Smushman

There goes my $500 gift certificate... Any suggestions on how I can recover that, or have it returned to the initial buyer?!

It is just a fact of our protective psychological human makeup that we all have fragile egos and energy conservation always on. That will make us insensitive and upset with others (we respond rudely), and keeps us safe by not wasting energy on unimportant things (we don't submit).

Both you as the submitter who doesn't want to deal with the comments, and the person who is complaining back (and to be sensitive myself, I try to remember they may not be conscious of it) are both dealing with that.

For example, think about your job, and how often did you just let things go because you had to 'pick your battles' or even 'just too tired to deal with that'. Bosses do it too. This is human nature.

It is, as you say, a people problem.

Answer: Retirement. Kind of kidding - kind of not! Some will be thinking this though...

Jokes aside - it can be tough. I recommend if you have not already done a reverse time based analysis, you do so. If you're wondering this at 40, what about 60? Think about where you want to be and how you will be perceived going forward, combined. That will help guide some of what you do with an eye towards your longevity.

Anyway, at 40 there is a high expectation to support and mentor - first and foremost. Help people see their bugs, secondarily improve their methods, and thirdly listen to their ideas to help you paint their strategy (rather than your own interpretations and strategies which may be dated).

Second, younger people may see you as the older guy with the stodgy ideas. Avoid fighting with them on that front, even though your role may ask for that. You are in a losing battle often with that up front, unless your upper management really supports your ideas. And even then be careful to be respectful - you may change your mind after some research and find you support their initially backward sounding idea.

I recommend supporting and contributing to your coworkers projects to highlight your solution methods, and show them you care. You probably have a lot of good to offer, and this will defray any potential hostility.

My further response, distanced from what I feel sure is a good analysis (to save my points).

This is a good convincer - but there is a lot of hyperbole, political theft, and outright exaggerations being painted out there; not to mention previous abuse of the scientific method to push extreme claims in previous papers. These things hurt the cause.

And further, putting people into a bucket of trolls when they are only looking for information does the same thing. Why would healthy people open to debate do that? And on Hacker News?

You have convinced me further; I am more open minded. And I will look for more ways I can justify supporting this conclusion to be sure; but I can't put everything behind such a negatively based bias and effort to convince me. There are too many charlatans to jump in with both feet and too much at risk with blind support.

This stands out:

The most recent estimates suggest that at times between 5.2 and 2.6 million years ago (during the Pliocene), the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere reached between 330 and 400 ppm. During those periods, global temperatures were 2-3°C higher than now, and sea levels were higher than now by 10 – 25 metres.

And the following:

Atmospheric CO2 is currently at a level of 390 ppm.

-----

So I take this to mean, it has not been seen before naturally - the current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide - and a non-associated temperature change (and the associated sea level rise - which I personally would expect should rise in the event of any rising temperatures - I don't need evidence that ice melts at higher temps).

I take this inability to prove that to mean further it is hard to observe the change temperatures in short time frames (think annually), but we can expect it would happen over time with our associated CO2 level, or we may be already in the middle of it and not know it.

Meaning the associated problems (a significant rollover type of change) may occur in the generational terms (100 years).

Do I have the gist of the main thrust?

If so - then the logical conclusion being presented, is that the line is so fine - we may cross it without knowing it.

Wish I knew why that is the ultimate mistake - are those people really viewed that negatively - to be the ultimate trolls? You'll never get anywhere convincing people you think of like that I would estimate.

(Dissapointed you used your junk account but I can't blame you...) I was wrong here kasey.

A chart showing we have exceeded routinely previous highs over human existing history would be pretty convincing. And not on a human recorded scale (300 years), nor a geolgical scale (earth is around 4 billion years), but a homo sapien scale (2 million years).

You could use rocks, plant life, animal life as evidence and anything else that would logically chart it.

Keep seeing your therapist along this journey - it will help you 'take a time out' to think about your situation and validate your progress.

1. Break your fall.

Depression, and any 'invisible' illness, are highly distracting. Like trying to getting an A while getting electric shocks during every class and study. It can be done (not by me, but by some I guess) but it is really really hard. You'll miss obvious problems, solutions, and obvious signs that act as cues at other times. You need to turn down the voltage a bit.

First, quick fixes. These are antidepressants. They are a good temporary measure but not more than 3 maybe 6 months. Depression kills all forward progress, and antidepressants can release some of this pressure temporarily - freeing you to begin moving to long term solutions. That is really all antidepressants are good for.

2. Find out-of-the-box effective solutions to your depression - immediately.

First, I have been helped by western herbals (St. John's Wort is proven long term effective but takes time to get going), ayurvedic Indian herbal treatments (start with Ashwagandha), Chinese herbs, gut related bacteria and probiotics (strong ones like kombucha every day - not gentle 'nudges' like yogurt).

Focus on the medicine vs the doctor/treatment. Dr visits can take a month or more and are expensive - your health can't wait. Focus on the herbs themselves vs visiting the ayurvedic practitioner, acupuncturist, or Chinese Herbalist. Via the internet, I stole bits and pieces of the most effective treatments in non-western medicine and cobbled together my own solutions.

Second, Yoga exercise routines, and add the Yoga mindfulness stuff later if you can (but at least the exercise routines). You must do this. Yoga is proven and will help you - but you can't stop there (and will find it hard to start if you have not broken your fall yet). Exercise and treatment must always be combined.

Third, mindfulness. Know you will make it through. You may not know how yet, but you will make it. Fake it 'til you make it is a proven strategy - but not enough alone.

3. If you do not have the ability to share your focus with your job (balancing your health treatment and your job) get a quick fix (antidepressant) going right away to 'turn down the voltage'. And let whatever happens to you job - happen. Panic and anxiety about a job you may be losing is waste of your very precious and limited resources (you may even find your wrong about your fears!).

Remember your solution order -

1. Break you fall (quick fix) and turn down the voltage a little.

2. Come up with long term solutions/strategies to turn it down a lot, and keep it down.

3. And finally - focus on your job last. Your good health will do much more for your job and life than your very best but highly distracted efforts can ever do.

Best of luck - I will be watching for your updates.

You have a chronic problem - you must treat it like one.

Your being conspiratorial...

In my job, I am cleaning up (maybe more like 95% throwing out than cleaning up) some 30 year old equipment pileup across 4 separate server rooms. Ancient workstations and servers, such as Sun SPARC's, SGI's, Sun Oracles, HP-UX, AIX, and even a mainframe or 2 that have sat turned on and running an OS and networked (so respond to ping), but are actually lying dormant, stuffed in a closed door rack and networked in (often with long forgotten passwords).

This tool was something I wished I had (and searched all over for) to quickly catalog the approximate age of each responding ping. I could use this to further say hey this set is 1-10, this one 10-20 yrs old, and the last set 20-30. I can safely de-rack the 10-30 now, and work on rooting in to the remaining 1-10 yr systems over time. Instead, I have to root one rack at a time, and guess/research at many of the ages of the systems, which increased the work significantly.

Why? A good question. Research scientists and interns deployed them for projects. And when the project was done, a research scientist doesn't want to lose valuable research data. Since they are paid for, why not just leave them up. That, and the old sysadmin just retired - think of The Bastard Operator From Hell, but in real life, 20 years on.

My 'stereotype' is 2x real world experience.

I know for a fact pregnancy is hard on the body - my experience was nearly 12hrs delivery and my wife was in the ICU for 3 days following. It took months to recover completely.

In your rush to defend your personal 'stereotype'; I hope you understand that being able to message clients from the delivery room is unusual. No matter what your intent in saying this, never underestimate the serious nature of childbirth.

I am trying to decide if I like the updated title the submitter gave to this article.

As submitted and on article: Want Equality? Make New Dads Stay Home

Updated: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

I see your meaning clearly now - but your point then is obviously tangential.

To your argument I also personally don't know there is any reliable way to equalize this problem. Men and women are created differently, and nature is unfair - just ask the fly and the spider. The social contract means we so far mostly anyway agree it is better treat equally than to force equality (shades of Bergeron is poignant - and yes this inches us closer).

I think the primary point of the article is that this flexible planning is not functioning as an equalizer in the workplace (Title: Want Equality? Make New Dads Stay Home...) and that it could, and should. To turn it into more direct phrasing; a woman has to take a significant chunk of time off during a pregnancy by virtue of the condition, and this has a net effect on her career.

When a woman takes off for pregnancy it is known up front it is for several months, and she is also indisposed during that time (can't answer questions or take quick phone calls, because she is not able to perform at peak levels while convalescing). So an employer accounts for the loss of that duty in different ways such as shifting responsibilities. And many of these ways become a limit to career success. Imagine she is closing a large sales deal but has to leave before close due to pregnancy - so she is no longer the clear performer in that sale, as it is closed by someone else. This reduces her effectiveness on paper (becomes a detractor) due to gender differences (becomes unequal).

A man has been given flexibility to give and take that same time in a way that permits some juggling of work and family supporting efforts - i.e your example case. You worked part time, she could really not do that in her case. This lets you stay active in your role (little effect on your responsibilities) when she could not.

Nicely done friend! Learned everything from your writeup too!

I get the feeling that droughts have happened before, are happening now, and will happen again; and we are just not able as humans to control the climate.

In fact I found this study that proves that history does repeat.

https://www.clim-past.net/9/1985/2013/cp-9-1985-2013.pdf

Thankfully, due to technological advancement though - it is nowhere near as damaging as it once was - in fact now these are barely a blip on the radar on human life. In times past, it is easy to forget that a simple drought halted all commerce, caused great famines, and without transportation and local food sources available, people were dying.

Just take a look at the history and see the trend lines for the evidence of improvement that advancements like electricity and internal combustion have given us:

https://ourworldindata.org/famines

Here's one for technology!

An accurate observation.

Though I agree with your principle (ie this is not a complete analysis), in the authors defense it is accurately titled "African palm oil expansion is bad news for the continent’s primates."

Had it been titled "An analysis of the impacts of African palm oil expansion", your argument would have been poignant.

And here is a better definition. It appears you are correct by my interpretation of this simple FAQ:

https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/jammerenforcement/jamfaq.pdf

- For example, jammers can: prevent your Wi-Fi enabled device from connecting to the Internet

- A jammer can block all radio communications on any device that operates on radio frequencies within its range (i.e., within a certain radius of the jammer) by emitting radio frequency waves that prevent the targeted device from establishing or maintaining a connection.

And more is in there. Judging by these definitions the FCC believe they have a pretty wide reach:

- Any device that jams or disrupts cell phone calls, text messages, or other wireless communications by emitting an interfering radio frequency signal is illegal

As you stated, the courts would have the final say.

I guess with a 'Monetary Forfeiture' being the punishment I have to retract my suggestion. You are better off breaking it with a rock, spear, or a shot-put!

Thanks for info - I was thinking strictly of radio interference as the only FCC concern. It is useful information to know about (and to further research).

I guess they think they have this covered:

"Mandaeans believe in marriage and procreation"

But this article speaks precisely to your statment: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-11-16/news/081116007...

Can't we jam these signals yet?

DIY method: https://makezine.com/projects/build-wi-fi-drone-disabler-wit...

Pro Method: https://www.droneshield.com/blog-content/2017/1/14/drone-def...

Seems to me with DIY method you aren't breaking any FCC regs (uses a wifi de-auth). Still I would do it out of direct line of sight (hidden/obscured area) in case operator catches you on camera.

When you pick it up just ask them to kindly come by and pick it up.

Being nice works well when people are doing questionable things (and possession is 9/10 of the law if they are not nice in return).

One guy on the inside cannot change everything - you are not Batman, and even he couldn't.

I am going through this exact same right now too and expecting to be let go any day. Want to start a company?

There are two tectonic plates in a job - the culture and the work product (the code in your case, efficient infrastructure in mine). Rarely these plates are aligned and moving together; usually they are not. You can get ground to a pulp hanging out between these plates.

On one side you feel your not doing your duty if you don't try to fix some of these things, and on the other side the team, the company, or both may not really 'want' them fixed! If you feel duty bound to improve things like I and some other personalities do - this can make for a very painful situation for you.

Try to remember that you can't change people, you can only show them things, and only in your area. Try to scope down your solutions when you have any doubts of their ability to catch on (particularly when it may negatively affect your motivation).

Specifically, you did well with your code fix at the start; but it was up to either the team to cheer you on (change from the inside) or the management to champion your cause (change from the outside). Once neither of these things happened you probably should hang back and wait for more opportunities rather than cleaning up more of the mess you saw. Set your expectations properly when you do that - another opportunity may not come for a long time; but thats the safe route.

You do deserve better, and I would love to work and probably argue constructively with you. But hopefully misery loves company and you feel a little less lonely knowing you are far from alone.

I worked at an international oil and gas company that put a high price on security in the early 2000's.

I was hired because the regular firewall/security sysadmins resisted installing tooling the director wanted that would allow them to be effectively 'monitored' doing their work on the firewalls distributed worldwide. In particular the director wanted to use Tripwire to alert when files were changed on the firewalls. He had tried to push this through 3 times before and each time it was rebuffed/scrapped one way or another.

As I went through the testing phase I took careful note of the security issues I found. When all was done I had 2 big holes I could not easily close. The first one was that from the management server (a simple Java app) you could click file/open and using the explorer window you could 'run' explorer.exe thus opening the Windows shell/GUI (as well as run command.com, notepad.exe). I closed all these with file permissions and other settings.

The final one was much harder though. You could, using the same file/open explorer window, open the log files of the GUI (with a notepad like functionality), and alter and save the logs again without notification (non-repudiation violation). The user account had to be able to write to that log for the entries to be created.

My solution was to create a long-running script in the background that would cat and empty all of the log entries every 2 seconds to another file location further limited by tight permissions only to the script account.

I deployed this in production for over a year and to my surprise it never stopped running (or more likely I thought, overflow and/or lock up the system).

My worst kludge...

I believe this method falls strictly under deterrence.

It is not possible to extract more punishment on an individual than their death, technically, unless you believe in an afterlife.

It is not punitive and meant to 'correct' the builder; it is meant to 'prevent' the builder from cutting corners.

If I drank milk, it would have shot out of my nose.

Mixed fonts...

Long thought this should be possible... I am very impressed you figured out a way to do it.

You could iterate the strategy further by creating a full font from the existing text, identifying spacing and etc for each next letter/character, calculate for word wrap lengths, and get it even closer.

tl;dr Fitness trackers on us military personnel, CIA, and similar operatives have left trails on the world map where they run. Sometimes, these is in locations that the military would not want disclosed.

OPSEC (Operational Security) should have included training personnel that fitness trackers are not to be worn when on location in secured areas, or some other solution that meets the same goal.

Without a downvote option available to me I will try to explain instead.

This statement - 'I'd rather pay more for electricity than die on an uninhabitable planet.' is in question.

Who wouldn't do that?? If it was as simple as that - logic would dictate that is the only valid option!

Unfortunately in the world of facts there is only incidental and anecdotal evidence that paying more for electricity would have even a small effect on the habitability of our planet.

To summarize - while it is possible to suggest it may have a positive impact; it is a huge leap to state this as fact in any way (and the largest disagreement I have personally).

To turn your logic on its head - if you believe this then maybe you would let me re-sell you your local electricity at 2x or 3x the price?

I Googled it and it is possible.

The easiest way is to use AAA who will handle all the DMV work for the conversion of title from commercial vehicle to something else.

So who is in on this? If that is the price this will work well.

Kickstarter!