drapermache's recent activity

  1. Comment on How GM tricked millions of drivers into being spied on (including me) (gifted link) in ~transport

    drapermache
    Link Parent
    I own a bolt and I love it too! Its perfect for my use case, which is to just get around town, and maybe take a weekend trip that's within 100 miles. Sadly with their removal of apple car play I...

    I own a bolt and I love it too! Its perfect for my use case, which is to just get around town, and maybe take a weekend trip that's within 100 miles.

    Sadly with their removal of apple car play I won't be buying another GM EV. I used to work for them and I remember when they on boarded us in new hire orientation they often said that they weren't a manufacturing company, but a "Technology" company like Google or Apple was, which did make me laugh on the inside because not even 5 minutes before they were talking about how they migrated off of lotus notes and used fancy Microsoft Outlook for emails. Keep in mind this in the late 2010's, still WAY beyond any reason to have Lotus Notes. Time would eventually show that they were in not a technology company, as the biggest concern for them was keeping their factories up and running more than anything else.

    I know the talent they hire, and it isn't anything NEAR what a FAANG company can employ. I'll trust Google and Apple when it comes to quality software if I have to choose between them and GM.

    10 votes
  2. Comment on Quentin Tarantino drops ‘The Movie Critic’ as his final film in ~movies

    drapermache
    Link Parent
    I feel the same way. I personally love his movies, but his 10 films limit is just self imposed and he and everyone else makes a big deal of it. I'm very skeptical that he'd actually commit to it...

    I feel the same way. I personally love his movies, but his 10 films limit is just self imposed and he and everyone else makes a big deal of it. I'm very skeptical that he'd actually commit to it though. At the very least he'd direct specific scenes in movies like he did in Sin City. He keeps harping on it and it seems like a self-righteous play on his end, but it's just me. He could at any time decide to make more movies if he wants, but I guess this "10 Movie Portfolio" is something to drum up hype.

    6 votes
  3. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    drapermache
    Link Parent
    Nope, no remote server just hardware at home. The end goal is that I want to have a nice home lab that I can access with little to no ports being opened up.

    Nope, no remote server just hardware at home. The end goal is that I want to have a nice home lab that I can access with little to no ports being opened up.

    1 vote
  4. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    drapermache
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    I’ve been studying and designing how to set up a reverse proxy with let’s encrypt ssl certs so I can expose a lot of my self-hosted services. I’m currently using cloudflare tunnels, but with Plex...

    I’ve been studying and designing how to set up a reverse proxy with let’s encrypt ssl certs so I can expose a lot of my self-hosted services. I’m currently using cloudflare tunnels, but with Plex breaking the terms of service, I’d rather have Cloudflare just handle my DNS, and I handle the rest. The problem is that I’m super afraid to even set it up because of my flat network in my house. I have no segregation of any type and just a few different wireless networks for IoT devices who can’t connect to 5 GHz. It seems like if I open up ports I’ll need to do a ground-up overhaul of how my network and infrastructure is set up.

    3 votes
  5. Comment on Unity: An open letter to our community in ~games

    drapermache
    Link Parent
    This is part of it — Things can’t always go up, and with the inflation going on a lot of loans now have high interest rates, the almost free VC funding has dried up so they need to extract that...

    This is part of it — Things can’t always go up, and with the inflation going on a lot of loans now have high interest rates, the almost free VC funding has dried up so they need to extract that money from someone, so they turn to their users and employees. At some point you can only make so much money until you start making anti consumer choices.

    7 votes
  6. Comment on My dad is dying soon in ~talk

    drapermache
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    I haven’t lost my parents yet, but I just wanted to comment to send you condolences, for whatever it’s worth given I’m an internet stranger. I honestly haven’t thought about what I’d do when they do.

    I haven’t lost my parents yet, but I just wanted to comment to send you condolences, for whatever it’s worth given I’m an internet stranger. I honestly haven’t thought about what I’d do when they do.

    3 votes
  7. Comment on Steam's oldest user accounts turn 20, Valve celebrates with special digital badges in ~games

    drapermache
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    Wow, I feel really old. I was there and was a day one/day two (at least for the public release, my badge says since September 12th, but using other tools online says the 13th and honestly its been...

    Wow, I feel really old. I was there and was a day one/day two (at least for the public release, my badge says since September 12th, but using other tools online says the 13th and honestly its been so long I can’t remember). I remember being strong armed into steam because I was heavily into Team Fortress Classic, and to a lesser extent Count Strike, and found out that the online services would stop. I was livid and tried steam out and HATED IT. It froze up, was incredibly slow, super ugly, and crashed all of the time. There are the infamous gif of a guy bending over and the steam logo….doing unpleasant things to him, which is how we all felt at the time. It took quite a while to get better too. I remember playing TFC on the old system until the very last minute and had to essentially be forced kicking and screaming into using steam. Steam was one of the few services I didn’t have on the email account that I own today because gmail was still in beta. I had gotten a beta invite maybe a few months after setting up my steam account. It’s crazy to reflect how awesome it is, especially compared to how it started, especially thinking about the steam deck!

    6 votes
  8. Comment on Madison Reeve explains why she quit Linus Tech Tips (CW: self harm, slurs, sexual harassment) in ~tech

    drapermache
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    Genuine question for those who are reserving judgement to hear what proof was found: What kind of evidence would change your mind? As in, would it need to be audio recordings of a manager saying,...

    Genuine question for those who are reserving judgement to hear what proof was found: What kind of evidence would change your mind? As in, would it need to be audio recordings of a manager saying, “I’m gonna mess with Madison so she looks incompetent!” or video camera footage of events she described? More employee testimonials? The thing about harassment, is that people have been refining how to get away from it since the corporate workplace has existed. Most harassment is done in through conversations and strict environments where having any evidence is next to impossible to get. Her experience could be hard to find because LTT hardly ever showed females on camera as regular hosts.

    I’ve seen a lot of comments talking about how having an external reviewer is such a great move, but I don’t really agree 100%. Given that Linus Media Group is paying for this company to do the Audit, its a clear conflict of interest. This is exactly how Enron went belly up - they were technically audited, but they paid for it and were able to convince the auditors to approve of the fudged numbers. I hope this third party is reputable, but I just can’t 100% think that this is still somewhat of a conflict of interest. In order to get a more thorough review, we would need an audit from a firm that has financial interest to find something damaging and has no real influence from the accused company. The only way I could think of this actually happening is through a lawsuit, which likely wont happen.

    This is a big sidetrack but please bear with me: I resonate with this as I’ve gone through a similar process in a toxic work environment and how to handle conflict resolution and the HR process, however her experience is WAY worse than what I experienced. When I was about to graduate i was trying to find a job and interviewed with a fortune 20 company. During that interview I explicitly said I couldn’t do night shift work as I couldn’t function. I had tried doing Night Shift work to help me go through college but after 4 months it just didn’t work, my grades dropped significantly and my mental health spiraled. I told them all of that and that I had another job offer that guaranteed that there would be no Night Shift work. The interviewers said that would not be a problem and wrote “no Night Shift work” on my resume. They extended a job offer a little bit later and I accepted it because it paid a little bit better, had a better location, and the benefits were great. They gave me a start date sometime during the summer, so I acted accordingly by selling my apartment lease, signing a lease in the new city, paying for first and last months rent and the security deposit (Which was a lot for a broke college student). This all happened within two weeks. A week after getting all of my details in order I was told that they got my start date wrong and wanted to push it back by 2 months! I told them I couldn’t do that because I had everything all set up, my new apartment wouldn’t delay my contract, and people were going to move into college apartment, and my wife and I had no place to go for that month. They said okay, no problem we’ll keep it as is. Well, when it came time to come start, NO ONE knew I had started, so they all rushed around trying to figure out what I should do. I got no real orientation to the company other than “We’re all a big family, if you ever need help, feel free to contact me as the HR rep!” I learned that they weren’t going to do direct deposit for my first two paychecks, but instead put them on some BS debit card that “we should have received in the mail”, which never happened to me. They had sent it to my old college apartment halfway across the country because they thought my start date was going to be later. I was lucky enough to know who took over my college apartment lease and have them forward it to me, but for about 1.5 months, I never got paid. I had some many things rack up as part of that. I had little money to even survive, it was awful.

    Then I get oriented on my specific job - European application support. I had asked if I was going to work European nights, but they said nope, you’re going to work the Night Shift! They promised me overtime pay (which I never got btw) and that there would be a shift differential (never got that either). I said I couldn’t work night shifts because its something I just can’t do, I never adjust well and it really affects my mental health. I was told there was nothing they could do. I gave it a try, but it was awful and depressing. They MADE me come into the office, even though I was the only person on my floor. They turned off the lights while I worked to save money. They arbitrarily gave me some applications without knowing anything about them. The notes on those scripts were all written in Spanish as the devs were from a Spain. Due to European laws, the developers couldn’t work over a certain amount of hours, so if I needed help it would be limited. Forget needing help on weekends, couldn’t happen. I remember my first day on Night Shift there was a Sev1 incident that involved my applications. They were “my apps” so I HAD to know what the problem was, despite being handed them within 24 hours. We were in the process of insourcing the operational support from another country and our company just decided to cut our contract, so any support from our contractors wasn’t possible either. That Sev1 incident lasted over 48 hours, of which I only got like 6 hours. I was brought in and told that I needed to watch these apps carefully. Not only did I have to work my Night Shift, but the system was so fucked that they always broke during their “closedown cycle” which happened at the end of the day, this took over 8 hours to do, and would always fail at random times, any failure was an automatic Sev2 incident, so I had 5 minutes to respond. I would always get maybe 3-4 hours of sleep, and I lost over 25 pounds in 1 month from everything. I asked my remote workers for help, but was told that “notes are personal, so they wouldn’t mean anything to you” and “you just have to figure it out for yourself” There was supposed to be one other guy on my team that was supposed to be my mentor and was supposed to be local, but he never talked to me and never came in. It was always remote work for him. I tried contacting my manager saying this wasn’t working for me. I was told I couldn’t transfer until 1) after a year and 2) if I could find a backfill for me (this part is actually false). I was told in my recruitment interview that people transferred all the time if they wanted and it was easy. I felt so trapped and helpless. I was made to think I was stupid and had no technical ability (despite knowing more than my “mentor”, as he admitted). Behind the scenes my manager was complaining to her boss, the director, saying “i wasn’t a team player” among other things. As a last result, I tried to talk to the HR person who was at my orientation ( i had to stay longer to wait for her to come into the office). Keep in mind that she sat in a cubicle with her and another HR colleague, so it was a cube shared by two people, as this is important for later. I said that I couldn’t keep doing this job, and that I had a hard time functioning. I needed guidance and that I didn’t have any help from my team, and it was really hard doing this alone. They asked where my “mentor” was, and I said offhand he was working from home most times. She said that everything was between us, and confidential, which is why I even decided to tell her anything. Well, two days later I saw my “mentor” who said “ I got your complaint from HR” and was super pissed. I went back to the HR contact and asked why they told me it was confidential yet used my name, and not even getting the point of me seeking help ( i didn’t care that the guy worked remote, no one was helping me). They told me that while the conversation between me and that person was private, if anyone else from HR overheard what we talked about wouldn’t be confidential, so maybe it was the other HR rep who said something. I was in shock and at a loss for words. I felt so betrayed and disheveled. After this, my manager put me in a meeting. Their solution was to have me start at 2 am instead of 11 pm, which I stated didn’t really solve anything for me because most of my work is still in the nightshift. They also wanted to take away my shift differential since “i wasn’t working the Night Shift anymore”. They hated me and it was incredibly hostile. I had no where to go, and I honestly had suicidal thoughts — I thought there was no way a company could hire me. If I quit before 2 years of employment I would have needed to pay back money that eventually made it my way for relocation, which I couldn’t afford on the salary they gave me…..By sheer luck, I found a team that had no problem escalating things when hiring people. They wanted me to join their team and my team pushed back and escalated right to our CIO (again, of a fortune 20 company), which ultimately allowed me to leave. All of that fuss for someone who “wasn’t a team player” and didn’t fit in. Strange how they wanted me all of a sudden. Even after it was approved, I STILL did work for the other team for a little bit to show good will, despite them dragging my name. There’s so much more I could put into this story, but I think I’ve gone into enough detail.
    All of this to bring it back to the original topic, I had no evidence other than HR’s note misrepresenting what I came in for. Everything was done through phone so nothing was recorded. There was no trail, and an audit even from an outside firm would find that my company didn’t do anything wrong, especially if they funded that 3rd party audit. When you’re under so much stress you don’t think clearly and its damn near impossible to formulate an exit plan. Madison mentioned that it was a coworker that helped her get out, and it was exactly the same for me — a friend from college who worked at the same company told me about the team who was wiling to escalate to transfer me. In toxic environments/sexual harassment cases, you’ll never find evidence that will satisfy any doubters, you have to go into the situation beforehand with recordings, which no sane person does. I feel for her because I know what its like to go through a toxic workplace, but being a white cis male, I don’t ever have to worry about sexual harassment, let along ravenous armchair detectives trying to pick apart stories to make them feel good about their para social friend that doesn’t even know they exist. People in the forums at LTT are already asking why she waited so long, or talk about how she’s opportunistic to wait for the GN callout to say anything, showing edgy humor she posted in the past, and other stuff just to dismiss her stories, and its disgusting. She was in a lose-lose during the whole thing, even when leaving: stay quiet yet have drama hounds try to sniff out any bit of drama to get karma points and create rumors, all while having the truth eat you away, or actually immediately speak out and have terrible fans abusing you while you’re already in an vulnerable state. I hate fandoms for this very reason, they create an already horrible situation even worse.

    I hope Madison gets the justice, but I don’t know what that would look like. I also hope Linus Media Group actually learns from this and becomes a good place to work at, but again I will never know if this ever happens. Linus was always a “trust me bro” and “we’ve never had controversies before, so we’re good” attitude towards things. It was always such a bullshit response any any criticism or allegations, and now they can’t use it. Their trust is gone and it’ll never come back. This will always follow them, and I hope Linus is prepared to talk about it for FOREVER. Knowing him though, he’ll eventually just say, “we’ve addressed it on a specific video, just go watch that” and try to sweep it under the rug.

    7 votes
  9. Comment on Failures in accuracy, ethics and responsibility with Linus Tech Tips and LMG as a whole in ~tech

    drapermache
    Link Parent
    As others have said here and other platforms, I find it strange that Linus OS not afraid to call out manufacturers when sketchy stuff happens, but when things like this happen it’s always...

    As others have said here and other platforms, I find it strange that Linus OS not afraid to call out manufacturers when sketchy stuff happens, but when things like this happen it’s always deflection and doubling down.

    I remember reading Linus’s first statement that said that they didn’t sell the cooler, they auctioned it off, as if that made any better somehow, and despite the fact that GN never even said that they sold it ( it was commenters using the wrong verbiage). The fact that he said that this happened once in ten years of existing meant that no internal processes needed to be updated was a major red flag to me too. In ANY industry when something goes bad there are post mortem meetings that outline what went wrong and how things can get better. Additionally, using the excuse that they’ve existed for 10 years and this is the first problem is irrelevant when the argument is that they’ve expanded too fast and quality has gone down, meaning the crux of the issues have to do within the last year.

    This really sucks for me, I just bought LTT merch because I liked the channel, and I thought the company had some ethics behind it, but now I’m reading into more and more problems. I regret supporting a company that quite frankly doesn’t give a damn or has any introspection.

    24 votes
  10. Comment on Why didn't Sonic Mania 2 happen? in ~games

    drapermache
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    One thing I disagree with was how they talked about how 2D gameplay targets a small group of people, which is why they’re making sonic superstars mixed 2D/3D. I think the fact that sonic mania did...

    One thing I disagree with was how they talked about how 2D gameplay targets a small group of people, which is why they’re making sonic superstars mixed 2D/3D. I think the fact that sonic mania did so well proves this idea wrong. There are a ton of modern 2D games that are super successful (terraria, shovel knight, etc), so I wouldn’t say it appeals to a small niche audience.

    I really dislike that they decided to take it into a combined 2D/3d style. They tried this with sonic 4 and it was…..meh. I don’t want modern sonic mechanics (target locking for example), and I don’t want a modern art style. If I want a 3d sonic game I’ll play the “modern sonic” games like sonic adventure. I remember playing the classic sonic levels from sonic generations and thinking that this didn’t have the feel of the games I played as a kid on the sega genesis.

    Sonic mania had captured the magic of genesis-era sonic games and expanded on it in a natural way, which is why I love it so much. There’s a certain feel and aesthetic that you lose to go to 3d. I don’t really care if Christian or any of the old developers gave their blessing, I really don’t trust sega to make a competent sonic game as their track record has been really spotty. I just want a true 2D sonic game that has the same feel as the genesis era games.

    5 votes
  11. Comment on San Francisco’s downtown becomes a wake-up call for other cities in the US in ~finance

    drapermache
    Link Parent
    In my comment I should have talked about upgrading infrastructure as it is indeed and natural part of expanding housing, then you for mentioning that. To be as charitable as possible, maybe the...

    In my comment I should have talked about upgrading infrastructure as it is indeed and natural part of expanding housing, then you for mentioning that. To be as charitable as possible, maybe the posters are confused with typical NIMBYs they’ve interacted with. Many NIMBY group members see themselves as progressive socially, but are misguided when it comes to expansion. San Francisco has the foundation with some decent infrastructure ( the Bart, which is their subway, bus lines, and even their cable cars). I’d argue that they’re better off than 80% off the other big cities, with obviously not coming close to New York or other east coast cities. I think the hurdles I mentioned would naturally lend themselves to infrastructure expansion. When I lived in San Francisco I didn’t have a car for about 6 months and I was able to manage to get around as needed very easily. I tried to same in Austin Texas, Salt Lake City, and Kansas City with a lot worse results.

    I think by stripping NIMBYs groups of their power would go a long way. I saw a comment poking fun and mentioning the field of dreams quote, “ if you build it, they will come.” What they seem to lack to understand if that….. they’re already there, and they need to catch up. The San Francisco Bay Area has always been one of the most desired places to live in within the United States even before big tech came into the scene: it’s close to the ocean, close to the redwoods forests, just south of the Sonoma county which has amazing vineyards, and has one of the most temperate climates all year around. What’s held San Francisco back is NIMBY groups ( who oftentimes think they’re progressive) who use “spirit/soul” or “character” of the city to prevent any type of building or expansion . What most people forget of that it’s possible to keep those things while expanding upwards. Whether people like it or not, the demand to live there exists, so the supply needs to follow. The city council of San Francisco is run by people who think they’re progressive, but in reality are hurting the working class.

    6 votes
  12. Comment on San Francisco’s downtown becomes a wake-up call for other cities in the US in ~finance

    drapermache
    Link Parent
    I lived from San Francisco from 06-08, so this issue is close to me personally. I’d argue that NIMBYism was and has been the biggest problem within California, and the Bay Area ramps that up due...

    I lived from San Francisco from 06-08, so this issue is close to me personally. I’d argue that NIMBYism was and has been the biggest problem within California, and the Bay Area ramps that up due to the geographical constraints of the bay. I remember when I lived there there was a law that said that apartment buildings couldn’t be larger than ~5 stories. The argument was that the residents didn’t want the city to become the next Manhattan and lose its “charm.” Of course we all knew it was just landowners who wanted to keep their home values sky high. There is a solution that would relieve a lot of their issues: build higher, don’t listen to NIMBY groups, and probably the most controversial take — strip city councils of their right to make laws prohibiting residential buildings ( oftentimes city council members in California have houses and are super corrupt).

    It was interesting to live there when the iPhone came out, because there was always talk about how big tech workers were driving up costs, but then it got even more exasperated when the App Store came out and more mobile-oriented companies set up shop.

    I hope the NIMBY groups lose their influence and the state government overrides city governments to get residential buildings built, and have the commercial real estate converted into residential apartments, those two things I’ll help San Francisco recover. It was such a great city with amazing people and a great culture.

    45 votes
  13. Comment on Small tech companies are staying remote to attract workers, while Big Tech goes back to the office in ~comp

    drapermache
    Link Parent
    I absolutely loath working from an office. My first and only gig out of college that forced people into the office was a nightmare. When I officially got hired they lied to me about the hours that...

    I absolutely loath working from an office. My first and only gig out of college that forced people into the office was a nightmare. When I officially got hired they lied to me about the hours that I would work and put me into the Night Shift. I was the only person on the entire floor and there was no one to socialize with unless I went two floors above me, but the workload didn’t lend itself to have me to go there often. As a cost-saving measure they turned off the lights too so I had to sit there in darkness. I lost 25 pounds and became super depressed since I couldn’t really see my wife and kid all that often due to our conflicting schedules.

    I was lucky enough to switch roles at the same company but I even found that the office mandate just didn’t sit well with me either, or at least how it was enforced. One big responsibility the directors had (people who managed managers) was to walk up and down the aisles to make sure everyone was in their cube. I had one elderly co worker who got the proper paperwork from HR to work from home extensively because his wife was in hospice care for cancer and needed to take care of her. Knowing this background, I had the specific director that walked around our cubes ask if he knew where my coworker was after only being gone for two weeks. When I told him of my coworker’s situation he said, “Yeah I know all that, but do you know when you think he’ll be back in the office?” At that point I said, “I don’t know, it’s really hard to know the exact time someone will die from cancer.” The lack of empathy was mind boggling, and using a policy like that rubbed me the wrong way.

    I was lucky enough to start working remotely about a year before the pandemic and I love it. As others have mentioned in other threads, I can feel like I can help out with the kids, and even help out with more household chores, and I have saved a lot of money on gas and car maintainable because of it. I don’t think I could imagine myself joining a company that would make me come into an office for the same pay I make. I know there are certain people who love working in offices and I get it, but I could never do it.

    13 votes