cloudsec9

> there is no reason whatsoever to burden the tax payer

Why burden tax payers at all? Just have Universities and Colleges charge the full freight of the degree/diploma to the student. That should work out swimmingly.

The issue with breaking down colleges and universities into "feeder programs" for jobs, is that they are terrible at that. Jobs require specific skills, and institutions are teaching subjects that might cover some of those skills, but not all of them and most importantly not the future ones. What Universities SHOULD be doing, is teaching students how to THINK about their intended subject. Consider different areas and approaches, and be able to be creative and innovative. You know, those things that VCs actually prattle on about? There are PLENTY of people that started in another field, and for whatever reason pivoted to tech. (And while we've had some student loan forgiveness recently, it's mostly the students that foot the bill for their education -- and the most expensive parts of the system are for-profit colleges which are supposed to be the "most" market responsive).

Lastly, the "market" is not all knowing and all seeing, and at times it's pretty fickle. Early on there was no "market" for something like the Internet, but it's proved pretty useful. Started as a wasteful to taxpayers pie in the sky project, too.

> we all benefit as a consequence of capitalism – from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor.

This is one of those "myths" of capitalism -- "everyone" benefits. While I'm a recipient of the benefits, I also realize that it's a system with flaws that drives inequity and preys on the poor.

I'm not sure that the impoverished really benefit from the constant stress of working 3 precarious part-time jobs to pay for rent and food, with little to no time for family or leisure. But, hey, latest tech gadget is cheap, so that's a universal benefit, right?

I always thought the American Dream was to own a house through hard work. Now working at multiple places barely covers your monthly expenses, forget buying something. Decent housing shouldn't be an intractable problem, but looking through the capitalistic lens it sure seems to be. But pretending that places where it fails are "lies" and that we have to become the Soviet Union is just fearmongering. Perhaps there are social interventions that could help?

And, to fully refute the BS of nobody wants to work anymore: "More workers now hold two full-time jobs, defined as more than 35 hours a week per job, than at any point since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting this data in 1994"

https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1549859727978516481 (link to Washington Post story)

The lesson you took from "American Factory" was that the Chinese workers "seem to care more"?

In the west, work is a job, and we work it for (usually) 40hrs a week. The Chinese workers were often hundreds or thousands of miles from their families, living in cramped company-provided housing and seeing their families a few times a year. It showed me that work is a lifestyle.

My impression was that while the company wanted it's workers nominally "happy", productivity was of supreme importance. Safety, legality, and all of that was red tape to be handled in some way, but productivity was most important. My impression was that the workers were all seen as cogs by the management, and all were replaceable.

I'm sure it's true that there are lazy people out there. But I think the point here is that there are people who will do the work in the right conditions for decent money.

I think what happened was a lot of those low-tier workers had time to evaluate what they were doing during the lockdowns, and figured they didn't have to be treated like dirt anymore. Some people of course retired, and Covid claimed people too ... so now those low-tier workers had job choices.

And bad employers found their labour pool was more selective. They thought the root cause was Unemployment Insurance and people sitting home, but even after those programs expired they still faced difficulty hiring.

So, I don't think people are siting home watching Netflix; but they are unwilling to work for a crap boss serving crap customer during crap hours for crap money, because there are options.

> money isn't the problem, it's that companies make it _not rewarding_ to work

Lots of people are fine making sacrifices for money, but it sounds like you think that "crap bosses, crap customer interactions, crap hours" are things not in the employers control. Be nicer, have sane schedules, make customers (generally) happy goes a long way.

> Raising pay ratchets up inflation, and isn't a response.

While pay raises have a slight inflationary affect, worker pay over the last few decades FAR lags modest inflation. IF you have to work TWO jobs just to cover rent, then your pay is too low.

> lowered wages due to the "expected recession". You would start looking for a new role

Unless this "expected" recession is fictional, employers do exactly this, but just not in the way you frame it. It's true they generally don't ask for pay cuts, but cutting hours and shifts, drop bonuses and even lay people off. And since it's a recession and many businesses are similarly affected, you just can't "look for a new role".

> pay increases can never go down

In absolute terms, sure. But if future pay raises are below inflation, you actually do lose ground in real terms.

Another story: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/rogers-servic...

From the article... "that malfunction caused traffic overload. And as a result of that, the whole system just shuts down"

So, a bad upgrade causes traffic overload, yes.

Then the system just shuts down? It's the CEO, so I don't expect super tech details, but this isn't how things work. At all.

I'm not sure why people are surprised about this.

It's all network traffic, and the network was DOWN. (It's not like when we had physical circuits, and if one part wasn't working it could be offlined without affecting the others).

911 traffic would have the highest priority, but without actual traffic flowing it's a ticket to nowhere. I'm guessing the cell towers had power, and likely the call routing software is programmed to drop calls to handle 911 requests, but still had no network to send the calls through.

As a user, I think you can disable your carrier (or, worst comes to worse, pop out your SIM card) to get picked up by another network -- but that isn't most people's thought process in an emergency.

Would be nice to see if this changes the approach at all -- example, If no network -> don't advertise or talk to our phones -> allows them to possibly roam or use other nets

I can't reply direct for some reason, but wanted to comment on...

> But there's a reason there's only a handful of ILEC in Canada

(ILEC for those unaware are Incumbent local exchange carrier, as opposed to CLECs or Competitive local exchange carrier, once local competition was introduced) Yes, because when the Phone networks were started, it was SUPER expensive to wire them up, so the government gave MONOPOLIES away for REGULATED returns.

So, for the most part, each geographic area had one (or one main) phone company. And a few of those companies merged or were bought out as competition entered the space, leaving less than a handful.

It was felt that balancing access for exclusivity was a good trade, and it probably was. But now, "copper" landline service is strictly regulated, while Internet and Cellular are unregulated. (This is why, despite landline being super cheap to run, it costs MORE then entry cellphone plans per month).

Already lots of advice, but I'll chime in too.

Telcos are actually a few parts -- there is Voice, which can be landlines or cellular, there is Data which is usually Internet but can be leased lines. Modern networks do allow a lot of overlap with these, but each of them have some bits that are very specialized and need equipment/people.

VoIP and Internet is a decent place to start. The "core" is fairly easy to do, the harder part is the "last mile". Provinces and Municipalities usually charge to allow you to use their poles or right of ways.

The most interesting idea I've heard is building a non-profit last mile with the help of your municipality. At one point Toronto Hydro had an extensive fiber network, and it would have been easy to do; but I think the city sold off Hydro and Hydro in turn sold off their fiber network.

I've also heard of getting a neighborhood together to buy a commercial tier connection, and then distributing it, but there are some details that need to be worked out to make sure this is workable.

Sorry to rain on your evidence free assertion fest here, but let me push back a bit here: > Rogers as their primary network. [...] backup network? Rogers.

What idiots, right? But there is likely a bit more nuance here which this throw-away comment is ignoring, like using cellular/microwave/fibre/copper in a diverse and high-availability way. I don't know all the details of the network, but all of this stuff works pretty well MOST of the time, so I'd assume their core network is pretty well built and Interac has tight agreements that pay them big bucks for outages.

And, don't mistake this for me saying that having 3 national ISPs is good.

>"..." is not a good example of networks and failures.

Actually, it's a pretty rocking example. Right now, we have zero clue why this happened, and complex built to survive SPOF systems have complex interactions and weird failure modes. But those Canadians are all Cletus and don't know how to configure a router, right?

Could this be an incompetent configuration? Sure, and we'll find that out, as this one will likely spark hearings due to the length and impact.

Just wondering if a big AWS outage means that the US is "mediocre", or if a failure should reflect the organization that failed?

While I'm all for ranting about too much control by too few players...

How is this different then any "big" player having issues? (Think AWS, Big US ISP, large payment provider such as VISA/MC)

I don't think most NEVER thought about network issues ... but rather a calculated risk, as long outages tend to be a rare occurrence. It's honestly cheaper to eat losses on a day like today then to pay for redundancy and availability.

Even multiple ISPs might not help.

I remember a DC issue where they had two physically separate ISP attachments from different sides of the building. Cable cut takes out ENTIRE DC.

Why? While the ISPs were different, at one (farther upstream) point they were both leasing fiber that ran through a single conduit -- so you need understanding of the physical structure of the network, not just "different ISPs".

It's also possible that poverty causes people to "self medicate" with cheap alcohol, and that crime is endemic to areas where there is poverty.

To me, this sounds like "broken windows" with more "data", but less attention to possible bias. And the fact that these "articles" present only points from the proponents and the police, and no real data or independent review, gives more credence to that theory, in my opinion.

This is just a rehash of an article (Linked inside the article several times!!) from 2020.[1] They claim MASSIVE reductions in crime during the run of this program, over the years 2019 - 2020. Hmmm, what else happened in 2020? Covid and lockdowns, but I'm sure that had zero effect on crime. (In fact the article mentions they had to put the program on hold in 2020 due to the pandemic). It doesn't appear that there is any new reporting in the posted piece, just a re-write of a 2 year old article. And there is no independent verification of claims, just police spokespeople and the Chamber of Commerce. For a data-driven project, that seems ... lacking scientifically.

[1] https://www.kshb.com/news/local/kcpd-crime-fighting-strategy...

First, take a deep breath, and try to be less overwhelmed -- there IS a lot going on, but you can only do what you can do. And realize you've already put a big accomplishment on your side -- you completed a degree. You are able to take on a long term commitment and complete it -- that was a 3 or 4 year deal! Next, stop fretting about what you DON'T know. There is no one out there that knows everything about all technologies.

You said you don't know how a DB works, or ray tracing. Are you building a DB engine, or doing stuff with computer graphics? If yes, then you have some learning to do. If no, then that's okay. Find out what you WANT to do. C? Java? Python? Javascript/Node.js? ... and then look for spots where you can do more of that.

You asked whether you should "suck it up, get a tech support role" -- two things here. Financial situation is first -- can you afford to be a bit choosy, or do you need money right away? If you need cashflow, you might have to compromise. If you have more flexibility, you can look further. One thing I suggest is finding a worthy (non-profit) project and seeing if you can help them while honing a skill. For instance, if you want to be a full-stack developer, helping a project get a new or updated website online. Do it in stages; get something informational (plain html) to start, and then add dynamic stuff (events/news/signup) as you build confidence. You will get a reference and a live portfolio piece, and they get something that helps them.

Last but not least, realize this is an ever-changing field -- even if you were an expert in a tech last week, next week it might be fading from fashion. As long as you are willing to learn, I think you'll be good.

At one time, entrepreneurs were trying to "build a business", and the main audience were the people who wanted to buy FROM the business -- their clients.

Nowadays, every tech-related biz is striving to be the next FAANG company, and the clients are just numbers to get to the next funding round. There are occasional client-focused businesses, but I think they are the exception instead of the rule. When your biz is always under the microscope for the newest funding pitch, I think it makes it harder to "be naughty" as you put it. Much more emphasis put on the hockey stick.

Okay, so the most important thing about making an investment is ... that YOU are comfortable with it.

That it lives within your comfort level of risk/reward, and that you understand the downsides and the upsides. Generally, the more risky something is, the better upside. Very risk adverse? Look to something like Bonds, but the upside is lower. If you want to be comfortable, you need to factor in your timeline too. If you want your fancy new car next year, you have to steer less risky, while if you are looking at a 20-30 year timeline, a dip this fall or next year won't matter too much. And you also want a bit of diversity -- if you invest broadly, things that are going up are balanced with things that aren't doing as well.

Over a number of years, you can do very well by sticking with such a strategy. And, being comfortable means you are more likely to stick with it, rather then sell if something doesn't go great.

> I bought a house. The due diligence period to inspect the house, get a survey, etc. was after we entered into the contract and before closing.

I know with the crazy housing markets, this might not be something anymore, but in times past you would enter into a CONDITIONAL contract and set the price, with the stipulation that the inspection has to be satisfactory to remove the conditions. Otherwise, after you signed your contract, the house is yours, and the survey just tells you what you are obligated to fix.

Also, Business deals usually allow parties to enter into things like NDAs for due diligence, as well as signing things like Memos of Agreement to get a roughed out deal, pending a thorough due diligence. I believe he's past (or waived) the due diligence. I'm sure there is a back-out clause, but that has $$$ attached and he's trying to wiggle out without paying, is what it seems like.

Ah, this brings back memories. I took High School computers with these, and I think they inspired me to really get into computers as a profession. We used BASIC and I learned an actual second language -- Pascal.

Our teachers were pretty novice, and as admins ... um, not really. All the teachers signed in as the superuser (I guess it was root?) to do anything, and they'd often just walk away, leaving us a superuser shell. Fun times. A friend in that class would create superuser accounts, but they find them and delete them. If I remember correctly, there wasn't a RTC backup, so turning the system off meant you had to set the date; and they would only power on the lab when there were students there. So they had this clever script that would run on superuser login that would set the time. So I wrote a little addition that would create a SUID-like shell in some obscure part of the system, so we could have the superuser privs whenever we wanted. A first hack! :) QNX was fun, and it was a good baseline for learning Unix later in University.

I don't remember a Turing compiler, but it did have a C compiler, and a bunch of other Watcom programs

My first job was ... magical. Great team, working on a thing I had passion about, with a supporting direct supervisor and great management all the way to the top. I worked hard, pay was okay, but it was about doing good work.

I think many people look for the best $$$ and not for great fit -- as our society is all about what bling you can show off. I had better paying jobs after that first one, but with office politics and whatnot thrown in, and that makes things more challenging for sure. One thing that I find helps is good people and opportunities. You can't be sure to have the same manager forever, but if you have options to change teams and most of the people are decent, that can very helpful.

Also, you have to understand what motivates you, and what gives you satisfaction. Is it working on a good team? Is it being a star performer? Is it successfully adding features? Is it having the largest paycheque possible? Looking for positions that give you the most personal satisfaction can help; and as long as it's not about getting the most pay, there are some tradeoffs you can make. (Like less pay for more say in what you work on, for instance).

I have to respectfully disagree with many in the comments here. Most people seem to feel that any new project or startup needs to focus on revenue maximization, where, like most things in IT, I think the right answer is "it depends".

If it's a learning project, or a part-time or hobby project, or if the people starting don't have a lot of money, then using a lot of self-hosted stuff will be an attractive alternative. There are lots of cases where with an ample amount of money or cash flow I'd agree with paying for SaaS or whatnot, but I don't think it's a good universal answer.

I think it's a matter of supply and demand.

Right now, more users have switched to doing things on their phones and tablets, so that is what developers are building. If enough people are willing to buy a desktop type app, then developers will sell that to them. But I think the mobile ecosystem offers a better range of possibilities -- you can charge for your app, you can go ad-supported, or you can give your app away (and have in-app purchases or extract value another way). With desktop, you have to charge or give your application away -- there is no ads or in-app stuff.

I think you get what you pay for in security, and it's clear that a lot of the c-suite are happy to pay to tick boxes... so you get a lot of going through the motions.

Also, this isn't really new. When I worked as a more Junior person about a decade ago, lots of decisions came down to what was cheaper or faster, not what was secure.

To have good security, it's a cultural and organizational thing where the people at the top have to be on board.

I think you have to chose the right tool for the right job, and you have to also understand that not all people have the same toolsets.

For most startups, they are hoping to get some money (investment, revenue, etc) in order to keep themselves going in the first bits. Buying servers is a huge capital expense, and not all startups have excellent credit and ability to do long term financing. But almost every startup will have access to a credit card and be able to pay a (reasonable) cloud bill on a monthly basis.

I've worked with a business that wanted to put TBs of data (with monthly growth) into AWS. I think the break-even point to buying a fully automated 10 tape library was something like 14 months, by which time they would have fully paid for ALL the tapes, the changer, and an extra drive to do emergency recovery offsite.

I think with startups it's about controlling costs -- developers are expensive but needed, sys-admin skills are expensive but "easily avoided" by just using AWS. Some of it is also the ease factor, where you can use a bunch of cloud services to do things that are powerful, at fractions of a penny per transaction.

I also think some biz people aren't always tech experts, and tech people tend to either want to try something shiny (to pad their resume) or stick with something they know well. Cloud and AWS particularly make that easy.

SEEKING WORK | Remote

Location: Canada

Resume: On request

Email: hn /@/ cloudsec9.ca

Technologies: Python, C, PHP, JS; MySQL/SQL; AWS/Cloud; Networking; Teacher and Mentor =====

I've been doing various IT things for 10+ years. Last 3 years focused on Cloud and Data technologies Seeking 10-20hrs/week

> The government [is] not going to have [it] where anyone [...] can just anonymously send / receive coins

You mean, like you can with cash?

I understand being skeptical of the government, but we already have "electronic" money in the form of Credit cards, where everything you speculate about is already possible by BOTH the government AND private banks.

Government enforcement against people committing all kinds of crimes is uneven and unfair, but I doubt the Federal Government is interested in mobilizing against parking ticket offenders, unless their crimes somehow relate them with Al Capone. If the Federal Government believes you have ill-gotten money in your possession, you can have that money seized right now; no need for fancy digital or crypto stuff.

The Feds have taken on ransomware gangs and others in the crypto realm already -- doing "bad things" that are illegal with crypto is still illegal, without the need to have fancy escrow/approval/gov't stuff in there.

> Just as we stopped using street cars when buses and cars proved to be more maneuverable and efficient

I think we "stopped" using street cars because cars became more affordable and made less expensive housing around the edge of cities (suburbs) possible. I've lived in a city which never got rid of streetcars, and has a good transit system; and many cities are bringing back such systems.

> because it delivered a unique benefit once upon a time

Do modern libraries not deliver benefits still? Or are you arguing that the benefit of lending paper books is in the past? I think that most libraries are adapting to their users, and have taken on new (digital) pieces in their collections -- but I do think there are still a great need for ordinary paper books for a lot of users.