Netflix, The Social Dilemma, is the most important documentary of our times

Although an adherent to the church of mackerel snappers, I have two KJV's. About fifteen years ago a great book on its "raison d'etre" was published: "God's Secretaries". I think that some of my pseudo-Irish ancestors were on the wrong side of religious conflict in Scotland/England and thereby wound up on the west coast of Eire.

I'm not religious, but my brother won a KJ in a contest and it was in the house. Still, it can't be that bad, I went to a Jesuit HS, and one of the priests teaching Religion ran off the list of acceptable versions. When it got to some of the wonky new age/evangelical versions he basically said "don't bring that crap in here".
 
Your, you're. where, wear. their, they're, there. These are all words that I know the correct usage of, yet I find, that when typing, I often mess it up. Only when reviewing a post do I notice I have used the wrong one. I'm not sure why, as it sticks out like a sore thumb!

Tony.

Of course you get it wrong - the stupid autocorrect often pulls the wrong word when you get lysdexic or fat fingered and completely spell something Rong.

And I had to fix that because autocorrect corrected it to “ring” and for some stupid reason capitalized it.
 
My mobile phone frequently puts words in my mouth that I never intended when texting. Stupid thing. 😱

I always thought Psalm 46 was a bit baffling.

We mustn't go into forbidden topics here either. Lest we upset people.

I have frequently read Train Timetables at work for lack of anything better to do. But IMO, the KJV is pure poetry.
 
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No FB, cell phone gets left behind on purpose. I do read the newspaper online every morning. The Lounge is about as close as I get to social media. Luckily, no politics allowed.

Also, not every person who invented the A-bomb was against it after it went boom. Yes, Oppenheimer was anti nuke weapons after seeing the big boom at Trinity Site. Maybe that's why his federal security clearance was revoked?
 
It seems to not matter at all anymore. I see improper grammar, spelling, syntax, etc every single time I read the newspaper. And I mean every single time. I read NYT and WSJ almost exclusively. It makes me wonder if they can't be bothered to find a qualified editor.

I was talking to one of my clients the other day. He manages commercial properties on the North Shore of Chicago. We were discussing the current situation with the riots and of course he's concerned about how it affects his business. I started telling him about the riots in the 1960s and 70s, which happened basically right in my front yard. He started laughing; he said "the 70s?" like I was referring to the 1870s. It's just a meme to him but I was already in college goddamn it. He was born in the 1990s.

It's like nobody over 40 is real in the corporate world. They have no compunction about laughing in your face if you ask for a job but if they need your talent they call you in a heartbeat and offer you a short term contract. I cannot express on this forum just how much I scorn these imbeciles for their bigoted and myopic mindset. They deserve all the failure they get.


It has come to my attention in recent years that not everyone notices all the little imperfections wherever they go. Things like cabinet doors that don't line up quite right, or color matching that is slightly off. Where I work, they love it because I often notice a crack in a solder joint or a tiny crack in some insulation before it causes an explosion. It's a blessing and a curse, because I will never make something that I am really happy with- I always see flaws. For me, this same mentality applies to English, although less so when I'm tired (like right now).
 
I am a bit of a buff on Computers. Just how it is.

All this internet and computer stuff started with Rank Xerox, who made the original office photocopier. A bit of a Rube Goldberg machine involving heat, high voltage, mirrors and soot. Broke down regularly, necessitating a visit from the Xerox engineer. Which made even more money for Xerox.

So much money they threw some at a research centre called
Palo Alto or PARC.

Hopeless financial loss, but packed with bright people. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs nicked most of the good ideas. Of course the less glamorous Paul Allen and Steve Wozniak actually did the coding.

What you see in front of you is actually the Alto computer. But it's smaller and more energy efficient. And is connected to everybody else via Facebook and Forums. Which seems a good thing, but time will tell.
 
You think you have it bad- I'll write a letter to the editor to correct their mistakes.

I've wanted to write letters to the editors of my local scandal rags criticizing them for their childish and ridiculous parodies of a newspaper - they're unbelievably stupid publications there's no getting around it - but I always felt like that would be too over the top. But to me it's unacceptable that a city like Chicago doesn't have a single newspaper for adults. We have the Sun-Times and the Tribune - both publications would be embarrassing for even a small town like Mayberry. And it wasn't always that way either; standards have slipped a whole lot in the last 20 years and I mean a whole lot. They're obviously replacing their retiring staff with 20-something Twitter morons. They can't spell, they can't construct a sentence, and they sure can't express their thoughts clearly.

But don't mind me. I've got to go yell at the kids on my lawn.
 
I may seem like a cranky old coot, but I'm just applying the same standards that I was expected to meet when I was in school.

Is it unreasonable to expect the editor of a major newspaper to be at least as literate as I am?

On one of my last interviews for a "real job" the HR woman (I hate HR 😡) was very condescending to me. She chuckled and said "Oh, your education? Your education has expired." REALLY? STEM education from top universities expires? Am I supposed to pay a renewal fee or something?

I believe that in today's work environment they would turn Albert Einstein away. They might let him sweep the floor or something. These idiots deserve everything they have coming to them, dumbing society down to its lowest common denominator. 😡 I'll be dead before it hits rock bottom.
 
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I may seem like a cranky old coot, but I'm just applying the same standards that I was expected to meet when I was in school.

Is it unreasonable to expect the editor of a major newspaper to be at least as literate as I am?

On one of my last interviews for a "real job" the HR woman (I hate HR 😡) was very condescending to me. She chuckled and said "Oh, your education? Your education has expired." REALLY? STEM education from top universities expires? Am I supposed to pay a renewal fee or something?

I believe that in today's work environment they would turn Albert Einstein away. They might let him sweep the floor or something. These idiots deserve everything they have coming to them, dumbing society down to its lowest common denominator. 😡 I'll be dead before it hits rock bottom.

Some companies and industry are really bad about this, others are less so.

Albert Einstein's world was academia where "freshly minted" means age 30 and retirement age is very arbitrary.

Also, grammar / English / formatting is probably the most common thing current students lose points on with lab reports.
 
Albert Einstein's world was academia where "freshly minted" means age 30 and retirement age is very arbitrary.
I realize that but I was referring to industry.

If you were Elon Musk and Einstein applied for a job, then wouldn't you want to hire him? My point is that he wouldn't get past HR; wrong demographics, slacks not skinny enough, his health insurance would cost way too much, etc. These are the metrics of modern business.

I had more than one professor try to talk me into choosing an academic career. I sure should have listened. 😡

Edit: I look terrible in skinny slacks. I have a very large frame (and I'm short) and I have to look for clothes that aren't tight in the shoulder, arms, wrist, thighs, crotch, etc. They say that some of have Neanderthal ancestry; I think I'm mostly neanderthal. 😀
 
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Academia isn't all it's cracked up to be. I went from a national laboratory to a top 25 university.

What I've found is that an old saying applies to academia: "University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." Henry Kissinger
 
It is unfortunately the way of the world. Young kids fresh out of Uni, think they know a whole bunch of stuff that older folks don't because what they learnt is "new". Those older folks wouldn't have had the chance to learn it.

What they don't realize is that people in jobs not only have the benefit of years of experience, but often also keep up with new innovations. It is a youthful arrogance, which usually results in some major stuff up or embarassment.

IMO there is no substitute for experience, and some companies get this.

Tony.
 
It is unfortunately the way of the world. Young kids fresh out of Uni, think they know a whole bunch of stuff that older folks don't because what they learnt is "new". Those older folks wouldn't have had the chance to learn it.

What they don't realize is that people in jobs not only have the benefit of years of experience, but often also keep up with new innovations. It is a youthful arrogance, which usually results in some major stuff up or embarrassment.

IMO there is no substitute for experience, and some companies get this.

Tony.


+1000. I probably have more design experience than most of my classmates do (as is evident from the smell in the analog lab during check-off week), and I still know practically nothing compared to a lot of people I work with.


I learned early on that there will always be people who are smarter and more experienced than yourself, and that the old guys nearing retirement are very often the most valuable and interesting people to talk to. Of course, there are a lot of fresh graduates who don't even know how much they don't know.



But learning is a life-long process; it doesn't stop when you graduate. Some people in this world forget that.
 
I listen to a lot of podcasts. Much better than Radio, because it is much more targeted.

Here's one at Random, accessable on YouTube:

Tobi Lutke — From Snowboard Shop to Billion Dollar Company | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast) - YouTube

Get past the adverts and businessman Tobi Lutke of Shopify is so interesting. A huge reading list there too of books that will change your mindset too. Works best on headphones. 2 hours is a lot, but improves your attention span too.

Show notes on Tim Ferriss' website if you can't quite remember everything. It's just fun that you can be a fly on the wall with some of the world's smartest people.

Podcast — The Tim Ferriss Show – The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
 
Net fix

So eventually a guy watched a screen saying screens are dangerous 😛... and then has been saying it's the most important documentary 😀 .



That's a good one, I like it 😎... Make me think to a joke of the half XX century: a man had a call saying him than non mono loudspeakers are dangerous... and the bigger the more dangerous !



I believe Netflix is killing you more surely than a smartphone... at least it's a cerebral death... -which is corelated to some studies than more than 3 hours of daily TV is bad for your brain and health-