My Dad is currently in Kenya, digging water wells for impoverished communities. He took this picture of a childrens' classroom. When I hear about TX highschools spending MILLIONS on football stadiums that benefit a portion of students, it makes me angry. 😠
@nf3xn@Andy_Thompson@chileannick disagree very much. UBI isn’t a distraction to lose one’s self in to the detriment of seeing the real problems and dealing with them. If anything, it’s the opposite as it provides the type of life stability that allows one to be able to pay attention to the real problems and care enough to take action to fix things.
We’re all in agreement that the Republican Party is now basically the modern day Nazi party, yes? Cause really, their actions and behaviors now are exactly what Hitler’s were in the 1930s before taking full control of Germany.
Yet, our once vaunted Fourth Estate, whom the Constitution protects vigorously via the 1st Amendment, is more concerned with keeping their “Beltway Insider” status than they are in actually reporting the truth and saving our fledgling republic.
I despise Biden and almost everything he stands for, and I hate forever always having to choose between the lesser of two bad options (2008 Obama and 2008 McCain being the exception), but JFC folks, if the dotard manages to actually get elected in November, we are FUCKED. Like fucked so bad you can’t even imagine what our country will look like.
Please, regardless of how let down you have been by Biden, please, please, please, for the love of God, turn out to vote and keep Trump out of the White House forever. I’m begging you for the sake of my four children’s futures.
The #insurance armageddon is coming slowly, but surely. I shop for new insurance (auto, home, umbrella, etc.) once every few years to make sure I’m still getting decent deals. But this year, my insurance agent told me that I should be glad that I have insurance at all, because companies have stopped writing new policies in certain states, or at least limiting how many new ones they write per year.
#Califorinia, #Florida, and #Texas are now personas non grata for insurance companies, my agent said. Why is that, I wonder? Could it be because these states are the most likely to sustain major damage due to #climateChange? Wildfires, extreme weather, coastal floods, and hurricanes have changed their risk profiles, and insurance companies are paying attention.
Climate change is here, folks. Actuarial tables do not lie.
@drahardja there is nuance in that, though, for CA and TX, because not every populated area in the state is an annual risk for a climate change fueled disaster. FL on the other hand, is screwed. I have no idea how on earth all these developers are able to continue building like they have, especially in Miami. What bank in their right mind is funding all this development? They have actuaries and insurance; are they all just looking the other way?
That said, my homeowners insurance has gone from $1,100 a year to $3,200 a year with the same company while living in the same house from 2011 to present. I consider myself lucky at this point, because I can afford the increased cost, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
@0x00string homie, I got PIP’d at work completely out of the blue by a manager I only worked for for 6 months who never said a single word to me about my performance becoming an issue. And to top it off, they left the company after PIP’ing me without saying a single freaking word to me. So now I’ve got 30 days (~3 more weeks now) to get myself out of this hole so I don’t lose my job.
Point is, we all have shitty days and weeks, but if you can find the good to come out of those times, and recognize and learn, then you’re already light years ahead of most people.
You inspire me to do better on a daily basis by sharing your trials and tribulations. Thank you.
@jerry@m8urnett I’ve seen FAANG level pay offered outside of FAANGs lately, at least that’s what’s advertised on LinkedIn job postings, but I don’t know of anyone who has landed one of those jobs. So I have no way to verify.
In San Antonio looking for a replacement car for my wife’s lemon and wishing we’d been able to make the move here from Austin a couple of years ago. SA is such an underrated town.
My manager didn't say a single fucking word to me for the last six months about me having any performance issues. Today, I was just informed that "for the past few months your performance has not met the expectations for your grade level" and now you're being put on a 30 day program to turn it around. How the fuck is that okay??? If my perf is that bad, why wasn't I told long before it got to this point? Because it's all bullshit and lies. There was NOTHING wrong with my performance. I'm being railroaded. I even have the data to refute every supposed reason that I was given today for being put on Focus (a whopping two wholly made up bullshit reasons).
Managers, what kind of manager just lets one of their team members go from a solid performer to crashing and burning without saying a single fucking word along the way????
Also, who is hiring for fully remote sec eng/appsec eng roles?
@0x00string forgive the cliche, but trying to figure out who “the person you want to be” is rather than just focusing on being present, and what can you do today to help others, is analogous to focusing on the destination instead being present for the journey.
Ultimately, the journey is what matters, not the destination. ;)
@0x00string pretty much every governor of Texas has been, the great Ann Richards being the lone exception, but Abbott is a special kind of evil because he’s not a dumbass like Rick Perry was. He knows exactly what he’s doing and actually believes he’s doing the right thing, which is what scares me more than anything. True believers are always the most dangerous.
@0x00string it happens friend. It happens more than we care to admit. Just part of being human, not a robot. But what’s important is you’ve recognized it and now you can stop, reset yourself, and change how the rest of your day goes. 🙌🏻
@0x00string yup, I feel ya on that one. I’ve got four kids, and we need a bigger house, at the moment we can’t afford to upsize (that will change after a bunch of RSUs vest for me this year) so we’re constantly on top of each other. Privacy isn’t really possible in our current house. It’s made for a family of four, not six.
All that said, I have a lot of very good friends who intentionally get up at 4:30am/5am every day so they can have 30-60 minutes to themselves while it’s quiet because everyone else is still asleep. I’m not quite there yet, but maybe one of these days.
Beyond that, just remember to give yourself, your wife, and your kids, grace. We’re often hardest on ourselves and our own worst enemy, so remembering to give everyone, but most of all yourself, grace, will go a long ways.
And don’t forget to take a few minutes and write a gratitude list! It’s crazy how much of a shift in your mindset and attitude happens by just doing daily “gratefuls” as we call them.
@0x00string yeah, I'd love to leave the state, but my older two kids will be done with grade school in 4 and 5 more school years starting with the fall '24 semester. They've been in the same school system their whole lives, so we'll probably wait to get out of this hellhole of a state until they're both done with high school
After a year off Twitter, I'm surprised that I don't have even a single regret about leaving. The more I think about it, the more I realize it wasn't the takeover that did it. Sure, there was a massive and harmful political shift, but there's just always been something about the platform that attracts extremely unhealed people regardless of political leaning.
You can make a post like "I just got a coffee and the milk was sour" then someone on the right will be like "Biden's border crisis is the reason we can't get good milk anymore" and then someone on the left will be like "do you think starving children in Africa would complain about sour milk?". Eventually, you just realize the platform is designed for people who's only form of therapy is logging on to the internet and being annoying as fuck.
@malwaretech I will admit there are people I miss interacting with from Twitter that I don’t see here or anywhere else. And I also miss the best place to get breaking and accurate news. But all in all, I haven’t been on Twitter in a year, too, and I don’t miss it. At least most of the people I followed professionally are here, even if they don’t post a lot.
I sure hope the #Democrats get the message across during the coming year that voting for Biden/Harris isn't everything. Without a Dem majority in both houses of Congress, #Biden can only do so much and the right wing fuckery will just continue. If you want Dem policies, you have to have a Dem Congress. Just look at this GOP House, which has accomplished nothing but chaos and threatened national security repeatedly. You have to change THAT and keep the Senate. Otherwise, 👎
@Nonya_Bidniss I’ve resigned myself to this not happening until the Boomers controlling the party are gone. I’ve lied to myself and given myself too much hope over the years that real change was just over the horizon, only to be repeatedly let down by the Dems, even when they’ve had full control of Congress.
I am gonna take the, “did we even watch the same show as the ultra conservative and fascist people saying ‘Trek/Wars/Who has gone ‘woke’” even further, and go with there are pretty much three kinds of successful sci-fi serials:
~dystopian or subversive ones making pretty obvious commentary about fascism
-ones with some slight hope for the human future that have always made at least a little social commentary about how we could make things more egalitarian and open for POC, women, gay people, etc
~shitty space marines with generally poor writing that made ad revenue
And the first two flew over way too many chuckleheads’ noggins.
I still know people who refuse to learn and/or accept and it disappoints me beyond belief. These are smart, caring, generally good people, but apparently even the slightest thought of having to actually see and treat those not like them as actual people is too much to ask.
How selfish must one be to belittle and refuse to give others the same respect and acknowledgement of their humanity? It takes literally no effort. None. And it makes my blood boil.