[Reposting without mojibake.]

I was a CS professor for fifteen years. Had tenure and everything. I've just completed my third week as a Principal Applied Scientist at Amazon, working from HQ2.

But I wouldn't say I was "poached": that implies impropriety and a lack of agency. I didn't just passively get shot in the head by a poacher/recruiter while grazing peacefully in the savanna. I interviewed, they made me an offer, and I decided it was the right next thing for me. That decision was complex, personal, and *active*. Lucky me that I work in a field (CS) with many great options in both industry and academia.

I was at the University of Wisconsin--Madison, not in Virginia. But I'm not sure why Virginia is special here. Virginia may have promised some number of CS graduates, but any big company recruits all across the country and globe. I don't know how much of the promise of a fresh HQ2 talent pool is specifically Virginia's to provide.

In any case, I'll no longer be training future software engineers and scientists for Amazon to hire. Maybe that's a loss, because after fifteen years I'd gotten reasonably good at that. Now I'm learning how to be good at some other new things, because that's what *I* chose to do. So far, so good.

I was a CS professor for fifteen years. Had tenure and everything. Iâ(TM)ve just completed my third week as a Principal Applied Scientist at Amazon, working from HQ2.

But I wouldnâ(TM)t say I was âoepoachedâ: that implies impropriety and a lack of agency. I didnâ(TM)t just passively get shot in the head by a poacher/recruiter while grazing peacefully in the savanna. I interviewed, they made me an offer, and I decided it was the right next thing for me. That decision was complex, personal, and *active*. Lucky me that I work in a field (CS) with many great options in both industry and academia.

I was at the University of Wisconsin--Madison, not in Virginia. But Iâ(TM)m not sure why Virginia is special here. Virginia may have promised some number of CS graduates, but any big company recruits all across the country and globe. I donâ(TM)t know how much of the promise of a fresh HQ2 talent pool is specifically Virginiaâ(TM)s to provide.

In any case, Iâ(TM)ll no longer be training future software engineers and scientists for Amazon to hire. Maybe thatâ(TM)s a loss, because after fifteen years Iâ(TM)d gotten reasonably good at that. Now Iâ(TM)m learning how to be good at some other new things, because thatâ(TM)s what *I* chose to do. So far, so good.

Yes but when it lands?

Landlords can and do rent to you at less than his mortgage cost on the same property - it's quite common. The landlord is happy to eat the (probably small) loss per month in the hope of a nice capital appreciation. In other words the potential sale price of the property goes up enough per month that it makes the landlord cool with the gap between your rental payment and his mortgage payment. Of course the landlord would ideally prefer not have that gap but rents are extremely market-sensitive.

This practice is IMO quite mad but it works so long as property prices keep going up, as they currently are in many areas. As soon as they start to decline (areas such as London right now) the wheels very quickly fall off this dopey business model.

People who like tea don't use tea bags

This is outdated information; it was true 50 years ago but no longer. You can still just about buy loose tea but a trip to any supermarket will show you dozens of different brands of teabags. I am talking about regular people drinking tea in their offices not the occasionally-encountered specialist tea snob.

Letsencrypt sounded great but broke on installation for me. Broke (differently) for a work colleague also. When your product majors on ease of use then this is not good, not good at all. OK it's free, thank you, but especially as it rather bizarrely wants unusually frequent cert renewal why take the risk of it eating all your support time?

The A4 Bath Road runs alongside one of the runways at Heathrow and is basically a strip of airport hotels. Whenever staying in one of the hotels I liked to stand at the front entrance and watch Concorde take off. Absolutely impressive and I would agree it is several times louder than anything else leaving Heathrow. I also live under what was the flightpath a few minutes flight time from LHR, that was pretty loud also.

Remember the last time an Austrian tried to dictate policy globally?

You mean when Max Schrems got Safe Harbor overturned? I sure do!

So she was in an aquarium alone and separated from her "long-term mate". Sounds pretty evil to me. These places need to be closed down.

No problem here is your link. That particular situation is now resolved but would you like to bet your life that there are no more hidden things like this? https://www.theguardian.com/uk...

What if you wear fixed-focal eyeglasses for driving? These will allow you to see the road just fine whether directly or through a mirror. You cannot see a video screen however unless you remove the glasses (and in my case put on a different pair.) Varifocal or bi-focal would fix this but they are not cheap.

How about genocide all the sims and delete everything, then repurpose the hardware as a bitcoin miner.

>Do you believe rehabilitation is impossible or do you want revenge?

I don't believe that someone who commits mass murder can be rehabilitated, no. It isn't about revenge; it's about public safety.

Someone once pointed out that hoping a rapist gets raped in prison isn't a victory for his victim(s), because it somehow gives him what he had coming to him, but it's actually a victory for rape and violence. I wish I could remember who said that, because they are right. The score doesn't go Rapist: 1 World: 1. It goes Rape: 2.

What this man did is unspeakable, and he absolutely deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. If he needs to be kept away from other prisoners as a safety issue, there are ways to do that without keeping him in solitary confinement, which has been shown conclusively to be profoundly cruel and harmful.

Putting him in solitary confinement, as a punitive measure, is not a victory for the good people in the world. It's a victory for inhumane treatment of human beings. This ruling is, in my opinion, very good and very strong for human rights, *precisely* because it was brought by such a despicable and horrible person. It affirms that all of us have basic human rights, even the absolute worst of us on this planet.

I have the entry-level Pebble, the price of which has by now dropped to spare-change levels. It does most things that the Apple Watch does, except no heart rate monitor. It's fine for notifications, fitness monitoring, sleep tracking, and so on.

I never lusted after any kind of smartwatch but tried one out because it was cheap enough to experiment with. My verdict: get one, you will find a use for it. A bit like a second monitor for my PC - at first I thought it was a waste of money but now I would not give it up.

Most useful practical applications for smartwatch are (1.) Being able to look at notifications in meetings where pulling out your phone is frowned on but you can get away with looking at your watch (2.) Turn-by-turn navigation when walking through an unfamiliar city in the rain.