natoliniak

what is an "expat"? an immigrant? migrant? a special kind of immigrant? hm...

can you elaborate on the "rationing" part? I'm guessing you tied "socialist" and "rationing" together, but did you do it in the context of other developed economies (i.e most of Europe?)

it is. So is Voice of America, radio Havana and other cold war classics. Shortwave is not quite dead :)

As a Pole, Interslavic "feels" more natural and more intuitive for me. I wonder how other slavic speakers feel.

yep. I really like the system we have in Poland, where you have a full choice. You can live entirely cashless or cash only or hybrid. You can pay any utility bill with instant transfers using a few clicks or with cash by visiting any post office where they wire the money to the service provider on your behalf. Having options is always better than not having options and with our history of authoritarian governments who loved confiscating citizen's assets, I hope the current financial system stays as is.

a weather app or service that allows you to look at least one year-long time lapse of global satellite and radar loop. Most services that i looked into offer up to 12hrs, but not sure why.

Something like this, but up to date: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w3o6_cn-O8

Not a downside per se, but I wonder how, in the context of other engineering disciplines which are highly formalized, software engineering fits in. One of the typical arguments against the feasibility of formalizing and licensing software engineers as PEs (in the USA) is that the stuff we create "cannot kill anyone" unlike, for example, a civil engineer whose work is very structured and vetted.

Kudos, but is there a flip side of the coin, where the software you write can cost someone life (if you screw something up/introduce a bug)?

maybe a message posted to an obscure usenet forum in 1996, bouncing around different servers eventually somehow surviving in google's archive to be discovered by someone randomly wandering around google groups...

He/she is developing something similar to what you are exposing and is reverse engineering the behavior for quick solutions/shortcuts. Or is learning how form submissions work.

Not that i haven't done anything like that, ever :)

if you are running .Net, developers would utilize Entity Framework migrations to manage and source control all DB changes. Similarly, Alembic for the Python ecosystem. Treat the application of migration scripts as part of a regular prod deployment process, which is typically limited to a small group of ops staff.

> Well, unless Dow's local operations get seized

I think Lenin once said: The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.

yep.

wow! what an excellent commentary that stretches well beyond India - this is Silicon Valley level comedy :)

> Careful taking new work in, it will look bad to bring new things into the sprint and not finish

yep. Furthermore, there are many other perverse incentives that I noticed, but one stands out: the incentive not to take on risky or difficult stories out of fear that if it is not finished by the "committed" date (end of sprint), you will be tarred and shamed during the sprint review.

After about three 2 week sprints, my memory starts to rapidly decay about what I worked on or how I implemented something. It is a struggle for me, as my team is often called out by PMs about how certain functionality works under the hood and I have to retrace my steps.

it is unclear from the article what sites were censored in Poland and by whom (and i couldn't figure it out in the sourced paper). However, if in fact the Polish govt has censored any human rights websites, I feel like that should be bigger news there. AFAIK Poland only blocks access to certain gambling sites, which are publicly listed here: https://hazard.mf.gov.pl/

yes, but in many desirable areas a significant portion of buyers are cash only buyers whose monthly payment is $0 (other than property taxes).

Chrome has a built in Flash player. You just have to enable flash for that site (click on the flash icon). It worked for me. FF however requires a separate download of the runtime.

agreed. But there is also a more aggressive and hostile side of capitalism that is not necessarily consumer driven. As an example, Where I live (in Boston) 7-Eleven bought out and converted or simply closed pretty much all white hen pantry locations that they were competing with. 7-Eleven's quality, products, pricing and selection was far inferior and instead of competing, they simply threw money at the competition to dissapear. Nothing illegal or immoral with that, just that we are now stuck with a dirty 7-eleven in my neighborhood with no deli nor bakery. But plenty of lotto tickets and cigarettes.

Netflix (et al) are blacklisting some common VPN's IP ranges. If that fails, they use some DNS tricks to route the requests to your nearest geographical API and if there is a discrepancy between your IP's location and endpoint's location, they block the requests too. It is possible to overcome, but with some work.

I like the Polish "Milk Bars," however, they typically are subsidized by the govt (and as well they should be). The best part of the milk bars? The food is generally cooked in-house from scratch, using very few and basic ingredients, and thus no two milk bars serve the same flavor. I hope they stay around.

- allow flexibility to work from home

- those who like open office can sit together, but for the rest, provide a semi-isolated quiet/dark area to concentrate in and a whiteboard.

- plenty of conference rooms.

- if expecting to work with new tech/framework, allow reasonable time to learn during work hours. - allow time for documenting

- allocate time for fixing tech debt every sprint

- provide training on the product being built

- give good insight into product decisions

- if unexpected work has to be added mid-sprint, pull something else out!

- acknowledged that when someone worked all weekend to finish something that they get a bonus day off some other time

- keep process meetings to minimum

- when a developer brings up a security flaw, take him/her seriously

> It's really not a fun way to live.

this is exactly why I find UBI appealing. For those who are unable to work, it will provide minimum means not to fall into abject poverty, but it will still carry enough incentive to improve oneself, find meaningful work and be a net contributor.

From my observations, although much has been written about this subject as well. For example, Boston's South End (struggling and transient), Provincetown, Ma (cape cod) a forgotten blue collar village on the decline were all "discovered" by the gay culture and now, paradoxically, their gay character is threatened by big money moving in.

and (of course) lgbt.

In big cities, the sight of horses was not common at all and horses were actually banned in Warsaw (except for tourist carriages). Overall, the cities were fairly modern, but gray and in constant state of mild disrepair. On one hand most big cities had electrified suburban trains, trams and very extensive bus network, while on the other hand, small towns and villages operated steam locomotives and people commonly used horse carriages. Also, the country side was quite diverse. Most small village farms operated with 19th century technology, even into the 1990s (in a style that we would today call organic). However, the large collectivized govt owned farms were fully mechanized. Overall, it was quite a 2nd world experience - we had a bit of the 1st and a bit of the 3rd world all crammed into one!

yes, the constant Slack driven "stop and go" workflow is taking a toll on me. Furthermore, Agile which is supposed to protect the worker bees from the constant noise is failing to do that. Business needs always take precedence.

Check out Ave Maria, also in Florida. It is a mixed-zoning town build around a College and a Catholic cathedral, but unlike the Villages, it is actually quite age diverse. So, for those who are not bothered by the the religious aspect, it is seems very livable and I think will be successful.

"Why should we pay any of our hard earned money to the government so some drug addict can get their fix?" "Why should I pay for single mothers who made bad decisions?"

furthermore, taxpayers already foot the bill for these cases anyway since the government reimburses the hospitals, at least partially, for treating the uninsured. What the govt doesn't reimburse, the hospitals pass on to the insured customers (at this point it is hard to call them patients) in the form of higher costs.

another pro tip: compete only against weaker opponents (this is common in Boxing).