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Author Archives: Nerdmaster
A public (employee) apology
As negotiations have heated up for Oregon public employees, I’ve wondered a few times at my prior posts about the state of public employee pay and benefits. I have to admit, I was a bit wrong about benefits not being … Continue reading
Public employees and one last point
I’m almost done with my ranting. And really, what have I proven? So the private sector sometimes is dumb, too. Big deal, right? It’s not like the private sector costs taxpayers when they screw up. Except when the banks screw … Continue reading
Technology choices and lack of innovation in the public sector
I’m continuing to talk about how frustrated I am that people believe that public employees are too expensive, public employees are lazy and incompetent, and unions only protect morons. So now, on to technology and innovation. I hear that the … Continue reading
What does the union do besides protect stupidity?
Last time, I discussed how the private sector is pretty bad (though admittedly not as bad as the public sector) about retaining incompetent employees. …but all I really did was prove that the private sector ain’t all that great. Those … Continue reading
Unions protect lazy, incompetent employees
Today, continuing with my “public employees suck!” theme, I’m going to address another interesting and confusing myth: the belief that unions protect the lazy and incompetent workers. Really, this argument is ridiculous. I hear it a lot, and apparently the … Continue reading
Incompetent public employees with ridiculous benefits, and the evil unions protecting them
Public employees are the DEVIL. That’s what I’m hearing a lot lately. We cost the state too much. In Wisconsin, they have limited negotiation rights now, and here in Oregon we’re looking at various cuts to our benefits to help … Continue reading
The horrible cost of using explicit returns in Ruby….
At my lovely new job, we got a trainer to teach us about Ruby, Rails, and agile methodologies. She was pretty good overall, but one thing she mentioned a few times really got on my nerves: “use implicit returns in … Continue reading
Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, problems launching, problems playing, and windows 7
This drove me completely freaking crazy for the past few days. Hopefully my pain can help somebody else. After dealing with the incredible disappointment of Elemental, Stardock’s newest game (a subject I will probably go into further detail on the … Continue reading
Ruby lovers rejoice! Net::YAIL 1.4.0 released!
I suspect there are still some bugs, as I only have one bot I use to test the thing, but there’s a lot of really good new stuff. I’m trying to move everything that makes sense into github, so the … Continue reading
I’m not dead yet. Celebrate H-day!
WTF is H-day, you ask? Why, it’s the anniversary of the day I survived a workplace shooting that was almost potentially likely to become a very real possibility! A little over a year ago, I (and various coworkers) were threatened … Continue reading