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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 18th, 2023

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  • “Without sacraficing university values,” implies the university values never included integrity, morality, or common fucking sense. Brown keeps their academic independence… as long as they do what they are told.

    And this is how rights are stripped away. One at a time. This time, it’s about archaic definitions of “male” and “female.” What’s next? Sexuality, right? No gays allowed, or you’ll lose funding. Followed by people of color? Then women? It will be one concession after another. And Brown just said, they are not only fine with it, they’ll pay $50m for the privilege.

    Doesn’t sound like a school that has their students in mind.



  • They are a middleman and do take a slight overhead, 1.1% last I saw, though it might have changed since then. The benefit is one of simplicity. Many people want to give to charity and aren’t sure which one. UW let’s them donate one place and it get distributed to many. They also have criteria that charities must meet to qualify. Also, like you mentioned, they do the paycheck deduction. All of what they do is about making it easier and hassle free as possible to donate, making it more likely that people will.


  • Continue reading.

    Sodium Hydroxide, when exposed to Carbon Dioxide (already in the air), combines to become Sodium Carbinate.

    NaOH + CO2 → Na2CO3 + H2O

    Sodium Carbinate then reacts with water and more Carbon Dioxide to become Sodium Bicarbinate, which is baking soda.

    Na2CO3 + CO2 + H2O → 2 NaHCO3

    Not only does a Sodium Oxyde fuel cell produce electricity, it takes CO2 out of the atmosphere.

    From a physics and chemistry point of view, it’s pretty cool. I’m curious how well it scales though.



  • “The government” is multiple agencies and departments. There is no single computer system, database, mainframe, or file store that the entire US goverment uses. There is no standard programming language used. There is no standard server configuration. Each agency is different. Each software project is different.

    When someone says the government doesn’t use sql, they don’t know what they are talking about. It could be refering to the fact that many government systems are ancient mainframe applications that store everything in vsam. But it is patently false that the government doesn’t use sql. I’ve been on a number of government contracts over the years, spanning multiple agencies. MsSQL was used in all but one.

    Furthermore, some people share SSNs, they are not unique. It’s a common misconception that they are, but anyone working on a government software learns this pretty quickly. The fact that it seems to be a big shock goes to show that he doesn’t know what he is doing and neither do the people reporting to him.

    Not only is he failing to understand the technology, he is failing to understand the underlying data he is looking at.



  • I agree with what you’re saying. They got the phone from Carrier A with the expectation the phone plan went with it. Once the phone is paid off, they can take the phone to Carrier B. Since they phone is basically bought on an interest free loan, the interest is recouped by the plan, and the collateral for not paying is a loss of the phone plan and use of the phone. To leave the plan, payoff the phone.

    That does require that, the moment the phone is paid off, it should be automatically unlocked. There shouldn’t have to be a request or additional waiting. And the customer should be notified that it’s unlocked along with an explanation that they can now use the phone with any other provider.




  • I get why people are upset by the headline. It is written to provoke anger. Unfortunately, anger at the wrong issue.

    I understand the argument that a large company can absorb the cost of workers they don’t currently. Though it’s unrealistic to expect them too.

    I lived in the Quad Cities for a number of years. A large majority of people I know, both family and friends, worked for either Deere or Case IH - until they closed the plant in East Moline.

    Layoffs are a yearly thing. Deere, Case, Caterpillar, they all hire a bunch of people in the beginning of the year and lay them off towards the end. It’s typically around August or September, and they announce it in July. Everyone in the Quad Cities knows it. It is expected. Sometime early next year, they are going to hire these jobs back. The people who take these jobs go into it knowing this is going to happen.

    It can suck being let go and some people might struggle with it. Those who are used to this cycle treat it as a well-paying seasonal job. Many already have something else lined up. This is only a single, anecdotal, data point, so take it with a grain of salt… one of my uncles works for Deere and is a bus driver for one of the school districts. He knows Deere is going to let him go by fall so he has the driving job for the rest of the year. In spring, he will go back to Deere.

    Perspective is also important. Deere has somewhere between 80k and 85k employees. They are laying off < 1000 based on this story. That’s the equivalent of a small, 80 person company hiring 1 person to get through the holiday season, then laying them off in January. Next year, they will do it again.

    Headlines like this are nothing more than a distraction from real issues. For example, why does any company have multi-billions of dollars in profit to begin with? It just means they are charging more than they need to. The farmers who buy Deere equipment then have to charge more for their produce. Which means the stores have to charge more. Which means we pay more for our food. Deere’s profits are leading to higher food prices for everyone. To me, that is more of an issue than 1/80th of their workforce being in a hire/layoff cycle.


  • I run a development department, and nobody who reports to me comes to the office. We have been 100% remote since 2020… much to the chagrin of HR. Others in IT come in, but no developers. I see no reason to change it either. I question why I even come in most days.

    Without looking it up, I don’t know how many people I’ve interviewed over the last 4 years, but there’s been a few. I’ve only had one person who indicated he wanted to be in an office. Every other person wants fully remote. The most common comment I’ve heard from people is saying they will settle for hybrid if full-remote isn’t available.

    There’s some value to having people work together in-person, but I’d rather give my teams the flexibility to choose for themselves rather than force it.