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geraldwhen

2,135 karma · joined June 20, 2021

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geraldwhen··on How encryption for Cinema Movies works
No one goes to the theater because the picture is better. It often isn’t.

Projectors aren’t maintained, or set up correctly, and audio balancing is often way off. People go to the movies to see new releases or have dedicated shared experiences

geraldwhen··on The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition
People want both of those things, possibly different people.
geraldwhen··on Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed NSA mass spying, has died
If the van is loaded with equipment, or even if it isn’t, theft and robbery are common in most of the US. You can’t leave a van door open and not be extremely vigilant.
geraldwhen··on Building websites with lots of little HTML pages
The designers make us commit war crimes with JavaScript. Can’t even use native form elements.
geraldwhen··on IAC confirms existence of a Super-earth in the habitable zone of a Sun-like Star
Your time scale is so small. There are people alive today that witnessed the moon landing on television.

Galactic timescales are large. Plan for 10,000 years out, not tomorrow.

geraldwhen··on The Most Mario Colors
The box art is regular text, but immediately in game after starting the cartridge you get polygonal multicolored text.

GBYRG

Title screen seems more authoritative than box art, which during the NES/SNES era was quite wild. (See megaman)

geraldwhen··on The Most Mario Colors
Mario teaches typing, Mario is missing. Where are my other Mario’s?

This data is very incomplete, and thus I conclude that there are very many Mario’s missing.

geraldwhen··on Datadog acquires Quickwit
Large json logs just won’t appear for hours, which makes it so fun to debug issues in deployed environments!

Showing ALL the logs isn’t cool. Showing SOME logs at random is cool.

geraldwhen··on I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled
Nope. Universities are wild and their technology is weak. It’s always been this way.
geraldwhen··on Stay Gold, America
Gambling against the house is a sad sight. But security maneuvering a passed out drunk person is much worse still.
geraldwhen··on Stay Gold, America
In the US I suspect it’s common. In states with mail in voting, I suspect the fraud is even worse.

Yes a real person voted. But no they did not have any clue what they were doing when they did.

geraldwhen··on Kakizome: Japanese way of new-years resolution
Oof. The reading for names will always get me. Still worth knowing the name reading!

Google maps has it showing up in a bunch of business names, too.

geraldwhen··on Kakizome: Japanese way of new-years resolution
金子 is kinsu.

https://jisho.org/search/%E9%87%91%E5%AD%90

Kane is not a normal reading for 金 in compound words unless this is an esoteric word I haven’t seen.

geraldwhen··on I am rich and have no idea what to do
If you figure it out, pass it on to others. I haven’t been allowed to hire Americans in quite some time, and Covid destroyed any company support of an apprenticeship type setup.

The last time I was able to hire an American with a will to learn and an adjacent degree was over a decade ago.

geraldwhen··on Where is James Bond? Trapped in an ugly stalemate with Amazon
It ruined the suspension of disbelief immediately for me though. A rural village that doesn’t do constant international trade should have people living there that all look, speak, dress, and act similarly.

But the village looked like like an HR training video. To contrast, a new season of squid game just came out. Everyone is Korean. Everyone speaks Korean. Everyone looks Korean.

This makes the show feel more real.

geraldwhen··on Where is James Bond? Trapped in an ugly stalemate with Amazon
Wheel of time takes place in Brooklyn, in the Amazon cinematic universe though.
geraldwhen··on Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?
You haven’t lived until you’ve been assaulted by a homeless person on a bus in the US!

Buses are a joke. We cannot have public transit here without security to match, like at airports.

geraldwhen··on Xerox to acquire Lexmark
This may be devastating for the small city of Lexington, Kentucky. Seems like this was one of the only major businesses in the area.
geraldwhen··on Updates to H-1B
I haven’t hired an American in many years. It’s forbidden.
geraldwhen··on Updates to H-1B
I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then, I look forward to teaching H1B recipients to turn on a computer.
geraldwhen··on Parkinson's Law: It’s real, so use it
You can lead a horse to water, but that’s it.

And firing is politically impossible where I am. If someone chooses not to improve, or simply does not, there are no repercussions.

geraldwhen··on Parkinson's Law: It’s real, so use it
I’m saying among the X developers doing the work, the skill gap is so large that estimate must shift an order of magnitude.
geraldwhen··on Parkinson's Law: It’s real, so use it
Deadlines are hard to talk about when you have radically differently skilled developers.

Sure, it may take some on the team a half hour to do some work, but for others, it will take two weeks.

You hope that over time everyone improves, but that’s just not what happens in reality with bad eggs.

geraldwhen··on U.S. math scores drop on major international test
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2020/08/20/fa...

American immigrants are no longer white, overwhelmingly.

geraldwhen··on An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews
When I say for loop, I mean for loop. No tricks.

Declare a variable with any number type initialized to the value 0. I’ve seen candidates fail that, spend 30 minutes attempting to declare a variable in the LANGUAGE OF THEIR CHOICE.

geraldwhen··on My second year without a job
It’s funny you mention sailing. The couple people I know who grew up on a boat sailing like you describe no longer talk to their parents and long for a normal childhood they didn’t have.
geraldwhen··on An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews
Most applicants fake the take home problem or have someone else or ai do it for them.

You have to watch someone produce a compiling for loop to prove they’ve ever built software before. Fraud is rampant.

geraldwhen··on My second year without a job
Kids need structure and permanency. This is child abuse, and I know people who have done it. Their kids are a mess, and it breaks my heart.
geraldwhen··on ChatGPT Pro
You’ve got it backwards. AI can replace workers in these locales who do not outperform chat gpt.
geraldwhen··on The Porsche Macan EV is being recalled because its headlights are too bright
In the US the strobing lights are critical. A huge portion of drivers are looking straight down while they drive at their phone.
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