https://youtu.be/uVeVZ-Iugkg

NYT has gotten so bloated both in actual content (long meandering interviews) as well as the encapsulating junk. I started to put it into Gemini to summarize. During this process I found, the two hour interview transcript was 50% actual words and 50% junk (probably formatting, tracking, adware, surveillance?).

The junk made me feel dirty.

Also : as usual, lots of HN type nitpicking in the comments, most missing the main story.

SQL was the foundation of a second career in business data analytics. Moderately interesting and paid the bills.

I must say, it's not just select *, joins and so forth. The human side was important. Always being on the lookout in Big Corp for people hungry for data (lots of them), and working to find quick solutions.

On their reporting, they want to appear to be objective but their biases are clear. For example, their campaign against Mamdani at all stages (it continues). They always have a couple of crazy "conservative" columnists. And so on.

I send all their emails to spam, and X out of the pop-ups. For now.

This is missing the point. The arbitrariness, cruelty, racism, xenophobia, etc. is A DESIGN FEATURE, NOT A BUG.

I hope this may help youngsters in this terrible situation understand what is happening. Since at least the 1980's, if not earlier, one American political party has been using racism as a part of their platform. They used to do this in coded "dog whistles" before. The earlier targets were mostly Black Americans (they still are, if you look at what the Supreme Court just did with their voting rights).

Now it is all out in the open. The racist beast needs to be fed continually with fresh targets. Gay Americans were another target group. More recently it is undocumented South Americans. The most recent target is .. foreigners (especially non-white non- Christian).

Don't look for logic and reasoning in all this, in the abominations. Take a deep breath, and a long walk. Evaluate if it is worth dedicating your life and career contributing to the beast, and living in constant uncertainty of your legal status, unable to travel, and so on. You are worth way way more than that.

Why is this administration, which is all for coal, oil, and against environmental policies pursuing THIS?

This DOJ is all about pursuing cases for retribution. It could be, they already know someone they want to punish, and already found they're using the device. Or, use it as a source for finding people they want to punish.

There is no "up" in space, so that wouldn't be editing the image I feel. The camera just happened to be oriented "upside down".

I've been using their data reporting product for ever. It's not fancy but you'll be amazed at how many data people use it. Back then it used to be called "SQL Server Reporting Services" or "SSRS". It is now called Power BI Paginated Reports. Over the years, the product has gradually become worse. Publishing, subscriptions, several features are now hard to use. All in the service of Clippy and the Cloud.

I wish him all the best and good luck. Maybe in 50, 100 years we'll have more definitive cures for cancer. Till then it's mostly slash, burn and poison, unfortunately.

.. per [John] on Krugman's substack.

PS: and it is NOT about software engineering LOL!