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anon4242

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It's a potential Heisenbug for (some of) your javascript code. Sometimes things work on some machines and sometimes it doesn't. Unless you have the cert-chain misconfig in your brain-cache you'd probably spend hours debugging confusing bug reports from customers that you fail to reproduce reliably. So it's not just harder to debug, it causes bugs (and indirectly bug-reports you'll need to investigate).

I'm dead serious. Btw, I'm also thinking of Anders Hejlsberg and Rasmus Lerdorf. They also live in North America. But that doesn't remove the fact that they were all born and bred in Scandinavia.

I'm guessing that their decision to move west had very little to do with the "stifling" unions and more to do with the increased opportunity for a skilled SWE over there. I would say that that increased opportunity has also very little to do with "stifling" unions and more to do with the huge single market that the US is. That huge single market allows companies to grow fast. The EU works hard to be a single market as well but we have language barriers, bigger legal differences and dare I say bigger cultural differences.

Also talking about Scandinavia, as tiny as it is population-wise, we've had a disproportionately large impact on the world in many different areas. Some factors that contribute to this, I believe, are our free education system and the social safety net that unions have played an important part upholding.

"From the EU" is hard to discriminate in our industry these days I think, things are developed all around the world these days.

Then again maybe we have different tech stacks but mine typically includes: Linux (originally from Finland), ARM (from previously EU member UK), C++ (designed by a Dane) and Python (designed by a Dutch). That's the basis at least then there are other stuff as the need comes by.

As for social stability, I didn't intentionally misinterpret you. The kind of monetary equality that we traditionally have had in Sweden is good for social stability (the one without quotes I was talking about). That has changed during the last couple of decades and with increasing differences in income comes the increasing social problems we see.

OTOH I do agree that Jante can definitely be a negative factor when it comes to innovation.

I found it on LinkedIn, specifically targeting Swedish SWE ASFAIR but do you really want to work for $50/hour? That's less than I pay my carpenter and it's what $100000/year boils down to when you have to work 50 weeks/year.

The ad said prominently $100000/year which sounds pretty ok for an SWE salary in Sweden, but then if you read on you realized that you needed to start your own company and your company would be paid $100000/year which is quite a big difference. That's my main objection to these types of ads, if you don't already run your own company, chances are low you are familiar with the payroll tax and other costs that comes from running a company which will eat into what you may initially perceive as a good salary, only to end up working more for less.

In my experience as self-employed, it's not that hard to find Swedish companies that pays at least twice the hourly rate and then you can have much longer vacation and still earn more!

I’m interested in fundamental challenges around computing: programming languages, cloud platforms, operating systems

Yeah, for programming languages you should probably have been Danish and for operating systems the Finnish have had quite an impact. Both socially stable countries with dare I say pretty strong unions...

We also have a work culture were effort and ability is not rewarded (which at least I associate with strong unions), but “playing politics” is.

To me that sounds like your typical large company. I've had a great time working at small startups but I've found that my job satisfaction pretty much scales with the inverse of company size (within limits, it seems 20-30 employees is the sweet-spot for me).

One thing I care about as a Swedish engineer is interesting work on the forefront of technology. Sadly that’s also been sacrificed in the Nordic model.

I am also a Swedish engineer and find that there are plenty of interesting and innovative companies to work for. As a software engineer it has typically been easy to find jobs that offer better compensation packages than what the union requires but I still see a union agreement as a positive thing if the company has it. To me it signals that they care about their employees. I also believe that the strong unions in Sweden have given us the (at least) five weeks of vacation, compared to the two in (the weakly unionized USA) and other quality of life and safety improvements.

I see the holding back of ambitious, entrepreneurial people in order to preserve “social stability” as increasingly unethical.

This is quite an ignorant view. Social stability is the foundation for society, and society is the foundation for innovation. Who will build what you innovate? Who will buy it? Who will service it? Who will innovate based on your innovation? If you did an honest comparison of the innovative output of socially stable countries with those that are not socially stable you would change your mind.

The government doesn't dictate when you take your vacation. They only dictate that if you want four consecutive weeks of vacation during the summer no company is allowed to deny it. Your employer is however allowed to say that you get your four weeks any time during that period. Most people typically vacation in July so the whole country basically closes down then.

It's interesting, I've started seeing job ads in Sweden where you are expected to setup your own company to work for a US-based company with US-style PTO. The salary looks bigger than what is typically offered by Swedish companies but that is because not only do you have to work more, the company you setup will also have to pay the quite steep payroll tax (at ~31%) that most employees are not familiar with (as it's paid by the employer on top of your salary before personal taxes).

The law in Sweden dictates that a company must give its employees at least 5 weeks of vacation of which at least four weeks consecutively some time during June, July and August.

This is really insidious as it looks like you'll be earning a lot (but you won't) and it's hard to sue yourself for only giving yourself two weeks of vacation.

Cooler screens 3 years ago

LOL from their homepage:

    The retail experience consumers want and deserve
    Cooler Screens was founded on the core idea that consumers deserve a better experience in brick-and-mortar retail. We bring in store consumers an irresistible experience with what they love about shopping online: ease, relevance, and transparency. 
    90%+ of consumers no longer prefer traditional glass cooler doors
Fortunately we don't have them where I live but they seem like a truly horrible idea.

Last I looked there were more than two members in the council, and also USSR hasn't been a member since 1991 if I recall correctly. Anyway here's the current list for you convenience: https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/current-members

If the bylaws of the security council contained the risk of exclusion or at the very least loss of veto, I think both the US and Russia would more carefully contemplate the cost of the invasions they are guilty of.

They are talking about the security council, not the UN. The way members in the security council holds a veto to every decision paralyzes it. You should automatically lose your veto/seat in the council if you invade another country.

I don't know, we've been doing it for years. Maybe it's a regional thing? One account for me and one for my kid. I authorize the use of my games for his account on his machine (I need to login with my account on his machine to authorize his machine, I did it just the other day as the machine authorization only seems to last for a while). Then he can install and play any game of mine I allow (or all) once he logs back in with his account.

If you still pirate games in 2023 then it's because free is more important to you than anything else. But back when Steam launched it was much more of a hassle to get a game:

First you needed to go to a physical store miles away and once you got there the game you wanted may have been sold out. And then there was seldom any sales, except the box of mixed five-year-old games no one wanted by the counter (only $1.99) that you could rummage through and hopefully find a gem. "Darn, they were out of Half-Life[1] but maybe this copy of Strike Squad[2] will be fun while I wait for two weeks for the next batch of Half-Life?" Also note that while a five-year-old game today will barely look dated, back in those days it's the difference between [1] and [3]. Then when you came home to finally install the game, the CD was scratched and the game wouldn't install. And typically the installer didn't notice this until it had reached 95% after 45 minutes of waiting. The StarCraft CDs were notoriously bad in this respect and you needed to treat them like delicate flower petals. "Eh, my StarCraft CD no longer works, can I borrow yours? NOO!"

So for those of us, who pirated StarCraft after the third authentic CD had broken down, Steam was a godsend.

[1] https://www.mobygames.com/game/155/half-life/screenshots/ [2] https://www.mobygames.com/game/9899/strike-squad/screenshots... [3] https://www.mobygames.com/game/1068/doom/screenshots/

There are four cases to consider, MM (both kids are Male), FF (both kids are Female), MF and FM. So there's a 50% chance of same gender kids and a 25% chance for both kids to be female. So if you know the gender, say female, of one kid but not if they are the older or younger, you have these possibilities FF, FM or MF. And FF is 1/3 of that.