Narcissism is scary and ridiculous thing. I actually know a guy who desperately wants to get a Nobel Literary Prize because “he deserves it!”. Except no one rightfully gives a fuck. He’s an old timer who ended up migrating to US after WW2 with a whole can of worms and then some regarding his national identity. Depending on his mood he’s either Ukrainian or American, I’d say he’s 100% narcissist who is all about clout. Dude never made it as a writer and gained notoriety in Ukraine due to his outsider status first and yet he’s so vain it is kinda morbidly funny - like he insists he’s the most experimental Ukrainian writer (even though he disregards every other writer as primitive and retarded) or that he did this or that first (like who gives a fuck?). But even with all these “accomplishments” he struggles to publish anything in Ukraine because wants publishers to cover the expenses and give him “the bag” for their trouble and when he fails at that he blames it on “Ukrainian people being ungrateful”.

education is critical in this whole thing and it is telling that it is consistently under attack. when people get smartened up about something - shit gets done.

What Musk did is something akin to patching the holes in the bomber plane that came back from the mission instead of strengthening the parts that didn’t got hit during said mission. Dude completely missed the point of his own agenda.

For whatever reason people vote for promises not track records. And even when the right people get in - the real problem has everything is that representation gets diluted with each successive government layer.

The higher it goes, the less it represents actual communities and regions. Even when the adequate people get all the way into parliament - you still have 80% of the cronies neutering their efforts and screwing everyone over. Not to mention those who just get corrupted by this kind of environment and opt into dirty dealings.

For example, you can elect fairly competent local representatives who would do their job like clockwork - but just one level above to the region level - and you get bunch of homies pushing their agendas instead of the region’s (which actively stifles local economy) and then the parliament is literally a menagerie of said characters at highest level mostly pushing their oligarch benefactor’s interest and cementing them in legislation (which actively stifles the economy state-wide). and then you get shit like labor codex being slanted towards employers to a ridiculous degree, you get tax legislation that doesn’t even make any sense, the whole business-related set of laws is downright hostile to new and small businesses in favor of big established companies and so on and so on.

there is also an issue with the scope of the whole system. it is way too big and too tangled to function smoothly.

my country went through it - i don’t remember energy shortages but the food shortages were real. That systemic mismanagement over decades with fudged performance figures up and down piled up so high it’s a miracle things weren’t worse. Took a solid decade just to clean this mess

that word is so loaded for me - literally every time someone uses it regardless of context I remember The Godwinns theme and feel really old.

Wired clickbait, sigh

I see. Thanks for clarification. I never worked with COBOL myself but have couple of folks on the team who worked with COBOL in banking back during 2000s who still have full-on vietnam flashbacks over it. I guess the COBOL they worked with was an older iteration than you described.

my only experience with it was for code cleanup - since those tools save me from bitching and moaning from the team - let it rip

Even last year I would’ve said “hold ya horses, pardner” but these days I think you’re onto something. The way big tech keeps on screwing everybody while other parts of the economy actively sink is concerning.

You sir are hardcore.

It has its moments, but you are absolutely right - 25 years ago Wired would’ve torn modern Wired a new one for their clickbait speculative thinkpieces.

you can maintain make-believe “all good nothing to see here” for only so long until the reality becomes undeniable. given that cost of living crisis is already running roughshod through the economy - it’s not a good sign and it will get worse.

Its Freemium, at least it was like that. Using COBOL should be regulated by Geneva conventions at this point.

nowhere, I just relayed my personal observation regarding vibe coding in Ukraine as one of the examples

Wired pushing corporate agenda is happening.

PASCAL!

yikes

very apt comparison