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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • It absolutely fucking BAFFLES me that Brooks’ Law isn’t known by every software manager on the planet.

    I’ve quoted it so many times at work, even in engineering focused teams in at least two big tech companies. It’s not a concrete fact, but it explains why so many teams are hilariously shit at delivering software.


  • You cannot compare newly-formed countries with those that have CENTURIES of history behind them, and their own geopolitical goals over that time. The point still stands that no one outside of the US cares about their constitution or political system, and to say it does shows an incredible level of ignorance of world politics outside of US borders. Even countries like Australia with their own constitution maintain theirs to be as invisible to society as possible, and amend when needed without fuss.

    Populism won’t disappear, ever. What I firmly dispute is that US politics has any stronghold over the rest of the world in terms of populism. Ultimately, populism is a world problem, and was a problem well before Trump even decided to have a go at politics. Brexit largely predicted that Trump would find power before others did, and populism largely found its way into the UK back in 2008 with Cameron. In France, you could argue the NF paved the way decades ago. The point is that Trump and the US did not dictate this - if anything they’re late to the party and hold zero influence in immigration based populism.


  • I think a lot of your comment boils down to a few things that Americans need to accept:

    • Americans don’t care about policy. They like sound bites, and Trump gives those for days.
    • People vote against their interests in the name for change, even if it negatively affects people like them (but importantly, not them)
    • America is a deeply racist and misogynistic country.
    • Playing it safe doesn’t win elections in America, but minorities only win if the other choice is uninspired.

    Where I disagree is that it was a toss-up. Harris has performed worse than Hillary, which is wild considering how deeply unpopular she was. Frankly, before she ran it was obvious how disliked she was.



  • …I have no idea what you’re talking about.

    No one outside of the US gives a fuck about the US constitution. Many countries have their own constitution, and many of these countries have a history that goes back many centuries before America was a thing.

    Yes, Trump has likely fucked it all up for anyone that isn’t rich or white, but no, this won’t usher in a new era of right-wing politics again. Many countries have either flirted with populism for decades already, or have got over their populist turn from pre-Trump and voted moderates in.

    From the perspective of Europe, Trump ripping shit up is likely only going to result in a more united Europe, because they’ll need to pick up the pieces for climate change and NATO. Trump enforcing tariffs on European countries will harm exports while bolstering European trade, and might even go as far as to push countries like the UK that are largely Eurosceptics into aligning with those near their borders. This isn’t 2016, and with more at stake now I can see Trump either toning down his rhetoric, or isolating his country from his closest allies.


  • Yeah, the person above isn’t being accurate at all.

    While here in the UK we rely heavily on the US for control of Trident, the US dropping NATO support would just require additional defence spending and closer alignment with Europe. If Trump is bought by Russia, Putin would see this as a Very Bad Thing, and would want to keep the US in the fold because even with the US NATO would likely steamroll Russia.

    The Trump dynamic is somewhat problematic, should it fester elsewhere in Europe. Globalisation was an important trait to maintain for the US, whereas most populist movements move towards buying local or supporting national interests above all else. Europe is largely self-sufficient, even in defence, so Trump would probably cut off huge numbers of imports/exports just to prop up Elon’s shitty cars.


  • Oh boy, I’ve seen a few:

    • At a startup, one dude had obviously lied about his credentials. He was hired as a writer, but couldn’t write shit. He spent the entire day hitting on women and bitching about how his ex wanted support for a child he wasn’t convinced was his. He was fired about 3 days in…

    • When I was a student, I worked at a sports store. One girl there was, let’s say, packing in the chest compartment. She was also about 17, maybe 18. Most people were nice enough to not hit on her, but one day the security guard (who was maybe late thirties at the youngest) made a comment to me to say “I would absolutely destroy her back door, you know?” (but slightly more graphic). I told management, and she was brought in. She broke down, and went over all the off-hand comments he’d made to her. The manager immediately walked out, told him he was fired, and apologised to her.

    • An old employer hired this guy who was a Microsoft MVP nominee. The guy was one of those types that could talk brilliantly, but couldn’t take criticism. He listened to me, as I was senior, but ignored anything from managers or people at his level. To cut a long story short (I could write a book on this guy, and it would be hilarious) he lied about a project he worked on solo for six months. After checking in on his work we found he had bypassed our PR system and had been accepting all of his own requests, so no one has verified his code. It was an absolute mess. It cost the company a quarter of a million, for a project that should have brought in £50k. We later found out he was a nominee because he was so active on some Microsoft support forums, and mostly got that through posting “yeah I had the same problem” or from supplying easy or wrong answers. That loophole was closed shortly after…


  • EnderMB@lemmy.worldtoTechnology@lemmy.worldGoogle AI nails it again
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    6 days ago

    I say this as someone in big tech, AI is pushed because it’s an easy lie to keep big companies viewed as innovating to shareholders. I say this knowing that Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon have contributed significantly to AI research in the last few years alongside the obvious contributions of OpenAI - the goal isn’t groundbreaking AI work, but to act as a smoke-screen to show that nothing else has been delivered.

    Google has lost ground in advertising, and is losing customers on many of their services. Amazon is losing ground in cloud computing and in retail. Apple has stagnated with recent poor releases. Microsoft has made ground in cloud, but has struggled in advertising, Xbox, Office, and Windows. They use GenAI to keep their stock price high, otherwise they’d drop like a sack of shit because shareholders would say “what the fuck have you even done in the last half a decade?”



  • Go to your Democratic party and demand change.

    Find a candidate that will stand on the basis of free healthcare, equal rights, the right to union, enforcing a higher minimum wage, enforcing paid sick leave and a minimum of 20 days holiday a year, and committing to lowering the cost of living.

    Once someone stands up for this, push them to the moon for the next four years. Tell anyone else NOT on this platform to fuck off.

    Essentially, America needs a Project 2029.





  • EnderMB@lemmy.worldtoProgrammer Humor@lemmy.mlcarrot.py
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    14 days ago

    I got into cooking during lockdown, and have managed to get surprisingly good at it, to the point where if you asked me to make a meal of your choosing I could probably make it without looking up a recipe. It’s actually unbelievably simple to make even complex stuff, basically using all the same rules you apply at work:

    • Use the right tools for the job
    • Plan it out first, do your prep and the actual work is simple
    • A simple dish will take much longer than you think
    • RTFM. Many sauces and dishes from classic cooking are basically a mixture of a small handful of base ingredients/techniques, and they’ve been written down for decades.
    • Once you have the basics down, you can basically make it up as you go. You’ll make amazing meals, and you’ll never be able to replicate it again because you eyeballed it or cooked it in a way that made sense at the time. You say you’ll document it well, but deep down, you know you won’t.
    • Nothing is original, everything is stolen. Adapt recipes you see, look at ingredients of sauces and sachets you buy/use, etc.
    • You can be a solid hobbyist, but against a pro that does this shit all day every day, you don’t know a fucking thing. You’re also probably not going to replicate what they can do in a professional setting while at home unless you’ve got money.