I don't think anyone's saying unions can do that? They can protect workers and provide some balance in the power dynamics, but there absolutely are limits.

No it's more because things have gotten worse. When people's parents could get an X-bedroomed house on a single parent's income, which they grew up in and developed their sense of aspiration and normality, but they cannot do so with joint really high incomes, there's a very tangible sense of progress having not just stalled but gone backwards.

Plus the Scottish Govt have removed the peak/off-peak ticket split, everything is now priced at off-peak - i.e. cheaper - rates.

Doesn't necessarily impact season ticket holders but it's been a pretty good move for the most part, and a well received change.

"Lots of the team knows Postgres really well, nobody knows Kafka at all yet" is also an underrated factor in making choices. "Kafka was the ideal technical choice but we screwed up the implementation through well-intentioned inexperience" being an all too plausible outcome.

Indeed, I've seen this happen first hand where there was really only one guy who really "knew" Kafka, and it was too big of a job for just him. In that case it was fine until he left the company, and then it became a massive albatross and a major pain point. In another case, the eng team didn't really have anyone who really "knew" Kafka but used a managed service thinking it would be fine. It was until it wasn't, and switching away is not a light lift, nor is mass educating the dev team.

Kafka et al definitely have their place, but I think most people would be much better off reaching for a simpler queue system (or for some things, just using Postgres) unless you really need the advanced features.

I'm wondering why there wasn't any push for the Kafka guy to share his knowledge within his team, or to other teams?

Multiple factors (neither a good excuse, just reality):

* Lack of interest for other team members, which translated to doing what they thought was a sufficiently minimal amount of knowledge transfer

* An (unwise) attitude that "it's already set up and configured, and terraformed, so we can just acquire that knowledge if and when it's needed"

* Kafka guy left a lot faster than anybody really expected, not leaving much time and practically no documentation

* The rest of the team was already overwhelmed with other responsiblities and didn't have much bandwidth available

* Nobody wanted to be the person/people that ended up "owning" it, so there was a reverse incentive

Interesting, thanks!

This is the crux of my point.

Postgres is the solution in question of the article because I simply assume the majority of companies will start with Postgres as their first piece of infra. And it is often the case. If not - MySQL, SQLite, whatever. Just optimize for the thing you know, and see if it can handle your use case (often you'll be surprised)

The technologically inept get QR codes tattooed on their foreheads.

It won't fit on my head next to my POOR IMPULSE CONTROL tattoo.

Please don't give them ideas!

Perl CGI FTW! :-D

Sure I mean it's not a crime or anything, just highlighting you're highly unlikely to get anything like the perspective, wisdom, insight, that - for example - an 80 year old might share.

You could ask a 5 year old for opinions, they're not going to be very well informed.

Interesting choice of words in the original article and headline here - to "seal one's fate" feels quite pessimistic and doom-laden. Why not something like "secure its future"?

It (News Corp/Fox etc.) is a massively geared political lever that was going to get broken into 4 parts, 1 per sibling - but now it will remain wielded by a single 'heir', though not the first born: Lachlan, who is even more conservative than his father (Keith) Rupert Murdoch. So expect the spin and propoganda to continue or even get worse.

So to anyone paying attention it does feel quite pessimistic and doom-laden.

Couldn't he just turn one of his body parts into an artifact, a la Vecna the Lich, and write it into the Bylaws that only someone possessing the Spleen of Rupert could rule the corporation?

As something of an AI skeptic the thing that bothers me most is the wholesale gullibility and credulity of leaders. Incredible claims IMO require incredible levels of evidence, not just "tech bros with vested interests tell us this, it must be so!".

A level of general experimentation by companies and other organizations is clearly warranted, and it should be marked accordingly. This just isn't happening in a lot of places: "become 10x more productive or bye-bye" is just totally ludicrous stance to take.

So it's good to see some reports coming out where some attempt at actual measurement and assessment of efficacy has been made.

> As something of an AI skeptic the thing that bothers me most is the wholesale gullibility and credulity of leaders. Incredible claims IMO require incredible levels of evidence, not just "tech bros with vested interests tell us this, it must be so!".

If this would have been true, Microsoft would be an obscure SW vendor.

Ironically, screen sharing on zoom whilst all colocated can be less bad than sitting round a gigantic TV type screen for calls where screen content is needed :-|

its collaboration in glorious 4k! err 1080p!