Posts by Mike Friedman 17 posts • joined 18 Jul 2007
Wow. StichFix must be really hard up for IT talent if they're willing to keep on a person who plead guilty to sabotage. Remind me never to use their services for anything.
I spent years as a freelance IT consultant and several times after I parted ways (occasionally unpleasantly) with a company I noticed that I was still getting important emails for them or had access to one of their systems. I informed them right away and deleted the saved password.
Why? Because I'm not an unethical douchebag.
Because the people who lived there at the time had no say in the matter. They were being used as pawns by the great powers and by Mauritius.
And because the fruits of colonialism are always a mess. The British have found this over and over again but they still can't learn the lessons they should (Brexit is ultimately about Britain not being able to come to terms with the fact that it's a medium sized country with limited power). The lesson should be, don't blunder into someone else's home, "claim" it for your Queen and then control the place by evicting the people who live there. Is that really so complicated? Just because you can doesn't mean it's right or legal. You would most certainly not like it if someone did that to you. Because these people lived in a remote area and were poor and brown doesn't make it right.
I can't believe that 90% of NHS Trusts have some app they cannot move off of Windows XP. This is sheer laziness on the part of IT staff. Yes, doing a huge migration project is a pain in the as, but now you're really in the fire. I'll bet you their backups suck as well.
This is silly.
California is full of incredibly bright people. This has been though of before (in face a large desalination plan went on line this year in San Diego and Santa Barbara brought its 1980s vintage plant out of mothballs this year). Others have been talked about.
But what exactly would you plan to do with all of that salt? And whatever other impurities might be pulled out? It's generally mixed back with some water and put back into the ocean which is not without its impact on wildlife and ocean ecosystems.
Desalination makes some sense in places like Israel or Saudi Arabia where water is quite scarce, and California will probably have to use it more in the future, but implying that Californians are dense and stupid because they haven't considered this is insulting and just plain wrong. It's complicated and very expensive to run destination plants. Of course if the energy is produced by solar in some way that reduces the environmental impact, but there is no such thing as a free lunch.
British people don't always have all of the best engineering ideas in the world. Trust me, I've owned a British car (a 1969 Morris Mini Minor).
I feel for you in terms of how you were dealt with. No one likes to be treated like crap by any company, especially when you've put a lot of money into something you depend on every day. It really does sound like you got a lemon (and I've seen those from every manufacturer there is, and support is often just as bad).
But I have to chide you for not making backups. With 500 GB USB drives available for $100 (in the US) there's no excuse whatsoever for being without a daily backup.
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