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• Powerhouse

tl;dr: So as to make The "Global" Computer Industry Index truly Global, I listed all of ARM's and Synopsis' shops and many but not yet all of Oracles but decided to totally bail on Oracle when I met an SAP coder at Starbucks this afternoon. He said to me that "Oracle are amateurs."

I devoted a few paragraphs to my very-most beloved fan:

As I write this, SAP has over 2,800 open reqs world-wide.

One of my online friends as well as one of my online - I Am Absolutely Serious - enemies are completely convinced there are no jobs to be had, and that advertisements of job openings are purely for the consumption of potential investors so as to drive up stock prices.

And friends, that really does happen! I Am Absolutely Serious. Among my Real Life friends is a serial entrepreneur whose startup dwindled down to just one employee - my RL friend himself - whose Venture Capitalist gave him a free office at the Venture Firm's headquarters in hopes of somehow salvaging his investment.

Rhat Real Life friend advertised two positions throughout the Dot-Com Crash. And Why?

"So our creditors don't try to collect."

Had his company's creditors demanded payment, they could have forced my Real Life friend's startup into Chapter 13, thereby leading all of his startup's assets to be sold at auction with the proceeds being divided among those his company's creditors who lifted a finger to turn up at his corporate bankrupcy hearing.

It happens that I think of him whenever I shampoo William Jefferson Clinton.

In other news, NedSpace's alleged "24-hour showers" close each weekday at six as well as throughout the weekends.

This after I purchased a brand-new Gillette Mach 3 Turbo handle and enough generic yet excellent quality "Mach 3[*] Compatible" refill blades to give close, comfortable shaves to a herd of bison.

[*]"Mach3" is a Registered Trademark of Gillette. Our generic yet excellent refill blades are in no way endorsed or sponsored by Gillette. Despite that, our refill blades' price puts those of Gillette's Completely To Shame.

I have designs on a certain stone-deaf and so quite shy young lady so I managed to tidy up in the Men's Room but eventually concluded I had not the wherewithal to purchase an admission ticket for the South-East Portland "Entertainment" Venue where she and I are both regulars.

But I'll be Rolling In Samoleons Real Soon Now.

Send Them All Your Money: Portland Rescue Mission.

I gave them a thousand dollars in December. They bought a new water fountain - the old one was always breaking down. This new one has a spout for filling water bottles.

I have some data entry work that I want to give to a homeless person. If my friend Chena shows up sometime soon I'll give it to her.

Whoever I hire is going to transcribe all the street addresses of the companies I list into a database. I want to send direct - ie. junk - mail which will politely request that they verify their listings are correct and oh by the way I could use some donations right about now.

(Donations to Soggy Jobs are not tax deductible but may be in the future. I might make Soggy Jobs a non-profit but am as-yet uncertain. I am quite certain that I will never charge for listings so I don't want to accept investment. To be a tax-deductible non-profit would enable me to apply for grants.)

Stefan Youngs pointed out Dave Taylor's Call To Action: "Buy Me A Coffee". However I expect that many who would otherwise buy him a coffee are distracted by the three different options Taylor provides, one of which is to buy him lunch.

Such Calls To Action are required for direct sales advertising but not for brand awareness campaigns. To quote Dave Johnson, the owner of Working Software:

"Do you know why direct mail offer letters always say BUY NOW! DON'T DELAY!"

"No, why?

"Because it works."

Next month I will add crypto donation options to my Calls To Actions, the month after that I'll do something else until I arrive at a CTA that yields the most income.

(Has anyone bought me coffee yet? I Shall Pray To Paypal... Stefan did, but just so he could verify that I implemented his suggestion correctly. Even so I'll keep this CTA up for an entire month; at that time I'll calculate the ration of hits to coffees, as well as unique visitors to coffees.)

Chinese defend Einstein's portrait of their people as 'filthy' and 'obtuse'

Chinese internet users have defended Albert Einstein’s recently published travel diaries in which the physicist calls the Chinese “industrious, filthy people.”

[...] While some internet users called for a “boycott of Einstein” and said his observations proved “all humans, even Einstein, have a stupid, shallow side,” most said the China Einstein witnessed is nothing like it is today. “Einstein went to China at the wrong time,” said one Weibo user, describing the early years of the Chinese republic, established in 1912, which came after centuries of imperial rule. “Hunger, war, and poverty all pressed on the Chinese. How could Chinese people at the time gain Einstein’s respect?”

Many were in strong support of the scientist: “This is called insulting China? That’s ridiculous. Did the Chinese in that era look dirty? When I see the photos from then, they look dirty, Einstein depicted the true state of that era.” Others compared the scientists’s observations to that of Lu Xun, considered the father of modern Chinese literature, who was best known for his scathing satire of Chinese society in the early 20th century. “We praise Lu Xun because he pointed out our disadvantages. Why should we blame Einstein for this?”

[...] The state-run Global Times published an editorial on Friday praising the level-headed response of Chinese internet users. The author, who goes by the pen name Gengzhige, wrote: “I’m curious what Einstein would write now if he saw the open attitudes most Chinese show today toward his private diary.” The editorial elicited over 2,000 comments. One of the most liked responses said: “Dignity is earned by oneself, not given by others.”

But there were some dissenting voices amongst the comments: “This is just racism. We can see that Einstein is strong in physics but he doesn’t understand humans at all.”

Some Chinese Are Actually Defending Einstein's 'Racism' Against Their Ancestors

Previously: Albert Einstein: Racist

Einstein's travel diaries reveal 'shocking' xenophobia

Einstein’s travel diaries reveal racist views of Chinese: industrious, filthy and obtuse

Albert Einstein’s best ideas came when he was aimless. Yours can too

My wife and I have been looking to get a campervan for a couple months. We have been keeping an eye on Kajiji for vans, and looked at a couple.

The first was a 1986 28' motorhome. $4,500. We drove 1/2 way across the city to go take a look one evening. This thing was in great condition. Diesel. Nice kitchen, small bathroom with shower, and enough beds to sleep 6.

I poked around and we took it for a test drive. Brakes were a little sketchy and this thing was slow. I think it could do highway speeds on a flat road with no wind. It was pretty awesome. My daughter loved it. She liked looking in all the little cupboards and sitting in the back while we drove around.

It was a really good deal, so we were really thinking about buying it, but it was too big to store at our house comfortably, so we ended up passing on it.

Last Thursday, we looked at an actual campervan on the other side of the city and we ended up buying that one. She's a 1985 Dodge B250. We are pretty excited! It's in pretty good condition. The interior is 80's brown plaid. It's got a stove, oven, fridge, heater, small solar panels, and a little toilet in the back. It's got a high roof so I can fully stand without banging my head on the ceiling. Yesterday I was out trying all the stuff out to make sure everything worked. I got everything working except for the oven. The pilot would light fine, but the burner would not turn on. I think the thermostat needs replacing on that.

I need to take the van into a mechanic to get the shocks replaced. Also, the brakes pulse, so I want to get the front pads and discs replaced. The van doesn't warm up, so the thermostat needs to also be replaced.

So, she needs a little work, but she's almost as old as I am, so that's understandable. We paid $8,700, and I'm pretty happy. I can't wait to load her up with all our stuff and take her out camping!

Vaping essays: E-cigarette sellers offering scholarships

svn: E200009: Commit failed (details follow):
svn: E200009: '/Users/build/BuildBox/FL2000/formal-releases/1.1/Added Golden Master Release Candidate 1' is not under version control

For the most part I've been down with working at home because most of my homes had an extra room that I used as an office. But my current tiny little apartment does not; my desk is in the living room. It's all too easy to get districted by some other activity one engages in at home.

My desk at NedSpace is in a proper office that I share with one other quite-experienced coder. I was able to focus all day long. Among other things I added all of Snap, Inc.'s locations to The Global Computer Industry Index:

$ find . -name index.html -exec fgrep -q snap.com {} \; -print
./www/computer/united-kingdom/england/london/index.html
./www/computer/united-states/illinois/cook/chicago/index.html
./www/computer/united-states/new-york/new-york/index.html
./www/computer/united-states/california/los-angeles/los-angeles/index.html
./www/computer/united-states/california/santa-clara/mountain-view/index.html
./www/computer/united-states/california/san-francisco/san-francisco/index.html
./www/computer/united-states/washington/king/seattle/index.html
./www/computer/telecommute/index.html
./www/computer/ukraine/kiev/index.html
./www/computer/ukraine/odessa/odessa/index.html
./www/computer/canada/ontario/toronto/index.html
./www/computer/australia/new-south-wales/sydney/index.html
./www/computer/france/paris/paris/index.html
./www/computer/switzerland/vaud/yverdon-les-bains/index.html
./www/computer/united-arab-emirates/dubai/index.html
./www/computer/china/shenzen/index.html

Tomorrow I'm not going to list any companies instead I'll start working on some - long overdue - automation.

To my great - and endlessly-repeated - dismay, every time I start to write a new Python program I soon realize that I've forgotten it all.

I long ago grew weary of the Python.org tutorial. Perhaps I can find a fresh, new tutorial that doesn't make my eyes glaze over.

Whereas she preferred to drink in such a way that she'd really get into her dance moves, on top of a table while wearing a lamp shade.

One of Nedspace tenants is trading an infinite supply of Kombucha for a hot desk. The guy's into marketing.

Kombucha is sad to be good for your dookies. Us old guys gotta be concerned about stuff like that.

While it's not labeled as an alcoholic beverage, the fermentation puts a little alcohol in it. Just a little.

But that "little" is big enough that I'm now drunk.

At work. ;-)

Meet the Team.

This particular draft of my bio is what I just submitted to Nedspace's members-only Google Group to introduce myself. For the Team page I'm going to go into more detail about my background in drivers and embedded systems development. Aside from OSX those have both been mostly storage and crypto.

Stylesheet.

Both the markup and the css are valid yet I'm fucked if I know why my photo isn't to the left of my bio.

And yes, Portland Custom Software Development really has always been a "we" and not just an "I". Rod Schmidt was a schoolmate at the Institute, Blacker House Engineering And Applied Science '83.

Oddly at least at the time Caltech did not offer a Computer Science major.

I have Rod's photo but haven't yet cropped and resized it. He'll write his bio after I'm done writing mine.