at the very least there's no excuse for not having a shell script to check everything out in the right places! I've been the new person in teams with this sort of fragile setup and it's no fun whatsoever.
no real dog in the fight, and I don't even know if the OP's analysis is correct, but "they had a proprietary file format and got left behind because of it" always gives me a nice bit of schadenfreude.
have that be the invisible bottom layer. come up with a list of 256 common words, one per byte, and have that be the human visible IP address. mentally reading a string of words, however nonsensical, is way easier than a soup of undifferentiated hex digits.
That would cause worse confusion when working with teams from different localisations. Not to mention the complexity of now adding localisations to the address parser.
the penultimate line of "the nine billion names of god" has always stayed with me: "there is always a last time for everything". sounds a bit trite just by itself, but it was an incredibly powerful line when I encountered it in the story and that feeling has stayed attached to it for me.
this story has arguably aged worse in that respect than asimov's similarly titled "the last answer". that one still evokes a "whoa" when I think about it.
Thank you - I hadn't read that before. Its a much richer, and also darker, work than The Last Question.
Also it was written in 1980,.almost three decades after The Last Question. I wonder if part of the difference (to me) is in the evolution of the author's writing practice, or development of themes in SF over that time?
> those who thought it was unethical for me to place wealth building ahead of career building.
that might well be the first time I've seen "career" and "ethical" conflated in that way. I've definitely seen the people who think you're a fool and possibly a sucker if you chase short term wealth over career stability, and there's definitely a veneer of unethicalness clinging to the notion of get-rich-quick, but I cannot understand how "establish yourself in a career" is an ethical concern.
Keep in mind that for me it was before the FAANG companies became the new evil tech overlords, and to some extent even before the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. Back then it was much easier for naive young college students or new grads to buy into that narrative of using our talents to make the world a better place through professional careers.
this is unquestionably the best thing I've read on hackernews this week, perhaps all this month. should be required reading in high school, for the mental lens it provides.
Free to do what? Sit on a beach, apparently. Every single one of these people wanted to sit on a beach. I've never understood this. Have they been to a beach? There's sand. It gets everywhere. You can sit there for maybe three hours before you want to do literally anything else.
8<------------
I laughed out loud when I read it, because it's so true.
I think its pretty obvious that "sit on a beach" is a metaphor for being able to do whatever you want not literally sitting on a beach for the rest of your life.
At the same time, you guys really can't imagine relaxing on a beach for more than a few hours? Like i'm not really a beach person but back when i lived near the ocean i spent the odd saturday just unwinding on the beach with a book. Certainly wouldn't want that every day, but y'all acting like it would be impossible to enjoy say abeach vacation for a few days seems crazy to me.
A home on the beach is seen as an expensive status symbol.
House maintenance costs in sea air cost at least double. Appliances and aircon rusts and corrodes. Everything needs regular painting.
Cars rust out. I buy second hand shitters and replace them every ~5 years. Certainly not worthwhile owning anything collectable or precious.
If you want a garden, be prepared to spend twice the time and money and, perhaps plants and trees still struggle or die.
I live in New Brighton in Christchurch, mostly because it is cheap housing (for no reason I can understand). Plus the coastal wind from the sea avoids hayfever (town is irritating for me).
It has a good community. Many people that choose a beach vibe are relaxed and friendly.
