Remote: Only
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: DevOps / Network Engineer / Systems Engineering
- 25+ years of Linux / OSS everything
- AWS, Terraform, Vagrant, Ansible
- ELK, Graylog, syslog-ng
- Jenkins, Groovy, Nexus
- RabbitMQ, CouchDB, etcd, Consul
Résumé/CV: On Request
Email: jeffszarka@gmail.com
Long time network engineer turned DevOps now somewhere in-between the two which I believe itself is a valuable combination of skills. As a Linux/OSS enthusiast since the 1990s I've evangelized and implemented OSS solutions professionally for over 25+ years. I feel confident in taking on pretty much any role that benefits from having an intersectional knowledge of Linux/OSS, networking and modern DevOps/Infrastructure.
If this becomes a common thing in the US I'd be worried about stoking the flames of class warfare between white collar and blue collar workers. Many of those blue collar jobs (public facing especially) cannot be compressed into a 4 day work week. Lots of blue collar workers are already furious about things like working from home, 'email jobs', flexible schedules, etc. On top of that many white collar workers already enjoy an unofficial 4 day work week with offices being ghost towns on Friday afternoons. So are we talking about realistically a 3 day work week with an extra 'will respond to e-mail emergencies' on the 4th day?
I worked in the cable industry for over a decade. All the worst things you can dream up about these companies are true. At the highest level of the companies phrases like 'what are they gonna do switch to dsl' and 'they can move if they don't like it' were common.
Good riddance. In the subsequent 30 years since I learned cursive in the 5th grade I can only think of a handful of times it has been relevant in my life. Even having learned this useless arcane skill it doesn't solve the problem that a lot of the cursive you encounter in the real world is completely illegible. Even in terms of hand written note taking it's not leaps and bounds better than a fast sloppy efficient style of writing print.
The thing with these headsets that I think is overlooked is they are gonna have to compete with huge relatively inexpensive high quality TVs. Obviously they are. providing different experiences but let's not discount just how good a big ass TV is at providing its own type of immersive entertainment experience. So at least for recreational uses I think most people would rather spend the money on the biggest best TV they can possibly get and skip the expensive headsets or at least buy cheaper models for limited novelty use.
We desperately need something like this to happen before it's too late. We are dangerously close to a total corporate stranglehold on digital free speech. The current generation of kids coming to age are growing up in a world where they don't even know a time when you could say whatever the hell you wanted to online. If we don't save digital free speech now it's gonna be lost forever.
Are we maybe overthinking this? I always thought it was most likely just an instinct to make themselves a comfortable bed. The same way a human would clear rocks, sticks, or otherwise steer clear of uncomfortable things on the ground.
I got chased off Reddit by a cabal of power hungry woke mods stalking me. I'm going to be celebrating when Reddit becomes the next Digg. They did it to themselves and deserve everything that's coming to them.
Utilizing an infinite amount of computing resources is probably always going to be an inherently difficult thing. It's a task made more difficult by all he snake oil salesman promising perfect easy solutions. The only workable solution is to find out what works for everyone else and, even if it doesn't fit your needs perfectly, figure out how to make it work for you. Never underestimate the power of strength in numbers. If the entire industry is utilizing a technology or paradigm you can either get on board or get left behind.
The amount of micro-stuttering, scroll lag, input lag, etc of modern software is at the level where in the past you would have assumed your computer was broken if it performed this way.
I don't want to rain on anyone's parade but there is a dark side to collecting that isn't immediately apparent to people. It involves a lot of virtue signaling and snobbery. I've seen so many music forums online ruined by people bickering over releases or resenting each other because they can't afford the same collations as other people. In my experience almost all collecting communities or discussions end up turning toxic. My advice would be if you enjoy collecting something DO NOT get involved in the communities surrounding it. Do it for yourself not the strangers online who will go out of their way to make you feel like whatever you have is lesser than them.
I did network engineering for a gaming company that was having random UDP problems between their game servers and clients. In my first 10 minute conversation with them about the problem I told them it was probably due the client's router most likely Belkin or NetGear. They did't believe me or didn't want to tell customers it was their problem. Two years worth of investigation, troubleshooting, countless man hours, over $100,000 spent in new datacenter hardware and I found out months after I left they identified the problem was one popular model of NetGear router.
One of my greatest thrift store finds ever was banker boxes full of unused vintage (80s?) grid paper engineering/architectural design notebooks and sealed packages of sheet grid paper including legal paper sized sheets. At my current burn rate they should last me until retirement.
When I first got in the Internet back in the 90s I thought warez was pronounced like Juarez the town in Mexico. To this very day when I see the word that's what it sounds like in my mind.
From what I remember neutrality was poorly explained to the public by people with in a somewhat deceptive way trying to slam dunk sell the issue. So the average person ended up thinking they were opposing unrelated things like vanilla peering agreements or even residential bandwidth caps. Many totally misunderstood the real issue and promptly looked like fools when they tried to talk about it. Perhaps this was all done on purpose to poison-pill the issue right out of the gate. Taking a page out of the CIA/FBI's playbooks.
Apple's history of limiting screen size options for lower cost/performance computers has always annoyed the hell out of me. Needing a larger display and form factor portable is an ergonomics issue not a performance or profit margin issue. They can charge a premium for a larger display of course but coupling it only with other high cost options makes it inaccessible to people. This is a case where Apple's pursuit of high profit margins truly does hurt users causing physical pain, discomfort and maybe even injuries. Most people I see using 13.3 displays are often hunched over squinting at them.
After spilling an entire Monster energy drink onto my new M1 MacBook Air I had to revert back to using my old MacBook Pro from 2012 for a while. Although it was mostly usable I was surprised how bad it was for web browsing. Very laggy scrolling, resizing, delayed keyboard input, pages constantly force reloading, etc. Though once my expectations were lowered I was able to adapt to it. When using a slower computer you just have to be more deliberate and thoughtfu to minimize unnecessary performance impacting actions. Overall it was good enough that I didn't rush out to fix or replace my broken computer for several months.
Not programming but looking at the trends in DevOps and similar roles I don't see much of a future for it when a minimally technically literate person will be able to run AI based tools to solve complex/unique problems in the near future. There's always been a lot of knowledge churn in this profession but now it's hard to be motivated to learn the latest trendy thing when it's almost certainly going to be hidden under numerous layers of abstractions soon.
Using Gentoo as my primary desktop OS back in the mid-2000s taught me incredibly valuable problem solving skills. The lack of any safety net allowed me to break stuff in such unique ways I usually couldn't simply Google a quick fix. The only solution was digging into the details yourself and finding creative solutions.
> But a grocery store? What's difficult about that? Just convert a house.
The difficultly is making the typical residential dwelling compliant comply with existing regulations like the Americans with Disabilities act and complying with things like commercial insurance policy requirements.
Gas stations and corner stores also tend to have the highest prices. Climate change policy advocates are doing a real disservice to their cause by not being honest with people about the sacrifices/hardships these polices will cause in the short term. Deception is not a viable long term political strategy.
If you create something so great that demand is off the charts chances are your users will stick around long enough for you to fix your scalability problems.
I live near this area and am very familiar with the exact DD location in question. Obviously arresting the parents was a huge overreaction but the one thing I will say in defense of the police is the roads in this area are not pedestrian friendly at all. Portions of the road in question are 4 lanes including highway on/off ramps and dozens of businesses driveways and parking lots. Sections of the road have sidewalks that abruptly end and turn into guardrails forcing people to walk on the shoulder 1ft away from traffic moving at 45-60mph. I rarely see people walking these roads and as a result drivers are certainly less likely to be watching out for pedestrians. If I had kid I would not let them walk these roads. I would be on very high alert walking them myself as an adult.
I doubt there would be many restaurants left if you get rid of the trucks delivering the food / picking up the trash and the Ubers dropping patrons off.
I don't use text-to-speech because the physical act of typing on a keyboard itself is integrated into my thought process. Possibly because waiting on my fingers to input text helps me pace and organize my thoughts. Sounds kind of weird but I can almost feel the quality of writing via the physical tactile experience of using a keyboard. When I'm not confident or clear in my thought process there is a slight hesitation inputing text. When I know exactly what I want to say it's an effortless flurry of keystrokes that feels right.
In a strange turn of events I think you might have a better shot at a cohesive experience on a carefully curated Linux desktop these days than macOS. Even Apple's first party apps are now a mix mash of different UI styles. Once you start installing third party apps you get something that looks more like a Linux desktop from 15 years ago than the glory days of OSX.
Someone started an AM radio station in my small town which has managed to survive for 7+ years now so there must be a workable business model there. They focus on hyper-local news & sports coverage that you just can't get anywhere else. The really clever thing they did was to use the launch of the radio station and broadcast location downtown as advertisement for their streaming app. They got a lot of local news coverage and public interest simply by doing something unusual like starting a new AM radio station in a tiny town. They still do AM but I believe the vast majority of their listeners stream. Super clever because someone like my Dad would never know a streaming station existed but he knows they exist because he can drive by the studio and see them broadcasting through the window.