2021-05-21 Nerd Roundup (Special Edition)

My vote for the most misunderstood yet massively-useful idea in software engineering

I feel this pain

(related) HN comment nails perhaps the heart of the problem

Microwaves! (related to recent conversation)

Turns out, "blowing smoke up somebody's butt" used to be a thing you did to help drowning people. This is both high-school funny andh as serious healthcare implications if proven out

After the Colonial Pipeline hack, the hackers apologized and claimed to not be political. But any kind of hacking/hold-up is going to be very political. Turns out, most of it is geo-targeted

Fascinating discussion here around hiring the right people, trying new tech by sticking it inside old boxes of development architectures, do languages/platforms matter, etc

I thought you didn't find trans-uranium materials naturally-occuring?

People make machine to read private Signal text messages from unlocked phone. Signal buys machine, reverse-engineers, tells world how to destroy any LE agency who uses it. tl;dr lawyer feels Signal did the right thing, but were assholes about it.

Might delete. Interesting convo about how poorly we do at figuring out what might make tons of money and what might not

This is extremely important news!

Dafuq? From HN -- "...The bottom-line is that if you're a victim of ransomware, the government joins the hacker, both of them kicking you while you're down and demanding money. ..."