276 karma · joined June 2, 2014
The internet was not design for people to be anonymous. Our law's weren't made to keep you anonymous. Our society doesn't allow for people to be anonymous.
Currently the government uses E2EE to safe guard themselves, then the American people should also have access to it to safe guard themselves. If the government allows us to purchase guns for our safety, why not encryption? You going to say encryption kills more people then guns?
Plus E2EE isn't some super secret thing the government only has access to. Any one can create a E2EE platform and the government would be hard press to stop it. You might not be able to commercialize it, but it won't stop it from existing.
I believe arguing over if something should be legal/illegal is a pointless distraction. E2EE exist now embrace it or move on, but don't think banning it or making it illegal will some how make it disappear.
So a friend of mine got hired by a bank that needed to hire 100 technical people in 30 days time. He told me how awesome of a job it was, because they had nothing to do so he spent his day doing whatever he wanted and getting paid mad money. Something happen and 2 people got fired so they needed them replace asap. He ask me if I wanted to throw my hat in the ring. I got such a gleaming referral from my friend they skip the interview process and hired me on the spot. In the week time of those 2 people getting fired though everything had changed.
We came to find out those 2 people got fired because the project was suppose to be 80% done by then, but instead it was more like 10%. They fired them 2 to show they meant business and they had the lowest performance score out of the entire 100 people so they were made a example. New policy was created no more headphones, meetings everyday, only work allowed on your computer screen, no smartphones out, and a old grumpy man was put at the back end of each isle to watch us. To make it worse all the cubicals were only shoulder height. So you had all the disadvantage of a open office with all the disadvantages of a cubical farm in a neat little package. The cubes were also smaller then normal with only enough space for your chair to slide back against the wall so you could slide out.
This is when stuff gets really strange you would think with all this distress and work needing to be done everyone would have there head down pounding out whatever they were suppose to be doing? That is the thing there was no work to be done. In my 6 month contract there I probably spent 3 hours actually doing work. In reality a 10 person team could have easily done what we had to do in a month time, but because of how the bank and management had structure everything it was impossible to do anything. There was also another strange thing people were expected to work 50 hours a week no matter what. When I started I put down 40 hours and got told by my manager, my recruiter, and a higher up I need to work more to help them catch up. The following week I work only 40 hours and the talks turn into threats so I started to work 47 hours a week and the threats went away. If you work 51+ hours a week it would give you the awesome option to work weekends as well.
So with all this stress, anxiety, and boredom a good number of people started to act really strange. A handful of people had stop taking showers leaving a noticeable smell in certain areas. Some people would squirrel food away leading to infestation of bugs and a underground market for trading and selling junk food. Some of the higher ups notice people were wearing the same cloths every day so after a talk those people started to wear jackets and such so the higher ups couldn't say anything to them. It became a normal thing for some to just sleep at there desk the entire day. Office supplies were constantly going missing even with the higher ups guarding them. Fights would break out randomly some just shouting a couple physical ones. Every other week a women would normally have a break down and cry in her cube because managers had started to use them as there own punching bags over emails/IMs. Lunches became more group therapy then a enjoyable outing. At some tipping point the main recruiting agency came in and had us all sign something basically pledging we would act professionally from that point forward and they were not held legally for our own actions and such.
To make the matter worse the recruiting agency was adding more anxiety and stress on the people. Most of the people there had work VISA and needed a job to stay in the country. The agency bully them into working 6 days a week. Someone accidentally sent out a email letting some of the people know they were no longer need on the project would be let go in 2 weeks. All the recruiters instantly contacted all 25 contractors that email went to saying that was a mistake and not true. They said they would be on the project for at least 6 more months and to ignore that email. 2 weeks later they were all let go.
I was told my contract was only going to be 3 months, I ended up 6 months there. When I hit the 3 month period I started to do whatever I wanted thinking I would get fired, but it never happen. I repeatedly reached out to my recruiter telling her to put in my 2 week notice, and it never happen. It finally hit a point where I told my manager my recruiter told me this was my last week. After my last day my recruiter contacted me 6 days later asking me why I wasn't at work. My friend that got me the job stayed on for another week, but ended up getting fired. A manager that leaned on him heavy for answering technical questions got scared he might replace her and told the higher ups he attacked her during a meeting. Security came and lead him out of the building.
Writing down every word I don't know/understand and getting comfortable with them.
Playing with the subject matter.
Discussing the subject matter with people.
I have a rpi3 installed in my truck that acts as a media player. It also reads my OBDII so I know how my engine is running and other diagnosis information. I also use it to map wifi/bluetooth spots and other random data as I am driving.
I recently had a handful of friends that wanted to get away from IRC mainly because smart phone interaction is not the best. Since we switched to keybase I feel like we talk less. Also the desktop client doesn't close without using kill command which makes me open it less.
I use IRC just for chatting with friends and strangers on internet. Shout out to the #csharp channel on freenode some great people that regularly answer questions and help people out.
They are cheap way for companies and developers to add a second identity to your account.
What scope does the technology cover. I believe in the rule of "Do one thing and do it well". If it suppose to do A, but can also be used for B and C is a warning sign to stay away.
Is it something a engineer built or a hacker built. Not saying a hacker can't be a engineer and such, but long term vs short term goals for technology need to be well planned out and executed. I use a ton of technology built by hackers, but anything I put in production is built by engineer.
This is what all my friends are currently hacking on.
Joe Armstrong - Keynote: The Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science - Code BEAM SF 2018
Only ever measure yourself against yourself. As long as you make sure you are a better programmer today then yesterday then you have nothing to worry about.
Also a side note even the most social person can be really antisocial. At one contract I had we had one guy lets call Joe that was the social butterfly would setup after work gatherings for the team and everyone seem to like. One day at lunch one of our co-workers was going through some bad stuff with his family, and Joe was pressing a joke on him that was getting him so upset that I had to hold back the co-worker from beating Joe. After lunch when I got Joe by himself I try to explain the situation, and why the joke wasn't consider funny and such in case it was just going over his head and he didn't realize what he was doing. Come to find out Joe understood, and did it on purposes. Joe actually disliked everyone on the team, and his way of blowing off steam was basically picking really random fights. You wouldn't think it from looking on the outside, but after learning that I start realizing all sorts of things.
Be polite, be considerate, don't take anything personal, don't over think it, and be yourself. I know easier said then done, but you got to go at it if you want change.