Banal Leakage – Ep #016

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Episode 016

– Building It Up, Tearing It Down –

iTunes link: Banal Leakage

  • – Happy Easter to those who celebrate it; a great Spring day spent here with family and friends. And of course, a few drinks to enjoy throughout the day.
  • – and speaking of nice weather, I can’t wait to get my scooter out more often and the temperatures stay more consistent; this 78 one day and 58 isn’t something I like; no fun being on a scooter at 30 mph with colder morning temps.
  • News – Story 1: Saudi Arabia to build 1 kilometer tall building
  • – Saudi Arabia to build 1 kilometer tall building; to be the tallest building in the world when it’s done; cost is $1.2 billion; total height will be 3280 feet; I’m afraid of heights, so I may never set foot into something like this, let alone visit the top; no date of completion has been discussed, but I would imagine this will take years to build, given many considerations and conditions like wind and ground footing.
    – Link to article: Saudi Arabia to build world’s tallest tower

  • News – Story 2: Landlords in San Francisco Hiking Up Housing
  • – Blame tech industry for pushing out long time residents in favor of renting to those who can afford to pay more for the same homes; It’s legal, for the most part, although there are places in Los Angeles and New York where this is happening in rent controlled areas; the landlords are offering a tidy sum of money to buy out current residents; again, legal, but the practice is wrong; it’s changing the scope of a city; what happens if tech goes bust like it did in 1998 during the dot com era; driving up the cost to the point of renting only to those that can afford it is not right; neither is the anarchist movement that hates tech companies like Google and is using unethical means to stop tech workers in their efforts to commute and live; this is a touchy subject for some; Kevin Apgar suggests that those elderly residents could use age discrimination as leverage under Fair Housing; this is a matter that needs attention, not necessary more gov’t intervention or laws.
    – Link to article: Tech Boom Forces a Ruthless Gentrification in San Francisco
    pirate bay blocked

  • News – Story 3: Google Removed links to Pirate Bay torrents
  • – This affects 1-5% of all indexed links that point to Pirate Bay; not a huge number and obviously, still a lot of traffic that people can find on Pirate Bay via a Google search; the fight against piracy is ongoing, but doesn’t make much of a dent, regardless of what method is used to block access to pirated link downloads; I admit this is preferred over suing users who access sites; also, the logical solution here is to just visit the Pirate Bay site directly; which is most likely why their traffic is up over the last several years; piracy will happen; the best way to fight it is to offer legal content that’s easier to obtain and affordable to all.
    – Link to article: Google Asked To Censor Two Million Pirate Bay URLs

  • RANT: Annual Job Reviews are demeaning
  • – just over a week ago, I had my annual review at my day job; it was pretty dismal; I received an equally dismal raise, even though if my review scores would have been higher, the raise would have remained the same percentage; my issue with annual raises is that it takes you a year to find out things you did wrong or things you should have done better or differently; why wait a year to find this out; why not raise these issues when they occur so they can be resolved before you are humiliated and dumbed down in front of your boss; I try to do a good job at work; I’m not happy and haven’t been with my job for some time, but I show up each day and complete as many of the assigned tasks I can; maybe my suggestions I gave to my boss in my review will be used for next year’s review.

  • SHAMELESS PLUG:
  • – watch this video to see a great special on how LEGOs are made; there is a lot of detail here for LEGO fans; this is a great story about a toy company that almost went out of business to become the #1 toy maker today; all with just a simple plastic brick; worth the 21 minutes of your time to watch, not including pausing to look at your LEGO collection; yes, I admit to being an A.F.O.L (Adult Fan of LEGO).
    Link to Article: Brick by Brick: Inside Lego

  • Ending
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CORRECTION: In the podcast, I pronounce Kevin Apgar’s name as “Kevin Kapgar” – a pure slip due to how often I call him Kapgar, as is his blog at kapgar.com

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