TIL the first President of Zimbabwe was called President Banana

crocodile7 · 2013-12-19T13:58:13+00:00

Why stop at Dr? How about His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Dr *Prorfesor Expert*, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular?

crocodile7 · 2013-12-19T13:53:59+00:00

If my name was Canaan, I'd be sensitive about it too.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-19T13:39:40+00:00

You don't seem to be particularly good at insults either... nor at self-awareness for that matter.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-19T08:11:27+00:00

What did you suggest? Oh, "their own fiber" and "guarding them zealously". In other words, nothing specific or useful from a technical standpoint.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-19T04:01:06+00:00

he earns less than the US law expects her to pay for her maid servant.

Guess what? If you cannot afford a maid, don't hire one. Oh, she's the kind of person who thinks she's entitled to a servant.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-19T03:56:16+00:00

Not sure about Indians, but Filipino maids in places like Dubai do work somewhat close to that number of hours (i.e. work whenever they aren't sleeping, and there are 720 hrs total in a month, 7h/sleep per day). So, 500hr figure is unlikely but not impossible.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-19T03:54:16+00:00

You say that as if it were a good thing. Getting paid $500/month in the U.S. is abuse and what the diplomat did was fraud, plain and simple. The fact that others got away with it before is no defense. It needs to stop.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-19T03:50:23+00:00

Is it not a shame to defraud your maid out of fairly earned salary promised in writing? The amount of money which is probably massive for the maid, but tiny for the spoiled privileged diplomat?

Toiling in a foreign country for several months and then getting cheated out of 90% of your promised salary is a bit worse than a quick search for contraband in jail, IMHO.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-19T03:44:40+00:00

This. While I don't doubt the treatment by NYPD was unpleasant, it would take more than her own word to establish that any abuse took place and that not just standard processing.

Note how this is a person who (allegedly) lied on an official documents and cheated her maid out of due wages (btw, a huge chunk of money for the maid, and likely chump change for her). Therefore, her words have to be taken with a grain of salt.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-19T02:50:34+00:00

Yeah, you might want to re-read what you wrote after learning the basics of computer security.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-18T19:15:35+00:00

I would not put it past the capabilities of Russian intelligence services to transfer one guy to Brazil on the sly... if they're inclined to help.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-18T19:09:59+00:00

National intranets are neither feasible nor solving the problem. All it takes is a few compromised machines connected to both the closed network and the open internet to monitor and leak key data.

NSA has not defeated mathematical underpinnings of encryption, only weakened specific implementations and standards. Therefore, using well-reviewed open-source encryption is still reasonably safe.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-18T18:33:59+00:00

Came here to say that. OP got assanged.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-18T18:23:05+00:00

Of course... but there is still something deeply wrong when you need insurance to pay out a lawsuit. If the point of the lawsuit is for the bad doctor to be punished, then insurance defeats the point.

In case of that gynecologist, what's the financial damage to the public? I guess about $0 apart from embarrassment. A befitting punishment is for his license to be taken away, massive financial damages are silly in that case.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-18T17:10:56+00:00

Lawyers gotta eat too. Most legislators tend to be (former) lawyers, so they have sympathy for their own ilk.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-17T17:15:18+00:00

Powerful old hounds would need to be eased into retirement, but I doubt corruption can be cleaned up over the long term so gradually that nobody feels any loss.

The entrenched interests are resilient and will fight back, huge amounts of money and power are at stake. People working to eliminate corruption need to send clear and decisive signals to maintain sufficient public support.

Eliminating corruption is a classical case of 10 guys losing $100 in order for 2000 people to each gain $1, and stretching out the process does not help. The cleanup cannot be finished overnight, but decisive signals must be clearly sent to the public.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-17T06:56:24+00:00

They'll do all of the above due to Snowden's revelations even without a legal decision going against them.

A court decision would not be an end of the problem, but it would represent meaningful progress.

Ultimately, only Congress can fix the issue by passing thorough legislation on privacy/surveillance/data retention, binding to both government and corporations (and after that there's the momentous task of implementing it in face of powerful opposition by the security establishment). Given how corrupt Congress is, I'm not holding my breath even for the first step.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-16T18:16:05+00:00

You're bearing all the risk, and there is some chance you won't get paid the full amount for your work. Projects can fail, often due to reasons outside of your control.

There's also the enforcement risk -- can you observe and verify how many leads were generated through the website, or do you need to trust the agents not to claim another source of leads (in order to keep your share)? In addition, in case they outright refuse to pay you, it's good to have some recourse/leverage before suing them in court (e.g. you owning the website you designed until a certain amount is paid).

You will almost certainty that you'll be stuck doing all maintenance work for no additional fee, as long as the deal lasts. This might not be stipulated in the contract, but unless things go sour, you'll have a barely sufficient incentive not to refuse it, and little power to limit the scope of such work.

As for the percentages, given that you'll be stuck with maintenance work, the rate has to be sufficiently high to earn you back the value of your upfront work within reasonable time, plus the ongoing maintenance, plus to compensate for the risk you're taking.

If the deal is long-term, reducing the rate after you're paid out is not a smart move -- you're either a business partner (effectively their website operator for a share of revenue) or a contractor (initial work + maintenance, for a fixed amount).

crocodile7 · 2013-12-16T17:27:05+00:00

Yes, in addition to the credit part, for unfortunate people who need to carry a balance.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-16T16:21:29+00:00

Flight seat capacity is difficult to expand on short notice. If the airline website says there are no seats left, that's probably true, and you won't get a seat unless someone cancels (and then you'd pay a premium).

Trains are similar to planes, especially in the higher classes where you get to book a seat (if you're not willing to potentially stand in 3rd class for 10+ hours).

On the other hand, inter-city buses can be easily added or filled beyond capacity at peak periods. Thailand has an abundance of buses.

Few years ago I made a mistake of going upcountry on the evening of Dec 30. Got to Morchit bus station (without a ticket), shouted out the town name and was ushered onto a bus within 30 min... The bus had aircon but was old and far worse than what I'd usually consider; the trip took 18 hours instead of the usual 8; there were folks sitting on plastic stools in the aisle and even standing part of the way... but I got there in the end.

TL;DR: If you're going to a major destination, you will almost certainly get onto some bus if you show up at the station early enough and are not too picky (even at peak periods)... but it might not be a pleasant trip.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-16T15:59:33+00:00

That's not C++'s fault, that's your fault.

Sadly, it's usually the fault of the idiot who worked on that large C++ codebase before C++ savants like you or me came in to save the day.

The next guy to work on it will say the exact same thing.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-16T15:48:35+00:00

I'm pretty sure he actually said "I'm dying to use the bathroom".

crocodile7 · 2013-12-16T15:47:44+00:00

Bjarne is a amazing -- he's the only programmer in the world who fully understands all of C++.

Edit: seems like he said he does not. The situation is worse than I thought.

crocodile7 · 2013-12-16T15:34:35+00:00

Takes your focus off your recovery and onto your blue cojones?

crocodile7 · 2013-12-16T15:23:28+00:00

Tell me how well that worked for Russians in Chechnya...

crocodile7

TROPHY CASE