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ellen364

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ellen364
·vor 4 Monaten·discuss
The person who runs archive.today decided to involve me, and every other visitor, in their dispute. They decided to use us to hurt someone else. That's a pretty big sin in my book.
ellen364
·vor 10 Monaten·discuss
To work, you need to provide a National Insurance number, which is unique and tied to certain state benefits like pension. The idea is you work, pay "national insurance" contributions and accrue "contributing years" to get a state pension later.

The wrinkle is that it doesn't seem to be tied well to identity. Someone working illegally can provide an NI number that's legit but not theirs. Their work accrues to someone else's NI record, but the person getting the extra years probably never notices and the person working under their NI number doesn't care because they aren't entitled to a state pension anyway, they just want to work now.
ellen364
·vor 10 Monaten·discuss
I've been thinking about whether "$some_country rape gangs" seems racist to me. I've come down on "yes".

The reason might seem odd. But it ocurred to me that if you want to use immigration to reduce crime, including rape, the obvious solution is to ban all male immigration.

That shocked me because it seems so wildly discriminatory. Yes, most violent crimes are committed by men. But very few men commit violent crimes. Banning male immigration would punish a large group for the appalling actions of a few. Making it about "$some_country's men" doesn't seem a whole lot better. It's still unjust to punish someone for someone else's crime.

If anyone is curious about the exercise, I recommend trying it. It was disconcerting to sit with the idea of banning male immigration, really seriously consider it and realise how viscerally shocked I was by the idea.

Edit: for context, in the UK right now, phrases like "rape gangs" are part of the debate/argument about immigration.
ellen364
·vor 10 Monaten·discuss
"Approximately 1 million a year net" is completely true. In 2023 the UK's net migration was 906,000. But for context I'll add that it was a historic high and in 2024 net migration fell to 431,000.

The Migration Observatory at Oxford publishes excellent summaries about migration trends, e.g. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/lo...
ellen364
·vor 10 Monaten·discuss
Based on "a third of customer bills go on interest payments", I'd guess the original comment was about Thames Water.

In 2023 their interest payments were 28% of revenue. They also made the news for dumping particularly large volumes of sewage into rivers.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/dec/18/water-firms-us...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67357566
ellen364
·vor 10 Monaten·discuss
Love a bit of source analysis.

I'd widen the frame a bit. People scared of losing their jobs might underestimate the usefulness of AI. Makes sense to me, it's the comforting belief. Worth keeping in mind while reading articles sceptical of AI.

But there's another side to this conversation: the people whose writing is pro AI. What's motivating them? What's worth keeping in mind while reading that writing?
ellen364
·vor 11 Monaten·discuss
> what you’re demanding is that Apple allow you to run your own software on their OS

Yes. I'm not the original commenter, but this is what I expect.

From my POV, the OS exists to virtualise the hardware it runs on. I don't want the OS manufacturer to decide if I'm allowed to have a web browser or play games.

Naive in hindsight, but until game consoles and smartphones came along, it didn't occur to me that an OS would forbid me from installing something.
ellen364
·letztes Jahr·discuss
This is great advice and I've seen it work for a few people. (Not specifically for cybersecurity.)

The short version is when people can ease sideways to a completely new role at their current employer. The longer version involves getting a new job doing the same thing, but at a company that does a lot more of the thing you want to do. Initially you do the thing you were doing before, but there's more opportunity to shift sideways when you get a good rep.