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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • They do not have to be implemented. Each country in the EU is open to interpret a directive as they wish, as long as they reach a desired outcome that doesn’t fly against the directive. As such, directives are often referred to as “soft laws” because they’re loose enough that direct opposition is challenging. An EU regulation, on the other hand, needs to be added to national law.

    I agree that EU bureaucracy works really well, mostly because it’s loose enough to avoid countries directly challenging it. Ireland being considered a low tax haven is a good example of this, in that a directive allowed them to meet tax requirements while also ensuring that they can house many F500 companies in a relatively small area of Dublin.


  • There is a delegated act on the way that may find its way into law, but it’s likely that it won’t get that far (like many EU laws) because they move a lot slower than local laws, and because not all countries agree (or agree to a larger extent). It’s also worth noting that the EU != Europe, so there will be several counties in and out that will have their own vested interests in passing/not passing this as law. Ireland is a big one, as they heavily rely on tech investment, whereas France will likely go above and beyond anything the EU will cook up. I believe Belgium in particular beat everyone to this.






  • It absolutely fucking BAFFLES me that Brooks’ Law isn’t known by every software manager on the planet.

    I’ve quoted it so many times at work, even in engineering focused teams in at least two big tech companies. It’s not a concrete fact, but it explains why so many teams are hilariously shit at delivering software.


  • A lot of people really don’t want to hear this, sadly.

    Both Paul brothers are solid boxers, Jake especially. I’m in no way against their current plan to have weird pro matches because people of their fame would always struggle to have a legitimate amateur career. Admittedly I have little experience of amateur boxing, but in MMA the promotion around these events is often sketchy at best, critically unsafe at worst.

    IMO Jake Paul having 12-15 influencer fights is like having a bunch of amateur fights. He’ll probably only do a few and once he’s ready for a can boxer (perhaps a Tommy Fury rematch) we’ll see him retire. All in all, a fairly standard career for a professional fighter, which for a POS influencer is absolutely great.


  • Oh boy, I’ve seen a few:

    • At a startup, one dude had obviously lied about his credentials. He was hired as a writer, but couldn’t write shit. He spent the entire day hitting on women and bitching about how his ex wanted support for a child he wasn’t convinced was his. He was fired about 3 days in…

    • When I was a student, I worked at a sports store. One girl there was, let’s say, packing in the chest compartment. She was also about 17, maybe 18. Most people were nice enough to not hit on her, but one day the security guard (who was maybe late thirties at the youngest) made a comment to me to say “I would absolutely destroy her back door, you know?” (but slightly more graphic). I told management, and she was brought in. She broke down, and went over all the off-hand comments he’d made to her. The manager immediately walked out, told him he was fired, and apologised to her.

    • An old employer hired this guy who was a Microsoft MVP nominee. The guy was one of those types that could talk brilliantly, but couldn’t take criticism. He listened to me, as I was senior, but ignored anything from managers or people at his level. To cut a long story short (I could write a book on this guy, and it would be hilarious) he lied about a project he worked on solo for six months. After checking in on his work we found he had bypassed our PR system and had been accepting all of his own requests, so no one has verified his code. It was an absolute mess. It cost the company a quarter of a million, for a project that should have brought in £50k. We later found out he was a nominee because he was so active on some Microsoft support forums, and mostly got that through posting “yeah I had the same problem” or from supplying easy or wrong answers. That loophole was closed shortly after…



  • I don’t mean this in a horrible way, but a lot of people on here are extremely entitled when it comes to immigration.The US is an incredibly hard place to move to, even if you are a skilled worker. While it often is easier to move into Europe or Canada, it’s not a given that you can just walk into any of these countries and expect to live there. Immigration is hard!


  • I agree with the sentiment. There are so many “democracy is dead” posts that make me want to scream “motherfucker, it’s dead in America, not worldwide”. The US is one country out of over a hundred. Many of us are just glad that you’ll finally shut the fuck up about your election.

    With that said, from a climate perspective it fucks everyone over. From a business perspective the economy tanking will affect markets worldwide. For Ukrainians and Palestinians, there’s a huge shift towards Russia and Israel that will be problematic for decades.


  • I got into cooking during lockdown, and have managed to get surprisingly good at it, to the point where if you asked me to make a meal of your choosing I could probably make it without looking up a recipe. It’s actually unbelievably simple to make even complex stuff, basically using all the same rules you apply at work:

    • Use the right tools for the job
    • Plan it out first, do your prep and the actual work is simple
    • A simple dish will take much longer than you think
    • RTFM. Many sauces and dishes from classic cooking are basically a mixture of a small handful of base ingredients/techniques, and they’ve been written down for decades.
    • Once you have the basics down, you can basically make it up as you go. You’ll make amazing meals, and you’ll never be able to replicate it again because you eyeballed it or cooked it in a way that made sense at the time. You say you’ll document it well, but deep down, you know you won’t.
    • Nothing is original, everything is stolen. Adapt recipes you see, look at ingredients of sauces and sachets you buy/use, etc.
    • You can be a solid hobbyist, but against a pro that does this shit all day every day, you don’t know a fucking thing. You’re also probably not going to replicate what they can do in a professional setting while at home unless you’ve got money.

  • Many moons ago I worked briefly on an ad prototype that aimed to replace banner ads, particularly those that sit in content with a single bottom overlay that would “smartly” unobstruct the viewing experience of the page. I was able to reduce a full page of horrible ads into a single box at the bottom of the page that could be closed whenever.

    The idea fell completely flat for various reasons, but some off the top of my head:

    • We have x advertisers that NEED to be on this page - how can we possibly get x on the page with just one box?
    • I don’t care if people use ad blockers, let them do their thing and we’ll target those that are happy to see ads
    • If people can easily close them, the reflex to close will mean no ad is glanced.

    The sad stat that came out was that obtrusive ads, the kind that used popups or automatically opened apps to download were VERY effective. I could prove that my ads were several times more effective than “normal” banner ads and popups, but when you could sell 10x the ads it didn’t matter if they were 10x more effective.

    My brief stint in advertising made me feel that for many years people didn’t care about those that blocked ads because there was always more shit to optimise or grow into. That has stagnated, so now the likes of Google are targeting “market share” by getting those that block ads to look at ads again. It won’t work, at all, but it feels like they’ve now optimised themselves into a hole.