Annoying

Sys Stems

Chill Annoying

I think Systems is one of the hardest jobs in IT because we are expected to know a massive range of things.

Yup. Just looking at my work password manager, there’s 200+ systems I am supposed to be the SME on. And a few hundred more that don’t have password listed in there either because they use SSO or some other method of logging in that I am also supposed to be where the buck stops.

That’s just systems. I am also supposed to know these things to an expert or near-expert level: networking, Azure (all of it), Entra/AD DS, Active Directory, AWS (all of it), infrastructure design, network design, network security, endpoint security, helpdesk levels 1-3, vendor management, SAML 2.0, OAuth, MSP management, contract bidding and negotiation, server hardening and security, security architecture, business relationship management, containers and Kubernetes, infrastructure as code, Terraform, Python, PowerShell, SOC 2, GDPR, ISO 27001, TX-RAMP, FED-RAMP and other compliance frameworks.

And believe it or not, that only barely, barely scratches the surface. That list above could have 500+ entries. And yes, I (not my team, me) is expected to know all of that.

That’s fairly typical for systems folks. We have to know more in more areas than any other job that I am aware of. And if not, to be able to ramp up quickly enough to get it done.

People wonder why I get paid so much because I “just click on things.” That’s why.

I know where to click and when to do it.

Meet Met

Chill Annoying, Evil

Does anyone else think it’s supremely fucking odd that Gen Z believes these are invalid/abusive ways and places to meet someone? That is:

  • Anyone in your friend group
  • Anyone you meet in person
  • Someone your family introduces you to
  • Someone you work with
  • Anyone you go to school with
  • Someone introduced to you through friends
  • Someone in some sort of imagined position of power (either over you or that you have over them)
  • Anyone with more than a 10 second age gap

With all these self-imposed absurd restrictions it’s no wonder they are lonely and sexless. It’s surprising they ever leave the house really. We’ve failed them all and now they are mentally ill forever; we’ve left them as fodder for the algorithm with no protection.

Carpus

Chill Annoying

Exactly. Besides the obvious misogyny, my main problem with the incels is that you definitely do not attract women (or anyone) by sitting around carping and complaining like a four-year-old. That gets you nowhere. Anything is better than that and is more likely to lead to success, romantic or otherwise.

Being out in the world and doing things has an infinitely-greater chance of good experiences as compared to sitting in a basement somewhere and posting on Twitter all day. You don’t even have to do traditional “manly man” stuff (if you are a man). Go to a painting class! Take a course at the local community college! Go do pottery! Join a hiking group! A book club! The possibilities are quite literally endless.

As I’ve said before, incels are not wrong about the nature of the problem. What they are wrong about is punishing women for their (mostly) self-caused deficiencies. As with desperation, complaining is attractive to no one.

Algo Alstay

Chill Amusing, Annoying, Clowns

AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns.

Wow this paper is a mess. It’s terrible, though I know it will be widely-cited as “true.” I linked to the HN discussion because the author is rightly being roasted in the comments.

Authoring a complete response and rebuttal would take far more time than I wish to spend on this pointless and thankless task, but this is what it looks like when a STEM-y person attempts to poorly engage in philosophical thinking without realizing they are doing it or understanding any of it.

And it’s simultaneously amusing and secondhand embarrassing.

Uncons

Chill Amusing, Annoying

A lot of women are supremely bothered by the fact that unauthorized/undesirable men will be attracted to them and are incensed when no one does anything about it.

It’s hilarious to watch. Additionally, I can personally confirm there are at least two women who wore sundresses at least partly for “ease of access.” So indeed it does happen. People in general just weren’t made for social media, and I think it’s a whole lot more mentally damaging to women as they just care about it more.

Left Two Behinds

Chill Amusing, Annoying, Clowns

That does seem to be their plan. They are already clownishly irrelevant. In some ways, the modern left has become some weird offshoot of traditional conservatism — except they want gay people to get married and think men and women are exactly the same, except when they are completely different (trans stuff).

The Actual Constraints

Chill Annoying

It’s incredibly sad how in a few generations we’ve gone from Apollo and “Let’s see what’s out there” to endless declamations on how we should not do anything new or unexpected because it’s all vewy vewy scawy and inherently bad.

News flash, dipshits: we have magic rocks that spew energy and a insanely large free fusion reactor in our solar system that produces 3.86 x 1026 joules of energy per second. The reality is that with the will and time we can do whatever the fuck we want. We are only constrained by our imaginations and physical laws.

Nothing else.

Trol

Chill Amusing, Annoying

I know this tweet is satirical, but people of either gender get angry when someone does something that they feel removes or negates their dominance in some area they’ve traditionally held it. Women control the dating space with an iron fist and when anyone impinges on that or obtains what they feel is an unwarranted advantage, they get extremely upset. It’s a natural human reaction. Men police other areas to a similar extent, though that’s been decreasing a bit in recent years.

At least 90% of the “feminist” reaction to the PUA community was not due to its misogyny but that PUA advice actually did cause (in their view) undesirable men to get markedly better at social interaction, which was a threat to PMC women.