Softpanorama: (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

Time 2020-09-28 09:04:30

Web Name: Softpanorama: (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

WebSite: http://www.softpanorama.info

ID:62655

Keywords:

skeptical,Open,Softpanorama,

Description:

For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. - JFK Yale University graduating class speech (June 11, 1962 It is the duty of everyman, so far as his ability allows, to detect and expose delusion and error - Thomas PaineThis site advocates skepticism as an approach to study of both technical and social phenomena. The latter is generally about questioning any preconceived attitudes, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, and critical examination of claims that are taken for granted in corporate MSM. It also can be viewed as a strong allergic reaction topseudoscience, fake news and bullsh*t of corporate owned MSMs (see propaganda), and the advocacy of alternative media such as blogs, wikis, web forums and email lists as valuable sources of information. The site containsresources for university students and the independently minded IT folks interested in self-education. Some pages also serve as useful references. It stresses the value of continuing education, which is actually a life long process of self-discovery. Underneoliberalism the university education has become the way to separating haves and have not and indoctrinate students: the class fault lines in neoliberal society are increasingly along educational lines. The access to university education in the USA became more and more expensive as, along with their class segregation function, neoliberal universities now serve as a profit center for educational sharks. Most material is related to programming, especially scripting (shell, Perl, pipes, Unix tools) and Unix system administration. But there are also some pages devoted onneoliberalism (akaCasino Capitalism),unemployment (includingOver 50 unemployment )toxic managers (especiallyfemale sociopaths),Groupthink,energy and some other more peripheral topics.The site is mainly oriented on people and organizations with limited resources. It might be useful as a self-education tool, including for those over 50 IT folk who recently found themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. (Pope Francis on the danger of neoliberalism). This site tries to eschew the conventionally favored obfuscations about IT (for example about cloud computing or IT outsourcing) and exposethe theater of absurd which often both academic and, especially, corporate IT represents (sometimes in the form ofhumor; it s often the best medicine against conformism,stress, andoverload.). I think proliferation ofShadow IT is a clear sign that Something is rotten in the state of Denmark , all hype about DevOps notwithstanding. For example, RHEL7 dramatically increased the complexity of the Linux operating system due to the introduction ofsystemd. That also changes our opinion about how open source ecosystem really works (in no way this is a bazaar) and who controls key elements of open source infrastrcture. In a way, RHEL7 signify emergence of open source aristocracy interests of which are detached from interests of rank and file sysadmins and programmers, and which pushes for Windowization of Linux. In other words it confirms the Iron Law of Oligarchy, which clearly now is replayed on the open source arena. In the neoliberal society, we now live, good jobs are very scarce commodity, and you no longer can be a purely technical specialist, you need to understand the social context of your life as well. Or you will be taken for a ride, squeezed or even mercilessly pushed out of workforce. Students who are brainwashed by neoliberal propaganda (and neoliberal universities are doing just that vianeoclassical economics courses) have higher chances to become debt slaves after graduation. In for profit education environment the debt peonage is now a new normal and universities became basically the real estate hoarders and debtor magnets for the banks. Unless you learn the difference between education and indoctrination, you might miss the fact that what used to be the lower middle class of IT professionals turns out to be simply an indebted write collar working class, disposable IT workers , mercilessly squeezed by outsourcing. This site also strives to be a part of the resistance movement againstneoliberal trend toward atomizing workforce, squashing any human solidarity,converting humans into tradable goods on labor market . Which means that along with mastering the technology, maintaining yourpersonal andfinancial health understanding the social system in which you live (Neoliberalism akaCasino Capitalism) is the necessary survival skill. The task which is actually very difficult because to live under neoliberalism and can't escape neoliberal brainwashing. Mush like was the case in the USSR with communist propaganda. Plato'sAllegory of the Cave describesthis inability of a group of (ideological) prisoners chained in a cave to interpret reality based solely upon the play of shadows projected upon the stone wall in front of them. Still, this is an educational site, not a propaganda site, and unlikepropaganda that manipulates people emotions and prejudgesto impose propagandist s views; education primary goal is to help to understand the reality of the current technological and/or social situation. Personal critical thinking is also important and you need to take the views expressed here with a grain of salt. Replacement of classic university educational model with neoliberal model in the US universities has resulted in a very narrowly educated professionals who not only do not know, but also do not want to knowanything about the society and politics. Understanding the society and people is typically a weak point of many programmers and system administrators including myself, the part of personality profile that drove us to this specialty. It often is amplified by narcissistic megalomania (as in I am the greatest programmer; all others are schmucks who just don t get it ). But we can and should work diligently on eliminating this shortcoming, as many of us pay dearly for this social blindness (the term professional idiocy was coined by a German philosopher to denote someone who may be intelligent and competent in his own profession, but limited in social skills and as a member of society ) It is important to be aware about dangers of the IT workplace, such as psychopathic bosses (micromanagers,bullies,narcissists andauthoritarians), as well ashealth problems due to daily multi-hour sitting behind the display or two and unhealthy diet. With its relentless squeezing of the workforce neoliberal corporation needs narcissists, micromanagers and sociopaths in management ranks and it looks like the process of displacement of technical managers with bean counters and Harvard MBA types was finished a while ago. Which leads to situations like Boeing 737 MAX fiasco. In this environment you also need skills to survivea Bad Performance Review -- a standard waterboarding procedure in neoliberal corporation ;-) After all, for neoliberal corporation you are just a consumable resource, a unit of human capital .While attending university has its value in itself, as a good university cultural environment can t be replicated elsewhere, for talented people independent study might save some money and, thus,help to avoid excessive feeding of education sharks. In any case, lifelong self-education is important and should be a goal in itself. What gets people to the top is relentless self-education and practice of a particular skill. The minimum for reaching master level of a given skill is estimated to be around10,000 hours, the earlier you start the better. And taking into account complexity of Unix/Linux (helloRHEL 7 with itssystemd ;-) and Byzantium tendencies of mainstream programming languages (and those days you need to know several of them), for programming and system administration 30,000 hours is a more reasonable estimate (one year is approximately 3000 working hours). Which means formula 4+6 (four years of college and 5-6 years on the job self-education ) to get to speed. Internet is a tool that gave us vast new opportunities of information exchange while at the same time tremendous possibilities of degrading of quality of this exchange in all major areas -- social, cultural, political and technical. Internet now serves as a the main advertizing channel, producing waterfalls of textual and visual spam fueled by advertising fees. Also too much information if often as bad as too little.Information overload is a real problem and in this sense filtration of information became much more important. You can use this site as one of such filters as links it provides for each topic are carefully evaluated. At the same time, it is important to understand that Internet is agiant snooping mechanism and such sites asFacebook are not so much social sites as intelligence collection sites. Snowden revelations proved that like in East Germany with its famousSTASI there is a dossier on any Internet user with a lot of meta-data and probably not only meta-data to trace each day of one s life to an hour or better. Governments no longer need informants to get private/compromising information about citizens. Advertisers, search engines and shopping sites like Amazonare pretty much enough. That greatly increases the value of understanding of computer security. While this site started as a pure computer science knowledgebase (compiled using Perl scripts), gradually the algorithms used were expanded into other areas which actually served as testing areas for some of concepts and scripts). Paradoxically now the fastest growing area is probablySocial (information about toxic managers,communication, andbureaucracies). The close second is information aboutneoliberalism (with theintroductory article, as such information remains rare on Internet) despite tremendous social importance of understanding what neoliberalism is about. The quality of pages vary widely. Generally the site develops as a living tree with pages on topic outside my interests with time becoming stale and then obsolete. Still some of them contain historical information you can't find elsewhere (as of Oct 2019 the site is 23 years old, while the bulletin is 30 years old). The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.DCopyright © 1996-2020 by Softpanorama Society. www.softpanorama.org was initially created as a service to the (now defunct) UN Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) in the author free time and without any remuneration. This document is an industrial compilation designed and created exclusively for educational use and is distributed under the Softpanorama Content License. Original materials copyright belong to respective owners. Quotes are made for educational purposes only in compliance with the fair use doctrine. FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...You can use PayPal to make a contribution, supporting development of this site and speed up access. In case softpanorama.org is down you can use the at softpanorama.info The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the author present and former employers, SDNP or any other organization the author may be associated with. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without Javascript.

TAGS:skeptical Open Softpanorama 

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