njordomir

Yeah, when I support a social program, it's with the knowledge and acceptance that some abuse will occur. It's just that I think, despite the abuse, the upside is still a superior outcome to not doing it at all. Maybe one day we'll rebuild the cultural fabric to the point where people don't feel so desperate they immediately exploit any crack in the system regardless of the risks or long-term outcomes. With changes in culture and wealth distribution worldwide, I believe global prosperity is absolutely possible.

I can't imagine welfare of any kind is more abused than the process by which the US government farms things out to private companies. If the poor are suckling at the teet of the welfare cow, then private industry is the wolf ripping it's head off. Just look at the clusters of contractors that show up like flies on shit any time the money faucet is opened.

Yeah, I want my neighbors to have heat in the winter, food when they lose their job, and universal childcare. If I have to pay a few extra bucks a year for that it's better than pouring it into the rest of the money-holes in Washington DC.

OP mentions being from another country. I don't have a ton of experience with countries commonly regarded as corrupt, though I did go to Nigeria once; money flows >>differently<< there. But there's also a stronger social fabric. I don't know if I could vote for any tax when there is suck a blatant track record of shady dealings (though it's arguable we've all been doing that). It was fascinating and I hope to go back some day.

Lol, I would wake up some time in February with an apetite sufficient to cause a global famine.

Wife was happy. Though I have now been asked to retrieve all the ornaments from the attic so her and her sister can decorate it. I only did the lights. Teamwork!

Haven't done this, but I've known people who do. Beats the tree lots.

When I was a kid we did a real tree. When we visited my brother last year we did a small real tree. Normally we have a fake tree.

We had some deaths in the family and some sicknesses, so we weren't feeling festive last year and set up a 3 foot tall fake tree before we skipped town. This year, today, I set up the big huge fake tree as a surprise while my wife wasn't home. I'm hoping the Christmassy decor without the work will get her into the Christmas spirit. We'll see if she's glad or annoyed. :-D

I read that even Azure, which you would expect to have a ton of Windows machines deployed, is like 66%+ Linux VMs. I was surprised to hear that, but it matches my limited experience.

I appreciate your comment about my experience. Perhaps I'm not giving myself enough credit for what I know. I kind of know these things in isolation since my IRL friends, bar one or two, aren't very technical so I have no benchmarks to compare myself with.

I did a little bit of cloud stuff in a past job. It was a mix of billing and tech support, nothing requiring a ton of experience or certs, though a general knowledge of computers and public cloud computing was needed. A lot of people who worked there did not have it so I floated to the top pretty quick. I work hard, but I don't need the stress of being in a dysfunctional org.

I appreciate the tip about R&D and startups. I ride my bike a lot and sometimes when I go through office parks or light industrial I see boatloads of tech-ish companies that have no consumer name recognition or anything. Whether it's R&D at a big cloud provider or something similar, the behind the scenes stuff is more likely to utilize Linux.

Oh, I'm a dummy, that joke went right over my head the first time!

I'm still looking for that ideal tie-in where I link it with something I care about. I don't know if I want to stay in IT, but I have to do something and at least the skills will be transferable. The work from home aspect of IT has also been very good to me. I've outperformed at 40h/week support work while taking care of sick family members and working out of my... walk out basement.

At least I have some outdoor hobbies to bring balance to my cellar-dwelling tenancies.