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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • Not necessarily a nepo hire, but they are scraping the barrel.

    Project 2025’s playbook was to fire all the existing people in the federal government and replace them with Trump loyalists. To that end, they created a list of pre-vetted replacements.

    Problem is, those people are vetted for loyalty first, and competence a distant second. Also, a lot of them likely have jobs already that are more lucrative than a federal position. In other cases, their circumstances change in the months in between vetting and the offer becoming concrete. So even though they may have a few thousand people on the list, a big chunk of them aren’t going to accept when the time comes. Those that do aren’t necessarily going to be qualified in any way.

    What may be surprising here is that they’re scraping the bottom so quickly. You’d think out of several thousand possibilities, they could find someone more qualified than this guy.

    This tends to be destructive in the short term, because incompetent people are making important decisions. In the long term, it’s one of the self-defeating factors of fascism. A system just can’t work this way, but it can destroy the rest of society before it implodes on itself.




  • Yeah, those are mostly showing off. They’re not really what I’m getting at, either. I more want to challenge people to make useful things simply.

    And yes, there are ways that JavaScript can be used to give users a faster and more streamlined experience. The web as it stands is so far past that justification. I swear there’s lots of “full stack” devs that haven’t a clue how to make a site without React.


  • I’d like full stack developers to try something. Next time you have an itch for a personal project, see if you can make it with no frontend JavaScript. Just some CSS and HTML forms. All templating handled on the backend. Just try it and see how far you get. Don’t worry if it looks like a GeoCities page.

    Then try finding places where JavaScript would make it more responsive or better UX in some way. Does the back button still work? Is it actually faster? Does it provide any benefit at all?

    Maybe it does, but just try.



  • AWS has a multitude of different offerings with confusing pricing structures. They have zero incentive to make them understandable.

    That said, chances are your new company has people who understand this already and know how to manage it. Hopefully, they’ll put up some guardrails that prevent you and others from running up a big bill. I wouldn’t expect a junior programmer to know how to do this, but that’s ok as long as the company is managed right. Granted, that can be a big if sometimes.





  • I mean, a lot of that was bombed away, and then there was a metal shortage. They didn’t have much choice.

    And they do still have some. Germany and Austria both produce weapons. The Abrahms main gun is a German design. France makes a lot and sells it to whomever, too. The Exocet is an anti-ship missile of theirs, and they haven’t always been discriminating in who they sell it to. The times they’ve been fired in anger has been mostly at the ships of other NATO members.




  • I think your breakdown is spot on. It makes no sense for Russia to do this.

    One of the less comfortable aspects of supporting Ukraine is that we are supporting the military-industrial complex as a necessary consequence. To be clear, helping a nation fight off an invader is one of the better things NATO has done. However, it can’t be disentangled from all the money the MIL is getting.

    Take it one step further, and US withdrawal from NATO (official or otherwise) necessitates the EU strengthening its own MIL. Which means that within a generation, they’re likely to have the same overreaching MIL influence on their politics that the US does.

    I think this statement should be seen in that context. The existing MIL in the EU sees a big opportunity, and is taking notes from their US counterpart.

    I honestly don’t know what to do about that. Withdrawal of support to Ukraine is not an option, and if the US is backing off, the EU needs to step up. But that gives strength to an industry that doesn’t deserve a higher position at the table than they already have. Putin lost the war in many ways the day he invaded, but forcing the EU’s actions might be one last big fuck you while he jumps into his grave.