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Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/164209.html

==================
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18543502
gambler:
Lawns are one of the most ridiculous human inventions I have ever observed. You take normal self-sufficient grass out, then reseed with some sort of crippled grass that needs constant fertilization and watering. To make things worse, you mandate it to be unnaturally short, so people have to constantly mow and use herbicides to keep the normal grass out. And all of this is made mandatory for some reason. Aside from creating grass mono-cultures, this is just a gigantic waster of time and resources that doesn't produce anything in return.

damontal:
Well people enjoy their lawns.

tropdrop:
Do they?
Our whole neighborhood remained indoors 97% of the time because most days in the summer had temps of 95-100F. Every house nevertheless diligently watered their lawn, multiple times a day, to keep up a perfect shade of green. The one house that wouldn't would be shamed relentlessly until they straightened their act.

Our neighborhood did not "enjoy" its lawns. It was collectively petrified into maintaining them to avoid public scorn.
==================

This is the story of my neighbourhood (in Florida): most of people outside -- are lawn maintenance workers. We pay to keep our lawns in a good looking shape.

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/164050.html

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm

1) Clearly there is heavy discrimination against male minority in speech-language pathology industry:
============
Speech-language pathologists - 98.0% Women
============
Males only have 1 in 50 chance.

2) Preschool and kindergarten teaching industry promotes to young children the idea that anti-male professional discrimination is OK:
----
Preschool and kindergarten teachers - 97.7% Women
----

3) Males are pushed out from Dental hygiene industry:
===
Dental hygienists - 94.9% Women
===
and escape to computers:
---------
Computer network architects - 4.2% Women
---------

4) Even though percentage of women among "Computer network architects" is low -- it is even lower in some other professions:
~~~~~
Brickmasons, blockmasons, and stonemasons - 0.7% Women
Roofers - 0.6% Women
Automotive body and related repairers - 1.1% Women
Electrical power-line installers and repairers - 0.6% Women
Telecommunications line installers and repairers - 2.7% Women
~~~~~

Thanks to juan_gandhi for the outrage outlet.

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/163772.html

Чтобы оказаться забаненным - совсем необязательно говорить о политике.

norian забанил chabapok за грубое возражение на утверждение "это полная чушь".

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/163478.html

An advertiser in Australia paid our invoice through PayPal (for advertising their jobs on postjobfree.com)
Unfortunately PayPal deducted $4.89 USD Fee from that $104.40 USD transaction.

That is 4.68% money transfer fee by PayPal.
Oops.

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/163271.html

When I try to connect SQL Server Management Studio from my machine to our new SQL server (Windows Authentication) - it has initial ~30 seconds delay.

I had to spend few hours digging for the root cause.

It looks like the issue is that SQL Server Management Studio is trying to do reverse IP lookup when it tries to connect to SQL Server.
But SQL Server does not have fully qualified name connected to its IP address.
So that causes problems when running SSMS under Windows 10 (but there are no slowness when SSMS runs under Windows Server 2016).

The fix is to extend C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts file:
https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/104378/sql-server-management-studio-slow-connection-or-timeout-when-using-windows-authe/222588#222588

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/162896.html

I tried to write a [negative] review for "Google Drive" app on Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.docs

Unfortunately, posting a review functionality does not work on Google Play either: "Submit" button turns gray...

So I will post my review here:
===========
Google Drive is not able to reliably backup large files.
Out of 22 large files 5 GB each, Google Drive was able to backup 20 files, but could not backup 2 files. That made the whole backup useless.

https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/162115.html
===========

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/162729.html

Based of my sad experience with Google Drive I decided to file a refund.
I went to Google Play, chose "Report a problem", selected "Purchase is defective or doesn't work as advertised" and explained that Google Drive cannot upload some large backup files.

This is email reply from Google Play:
========================
From: googleplaynoreply@google.com <googleplaynoreply@google.com>
To: p...j...f...backup@gmail.com
Date: Monday, November 12, 2018, 7:52:28 AM
Subject: About your refund request from Google Play
========================
Hi,

We received your refund request for 200 GB (Google One), but we can't
provide a refund for this purchase because it doesn't meet with our policy.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

You can learn more about our Google Play refund policies here
https://support.google.com/googleplay?p=refund_policy_cr

If you need help activating or using an item that you purchased, it is
often faster to contact the developer directly. You can find developer
contact information on the app's page in the Play Store
<https://play.google.com/store> under the "Developer" section or on your
order purchase receipt.

To prevent accidental or unwanted purchases in the future, we recommend
that you turn authentication on
http://support.google.com/googleplay?p=authentication_cr or change your
password https://myaccount.google.com

Thanks,

The Google Support Team

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy
Mountain View, CA 94043 USA
========================

Yet another $29.99 went into a black hole for negative result.

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/162452.html

Dropbox
Our databases backup archive is ~110 GB (22 *.7z archive volumes 5 GB each).
Every day our scripts create new databases backups, archive them and put into Dropbox folder.
Dropbox uploads these archives and every couple of months we download these archives to our development environment to test that our database backup is still operational.

We run regular Dropbox client application wrapped into service. It mostly work.
However once in several months that "Dropbox service" stops producing backups.
In this case we RDC to our server, stop the service, run Dropbox client application in regular "UI" mode. That allows Dropbox client application to update itself. After that update "Dropbox service" starts working again.

Because of these occasional problems, I decided to give Google Drive another chance and see if we can replace Dropbox.

Google Drive
After about a week of struggle with Google Drive we gave up and returned back to Dropbox (Dropbox works).

Here is how Google Drive retrial went:
1) We learned that Google Drive team rebranded their client app as "Download Backup and Sync".
It allows backup large files, but does not allow automatically download these files on another computer (we would have to download backups through browser, which is a weird exercise for 22 5 GB files we have).
So, instead of "Backup" option in "Download Backup and Sync" we had to choose "My Drive" option.

2) Google Drive successfully uploaded 3 large files (~15 GB) and stopped at the 15 GB limit on free account.
I upgraded our account to ~$200GB limit (~$30/year).
After 1 day I discovered that I upgraded wrong account (not googledrive@postjobfree.com, but my personal account). Google can sneakily switch between accounts and sometimes it is hard to notice.
Unfortunately, Google Drive does not offer refunds.
With more careful investigation I found out that it is not possible to upgrade storage on individual account, so I had to create another account (like "gdrivepjf@gmail.com") and upgrade it to 200 GB too.

3) After 2 more days of experimenting we found out that Google Drive is not able to upload couple of our archive files. Download stuck at 99% and then after ~an hour (when 2-3 99% files stuck simultaneously) download starts again from 0%.
That makes Google Drive a useless tool for backing up large archives.

Lessons learned
1) Good products are rarely rebranded. "Dropbox" name does not change. "Google Drive" is rebranded as "Download Backup and Sync" out of shame for the low quality of the product. But rebranding does NOT improve the quality of the underlying product.

2) Big well-financed engineering team -- not necessarily delivers well-engineered product.

3) Giving a vendor the second chance is, usually, a waste of time.
I knew that Google released buggy service back in 2012.
If Google Drive team was not able to produce working solution back then and allowed themselves to publish non-working product -- there is no good reason to expect the same team to fix these issues 6 years later.

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/162115.html

I voted today. Natasha reminded me about the voting twice. I would forget about it otherwise (in favor of my business).

Mid-term elections are not as exciting (the most charismatic candidates are running for President).

I spent ~40 minutes researching long list of candidates. So I am not sure if in all cases I made the best choice.

When voting - I focused on economic issues. If candidate is clearly declaring importance of lowering or not raising taxes - I pick that candidate.
So I voted for 3 Republicans because they had a better stand on economic issues.
Then I voted for 3 other Republicans (Florida state-level), because I did not even have time to research and identify economic position (and had to rely on "Republican" label).

Judges - keep the same ("If it ain't broke, don't fix it.").
New judge - picked Linda L. Gaustad because she is a former entrepreneur (he opponent Ryan Will is a career politician).

"Mosquito Control", and "Airport Authority" -- sorry guys -- did not vote for any of you this time -- no time to research and compare.


Then the most interesting part of the election -- the amendments.

- "Increased Homestead Property Tax Exemption": Yes.
This amendment should (in theory) lower my house property tax.
However I am not sure if it was the right choice. It may be better to pay more property taxes and less other taxes. By my personal greed determined the outcome.

- "Limitations on Property Tax Assessments": Yes.
If property prices rise in a bubble - it may hurt to pay quickly raising property taxes. That amendment would limit the assessed price growth by 10%/year.

- "Voter control of Gambling in Florida": No.
Why would I limit State revenue that does not cost me any taxes?
Besides, "live and let live". That "No" was an easy and obvious choice.

- "Voting Restoration Amendment": Yes.
Felons should have voting rights. That should reduce prison population and abuse of majority over minority. This amendment is a step in the right direction.

- "Supermajority Vote Required to Impose, Authorize, or Raise State Taxes or Fees": Yes.
I want to make introduction of new taxes harder for lawmakers.

- "Rights of Crime Victims; Judges": No.
I could not understand that amendment. I do not like complicated laws.

- "First Responder and Military Member Survivor Benefits; Public Colleges and Universities": No.
I do not like special treatment on legal level.

- "Prohibits Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling; Prohibits Vaping in Enclosed Indoor Workplaces": No.
Oil & Gas drilling is an important source of State revenue. "Live and let live".

"State and Local GOvernment Structure and Operation": No.
Could not understand it. Sounded phishy.

"Property Rights; Removal of Obsolete Provision; Criminal Statutes": No.
Could not understand it.

"Lobbying and Abuse of Office by Public Officers": No.
Lobbying is an important part of election system that increases influence of people with capital. I prefer people who know how to accumulate and keep money -- to have more influence on how government works.

"Ends Dog Racing": No. "Live and let live".

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/162032.html