Posts by gaston

In '90s Microsoft, you either shipped code or shipped out

Always felt it was a beauty contest

I always felt that sucking up to management was more important to retaining a job and receiving pay increases. Lack of interpersonal skills was the fastest path to getting canned. At one company all the misfits (myself included) were placed in the same department. Suddenly our department was being rewarded for our productivity. The wheels fell of after 2-3 years due to two factors. Our boss got tired of running a kindergarten of antisocial personalities and took a much better paying job at another company. His successor did not know how to market our capabilities internally and the department was dissolved.

California cops confused after trying to give ticket to self-driving car

Re: Its a commercial vehicle

Absolutely agree! Impound until a person shows up. A moving violation usually results in points in addition to fines. Therefore a single responsible person at Waymo should take the hit. I would say an “owner” of the company.

Californian man so furious about forced Windows 11 upgrade that he's suing Microsoft

Like to see the Right to Repair weight in

It is Microsoft right to drop support anytime they agree to as long as they don’t have a contract stating otherwise. So:

1. How long before Microsoft declares EOL for Windows 11? That should make a hardware/software upgrade decision easier.

2. If Microsoft is going to “abandon” Windows 10 then why not turn the code over as Open Source? I’m sure a lot more security vulnerabilities will be discovered and some of them may get fixed by “the community”.

Then again maybe Windows 11 is just a reskinned Windows 10 with hardware prerequisites and enhanced surveillance capabilities.

US signals intention to rethink job H-1B lottery

Not a simple issue

H-1B visa holders subsidize the USA retirement programs of social security and Medicare. Since the visa holders and their employers are supposed to pay into the system but these visa holders if they don’t stay in the USA never collect the benefits.

#1 the companies that hire H-1B visa holders should be audited for compliance and banned from the program for underpaying their contributions to the system.

The companies that hire H-1B visa workers are supposed to perform a salary survey and show that there is a lack of USA workers at 120% of the pay for the position. Companies routinely game the system.

#2 instead of using salary surveys use a double blind reverse auction for each job position. A USA worker can take the position and it won’t count against the H-1B visa quota. If they company bid price is too low another company can end up hiring the H-1B position for more money. More money not just for the worker but for the price of the visa itself. The USA government could then plough the proceeds from the auction price of each H-1B visa into education and training of USA workers.

This won’t solve the problems but will shift the economics that supress wages in STEM so that companies can be more greedy.

GAO finds billions in possible government savings, all without Elon's help

DOGE liberation window dressing

DOGE’s estimated savings are about equal to the cost of a single F-35 fighter plane (of which over 1000 are in service in the USA) which are still being produced. If the goal of DOGE was to cut spending and improve efficiency then the low hanging fruit is in the DoD, which is the largest share of the discretionary budget.

Structural changes in entitlement programs would also make changes. Increase the already high Social Security full retirement age from 67 to an even older age.

Intent aside, the outcome of DOGE has been to ruin: USA soft power abroad, investment in citizen health, and future scientific research. DOGE is the boot in the face.

DOGE is a challenge to Congress who controls Federal spending. Congress is also part of the problem. Decades of pork barrel policies have resulted in inefficient spending policies that favor well connected elites over taxpayers.

Datacenter energy demand in bitbarn 'capital of the world' Virginia nearly doubled in second half of 2024

At the same time consumers subsidize

As reported by the State Corporation Commission, the entity that regulates Dominion Energy pricing, residential consumers are subsidizing these data centers. Basically the capital outlays to build out the power transmission are passed on in residential electricity rates while at the same time commercial users are allowed to purchase electricity at bulk (discount) rates.

What makes this exceptionally egregious is that Dominion Energy has successfully lobbied the Virginia legislature so that consumers are disincentivized from moving off grid to solar and wind power. Virginia has some of the worse State level programs in the country for reducing residential electricity use. It has been noticed that Dominion Energy spends a lot of money buying votes in the State legislature.

With Trump in office, the expectation is that Federal alternative energy incentives will be on the chopping block making Virginia residents even more captive tenants.

Fantastic Mr Fox? Not when he sh*ts on your lawn, kids' trampoline and your soul

Advise from my experiences

+1 on getting a pellet gun/air rifle

- Get a bigger dog. Small dogs/cats are as much prey as predator for foxes. If you don't want a permanent second dog, consider fostering a big dog through a rescue organization. Hint (a breed such as Fox hound or Fox Terrier may be a good place to start).

- Remove their food sources: garbage, rabbits, field mice, etc. Having a hawk or an owl in the neighborhood provides good competition for the fox population. Foxes are smart. Around here they know which nights people put out their trash.

- Get a trail camera (or two or three). What you want is a trail camera with a bright motion activated flash. This and motion detecting lights in general will help.

- Unfortunately, I have had no success with humane traps (only kind allowed near me). The Habi-trap that I bought to catch the invading raccoon's and foxes, only caught one squirrel. The problem was in releasing a very upset squirrel without getting myself bitten. Local animal control is not that much help. If you do go the trap route, a trail camera will help you get the correct size.

- You need to get your neighbors on your side. Putting out food encourages the full spectrum of critters and just creates a dependency on humans.

- In the UK, there apparently is a night hunting technique called "lamping". You might be able to entice a local hunter to try a night hunt on your property or ideally with your neighbors cooperation throughout the neighborhood. Probably a good idea that your children have a sleep over with friends that evening.

- A big fence

- Roll with it and be grateful that you have your rodent and rabbit population under control. Also that you don't have a wolf or bear problem.

Tech giants get antsy in Northern Virginia: Give us renewable power, there's a planet to save... and PR to harvest

A NoVA resident

Real estate is expensive here in Northern Virginia and yes Dominion Electric has a virtual monopoly on power generation within the state. Even more so, Dominion seems to have the state legislation in their pocket. There are no tax break, credits, or incentives for residential or commercial alternative energy. I have looked at installing solar on the roof of my house. My break even was greater than 15 years, so I was waiting for: efficiency to improve, the State and/or Federal Government a provide a better tax credit, and electrical storage costs to decrease. Dominion Electric charges a premium to permit excess electric back onto their grid. It is not revenue neutral in that they charge less to deliver electricity than receive it.

On the other side, the grid infrastructure is having difficulty handling not just the load from the data centers but all those McMansions and their Tesla's. Periodically Dominion Resources goes cap in hand asking for rate increases to cover infrastructure and power distribution improvements. At the same time, there are periodic outages from storm damage (sometimes week long) since much of the lines are still run on overhead poles. There does not seem to be any strategy to bury lines to prevent future outages.

If you are a Dominion Electric stock holder, however, this should be music in your ears, since the stock price has doubled (with dividends reinvested) over the last 8 years. In other words it is about making money not about helping the big data centers or the data centers biggest customer, the US Government (and indirectly the taxpayers).