enthusiastic about systemd logging and systemctl:

http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/journalctl.html

There are a lot of interesting features, but personally I'd prefer to have both binary and text logging. Text logging is in cases where a system goes tits up and you may only have access to some basic tools such as grep, vi etc.

mickt··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (November 2014)
Location: Boston, MA USA

Remote: Depends on salary/location.

Willing to relocate: Depends on salary/location.

Technologies: Django+Python, Java, Linux+*NIX, Ansible, HPC.

Skills: Programmer, Devops, Problem Solver.

Résumé/CV: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pOgXw_tGM7v2NI-XVU7T1_9E...

Email: jobs@timony.com

No phone calls please, please don't contact me about roles in Boston that are not accessible via the MBTA (unless your offering $$$$$$+). :)

mickt··on San Francisco's guerrilla protest at Google buses swells into revolt
>If you're an employee you spend money where you live, not where you work

During the work day most of these people are 40 miles outside SF on self-sufficient campuses, often with free food. That means that during the week they're not in downtown SF supporting local cafes, coffee shops etc. But the same argument can be used for any commuter community, in this case it's reverse of many cities where people commute into a city.

mickt··on Gmail was down
^R
mickt··on Lenovo $99 tablet getting 5 stars on Amazon
No Anandtech reviews, but here's a few:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422923,00.asp

http://www.androidguys.com/2013/08/30/lenovo-ideatab-a1000-t...

I think the average conclusion is that the device is OK, but if it cheap enough then it may be worth it.

mickt··on Google Maps and Waze
Will this be another application that Google lets wither?
mickt··on PRISM? Come to Israel to study our surveillance state
Or the UK:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2006#Extending_th...

Laws written originally to thwart the IRA were used to detain suspects and in many cases innocent people, who happened to be Irish, where convicted after confessions were cohered out of them. Can you imagine being jailed for 90 days and being interrogated for that length of time?

It seems plausible that the same thing will happen to innocent Arabs and Muslims whom are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

mickt··on PRISM? Come to Israel to study our surveillance state
>Employers do not read my email.

In most jurisdictions your work e-mail belongs to the employer and not the employee and can be read and monitored by the employer. Is Israel an exception?

mickt··on What is Happening in Istanbul?
Go to any "Army, Navy" store (they sell old military uniforms etc).
mickt··on U.S. is the only developed country with no guaranteed paid vacation or holidays
50% is as much or more than the percentage of tax that most Western Europeans pay and US government entities seem to provide less services compared to their European counterparts. Perhaps part of the reason is the huge portion of the Federal Budget that goes toward military spending?
mickt··on Unreal Engine in JavaScript/HTML5 – Citadel demo
On Chromium 25.0.1364.160 on Ubuntu 13.04 just the running tab died.
mickt··on My divorce from Google - One year later
If that's the case, then it's time for small businesses to take their business elsewhere. The problem is, what other options are there?
mickt··on 2012: The year Irish newspapers tried to destroy the web
But Irish people do, and that's partially the point.

If this can happen in Ireland or Belgium, you can bet that organizations in other countries will consider doing the same thing.

mickt··on The Invention of Jaywalking
Is the US unique in that you can go to jail for not paying a ticket for a minor traffic violation?
mickt··on Netflix Loses Toy Story 3, Tron and 1,000 More Movies
I'd never heard of Premium cable network Starz until I read that article, and I guess now I'll never see any of their content.

I do have Netflix and I don't have cable. I don't understand why people pay so much money to watch TV?

mickt··on Hybrid cars on the decline
For some reason in the US diesel is more expensive than petrol/gas, see link for prices in the Boston area: http://www.bostongasprices.com/index.aspx?fuel=C

I was recently in Ireland and diesel was .10c cheaper a liter.

mickt··on My secret Hobby: Applying for jobs
I heard similar stories at a US financial company; lads would work for 6 months, get trained and up to speed, then they would either get head-hunted or look for a better paying job and leave. New people would have to be hired and then be trained and then leave etc

The US based staff would get grief if the projects weren't completed on time or had issues.

I don't blame the Indian lads, they were getting paid crap. Also, many of them weren't great, as the pay was crap and good programmers in India wouldn't work for the company.

mickt··on Skype cancels Asterisk integration
It's the first thing I thought of, and it could be a clue as to where MS may lead Skype. Are they going to come out with some killer VOIP app for Windows 7 mobiles phones that will cause us all to drop our iPhones & 'droids?
mickt··on Flickr’s got a brand new homepage, loses the minimalist approach
If your logged into Flickr the new homepage look isn't apparent unless one logs out.
mickt··on Other Linux Distros' View of Ubuntu's Unity: It Ain’t Pretty
Unity reminds me a bit of Afterstep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AfterStep

However, after using regular E/Gnome/KDE/OS X/Windows for so long I feel handicapped with it; for example I can't right click on Unity bar to customise it and it doesn't seem to behave as I expect it to. I guess part of this is because of learned behaviours over the years and I've gotten used to UI's working in certain ways.

I'm not willing to rule Unity out, yet. But, I'm not going to upgrade my main Ubuntu system to 11.04 unless I can be guaranteed I can move to regular Gnome and back to Unity without problems. At the moment, I believe that, Ubuntu 11.04 only supports Unity and the Gnome 3 packages are in a PPA (Personal Package Archive) that isn't fully supported, yet, and might be quiet buggy.

I've also been thinking about going back to using Debian as I'm finding some of the ease that Ubuntu is bringing to Linux is at odds to a long-time *nix user like myself.

mickt··on Feel Like a Wallflower? Maybe It’s Your Facebook Wall
It's also quite possible that you have a more fulfilling life. Just because people are gallivanting hither and thither does make their lives better.

Also, the hard work your doing now may aid you in later years with a work ethic your friends might not have. Which will instill you to work 3 years straight with-out a break on your amazing startup and retire at the age of 29. ;)

mickt··on AT&T admits to slowing down the Motorola Atrix and HTC Inspire
And these guys are trying to buy T-Mobile! If they want to be #1, then they should try and do it with better service and planning of their infrastructure instead of dicking around with their customers.
mickt··on [dead]
Is this Reddit?
mickt··on Gnome removes maximize and minimize buttons from program windows.
I'm thinking of just going back to old friend Debian (which I run on my Desktop). Ubuntu almost seems to be trying to be so friendly to newbies that it just gets in my way.
mickt··on If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one?
"some motherboards are not capable of supplying enough power to their usb ports."

That's just lovely. At work someone ordered 2 western digital passports harddrives. They wouldn't work with any Apple laptops that we had (2 15in MBP, a 13in MBP, a Air) and would only work with desktops (2 iMacs). The box, WD's website, Apple's website all said these were compatible with any MacBook ... I suspected the problem was with underpowered USB ports. I even phoned WD's support (who were unprofessional) and couldn't get straight answer out of them, nor any useful info from Apple website.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions!

I never used a Mac until 1.5 years ago and I've been impressed with the quality and finish of the hardware, the overall smoothness of the UI, suspend & hibernate that work, AND a bash shell. And the ease in which non-Computer literate can use one is impressive (unless they've used other OS's for a long time).

But, the way Apple obfuscate information, and Bill Gates ... er I mean Steve Jobs apparent desire to lock users into Apple is disturbing.

mickt··on Gnome removes maximize and minimize buttons from program windows.
Old KDE fan where, moved from KDE to Gnome, then back and using Gnome for about 4 or 5 years now.

Last week I tried KDE 4.5.1 that comes with Ubuntu (I do so every now and then to see if I'll move back). After 30 minutes of trying to get Network Manager to start a VPN connection, and Googling for answers and reading the docs, I gave up and started the VPN connection from the command-line.

Now, I'm confused, how hard can it be to start a VPN connection? I clicked, I right-clicked, I reapplied the settings. Or it so simple that this long-time user can't figure it out?

mickt··on The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty
I find it interesting that the Wiki page on Suzhou make little mention of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou#Industry

The whole page almost seems like a piece of PR.

mickt··on From Jobs to Zuckerberg: A Single Look That Conveys a Message
Reseting them with Cookiesafe on Firefox usually does the trick too.
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