Fore Shore

Chill Tech

Company is offshoring all roles to India: is this happening elsewhere?

It’s happening everywhere.

The small company I work for didn’t consider replacing any development jobs with staff from India, but rather augmenting existing staff. That idea was nixed after it was determined that we’d most likely have to hire 5-7 Indian “senior” developers to do what one of our existing devs could achieve, and that’d also have to bring on 2-3 additional technical leads to manage this offshore staff.

In the end, there would’ve been no cost savings and development velocity would’ve likely plummeted.

I put the word “senior” in quotes because in India, someone senior does not resemble what that term means in the US. In America, “senior” means that the person has generally 8-10+ years of experience, can take on large projects with little outside guidance, and needs nearly no training in their areas of expertise.

In India, however, “senior” most often means only that they’ve heard of the technology and can speak about it for a 30-second soundbite. Most “senior” Indian IT/dev staff I would not put on Level 1 helpdesk for the tech they claim to know.

And if that offends you, so be it. That comes from deep and long experience.

Ders

Chill Annoying

I think about this comment all the time. I can tell you that it’s correct, having moved from one gender to the other — i.e. from a low status man to a high status one.

It’s a totally fucking different world. Middle-aged women think they’re invisible. LOL. Alrighty then. Try being a poor unattractive awkward young man. Ain’t nobody in the world anywhere who gives a single little shit about you, and to the extent that they do you’re seen as a threatening default rapist criminal. You’re utterly, comically disposable.

And that’s just how it is, like it or not. Women can pretend all they want that something else is the case. But pretending doesn’t make it true.

No Nous Is Bad News

Chill Gutter Philosophy

I think that gloss is basically correct. This is what I meant when I wrote on the old iteration of my blog that we needed “new minds.” This did even come close to occurring so we’re fucked for a generation at least and probably longer. We’re trapped in old ruts, saddled with archaic, inapplicable ways of thinking and of perceiving the world. These old minds will not solve new problems; in fact, they will make them worse. We can see that now very clearly as both the outmoded left and the antique right flail like fish dropped from an aircraft into a desert.

Usually, this disconnect between mentality and reality results in huge convulsions and catastrophes, e.g. WWI and WWII. We are on that path once again. Thus, WWIII is extremely likely unless we can somehow forestall it. However, nothing appears robust enough to even begin to stand in the way of that.

Pachelbellisimo

Chill Music Video, Video

That’s a hell of an arrangement. I like the rock-like attack in the middle, and how she varies the tempo a lot. Helps it work better on piano which is obviously more limited than the typical passel of instruments that canon usually finds itself performed on.

In a lot of it she’s playing the piano like you would a harpsichord and the piece works all the better for it.

(And yes, she’s doing all of that deliberately.)

First Compy

Chill Tech

I sure do, and it had nothing to do with Microsoft. It was a TRS-80 Model III sometime in 1980 and I dearly loved that thing. My family was poor, but my dad was absolutely obsessed with computers. Some doctor my dad knew had bought the machine and could not figure out how to use it. My dad got it from the doc as payment for fixing the doc’s car up1.

Back then, I’d play various games, write little stories and program a bit. My dad being captivated by computers set me up for my current career; I’ve been using them nearly every day since I was four years old.

  1. Which at the time was how my family got many things.

Chill Quote

Spare us your pity, xenos scum. You gush about your connection with nature, your primal wisdom, but what has it brought you?

Where are your marvels of engineering? Your voyages of discovery? Your great insight into the nature of the universe? Even at our basest, when we dressed as you do, dwelt as you do, hunted as you do, lived as you do, we did more than merely survive. We built wonders. We made great journeys. We forged epics. You have not.

You speak so proudly of the plugs dangling from your skulls, little realizing that they are but strings and you puppets. What little you have accomplished you attribute to the wisdom of your goddess, who is nothing but the voices of your dead echoing for all eternity. She moors you to the past, serving as a leash that keeps you as little better than apes, sad parodies of civilization that lack that special spark to become something more.

We have come to your world in search of resources. Whether your actions drive us back or we take what we want and move on, the outcome is the same. We will depart from your wretched planet, leaving you behind. And in a thousand years, you will not have changed from this contact with another world. You will remain in your trees, hunting your prey, communing with your goddess, until your sun burns out and your world dies.

And above your tomb, the stars will belong to us….

From a now-deleted fanfiction called “The Pandora Incident” by an unknown author

Chill Links

Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss.

Man Who Bumped Tesla While Parallel Parking Sentenced To Death.

B-1B Bones Make Unprecedented Bomber Task Force Deployment To Japan.

The point of no return: Only days left to stop a totalitarian state in the US. For once I agree with John Quiggin.

Trump is wrapping up 100 days of historic failure.

Trump revives a 1930s mistake that hurt more than it helped.

Prominent ultra-processed food researcher leaves NIH, alleges censorship.

Beyond Tariffs: What the U.S. Can Learn from China’s Industrial Playbook.

FDA making plans to end its routine food safety inspections, sources say. More clownishness. I do believe our enemies are in control of the country.

Toothpaste Widely Contaminated With Lead and Other Metals, US Research Finds.

Title Case

Chill Killin' It

I wrote my own Firefox extension:

None of the existing ones did quite what I wanted or had a single right-click menu entry. My little extension does what it says on the tin: It converts text to title case, ignoring some words that aren’t typically capitalized. It’s signed and everything (though that is an evil scheme).

The extension is not available in the Mozilla Add-Ons site as it’s about as tested as a wombat in space, but it works for me.

NO I AM NOT A DEVELOPER LEAVE ME ALONE

Later On

Chill Political Economy

If all y’all want to buy something, do it now. Soon it will be unavailable or vastly more expensive. And by “something,” I mean nearly everything. Economy is about to fly apart like a washing machine on spin cycle with a brick thrown in it.

Do it now or you might only be able to get it again in 5-10 years. Maybe. If you’re lucky.

Hear me now and believe me later. Or don’t. I ain’t care.

All That’s Real

Chill Evil

There’s at least four, two related.

1) Climate change and its effects. Yes, MAGA clowns, it’s real, and yes it’s already causing and/or contributing to huge catastrophes.

2) Chinese invasion of Taiwan and other Asian nations.

3) Russian invasion of the Baltics, Poland and Germany.

4) Social media/smartphone combination reducing literacy, capability to engage with the world and cultural inheritance and becoming the greatest cognitohazard we’ve ever faced.

And that’s apart from Trump becoming a wankish and ineffective autocrat currently destroying the nation.

YESAA

Chill Clowns

This helps no one and harms everyone. Fucking idiots. We are ruled by fucking idiots1.

  1. All because some MAGA disphit thinks “weather” and “climate” are the same thing.

Rupt Bank

Chill Evil, Political Economy

That is the most likely result, yes. Unsure if deliberate or idiocy. Either way, the result is the same: poverty and immiseration for the American people.

Chill Links

LG TVs’ integrated ads get more personal with tech that analyzes viewer emotions. It all gets more dystopian by the day.

Scientists find strongest evidence yet of life on an alien planet. Very cool. When can I move in?

Trump Has for Months Privately Discussed Firing Fed Chair Powell.

Lilly’s First Pill for Diabetes, Weight Loss Shows Positive Study Results.

Why Do Domestic Prices Rise with Tariffs?

Colossal squid caught on video for first time, seen swimming nearly 2,000 feet below ocean’s surface.

Intuit, Owner of TurboTax, Wins Battle Against America’s Taxpayers.

I Analyzed Chord Progressions in 680k Songs.