hereforphone

HN is degrading quickly thanks to comments like this. I've used vim for a long time, have worked in high-level engineering positions (lead, principal, similar roles) for decades with huge companies you've no doubt heard of as well as the US government. I've published articles and software going back to the 90s. Based on the content of your comment I think it's likely I was programming in vi(m) before you were born.

I have never read the manual for vim, nor for most software that I use. I'm a "learn by doing" type - optimal methods of learning vary and is subjective. There are plenty of people who because of ADHD or another reason simply don't learn best from manuals.

The vitriol belongs on reddit.

It doesn't quite work like that.

Excellent analogy, thanks.

If you think the CIA is one of the most evil and dangerous organizations on earth, you probably haven't had a lot of exposure to organizations around the world. I'm not saying their mission and means of achieving it is necessarily angelic. I'm saying that there are hundreds or thousands of much more evil organizations in this world.

I agree. I think my point is not that we should invade for humanitarian reasons, but that I don't feel too bad about the Iraq invasion, given what I've seen.

There are truths on both sides of the argument IMO. It's not black and white. But it's hard to seriously consider the opinions of those who haven't participated in it in any way (government, contractor, military...) and may not even have been born when these things kicked off. Media is a very biased filter.

I'd like to post my perception since I was a 90s hacker.

Inclusivity is arbitrary here - no one in the scenes that I was familiar with were excluded because of race or sex - it's just that certain demographics weren't attracted to that 'scene'. Those like me, ADHD, awkward, and not extremely socially capable at the time, were however sometimes excluded. There were still the cool nerds and the lame nerds. I was pretty involved in the scene, being a staff writer of 2600 (several articles published under various handles, my name listed in the cover for a couple of years), and spending some time talking to "famous" people.

Later I grew up, spent 4 years in the military, then used money I earned to finally go to college, graduating eventually with an engineering Master's in my 30s. As I grew up I realized that the whole 90s / early 2000s hacker scene was mostly just a social clique. I learned that many people who were revered had marginal skills. I learned that the paranoia and self-aggrandizement ("The FBI totally monitors #2600 to learn our skills") was really just immaturity. The whole thing eventually seemed lame as I grew into an adult. I realized 2600 was really just a money machine and a manipulative scheme. Phrack went downhill quick, sadly (I also published there).

Still, this was a classic and wonderful time. Even I made friends - some that I talk to now, 20+ years later. I learned a lot. I got started on a tech path that took me very far and into regions of tech I'd never learn about otherwise like radio and telephone. I'm still a hacker, but legally. I don't miss the "scene" at all, but I do wish I was more included in it at the time. As this article illustrates it must have been great.

Beware of Vultr. The product works fine but the customer service is horrible. I had three days of downtime and they got sick of me asking for updates, ignored me, and didn't tell me when the service came back up. I switched back to DO and I'm fine with that again.

I ended up going back to Digital Ocean and using a custom FreeBSD cloud image I installed cloud-init on. My experience at vultr was that bad, and DO has always been good to me

It's been so long I forgot. Formed by former LoD from what I remember.

I just had a huge bad experience at vultr with 3 days of downtime and poor customer service. I tried to elevate it to the CTO but he ignored me.

As I said above I had a bad customer service experience with them. I've used a lot of hosting providers and Vultr was the most ghetto-feeling by far. Back to Digital Ocean for me, or if they stop hosting custom images, I'll try and find another