Replacing hamsters with mutant squirrels on the server farms?! Oh, my.

My last corporate droid job ended with the Fortune 500 CEO giving himself a 66% raise and laid off 10% of the workforce for having a lousy fiscal year. I guess he needed a new yacht more than I needed to pay my more mundane bills. Eight months and 60+ job interviews later, I'm working for the federal government. Oy!

The problem with standardized testing is that teachers are rote teaching the material that is relevant only to the test. Creativity and curiosity are pushed aside, preventing children from loving to learn. If children don't love learning, they won't enjoy learning new things as an adult. We live in a society where you can never stop learning.

As a computer technician, I run into too many technical people who hate learning new things even though they are in a field where learning new things is mandatory. These people become stagnated in their careers because of their unwillingness to learn new things. They will do the bare minimum to squeak through life. I can blame the current education system for squeezing creativity and curiosity out of these people at the alter of standardized testing.

Children used to have a childhood. If they're not busting their guts for standardized testing, they're being recruited for technology companies. Parents can do only so much about standardized testing, but they can push back against recruiters storming the school gate for future employees. If technology companies want these kids so badly, they can wait until the senior year of high school to host job fairs and scholarships.

Why didn't this happened ten years ago when I went back to school to learn computer programming?

Like many community colleges back then, mine couldn't afford the Microsoft site license to get Visual Studio to teach C++. All the programming classes had Java, Java and Java. I learned a little bit of C/C++ and shell scripting in the Linux classes that I took. The assembly language and PERL classes got cancelled for a lack of students.

By the time I graduated from school, Java programmers were like a dime a dozen and I couldn't get a programming job. A recruiter recently reassured me that Python is a good programming language to learn. Alas, I have to wonder if Python is becoming the new Java and community colleges are pumping out Python programmers like a dime a dozen.

I'm still running Photoshop CS3 and a few other Mac-specific applications on the MacBook. When I get new Mac hardware later this year, I'll move the programs over. I'm planning to retire the MacBook as a console terminal for my Cisco certification rack. Maybe I'll install Fedora then.

Apple also dropped 32-bit support. My vintage 2006 Black MacBook is forever stuck on Snow Leopard. O_o

Interesting article on the details of what he's charged with here, with screenshots of the operation he stands accused of running.

While the details of the arrest are still hazy, one thing is clear - they've had this guy in their sights since 2011. It's not surprising that they issued a sealed indictment for him, mind you, that's not particularly unusual for a case like this where the subject is unlikely to be extradited and would avoid your jurisdiction if the indictment was public (nor is the US in any way unique in this regard). And since I've seen others commenting about this: yes, the Secret Service is the correct body to have jurisdiction over this, as they (strangely) are in charge of enforcement against financial crimes. Back in the early days of commercially available inkjet printers, the nerdy high school/college program I went to (TAMS) once got a visit from the secret service when one of the students figured out that he could print good enough replica dollar bills on one to fool the scanner on the drink machine in the lounge. The total volume of the forgery had to be tiny, I'd be surprised if it was more than $100, but still, if you feel like getting involved in financial crime, expect the Secret Service to be looking out for you. ;)

The scandal here would be if this was an extrajudicial "kidnapping" in the Maldives, with the US swooping up in a van, grabbing the guy, and jetting him off to Guam to use as a bargaining chip, as has been alleged by the guy's MP father. I seriously doubt all that, but we'll see where the truth lies.

TFA says he was arrested in Guam (a US territory). The "kidnapped in the Maldives" thing seems to be coming from the Russian media, which isn't exactly the most trustworthy source on the planet (but at least it's a lot better than North Korea! ;) )

Russia (148th) might have been lower in the index had it not been for the stubbornness and resistance shown by its civil society. But the authorities keep on intensifying the crackdown begun when Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012 and are exporting their model throughout the former Soviet Union. From Ukraine (127th, unchanged) and Azerbaijan (160th, -3) to Central Asia, Russia’s repressive legislation and communications surveillance methods are happily copied. Moscow also uses UN bodies and regional alliances such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in its efforts to undermine international standards on freedom of information.

Criticism of the regime is common since the major demonstrations of 2011 and 2012 but media selfcensorship is far from disappearing. The federal TV stations continue to be controlled and, in response to the “return of politics in Russia,” the authorities have chose repression. Ever since Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin in May 2012, more and more draconian laws have been adopted. Activists, news media and bloggers have all been targeted. Defamation has been criminalized again, websites are being blacklisted and the range of activities that can be construed as “high treason” is now much broader. “Traditional values” are used to justify new restrictions on freedom of information, including the criminalization of “homosexual propaganda” and “insulting the feelings of believers.”

Not like the US is a bed of roses - its #46 standing puts it below countries like Botswana and Papua New Guinea, only one place above Haiti. But compared to Russia....

There wouldn't be so many injuries if such a large chunk of the people setting them off weren't drunk ;)

If there's was any country with that special combination of whale-hunting and pyromania to do it, it'd be Iceland ;)

??? I don't see that all. The links are just google image searches on "reykjavík fireworks", "brenna gamlárskvöldið", and "jóðhátíð í eyjum". Oh, hmm.... I'm betting that because I'm searching from Iceland I get differently biased results. I know that my regular google searches at least bias towards Icelandic sites. Okay, well, basically picture this for an hour while several dozen of these are ongoing, or summer festivals like this.

We kinda like fire.

Hmm, interesting, they actually limit how many can be shot off?

Yes, your description of size, wind, etc are accurate. Also it's a rather moist climate, not much fire risk. And most buildings are concrete. And the city is half surrounded by ocean. And since the money goes to support the rescue services, the incentive is to encourage people to shoot off as many as possible, rather than the other way around.

Whoops, included the wrong link for the "The whole city looks like this" part - it was supposed to be this link. The first one is a link to just a small festival display.

What's the actual price there?

I think a lot of people spend so much here because the profits go to the rescue services. Also, I guess since we have no military we've got to blow something up ;)