First AtheistDrinks Meetup Announced
What: AtheistDrinks
When: March 31st at 6pm.
Where: Brutopia @ 1215 Crescent
How: RSVP on Facebook or Contact Me directly
Why: have a drink with like-minded individuals
The Lamp And Pickaxe Through Time
In the late 1800s in France (and many parts of the world) coal miners had perhaps the worse job one could have. One novel captured the soul of coal mining during that period and showed how hard those times were.
It was the worse job in the world for multiple reasons.
Lowering Salary
Your salary was lowering and there was nothing you could do about it. Times kept going from bad to worse. The market forces were partly to blame but greed exacerbated the problem. One of the biggest complaints was the disregard for security by “the company” as upholding structures took time away from more lucrative endeavors. “The company” wouldn’t pay specialized workers to secure tunnels.
Your skill set was limited with no chance to grow
You had a company issued lamp and pickaxe. The hours were too long to get a second job where you could learn a new skill set or improve your tools.
You didn’t own your house
Permatemp company barracks were setup to lower costs for everyone. You paid rent to “the company” and it would give priority to someone working at the mine. If you lost your job you didn’t have any guarantee you could stay in the same house.
In this day and age wielding a LAMP or a Pickaxe means more control over your future. You can change your tools because they are (mostly) open and free. You can innovate because of the meritocracy culture where good code is adopted and simpler methods are promoted. No one can pull the rug from under you because you have control over your tools.
For these reasons I prefer using open source platforms over proprietary ones. Having to beg “the company” to do the right thing is a rotten situation I don’t want to live through again. I don’t expect that a very large company with a history of disregard for web standards will want to uphold the openness of our series of tubes. With my pickaxe and my keyboard I’ll help move the web away from mining industry standards.