Only 36% of Indian engineers can write compilable code: study.

That many? I’d have guessed 25%, but I’m not that experienced in dealing with the coding side.

On the infrastructure side, it’s about a quarter who are capable of doing what their nominal job titles imply they should be able to do.

Why is this? I am not really sure. Probably contracting companies trying to fill positions with unqualified people for low salaries.

My latest strategy when I call for support is the first obvious technical screw-up from the “engineer” I get on the phone (this is for high-end enterprise-class products), I hang up immediately and call back until I get someone who knows what he or she is doing. This usually takes a few tries but it means I waste 10 minutes instead of four hours.

I know, it’s a little rude, but I simply do not have time to do anything else.

I will never, ever use a webmail client as my only/full-time email client.

Don’t like your data? Use webmail! Want it slow, buggy, and impossible to search? Webmail has the solution for you!

Again: fuck webmail.

Natalie’s voice has only gotten better with age. It’s lost that edge of brightness and gained more in the way of world-weariness. It’s an improvement, or perhaps it’s just fitted to its era — just as her 90s voice was.

I can’t believe I first listened to a 10,000 Maniacs song in 1989 or so.

I don’t put on many 10,000 Maniacs songs these days — old or new. They don’t do much for me now. They are artifacts of a time long past. But I’ll always watch Natalie perform if it’s well-recorded.

Compare and contrast with this:

I watched that live in 1993. IMO one of the best live performances ever. And that outfit is amazing, too.

Everyone was just so damn perky and optimistic in the 90s. It was such a different time, so much so that I look back on it — contemplate living through it — and I can hardly comprehend how much has changed, and how quickly. The person who was me in 1993 in many ways is barely related to who I am now.

I can’t listen to 10,000 Maniacs songs anymore because it’s like a dissimilar alternate universe that I no longer understand.

Just look at Natalie, look at them all: they have no idea what’s coming and how that optimism will be replaced with the narrative of diminution, of loss, of decline and dissolution.

Look at who we were. My god.

This is how awesome systemd is:

I physically moved a Linux server from one place to another.

The server had two separate dual-port NICs with one port on each NIC bonded (teamed, in Windows’ terms). It had worked fine for almost a year.

Then I moved the server and re-connected the NICs — using a photograph, so I know it was correct (verified it three times).

After the move, systemd had moved/mis-identified one of the ports in the bond, so even though the cables were plugged in correctly (I had a photo — easy to verify), one half of the bond was not functional. (In other words, a port that systemd had called “Bill” was now called “Jennifer.” Since the bond software identifies ports by name, it was thus broken.)

So something that worked for 10 years in Linux without a problem is now completely unpredictably non-functional due to systemd.

That’s quality, right there.

Well, it is good that le Pen lost but not that Macron won.

Either way, the losers will be the French people and the world — just as in the 2016 election in the US.

Neoliberalism will die, but it’s gonna take a lot of us out at the same time in its death throes.

Richard Stallman is someone I used to disagree with pretty strongly on most things.

Turns out he was right — about everything.

Dammit, I hate it when that happens. Talk about seeing the future so clearly that everyone despises you for it.

IYIs, Intellectuals Yet Idiots, favor things that work in theory but not in practice to things that work in practice but not in theory.

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) May 6, 2017

That is one of the better insights I’ve read lately.

PC market sees its first quarterly sales increase in five years and worldwide tablet shipments have declined 8.5% over the past year, Q1 is the tenth straight quarter in decline.

The death of the PC has always been much-exaggerated. Unless there are vast and not-soon-achievable technological improvements, the phone nor the tablet will be a work-ready device anytime soon. And lots of people still need to work (even when they are at home).

Tech hype is just that, yet all too many people believe it every time.