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GeekNights Monday - Ransomware

Tonight on GeekNights, we talk a bit about ransomware. While you can be mostly safe from it just by having good backups, it's a problem that will only grow with time. In the news, Youtube introduces live streaming 360* video, and Alex St. John epitomizes everything wrong with the games and tech industries in a single loathsome bundle of human expression.

We're live at PAX East THIS WEEKEND! Commentary from the first remastered beta episode of GeekNights (a Patreon backer goal) is free for all! GeekNights Tshirts are on Amazon! Babymetal is performing in New York!

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Comments

  • Your rant on crunch is good and a must to know for any IT student in college. Here's another rant to go along with it.

  • edited April 2016
    Just here to say that Alex St. John appears to be a fucking idiot sociopath (upgraded after reading his "Recruiting GIants" pdf) and Rami Ismail remains a really cool dude.
    Post edited by chaosof99 on
  • Related to Rym's news, there was a pretty funny takedown of it on my twitter feed this morning: https://medium.com/@GurthSnisley/game-developers-must-avoid-the-pay-me-for-my-work-attitude-35d354ff3832#.axcg3fs6d
  • Alex's responses to the criticisms.

    Wow. What an unbelievable asshat.
  • Poe's Law applies here, I'm struggling to take him seriously. It's probably my wage-slave mentality.

    Also if I worked on a software team with someone who just wanted to be left alone to write code all day, I wouldn't be holding them up as a shining example of productivity.
  • Three Panel Soul did the most concise response to that guy:
    image
  • edited April 2016
    St. John's opinion boils down to one of the most poisonous and careless attitudes you can have in a manager or leader:

    If you don't like your job, you can just leave. There's the door. There are others to take your spot.
    Post edited by GreatTeacherMacRoss on
  • The whole Alex St John thing is exactly how Veterinary managers operate. You're hired to work for smiles and 1/10 th of the guy who did Medicine or Dentistry, plus you have no job security. If you don't conform to this business structure (which encroaches on how you perform medicine) or you're too expensive to keep around you're fired.

    The only way to earn appropriately is to open your own hospital.

    Seems to be a very similar situation which is the main reason I left.
  • My old employer literally said this to the teachers at the school. I don't remember the exact words, but it was along the lines of "if you have a complaint or are unhappy, no one is forcing you to stay. It's a hard job market out there for teachers and we can fill your position easily."

    Needles to say their retention rate was awful.

    When you treat your employees like garbage and tell them they don't matter, don't expect to keep your best people around.
  • Some (and I stress SOME) of the stuff I get what he's trying to say, but the way he says it is so caustic that it's hard to take him seriously. Apparently he says he writes intentionally that way to be more "memorable" or something. But also his writing is just all over the place, sometimes he's fairly reasonable in his speech, and other times he's saying absurd shit like "find the autistic kids they're easy to manipulate"
  • The presentation has exactly one good point: senior engineers can be more valuable if you keep them as engineers and have them mentor new hires than if you promote them to management jobs.
  • And most engineers hate management jobs but take them because they can make money somehow doing less actual work and just being shitty bosses.

    Where I'm currently working, a common thing is that mid tier engineers leave their department to take junior supervisor spots that pay better... and then basically hate it. so they leave the supervisor track, and sometimes the company altogether, because going back to engineering sets them way behind the promotion ladder in that discipline.

    Butbuf you stay engineer track, it might be 10 or more years of consistent promotions to get to the same salary level as the supervisors.

    Meanwhile supervisors are literally babysitters who do data entry and stay cognizant of what projects their people are doing to ensure they are charging the right accounts. They arent leading shit.
  • Has there ever been a show on Carcassonne, and perhaps, a few of the expansions?

    I feel like this game is still relevant, even as just a gateway game or just as a fun game that everyone knows how to play.
  • Has there ever been a show on Carcassonne, and perhaps, a few of the expansions?

    I feel like this game is still relevant, even as just a gateway game or just as a fun game that everyone knows how to play.

    May 2, 2006 - Carcassonne
    It also comes up in May 29, 2007 - Getting Into German Board Gaming

    That last one is good, and all the games discussed are still relevant and enjoyable (at least Carcassonne, Settlers, and Puerto Rico). Been a while since I heard it, though.
  • Cool, thanks!

    I feel like a multi game of Carc on ios now.. That is one hell of a polished app.
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