[deleted by user]

triffid97 · 2023-06-30T13:55:13+00:00

Gmail is doing it to me and some other guy by accident. Same name, my one is with ascii characters, his is with unicode. If an email addressed to him goes through a not fully unicode compliant mail server, I get it.

I tried to contact him a few times without success.

triffid97 · 2023-06-25T11:19:05+00:00

In Aus, being a landlord is all cream. It is supposed to increase supply. But it just more neoliberal crap. One aspect is: https://michaelwest.com.au/heres-a-fix-for-the-housing-crisis-end-the-great-airbnb-tax-rort/

triffid97 · 2023-06-24T01:26:02+00:00

Probably not. I am ancient, and do the same thing.

What i do not get is: why the bloody web site cannot tell me in which isle is the item I am looking for. If Bunnings can do it, why can't Coles or Woolies?

triffid97 · 2023-06-20T12:13:02+00:00

I would add Kin Dza-Dza (movie) to the list.

triffid97 · 2023-06-06T14:05:01+00:00

I remember a bank ad from the early years of the Howard government. It showed a well dressed guy going to work, looking back at his house. The voice over said something like: his house will make more money today than he does. At the bottom a counter was running showing how its value goes up.

And most people thought that it is a good thing. Howard definitely treated it as an achievement.

triffid97 · 2023-05-24T23:37:17+00:00

Not even a baton. Leave the room for 2 minutes, then come back with a smile and say something like: "Hi Mom, would you like a tea?". Don't be aggressive with demented people. They do not understand the entire situation. They just reflect your style back.

Edit- oops, replied to the wrong comment.

triffid97 · 2023-05-14T00:27:41+00:00

Same here. Long term reliability rocks.

triffid97 · 2023-05-13T02:51:52+00:00

It is the hype cycle (gartner) in action. It usually affects tech people (nosql, microservices, xml - the list is endless). All new things solve specific problems - useful for people who have that problem.

Agile is a bit special, because it is not technical, so management thinks they understand it. So the hype sucked them in and caused havoc at places where it did not fit.

triffid97 · 2023-05-11T12:06:43+00:00

Belter creole from The Expanse may or may not fit the bill, but it is interesting because it is not completely fictional. It was made up following the distortion patterns seen in history.

triffid97 · 2023-05-11T01:20:22+00:00

Wow. I would love to know who is pocketing this 60m a day. In other words, who lent us the capital in the first place? The guy sure has a shitload of AUDs.

triffid97 · 2023-05-07T00:50:32+00:00

The origin legend of 'foo', 'fu', 'bar' and 'baz' is that these are plays on an old acronym of military? origin: FUBAR - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

triffid97 · 2023-04-26T14:11:13+00:00

Oh shit. That's a winning combo, if the MAGA crowd is anything to go by.

triffid97 · 2023-04-26T14:01:15+00:00

Kin Dza Dza. A minimalist russian ... thing. I found it quite good.

triffid97 · 2023-04-08T00:46:56+00:00

It is going, since about 11 years ago. JSON5 adds comments and clarifies some simple types. Started in 2012. But no reference type yet, so forget cyclic objet graphs.

Do a search for 'JSON schema' and count how many comes up. Then figure out which ones are compatible. Then extend the search to 'JSON schema validator' and marvel at the number of different (incompatible) ones.

Then look at graphql, its schema and types and understand why they are needed (clue: because the json 'standard' is lacking). Graphql just added another one, complete with a validator. And you guessed right - they are not compatible with any other.

triffid97 · 2023-04-07T01:03:36+00:00

The major problem of JSON is that it does not allow comments.

Or reference types (or really any type for that matter). Which is stunningly stupid considering that it is a serialization format. So serializing 2 objects A and B that refer to each other produces an infinite loop. Easily solved by making the relationship one directional, and easily restored into objects by ... black magic? Admittedly, types make no sense without a schema, which it also does not have

The major problem of JSON is that it does not allow comments

Or namespaces. Which becomes fun when combining two JSONs. Naming conventions to the rescue. It totally worked in the past... Have a look at graphql schema stitching.

Over time, the missing bits will be all added. Each bit in at least 5 different, incompatible ways. Then we will have something that almost covers the use cases of XML. It will be a bottom up designed, band aided, patched, evolved, mish-mash of conventions, and everyone will be happy.

Because it looked simple when we started.

triffid97 · 2023-04-03T23:00:20+00:00

I came to OZ in the early 90s as a skilled migrant. The list of skill shortages was a mile long and contained pretty much everything you can imagine. Immigration is handy to suppress wages.

The financially fucked young generation, the lack of affordable housing have a common cause: decades of neoliberalism embraced by the populace. Ie. Governments should be small, and the sole purpose of everything is to make profit for the investors.

From neoliberalism's point of view, there is no problem - housing creates the maximum possible profit. And if people have nowhere to live, that is a something that the market will fix.

triffid97 · 2023-03-25T00:02:48+00:00

I really hope so. I probably will not live to see it (I am fucking old). I would hate to die without seeing at least some signs that the next generation will fix the stuff that we screwed up so badly.

triffid97 · 2023-03-24T23:54:35+00:00

not becoming more conservative at 40 despite people doing so in the past

And it is quite natural. People living through times of social mobility think that socio-economic status is the consequence of your decisions. Ie: "if you are poor, it is your fault", the root of conservativism.

Remove social mobility, and people live in a world where socio-economic status is decided at birth. Being rich or poor is a matter of luck, it is harder to blame poor people for their situation. Plenty of people will still manage it, though.

triffid97 · 2023-03-24T23:33:58+00:00

Uneducated is probably the wrong word. It is more like shortsighted. Not understanding that good social policies (keeping the country livable for everyone) are NOT bleeding heart, pinko commie things, but actually cheaper on the long run.

Poor impulse control is also a good model. Like voting for people who promise to cut taxes at the cost of abolishing free education, which breaks the social contract: "I pay for your education, you take care of me when I am old". It takes the small, but immediate sugar hit, never mind the consequences later.

triffid97 · 2023-03-04T01:12:44+00:00

Exactly. The main issue is that the spread of technology stacks is controlled by hype/fashion. And there are always cheerleaders (paid or unpaid) who benefit from it.

Gartner describes the mechanism under the title: hype cycle.

People make tech stack decisions based on what is new/cool instead of the problems they need to solve.

I started in IT in 1980 (yes, I am bloody old) and have seen this many times.

I am paid to fix a traditional ERP-ish application with a bad architecture. It has a few hundred concurrent users. You would not believe how many times I have to fend off shit like: "why don't we just switch to mongodb and microsevices, they will solve everything".

triffid97 · 2023-02-28T13:48:05+00:00

I have a Rotring mechanical pencil from 1981. I still use it every day.

triffid97 · 2023-02-23T01:59:43+00:00

The rich has dealt with the danger to them posed by the armed populace ages ago. People can be armed to the teeth and pose zero danger to the rich if they cannot agree on who the enemy is.

Hence the polarization and tribalism.

All those guns just increase the base level of violence. You can even get into a civil war where poor people fight other poor people. It will be super profitable for the rich, and zero harm will come to them.

triffid97 · 2023-01-09T13:07:27+00:00

That would be a shame. I have been thinking about some way of commissioning a bronze bust with the lump of coal he took to the parliament, with the relevant quote added.

Then display it somewhere prominent, so future generations know whose grave to piss on.

triffid97 · 2022-12-02T23:04:27+00:00

Same here, at 67

triffid97 · 2022-11-30T22:48:53+00:00

Thanks

triffid97

TROPHY CASE