Tech workers located in South Africa and nearby regions suffer, because the power grid there is unreliable at best. Therefore, those workers may be required by employers to prove that they have arranged for reliable backup power and network connections in order to stay connected (nearly to the antipodes) and ensure that their performance is competitive with workers located in stable regimes with robust power grids and network backbones.
It may seem unfair or unnecessary for US employers to require US employees to have a UPS, solar array, a redundant network connection, etc. But if employers required these things up-front, surely some tech workers could step up to the challenge and perhaps even be distinguished from those who don't get it.
Yes. Why would US employers require US employees to have those redundancies?
It seems like the employer would be throwing away leverage in the employer/employee negotiation without giving the employer anything they actually value.
"Moloch" only means "Lord" in its essential consonants. It's the same Semitic triple-root for "Malik" and "Melkite" and "Melchizedek". Cognates: certainly still in widespread use today as forenames and surnames, et. al.
"Leviathan": The full name certainly strikes fear. One of my ancestors brought his family over from Scotland on the Leviathan which was a captured-and-repurposed German passenger vessel. We can imagine: it was ginormous. has an interesting derivation if we take it apart into component parts: they would be recognizable as good guys, or denim jeans I guess. Since Semitic roots standardized on the triple-consonant, we may see ancient tongues incorporated for this one.
"Be-el-ze-bub": "Lord of the Flies", of course; the implication of the English name of the novel about those good children on a desert island, who lived in interesting times. A theophoric name. Shares a root with "Ba'al" of the Tanakh. Glottal stops FTW.
I live in the shadow of the Superstition Mountains. That includes the Lost Dutchman. While such monikers may derive from the mid-18th century, in 2026 we must wait for the Sun to rise beyond the visible horizon of the superstitions until our carbon-based bodies, full of mostly water, can perceive its photons and infrared radiation.
GK Chesterton eschewed superstition, as the Catholic Church has roundly condemned the same foolish and unfounded beliefs of rank-and-file Catholics. Paul the Apostle thundered against “[Stupid] Galatians! Who has bewitched you? … Are you so foolish?” [Gal 3:1–5]
Perhaps the alleged “decline of superstition” during the Enlightenment was, itself, a superstition? A “meta-superstition” that scientism cannot err in its data nor conclusions?
For the record, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has fostered world-class research and development in fields such as A.I., X Windows (Athena Widgets, Kerberos security (adopted by Microsoft in SMB and Windows Server, etc. GNU (Richard M. Stallman))) Emacs and elisp, as well as glibc and gcc compiler tool suite.
When I was a little boy, with XY chromosomes, I enjoyed vinyl records and record players. I came across a nice flex-disc, from a magazine such as National Geographic, and it was full of whalesong, recorded with underwater microphones from the deep. (I am sorry for posting this a day too late to Talk Like a Pirate...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexi_disc
I distinctly recall playing these whalesongs in a record player at my paternal grandparents' house. They had a rec-room with acoustics more like a bathroom than a bedroom: the floor was tiled or linoleum and the furniture was not so plush and soft, so the whalesong from the speakers would reverberate while I played in front of my family.
And I believe that my mother enjoyed listening to that stuff, too. I mean, could we understand it? I can't say "no"; we got the message on some superficial level, but way out of context, to be sure. The disc's sounds were definitely a montage or a medley of different sessions, from different locations.
Now you know that all the kids today will have seen Finding Nemo and we love DOry when she speaks whale and saves the situation, but then she ends up misbehaving. But there is a practical use for "speaking whale" in modern times. When there is a poor connection such as VoIP, and I notice that "you're breaking up" and the sound is intermittent or the connection is slow, I begin "speaking whale" where I elongate the vowels and slow down the cadence, and this can help get the messages through a congested medium.
[Usenet: talk.origins; 1 Apr 1998]
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