I remember XP days when our Conference rooms had a moratorium on the day after Patch Tuesday. Something was always broken. If someone really really needed to have a meeting on "Dead computer Wednesday" , I had a special computer that was isolated from Patch Tuesday. IT didn't want to do that, but I told them they had a choice. Let me have that computer, or I'd have them come up and fix the one in the conference room. They were deathly afraid of Mahogany Row.

Hold on a second Tony. You used a security flaw in Linux as proof it was as insecure as Windows. Now you say it isn't a large enough share to care about.

Which is it - dnd why haven't this equally insecure OS been exploited with Apache servers, or Chrome, or Android, or Mac.

Once you have all of the Unix and Unix variants, the bad guys would be fools not to exploit that - especially since the meme is that Mac Users are stupid. I know a little bit about Linux and Unix, and they strike me as more secure in general. What is it in the OS that makes them equally vulnerable? Keeping in mind that there is no such thing as a totally secure OS.

I love how people defend Windows by pointing out a flaw in Linux as proof.

Sir, there is no such thing as a completely secure Operating system. But Is the plethora of Windows exploits because it is more secure?

Finally, I don't care - I prefer to use an OS with less exploits because I'm ore about fewer exploits, not the most "popular" OS. I want to get work done.

I agree in principle, but there are other issues at play, at least in my personal approach. Some are a personal issue, some are an organizational. issue.

I attempted to mentor people, Accounting said it didn't have the overhead. My supervisor didn't fight that. Even after I was called back as an emergency hire - seems the idea was just for me to carry on and magic would happen.

I'm considered a perfectionist - being considered perfectionist has become a negative trait in the mid 2020's. Frankly, I find that not impressive. I get an endorphin buzz when doing excellent work and on time. But let's just assume it is a personality flaw.

I'm competitive and driven. Also considered a flaw in the mid 2020's.

What is worse, my analysis of those who believe it is a flaw may be correct, but I know a lot of people who hide behind that as a covert expression of their inadequacies. But whatever let's just say a lot of people believe that success is doing as little as possible

Another thing is that I will not lower my standards. So I retired from there. All isn't bad though - My new position pays a lot more, I'm highly respected, and the perks are great. A lotta swag, an office with floor to ceiling glass and a million dollar view, all high quality meals, all part of the compensation package.

Complete 24/7 tracking of you as an individual. They have to have a unique identifier for you and it has to be stored somewhere for this to work.

And we are just letting it happen because why the fuck not? Any politicians it's going to oppose this is also not going to play into our love of moral panics and knee-jerk reactions. Making them completely non-viable.

I can't tell if this is parody or not.

Are they?

This century Russia has engaged in a offensive wars against Ukraine and Georgia, put down a couple of internal rebellions and fucked around intervening in five or six conflicts in their neighbourhood and Africa.

Iran has maintained a few proxy militia groups to counter Israel.

China has... done nothing. Specifically refused to engage in any international military action. Not since Vietnam, actually.

Wikipedia's list of wars involving the US is split into multiple pages, despite the US only existing for a few hundred years. The one for 2001 to present is long, I'm not going to count them. Some of them are anti-pirate operations, mostly legal anti-terrorist actions and a UN sanctioned international actions. There are also some illegal offensive wars, a couple of them massive. Betrayal of allies, torture, lots of war crimes.

Domestically, yeah, the US is a better place to live than Iran, especially if you're a woman, although the US is working hard to change that. Probably better than China or Russia too depending on what you value. Internationally none of them hold a candle to the US of A.

To be fair, this is an example of the CIA on good behaviour. No ACTUAL assassinations, probably, not a whiff of torture, not a single government overthrown.

Apple wouldn't exist today if it were not for Jobs.

Apple wouldn't exist at all without both of them.

Arrogant childish gotta-rank-everything-and-everyone assumes they should have been ranked separately instead of together. They both own #1 as co-founders and the ones who planted both the technical and marketing seeds that grew it into the massive empire today.

If you give Windows 11 less than 16 GB you might as well not bother booting it. It is painfully slow and that's why you're not seeing 8 GB Windows laptops even though apple is out there selling in 8 GB laptop that's threatening the entire industry.

And honestly you really really want 32 GB for Windows 11 and 64 GB wouldn't hurt. It's one of the reasons the Damned ram crisis is so bad. Microsoft guzzles RAM for their slop generators and monitoring software. As a consumer if you're stuck running Windows you have to pay for all that in CPU cycles and RAM.

Look on the shitty side.

Microsoft in response could fire up an American memory manufacturing plant.

That does nothing but soldered-on Microsoft-licensed WinMemory for exclusive use on Microsoft systems.

Don't worry. The Microsoft desktop tax in your corporate paycheck will be small at first.

Sure. I was offered a position around DC, as a "Beltway Bandit". Would have made a significant increase in pay. But doing the research showed CoL was way higher, and fighting with traffic, horrifying, less access to the natural world, and in the end, I would be making less money after all expenses. Plus my wife was a VP at her place of work. So it really wasn't all that hard a decision to say "No thanks" - turned out to be the right decision in the end as well.

When I was invited to sign up, They actually asked for my email password. That was some years ago, but that only violated every ToS I ever heard of.

I was never asked about how much I used to make. It was always pretty simple. I'd ask them to make an offer, if interested in me, then respond as needed. If someone mad an insulting offer, I'd just say no thank you. If it was in the ballpark I'd then ask for what I believe would be acceptable. Places would usually accommodate to what I wanted.

Know your worth, people. And if someone tries to lowball you, just thank them for their time, and scoot.

Yup, I was not allowed to ask female candidates anything about family or children. I could get fired if I did.

There were a number of women I interviewed who were aware of this issue, and at some point, they would say something like "I know you aren't allowed to ask, or even react, but I am not having any more children, and will not have my family interfere with my work."

And for a lot of positions, like Team Lead, it is really important to have some idea about family matters, like are we going to have multiple team leads so that the woman can have children and take leave?

Point is, not being allowed to ask questions like that, while on the surface is protecting some sort of privacy, it also makes for a decision process that might favor male candidates in more critical positions.

I've never been in a position where I could take large swaths of time off. Some positions are like that. Even for accidents. Day after I got out of the Hospital for a broken ankle I got calls to come in. I told them I could come in the next day, but they had to understand I was quite drugged up, that I had on a bloody cast that I had to keep elevated.

Hell, the wife intercepted a call from them trying to get me to come in the day of my ankle operation. She's a professional too, but wouldn't tell me until a couple weeks later. She wasn't at all happy. note, that ended up being quite a kerfuffle. Wife was so pissed she was swearing at me, people at work were pissed, mostly at who asked me to come into work - but a little at me as well. One of our photographers grabbed a picture of me in shorts and T-shirt with my cast propped up. I think it might have been for evidence.

But even in more normal times, I'd get phone calls for some emergency while I was at the beach, or across the country. Just part of the territory.

Shit needs to get done, and team leads are often a pinch point.

Final note: I'm sure people in here will chime in calling me a psychopath, maybe a people pleaser. I know right?