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They're Gonna String Me Up For This.

Posted by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:46AM (#3400)
23 Comments
News
Or at the very least, burn me in effigy.

So as to ensure that both sides of this decades-old conflict put a price on my head, I have - as-yet uninitialized - West Bank directories for both of Israel and Palestine.

I've devoted two solid years to trying to figure out how to list technology companies in disputed territories.

For me to list Kashmir as a territory in Pakistan is quite a serious criminal offense in India. I don't have any Kashmiri listings yet so I don't know how it will go, but quite likely I will have separate "Find a Computer Industry Job in Kashmir" for both of those sovereign nations.

The solution I eventually settled on this very night is that I will locate each company in the political location where the majority of its own employees regard themselves as citizens of.

That's quite simple for the Gaza Strip but not so simple for the West Bank: SodaFizz is located in the West Bank, and has more or less equal numbers of Israelis and Palestinians working side-by-side in peace and harmony.

I also replaced my "Buy Me A Coffee" Call To Action with:

Please Tell Us Where Your Company Is Located!

Because Soggy Jobs is a geographical index, we can't list you unless your website tells us what city your office is in. If you have more than one location, please list all of them on your site.

It usually works well for me to find all your locations on your Jobs or Careers page - but not always: it's quite common for technology firms to hire through their own websites without telling their applicants where they'll be working!

THX!
-- Mike

I Am Absolutely Serious: I've found lots of companies that I cannot list because they provide potential applicants with no way of determining which continent they'd be working on, let alone which timezone. Help Me.

I Just Changed My Opinion Towards Mark Zuckerberg

Posted by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday July 20 2018, @02:29PM (#3398)
4 Comments
Security
Just now I used Tor Browser and a throwaway eMail to register a fake account with Facebook, then scouted around for child pornography for a little while.

I found absolutely none.

While Microsoft couldn't care less about Bing Image Search turning up adult men sodomizing their six year old daughters, Google is quite diligent about removing kiddiepr0n from it index. Even so it misses some, that is not hard at all for me to locate.

"The darkest parts of Hell are reserved for
those who preserved their neutrality
during times of moral crisis."
- Durante degli Alighieri - "Dante"

Jonathan Swift
mdcrawford@gmail.com

Monday, July 6, 2015

Do you take pride in your work?

I do; quite commonly my clients hate me for it. If you ask me for what you want, I will give you what you need.

Is There a Cause for Which You Would Give Your Life?

I'm working on that.

It is said that "Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is to act despite the presence of fear". I was once that way but now I am not courageous, but fearless. This leads me to do things that others regard as... not so much ill-advised, but damnfool ignorant if not actually batshit insane.

The man who molested me when I was a little boy collected child pornography.

In my plain sight he molested two others.

The only child pornography that he created - that I am aware of - I posed for. To the very best of my knowledge he did not sell it; many child pornographers give it away freely.

I am not real sure I will ever figure out how many psychiatric hospitals I have been in. If I tried I could count my suicide attempts but I would have to puzzle over them for a little while.

I hold the vast majority of law enforcement officers in the highest esteem. They work hard to do right by us all; more than once a cop or a deputy has saved my life.

But based on actual results I have come to regard some law enforcement officers, as well as at least some of the national intelligence agents, not just of the US but most countries, as total slackers.

Were that not the case, the Microsoft Bing Image Search cache would not be so chock full of kiddieporn. That so many sexually explicit photographs of children are hosted on Microsoft's own servers is evidenced by the availability of the images on Bing despite that their original servers are long-gone.

Quite clearly someone is taking out the child pornography servers. I remain puzzled that the kiddieporn is still available from Microsoft. It could not possibly be that Microsoft doesn't know about it, as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the International Telecommunication Union's Child Online Protection initiative, INTERPOL and the like notify Microsoft's friendly competitors when abusive imagery is hosted by such sites as Google's Blogspot

Quite commonly images served by Bing come from Blogspot, but Bing continues to display the image in search results after Google removes them.

Law Firm Kills WaPost Exposé of 60 Minutes Producer

Posted by takyon on Friday July 20 2018, @01:52PM (#3397)
2 Comments
Career & Education

‘60 Minutes’ Boss Hired Law Firm Over #MeToo Story

One of television’s most powerful men, 60 Minutes Executive Producer Jeff Fager, hired a law firm that boasts about “killing stories” for a Washington Post investigation into him, three sources familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast.

The story was a deep dive into what CBS managers knew about former anchor Charlie Rose’s alleged sexual misconduct, but due to the aggressive tactics of law firm Clare Locke, the sources said, the story was “effectively neutered.”

Clare Locke also did work for former Today show host Matt Lauer and current New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush, three sources say. Both men were accused in news publications of sexually harassing women. The law firm was also recently hired by David Pecker, the CEO and chairman of American Media Inc., parent company of the National Enquirer, to try and shut down a negative story from a newspaper, according to two sources.

"Red Sparrow" Mariia Butina Accused of Being Russian Agent

Posted by takyon on Wednesday July 18 2018, @08:31PM (#3394)
7 Comments
Career & Education

Accused Russian agent Mariia Butina tried to trade sex for influence, say prosecutors - Previously, the FBI had said Butina was trying to establish relationships with a "gun rights organization," which NBC News has reported is the NRA.

The gunslinging Russian woman accused of cozying up to American officials to infiltrate the U.S. political system — at the behest of her Kremlin-linked mentor and with the help of her American boyfriend — allegedly tried to trade sex for influence.

The "Red Sparrow" scenario was unveiled Wednesday in a government memorandum that laid out the reasons why prosecutors believe Mariia Butina, 29, should remain jailed until trial.

During a detention hearing in federal court on Wednesday afternoon, Butina pleaded not guilty to being an unregistered foreign agent and was again ordered held without bail.

Should I apply for a management position?

Posted by Snow on Wednesday July 18 2018, @07:47PM (#3393)
14 Comments
/dev/random

I've been working for the same company for 13 years - 10 of which have been in my current role. I do application support for a highly customized, business critical application. I'm good at my job. I've automated most of the job away. I can fix any issue that comes up. It's easy.

A manager position has just opened up to manage the team I am currently a member of. I'm not sure if I should apply or not.

One one hand, I know the company well. I know the functions of the group intimately. I am familiar with the business processes and know most of the key people on the business side of the house and have good relationships with them. I'm good at fixing problems. I'm good at working with others to get a problem solved. I like running meetings (I like the showmanship). I've been doing the same thing for a long time. I'm comfortable.

On the other hand, I'm not all that organized. I don't like screwing around with excel. I hate powerpoint. Basically, I hate all of office. Managers at my organization tend not to last more than a couple years. I have a solid pension that if I can hang in here until I'm 55, I could retire. I'm also tired all the time from my baby. We are going to get pregnant again soon so I'm not going to be any less tired for the forseeable future. I don't know if I have the energy.

Should I give up a good cushy job that allows me to dick around on the Internet for most of the day? The management position would probably come with a raise, but it probably wouldn't be that much extra (I'd guess +15%ish, maybe). I'm bored of my current job and feel stagnant in life, but I'm also exhausted.

What do you say? Stay and keep my chair warm for another 20 years to retire with pension at 55, or try for the manager position and get some experience that I will need a couple years later after the next round of 'restructuring'?

Off I Fuck

Posted by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 18 2018, @09:04AM (#3391)
47 Comments
Soylent

I'm out of town for a couple weeks and taking no tech with me except my phone and a USB drive with a bunch of SG-1 and my ssh keys on it. I may have time occasionally to rhetorically bitch-slap someone but not to hold up a serious conversation or to unfuck the servers if you folks break them while I'm gone. Which is basically to say that if you guys set the place on fire and want it put out, I hope you drank plenty of water beforehand.

Herpetology's #MeToo Moment

Posted by takyon on Tuesday July 17 2018, @11:52PM (#3390)
14 Comments

The Global Computer Industry Index Is Far More Global

Posted by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday July 17 2018, @02:53PM (#3389)
6 Comments
Career & Education

It is quite helpful to list _all_ the locations for a few multinationals. It's even more helpful for each of those multinationals to be headquartered in a different country.

Once I've got all their locations listed, I will then put some effort into finding local tech companies. That is, once I've discovered that Sophia Antipolis is a tech hub it is straightforward to find lots of other firms that have shops there.

Now there's a page for the European Union. I do not yet list all of the EU countries, rather I currently list only those countries in which I have found at least one tech company.

However I intend to devote some work towards finding at least one such company in every EU member state. This so as to avoid insulting anyone's national pride.

I also have a page that lists African countries. So far I only list two different companies but I'll list a whole lot more by this time tomorrow.

The Wall Street Journal just published "The 25 Top Tech Firms To Pay Attention To". I've listed about 17 of them so far. When I'm done with 2018's Top 25 list, I'll move on to 2017's, 2016's and so on

About a third of the WSJ's Top 25 have more than one location. So far I've listed one multinational but likely there are more.

On a Lighter Note

Posted by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 17 2018, @11:06AM (#3388)
36 Comments
/dev/random

I'm in a pretty good mood this morning and you lot could very well make use of this, so I'm going to share with you the Old Indian Fire-Starting Trick as taught to me by my forefathers.

Setup: First you need a prepared fire ready to be set aflame. It can be your traditional fire of the tinder, kindling, wood type or it can even be charcoal doused in lighter fluid if you're in a bind. Next you need to announce that you'll be performing the "Old Indian Fire-starting Trick" to get it going.

Execution: Carefully inspect the prepared fire, making sure it is safely laid. Make visible note of any failed attempts to get it going. Wet a finger in your mouth and hold it up to test the wind. Affirm with a nod that conditions for the trick are suitable. Now pull a lighter* out of your pocket and use it to light the fire.

When called on your bullshit, recite the following, counting each off on a finger as you do: I tricked you, I started a fire, and I learned it from an old indian. Old indian. Fire-starting. Trick.

This trick is good for most any audience or occasion. Feel free to add any audience-appropriate cheese before you pull out the lighter. You're welcome.

* I advise a Bic for those of you not experienced in lighter selection. An overfilled Zippo will land you with a mild but annoying chemical burn on your leg and a Cricket will run out of fluid before it runs out of flint, leaving you looking at a lighter with fluid in it that can do nothing useful ever again.

New Grow Light in Cannada

Posted by takyon on Saturday July 14 2018, @08:52PM (#3384)
8 Comments
Techonomics

New Grow Light Technology Being Tested in Canada

A new, broad-spectrum light that mimics sunlight more closely than others is being tested in Canada, the Edmonton Journal reports. The light is manufactured by Edmonton-based G2V Optics and was originally designed to test solar cells at the University of Alberta.

Michael Taschuk, the developer of the light, previously managed a team of researchers at the University of Alberta. The lights have been in use at Endless Sky Canna Corp in British Columbia, Canada.

Endless Sky’s CEO Travis George reports that the lights are twice as effective as other grow lights the company has used.