Traditional taxes are democratic -- if the legislature raises a tax, they can be voted out.

Creative revenue approaches sound efficient, but you don't want efficiency with spending. Efficiency means that spending will grow unabated.

In my state they've had record revenue for 12 years (until just lately). Regardless of each record, they continued to outspend revenue into a deficit.

Commercial enterprises are bounded by revenue (and debt). Public agencies used to have a feedback loop (losing the next election), but in many states there is little consequence for deficit spending.

Don't give spendthrifts more ways to spend money. They will always exceed the revenue they generate.

On the other hand, private companies have no accountability to the public whatsoever, and as long as their grift is revenue positive they can exist forever regardless of how damaging they are to the lives of everyone around them. Private prisons and toll road companies are great examples of parasitic private companies that absolutely must not be allowed to exist.

“I collected tons of money from Hitler and think Stalin is, like, super bad.” [sips Champagne]

Of course, the scale is different but the sentiment is why I roll my eyes at these hypocrites.

If you want to make ethical statements then you have to be pretty pure.

Are any of us better? We’re all sellouts here, making money off sleazy apps and products.

I’m sorry but comparing Google to Stalin or Hitler makes me completely dismiss your opinion. It’s a middle school point of view.

IMO a cleaner way to do this is with a headless remote, either on disk or “backed up” on a server. `git push —-all` won’t delete refs on the remote, so you don’t have to do any additional work to record or recover them.

`git push —all backup` will record all of your refs and tags

If you are archiving branches in your own rep, prefix with `ar/` so you can grep -v to conceal them.

See also `git notes` to record metadata an against a commit without changing the commit

I clone my home WiFi SSID with my travel router so when we arrive at the hotel all of our devices auto connect without having to configure the consent / captive WiFi screen.

It’s also nice to control VPN and DNS from one place , in case the hotel is doing DNS or IP filtering.

And quite a few hotels still offer wired Ethernet , which helps performance.

Hotel wifi is often hilariously slow compared to plugging my travel router into an in-room ethernet socket. From spotty <10mbps to often a full uncontended gigabit.

Makes video conferencing and large downloads usable.

I hadn't considered this advantage. Hotel wifi is indeed often crappy.

There’s room for both types of people in any trade. Some photographers obsess over the equipment, some only care about the photos. Carpenters with tools. Musicians with instruments & gear. Every craft has people who care about the how and those who focus on the product.

I’ve always enjoyed the craft of software engineering, though even I admit the culture around it can be a bit overly contemplative .

Nevertheless, there is room for both personalities. Just hang out with likeminded people and ignore the rest.

Caring about craft in programming is more like a photographer caring about light and composition and creativity and taste than a photographer caring about equipment.

In some ways yes. Many “engineers” obsess over “idioms” and other trends to the detriment of performance, correctness and usability. So this analogy is a bit too charitable.

I'm not sure that's a valid analogy. Light, composition and creativity are all experienced directly by viewer, and essentially describe what it is that we notice and appreciate in photography (even if subconciously). The best analogy I can think of to programming is the UX/UI of the application. Given equaly competent developers, nobody is going to notice or care if your application was written in Rust or Cold Fusion.

But the original analogy is flawed too. I wouldn't consider caring about the craft of programming to be similar to obsessing over your photography equipment. GAS is about consumerism and playing with gadgets, at the end of the day.

Caring about the craft of programming is more about being an artist who takes pride in crafting something beautiful, even if they're the only ones experiencing it. I am most definitley not one of those programmers, but have always had nothing but immense respect for those that are.

> Just hang out with likeminded people and ignore the rest.

Or find ways to integrate with the rest, challenging one another to facilitate growth.

While I appreciate your optimism, the cost of conversion is 1000x the cost of reaching & identifying the right people.

If man-made software was high quality, this problem would resolve itself , because “slopware” would be easily distinguishable.

The best way to resolve this is to write man-made software that’s good quality.

It’s just a tool

Have breaches like this had a meaningful impact on businesses before? If there has been a case where the public cared , and the business was terminated, it’s definitely been an exception to the rule.

We’ll see. Benn Jordan is doing the Lords work and providing a lot of evidence peopl can bring along to their local council meetings.

I appreciate his activism

Because he attained his current position by ragebaiting everyone. He’s just a puppet of the people who are really in charge (intelligence agencies and billionaires)

I appreciate the explanation.

The surveillance state is there to benefit the rich and wealthy whom not only wield disproportionate power but are increasingly scared of their own shadow. The rest of us get nothing but crickets if we ask the police to do anything.

It’s a nice theory but still doesn’t explain why the laws aren’t being enforced. Presumably these rich, powerful and paranoid also control the AG’s and judges. Why aren’t they locking these people up?

Because it doesn't affect them directly, it's really that simple. Look at how quickly the entire media and police apparatus mobilized when Brian Thompson was killed.

This comment is a helpful way to understand Mein Kampf and whether it means its readers are Nazis.

   graemep
  on 4/15/2025
   
  Mein Kampf IS a rant.
  I recommend people read it so you can understand how people like that think.

Not something I want anyone to see on my bookshelf though!

Depends on how spicy your friends are.

'spicy'?