Posts by BenWilson
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I wonder which broadcaster reading PAS decided to do a long slow-mo of the group hug after Savea scored the first try against France the other day. I was almost expecting it to freeze frame and then fade to black and white for the credits roll.
Here’s the moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=k8qT67ILX3Y#t=192
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Polity: Forty, in reply to Amy Gale,
By teaching oneself I pretty much meant "using books and the internet, for the most part", rather than from first principles. Even with some formal training, the bulk of the learning is done on project work, and most of the programmers I know who stuck with it as a career choice were the kind of people who had projects of their own on the boil all the time. If they're in full time employment, those projects might be on semi-permanent hold, but the moment it ends, they're upskilling themselves at very little cost. Their latest work is added to the CV.
The first "in" can come from their qualifications, but a qualification that most employers looking to hire programmers will be impressed by is an actual program they can look at. One thing about software that you write for yourself is that you're at least allowed to decide for yourself if you will show it to anyone. And of course it's your choice if you bring any libraries that you write to a new job - but even having something like that in your hand is a bonus.
I know there's an educational school of thought that most teaching is self-teaching and teachers are mostly the guides to show the way. I'd say it's true to varying degrees - some subjects mostly have to be drilled into you, like the Law. But computing seems to be an area where that school is particularly true.
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Polity: Forty, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
and I suspect that most people with the aptitude could learn coding at home for negligible outlay
It could take quite a long time, though. But possibly not longer than learning it through a paid course. It has always seemed to me that if you can't really teach it to yourself, you probably aren't going to make a good programmer, because it means you don't really love doing it, and don't do it just for fun. Which does not mean that doing a course is valueless, of course. I've spent many years doing them. But I also taught myself programming first, in my teens.
It’s much easier to get a semi-fraudulent mortgage on a shack in Avondale, paint the walls and reseed the lawn and sell it for a 20% profit. That’s the hardworking keewee way
A brother can do both, even! But yeah, it's scary that my shack in Avondale has now earned me at least as much as ten years of solid paid employment as a programmer, considering that it's all tax free.
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I went through 40 by the book, feeling the same bummed out nowhere-man kind of thing that many report. It was bloody unpleasant, but for me, it's passed. It's like I worked through the stages of grief for my young life, or something. "By the book" for a person of my socioeconomic demography that is.
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Hard News: Hug Reform, in reply to Tom Semmens,
It's an interesting idea, that out laconic nature was somehow an offshoot of our egalitarianism.But I don't think it's true. It seems more likely to be an offshoot of our British ancestry, and our highly rural population.
It seems to me that generally speaking, the more unequal the society, the more it approves of grandiloquent display.
I can't really see much evidence of the truth of that. It seems to be mostly a cultural thing. Stoic attitudes can also be excellent oppressors, as the Spartans were also.
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Hard News: Hug Reform, in reply to Luke Williamson,
Imagine how freaked out the opposition would be if there were no celebrations on scoring, and everyone just jogged back to halfway, ready for more.
Emotionless can be a ploy, and not just on the field. To not go OTT with hugs and stuff on an old friend you haven't seen for a while, could be seen as presumption of what a good friend that they are that you don't even need to. One friend I have often tees off catching up with just continuing the conversation we last had, however long ago it might have been. It's kind of amusing, the implication being that you've been on their mind the entire time. Then the pressure is on me to remember the conversation and just casually pick it up, as if my own memory of things I'd been discussing years ago was still fresh.
This is an outlier, though. Mostly I tend to at least shake hands with friends that have been away for a bit. Not many hugs though. Not for old friends. There's still the stoic Kiwi understatement of all emotion. I'd like to say it's changed and evolved, but nah. What's changed is that for those who do like to hug, I'm all good with it, where in the long distant past I'd probably have felt uncomfortable. As in last millenium.
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TBH, I doubt that they do actually sniff panties. More likely they block cyber attacks. It's dull work that needs to be talked up, both in importance and difficulty. Keeping the details secret is a pretty awesome way of doing that.
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Legal Beagle: Crowdsourcing Project Cortex, in reply to Frank Macskasy,
Ben, what’s your alternative solution?
What’s the problem, exactly? Finding out exactly how far Cortex reaches? I don’t have a solution. If it’s further than what seems right to people on the inside, I’d expect we’d find out via a whistleblower. But who knows what kind of people would want to work there. I mean:
There is thorough vetting before people can work for or with us: aside from comprehensive psychological tests, people agree to reviews of their financial background, what they do in their spare time, personal relationships, online habits, any other habits … it is a very intrusive process. Our people have very high levels of integrity and loyalty. They share a real sense of the burden and the privilege of the material they work with, and the importance of what they do, day to day.
is hardly the kind of process that breeds whistleblowers. They’re self-selected as the kind of people who already think it’s OK for the organization to go right through their own personal lives, and they buy into the whole “threat to the nation” schtick. Why would they give a shit about my privacy? There is always the fallback that they had some kind of “fingerprint” that meant they had to have a look. As if the Ombudsman is going to be able to go over that and refute it on a case by case basis. Who even knows what is normal practice for panty sniffing spooks? Only they do.
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Legal Beagle: Crowdsourcing Project Cortex, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
But whether this blog post is pointing out the absurdity of Cortex not protecting the DPMC, or if it is pointing out that the DPMC etc. are lying by providing a privacy statement which forswears use of Cortex, or if it is pointing out that Jagose is wrong when she described the pre-conditions of the use of Cortex, I’m pretty happy with it, because those seem to be the only options.
There's other possibilities. DPMC haven't got around to it. There is a disclaimer that says:
Although the information on this web site has been prepared with care and in good faith, this site is an information service only, and no guarantee is given that the information is complete, accurate or up to date, or that it can be relied upon for any particular purpose.
That's not where the handwashing of any responsibility for anything ends in that disclaimer, either.
Or, they may have assessed the risk to their site as minimal and pretty much don't feel the need to protect it. It's not a totally absurd proposition. There's certain basic protections that don't even really need to have any kind of written permission, and which technically protect against cyber attack by collecting information.
But yes, all of the others are possible. In short, we don't really know anything. They don't have to tell us, so they won't tell us, and assurances that it's all for our own good are to be expected, and not to be trusted, unless you're a trusting soul.
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Um...presumably you're all joking? Because:
In terms and conditions of use, for example.
is not the same is "In the terms and conditions of use, period". You can't infer the absence of Cortex from absence of the terms and conditions saying so. That's even if you're going to hold someone's casual statement in an interview as some kind of binding contract. Someone in the job of professional spying...just the kind of person I'd be trusting to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, right? And even then, she carefully caveated it with "for example". If you weren't told in the terms and conditions, but instead some other completely unspecified way, how could you ever prove it had never happened? And whose head would it be on anyway?
By all means attempt to find the reach of Cortex by examining terms and conditions. I think you will discover nothing. Some will tell you you're being spied on. Others will not tell you, but do it anyway. Others won't be doing it, even though they might claim to be. How could you ever know the truth of the matter? Can we even claim that our definitions of the terms are sufficiently tight that there even is a truth to the matter?
But this is a meme, right? I'm spoiling the gag...sorry..as you were.
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