DigitalDilemma

Thanks for the full and reasoned explanation.

I do agree there is nuance, and it is very difficult to balance these things when there is often not a great choice about who ultimately ends up with your money.

cancelled Prime in 2025 to boycott USA

Costco for local cucumbers, milk and cereal,

So Amazon bad, Costco good? Both huge American based multinationals, no?

Yes, I maybe misremembered the title. I couldn’t find it in a quick search and it’s up in the loft in a box somewhere.

A book. Teach yourself Perl in 30 days. (Edit - may have been 21 days)

I bought it around 25-30 years ago. I have dyslexia and autism and have had problems learning from books in the past, but something about the way that was written just clicked for me.

It allowed me to write some pretty cool software, including a huge system that ran a large animal charity for a very long time, tons of automation software and scripts, and several full webuis. Indirectly it led me to a new career where I write perl every day.

(I can write in many other languages now, but that was the keystone of everything for me)

Money going online really changed the mood.

So true. Money spoils everything.

Lack of knowledge was the big problem before the internet. Late 80s, early 90s.

Take Phreaking.

Dialup BBSs (1200/75, 2400 or 9600 baud) were the primary source of dodgy files that I knew of. Some would have a secret area with various texts about hacking and quasi-illegal behaviour, including pornography of all flavours and of course the anarchists’ handbook. There were a few hacking and phreaking related stuff (getting free phone calls was huge then, given the cost of online activities - blackboxing, blueboxing, etc) and often required researching the types of PBX being used until you knew more than the people employed to run the things. To get access to this you’d need to suck up to the BBS owner, or prove your worth and “I’m not a law enforcement officer, honest” credits. Vouchsafing friends and others was another way, and there was cross-checking of you by sysops talking to each other.

The security on phone systems was laughable by modern standards, but at the time it was something very strongly guarded and if you found something, you made sure it stayed private. The phone companies helped by constantly denying anything was happening, but stakes were high. Legal consequences were high, but so were the rewards if you could get free calls.

Myself, I never did, but I always wanted to. Not having my monthly phone bills of hundreds of pounds would have been really nice…

When ADSL and always-on connections became available, phreaking stopped overnight.

Thats because you dont have savings.

I’m sorry, why did you assume that?

I guess you never considered that someone older might like a safe and boring job because they’ve finally worked out how to compartmentalise work and life, or maybe it lets them work from home or is conveniently close, or that they have friends there and are accepted as who they are, or that they believe in the work they’re doing, or their health isn’t so great and they don’t want upheaval, or they’ve already had an exciting job and it demanded too much of them, or any one of a lot of other possible reasons.

Maybe they even have enough to retire today, but that they like that boring job you’re so dismissive of and don’t fancy facing the void that retirement can bring, having seen friends retire and just… stop, because they had nothing else to fill their days with, dying soon after.

Maybe, just maybe, your bleak experience of a working life isn’t the same for everyone.

I hope you figure things out a little better as you get older and not jump to conclusions.

If I was in my 20s, I’d be off like a shot.

At 30, I’d think for about 5 minutes before doing it.

At 40 I’d try to have a backup plan in place.

Now I’m in my 50s, I’d cling onto that safe and boring job like a limpet.

Anyone throughout time?

Disraeli?

Abraham Lincoln again?

Muhatma Ghandi?

Arnold Schwarzenegger. He would be already if he was allowed.

But honestly, at this point, anyone who wasn’t entirely evil.

I understand having a dislike for a medium that encourages shallow, gimmicky, reactive content

That’s all social media.

And Reddit has a huge amount of reposting/karmafarming bots as well as a lot of political/troll botfarms targetting it, and a lot of human trolls. And if you don’t have an adblocker, a sometimes miserable user experience. But Reddit also has the biggest userbase by a huge factor, a lot of really interesting subs with some really good content and people.

You can find positives and negatives about any platform or, really, anything anywhere. At least with social media platforms we have a choice as to whether we engage or not. That’s how you avoid the trash if you think the pool is full of shit - don’t swim in it.

Honestly, if someone genuinely believes “everything is shit” then maybe the problem is with them.

That’s like saying “I read a book once that I didn’t like, so all books are shit”

Tiktok is like all other streams - there’s a huge variety of content and it includes a lot of good and innovative creators. Yes, there’s a lot of utter shite, just lke reddit, facebook and even Lemmy.

But there’s also people who spend time making something good, sharing interesting things about their day and teaching what they know.

Throw a dead cat on the table.

Ask for specific examples of where you failed to deliver work as per your contract.

Username checks out.

I’d probably cut it off.

25 years ago I got into playing Unreal Tournament.

I still talk daily with some of the people from that community across several countries. We’ve never met, never will, but we’ve shared stuff that our real families don’t know.

You’re not wrong.

Claudebot took down one of my sites repeatedly, hammering it for the same pages over and over at horrendous rates.

I ended up spending several days having to convert it to a SSG and hosted it on Cloudflare pages. A lot of work I didn’t need to do.

Honestly, time to talk to HR who I’m sure would have a quiet word with this manager.

This sounds like bullying, triggered by racism/xenophia/paranoia or just plain bigotry. And yelling at people? That’s terrible too.

Indeed, why not? Temugin was the GOAT at this game.

Global domination isn’t a new thing.