I’m going to innovate a way to fall down the stairs racistly.
Year: 2021
Trouble Is
I’ve worked with a lot of people in IT and very few of them are any good at troubleshooting. I’m great at it, though, even in areas where I am not an expert.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about why that is the case. There probably is not one reason alone. It’s multifaceted. But I was already a great troubleshooter when I had much, much less industry experience than the people around me, so much so that when I was still a lowly helpdesk tech the server folks at my first IT job would call me up to help them troubleshoot issues.
Some of it is that I don’t discount anything and I walk through simultaneously both the most efficacious and easiest tasks/paths first, so I cover 80% of the problem space while most people are still fumbling towards something to attempt. And because I don’t discount anything, I still test things that I “know” can’t be wrong, and that other people insist on telling me I shouldn’t be checking because “that couldn’t be it.” They are usually wrong, but luckily I don’t care much what other people think about this — so I find the answer where it shouldn’t be.
Combine that with just my utter unrelenting stubbornness, I’m a troubleshooting demon.
Contra liberal doctrine, I suspect most of this is just impossible to teach, too. Alas.
Saus
I am extremely skeptical of this narrative, i.e. that we don't have a supply problem, just a demand problem. Does anyone know their source for the data in those first three charts (demand vs. production of goods)? https://t.co/O9IuxRKRA4
— jonstokes.com (@jonst0kes) November 9, 2021
Yeah, this is totally a propaganda op. This is no different than when econs claimed during the 2008 Great Recession that massive unemployment was due to people deciding not to work (yes, that really happened).
This is to forestall any move to break up large monopolies and monopsonies. That’s all. If they can convince enough people that there were no supply chain issues and derangments due to too few companies controlling too much, they win. Won’t be obvious to most people, extremely obvious when know how this sausage gets made (and why).
Woe
I think I just carried my backpack racistly. Oops. I wonder if I am also carrying my grocery bags racistly?
Woe is me!
Mad Open
The world is opening back up, and it’s making a lot of people BIG MAD.
I love it.
Shame Game
Last night, someone shamed me on social media for taking my mask off for a photograph, in a room where people were intermittently masking enjoying coffee & cocoa.
Dems, we can't go on like this. We have to solve problems & help people, & get away from moralizing the pandemic.— Rachel Barnhart (@rachbarnhart) November 7, 2021
Rachel, you’ll never reach those people. They live for their moral superiority and for shaming people. It’s just what they do and they really, really enjoy it. They aren’t going to give it up anytime soon.
Just ignore them and let them wail. They are children, and whiny ones at that.
Order of Ops
An analysis of hundreds of COVID-19 cases suggests that face masks are most protective in specific circumstances, such as exposure to a person with COVID-19 that lasts for more than three hours or that takes place indoors https://t.co/iIfBAEWVb4
— nature (@Nature) November 6, 2021
Masks work, but aren’t the panacea that many take them to be. Order of effectiveness:
1) Vaccination, by far
2) Ventilation improvements
3) Lockdowns
4) Masking
5) Social distancing
6) Hand washing, etc.
Of course, combining one or more NPIs is most effective, but what really should be combined to make the most people the least miserable is vaccination and better ventilation, with only short, focused lockdowns early on. Otherwise, lockdowns should be avoided.
Carry On
In the family supplies store.
"Is there anything we can help you with sir?"
"Yes, I'd like to carry my child in the most racist way possible." https://t.co/ipGVBATXbX— Outsideness (@Outsideness) November 7, 2021
And the libs wonder why they are losing….
Cryptid
I can barely bring myself to read two sentences about cryptocurrency bullshit. It’s all just garbage, filled with absolute morons. It’s not revolutionary or interesting. It’s a sham by people who are simultaneously con artists and being conned. It’s all a joke, and a computationally and ecologically expensive one.
I hope it all dies soon.
Vamp Wave
The first ten on today’s playlist:
Both Digs
The idea that “men only want sex” is as demeaning as the supposition that women are just gold diggers.
Upshook
Milkshakes are so good the libs probably want to take them away.
(Kinda yeah? A lot of them do want to take milk away.)
Barnburnin’
november by Helena Fitzgerald.
Jesus Christ, how can you just haul off and write like that? What an essay. It’s Bradburian with a little less sucrose; it’s DFW without the slight hint of condescension.
Best essay I’ve read in a while, for sure.
Tech Eval
8 hour intense interview with no breaks just to be still told I’m not technical enough. I need a break from the interview process for the near future.
— Tae’lur Alexis (@TaelurAlexis) November 2, 2021
If they took eight hours to figure out a person was “not technical enough,” that’s on the interviewers and their complete failure. I hate that odious phrase but even within that framework, I can usually tell this in 2-3 questions. The roles I hire for are generally very technical, so I actually do have to evaluate for this to some extent*, but it doesn’t take more than five minutes.
*If you don’t understand networking pretty well, how DNS works, scripting, how to do pretty deep work in various OSes, and if you don’t have just a whole lot of general IT knowledge, you gonna have a bad time, and we’re too busy to train someone for 2-3 years to get them up to speed.
Dem Losing
I know the Cultural Left doesn’t want to hear this, but unchecked Woke — the front line of which is schools — is going to kill any possibility of a mutualist renewal in this country. I observe this with no joy. https://t.co/YPLaqENpST
— Nils Gilman (@nils_gilman) November 3, 2021
It’s forgotten already, but wokester identity jackassery was one of the main causes of Bernie’s tanking in 2020. Most normal people rightly want no part of that, don’t believe in 900 genders, and don’t want biological males dominating women’s sports. (That said, the main reason McAuliffe lost was the Dems keeping the schools closed for so absurdly long.)
And they are not wrong, whatever the excesses of the Republicans. Lots more Dem losing ahead becasue they can’t deliver anything important, but they can deliver things people hate.