cybert00th
cybert00th on Hacker News
"Here's What You Need to Remember: Men like Denard but perhaps a little less theatrical—many of them South Africans—took the next logical step. They founded businesses with boring-sounding names but a deadly purpose: to fight Africa’s nastiest conflicts on behalf of corrupt, inept governments, and for profit"
I'm heartily sick and tired of the way white South African men are portrayed as the 'new bogeymen'.
Each country has its good and bad men (and women for that matter), and if you could do a census I can almost guarantee the distribution would follow the usual Bell curve.
Get your facts first, then you may distort them as you please.
PS: I'm a white South African male
There's no way I'm changing my lifestyle so a bunch of PH.Ds and tenured Profs can retire on the Costa del Sol.
Yes! This is excellent news!
Finally, things have progressed to the point where the once far out predictions of the 1970s, may actually begin to become a reality!
It's real, I'm due to start a better role in a boot strapped company, that's just received VC funding; and for nigh on double my current salary.
And all because a colleague goaded me into reassessing where I was and where I wanted to be (they didn't do it nicely).
July 2020 and I had my first interview in August (unsuccessful), then another in April (also unsuccessful) until I was offered the one I'll start soon.
(UK based) About 18 months ago, poor promotion prospects and minimal yearly wage increases brought me to the point where I realised I was punishing myself waiting for things to improve.
So I polished my LinkedIn profile and made myself visible to recruiters.
I'll soon start a new job with double my current salary and none of the daily grind of the current one. The Great Resignation has served me well.
Getting laws changed is hard, educating others is easier, and if we all made the effort, the law change wouldn't be necessary.
Education is key here - we the tech-savvy, need to make more of an effort to educate those less so, on how to remove files from their devices that could prove compromising in the future.
Naturally, I understand that what I've just said isn't the whole answer, but I really do think it's a good place to start.
The change of title from the article to this HN post is noted. I guess it was worth a try.
It amazes me that we can create a crisis out of such a small measurement
Alternatively: a palm and its print are easily fooled
I'll see myself out
Not sure whether to laugh or cry
The elephant in this room is that the UK is slowly turning into a 3rd world country.
> But it is still worth contemplating a world without Sci-Hub—that is to say, a world in which Sci-Hub would be unnecessary. The “effective nationalization” proposed by Wiley and by the academic publishers themselves might just pave the way there. Imagine it: a 21st-century Library of Alexandria, a truly utopian creation, gifted to the world by Uncle Sam.
Those are fair sentiments but in my experience, replacing one ideological solution (capitalism) with another (socialism) just shifts the pile of money to be made, from one group of people to another.
From my perspective, I'm not sure there really is a solution as, no matter what we try, at some point somewhere greed just seems to get the better of us.
That last sentiment would be very nice indeed, but I fear this is what we'll get instead:
https://xkcd.com/927/
Ugh I lost interest once the profanity started - which is a pity, as the author was just starting to sound like they had some good points to make.
I say, more strength to her elbow - even while understanding the ultimate futility of what she is doing given the nature of what Wikipedia actually is.
So, accidently on purpose? If true then, how very ironic.
What concerns me is, these people say "trust us", but then things like this happen, and then their subsequent behaviour belies their request that we trust them.
And until we can get back to a position were these people can be trusted, well then distrust and suspicion will be the order of the day.
As a family we switched to Telegram about 18 months ago, and so far we've not found a reason to switch back.
Indeed, as often as I can, I encourage others to make the switch too - to Telegram or Signal or any other secure messaging app, just don't stay on WhatsApp!
So let me see if I have this right - Fastmail will give the Australian government access to your private correspondence, but only if said government proves to Fastmail that you've been involved in a crime?
So their default position is to give access - with checks and balances, but still to give access.
Why must the default be that governments get access? That's NEVER gone well in the past, why should now be any different?
British Petroleum ceased to be back in the 2001. Continuing to call them that is puerile at best and purposefully disingenuous at worst. Both of which detracts from the overall points the author is trying to make about the overuse and misuse of the term carbon footprint. Which is a pity really.
If we're honest with ourselves then we'd have to admit this was going to happen. After all, no government voluntarily downsizes itself,so it follows that they wouldn't let go of powers they gave themselves to deal with it.
I've heard it called drive-by management - same thing, different smell.
Welcome to 1984, Orwell was right after all.
My first thought too after reading the article!
Couldn't agree more. And about time too
What!? It didn't before!? I want my money back! Oh, wait...
Voluntary first, but after a while it will become compulsory - like night follows day. Count on it.
> as much as South Africa has a youth unemployment problem, the solution is relatively available - get youth to first complete high school and then be equipped with skills they can use to earn a living.
> With that in mind, you have to ask: why isn’t the South African government putting all their energy into this?
The list of reasons are legion, but chief among them is corruption - and until those in power get past their 'it's our turn to eat' view point, we're all just wasting our breath.
Source: am South African