Indirectly, any good coder should be considering the impact of their work on the cost of computing each operation. We do this less so now that compute power is so high but it should still be on our minds.
691 karma · joined April 28, 2012
Toronto has considered putting in a congestion tax, but no one wanted to way in on how that tax would affect people living downtown.
Business and employees here are universally perceived as suckers and ripe for fleecing which gives the country a poor reputation. The reality is that there are a lot of people here who are naive, but there are also many very skilled, experienced and capable people. Again culture clash.
Cost of living here is becoming almost impossible for the average person, with few places to go as most of the country does not have infrastructure to cope with those even there. There is a profound difference in politics and tolerance between cities and smaller town, so: yup, more culture clash.
While most of the world let inflation happen, Canada basically stalled inflation and placated citizens with cheap Chinese goods, and low interest rates. The result is that inflation is that Canadians are now priced out of their own country, inflation is accelerating and interest rates are creeping up.
In order to prop up profits and stave off economic collapse Canada brings in over 500,000 legal immigrants annually. The result is a massive strain on infrastructure which governments have been cost cutting for decades. Tensions are high and you can definitely see it in the moods and attitudes of people, especially on the roads.
Money parking and laundering are a huge problem here with little enforcement. Foreigners are buying property as fast as they can to aid in immigration applications and to hide their money from their own governments. The result is that property values have skyrocketed well beyond the reach of even tech sector workers.
Canada has some maturing to do and decisions to make like investing in the future rather than simply relying on population growth.
School had an Apple II but wouldn't let students use them. Instead they forced them to use punch cards so I didn't take the class. Instead I used a Commodore PET that was on display at a department store.
Eventually owned an Apple II clone and and IBM PC clone. First work computer was a Compaq Luggable with an amazing orange phosphor monochrome display.
Before the Internet was available we used BBSs, and Compuserve. BBSs were horrible little fiefdoms run but basement dwelling trolls.
Networking was still a toss up between Ethernet and Arhnet. I liked Arcnet. You had to configure interrupts, ports, buad rates, stop bits, and parity for the IDE network cards. It was a pain.
Most business LANS used Novell Netware or Lantastic. I loved Lantastic, it was easy and even had a voice over network feature. Still have a t-shirt from them somewhere.
The Internet arrived before Windows was usable and Microsoft wasn't ready. So you had to use a SOCKS client.
I made a lot of money in those days simply by hanging out in the computer section of the big book store. Managers would wander in like Bambi on a highway. When they saw me reading a book on computers they inevitably asked questions. It turned in to consulting work.
Fun times but also very frustrating. No real multi user, buggy products and operating systems, Linux was still very much 'assembly required'.
Now we have non-typed, high level, abstracted languages, and agile methodologies which are possibly a step too far in the other direction.
Somebody got a bonus for making this suggestion at Microsoft.
This is likely the biggest problem we face right now. People don't care or don't want to hear anything "negative". We call it toxic positivity.
1. Corporate lobbying has insane control over decision making.
2. Highly vocal and critical constituents who are spurred on by propaganda and hatred.
Now politicians who want to survive pass the buck and pass toothless laws like the one in Canada claiming to making housing affordable while adding fire to the crisis by bringing in 1,000,000 immigrants a year to stave off a recession which would hurt the corporations.
Meanwhile corporate and rich investors are snapping up any property they can get their hands one.
In Ontario the Premiere is reclassifying conservation land owner by his buddies to allow them to build developments. In Toronto they tore down a vital section of the main highway to allow their buddies to build condos. The also allowed polluted lands to be developed a residential by simply putting a thin layer of top cover over the industrial pollution.
The foreign ban is only for high density areas. Small towns and rural land have become unaffordably for the people who grew up there.
It is a major catasrophe that is not being solved, just postponed by a year.