Posts by LucreLout

Re: Pay tax where users reside

Or maybe very well off people and companies dodge tax like a devil dodges holy water is because they can, and not matter how much they are asked to pay, they'll do their darndest to avoid paying any at all.

It doesn't work like that even for the most avaricious clients.

There is a cost to avoiding tax, and only an idiot would try to evade it because there's usually no need and because jail. If you inverted the tax rates such that earnings over x the tax rate reduced and it reduced again for earnings over 10x then you'd garner a lot more money provided the earnings over 10x was taxed at around 10%.

I picked 10% because that is a very real world number in terms of fees those that you describe will typically be paying to avoid the taxes. If its not worth avoiding because the tax rate and the fee rate are approximate then it'd put the entire tax avoidance industry out of business.

I work in a division of a bank specializing in this and I have to say, I'm not in the least bit worried. We've had this conversation with the past 5 chancellors when they've asked us to cease and desist what we do, and none of them have had the mental wherewithal or political cajones to do anything other than tinker around the edges.

You'll notice I've not made any moral judgement or pleas to better conscience in the plan above, because the proposal I made is simply the most efficient route to garner taxes which are in any case avoided. As long as we persist in taxing greater incomes at a progressively higher rate we as a country will continue to garner regressive amounts of tax from those in that bracket and the tax avoidance industry will continue to flourish.

You mean "I need to have 5 different versions of the same thing installed at the same time"?

No, because most of the framework doesn't change with each version, but I'd assume the more volatile parts do have a few side by side versions to enable this.... nit sure how else it'd work?

What you're actually saying here is that you're not doing desktop apps :P

CTO say's no :)

When was the last time you actually compiled 20 year old .net code?

One of the things I learned from my first boss is that if you move job every 5 or 6 years you never have to do this for any language. So far he's been right.

But then C++ isn't under the sole control of a company with a track record of dropping tech and leaving users in the dark with no migration path, is it?

Seems unfair given your earlier point about VB6, no?

And I remember hearing similar arguments about how VB would always be around due to the inertia it had and the millions of lines of code written in it.

In fairness, they only dropped backward compatibility for the run time last year, so he wasn't completely wrong. They even offered VB.NET as a migration path for VB devs to ease the pain.... not a lot more they could do really.

So I'm guessing you're not a vim or emacs user then?

No, not so much....

I build stuff to last. Granted, this is mostly because I'm lazy and only want to build it once, but that's beside the point.

I build stuff that *could* last rather than will last because the odds are very high that industry and hardware change will obsolete it before then.... I mean, that 17 year old code.... is it multi-threaded to leverage multiple CPU cores? Does it make effective use of the GPU for math intensive stuff? How does it feel about 64 bit OSes? Have any libraries you used been patched? I presume the client hasn't been able to move datastore to something more free? There's lots of problems with long lived systems too - nothing is a panacea.

I'll also grant you that it's not great for the billable hour

I'm an FTE and a fairly senior one - I get paid more to attend meetings than I do for writing code these days :(

I'd have a nicer car if I'd had the foresight to write it in .net so that it needed to be rewritten or upgraded or whatever every 3 years

You just upgrade the installed framework you don't have to touch the code. MSIL FTW.

But on the other hand I'm also never bored out of my skull solving a problem I've already solved 15 times before.

I've been coding for almost 4 decades now - they're all problems I've solved before.

It seems to me that making an assumption that your work won't last is just an excuse to do a half-assed job.

No, I still take pride in my code and make sure it is of a very high standard. My oldest .net code is still running in a bank I left 15 years ago - they just keep moving it and installing the latest framework. Doubt it'd migrate to core without a rebuild due to the package hierarchy but from what I recall of the code it should be a 5 minute job for someone to do.

So, to summarise: Nothing lasts 10 years, except the 40 year old mainframes you're still running.

Louts 3rd Law of Coding: Write it in COBOL and it'll live forever. Cobol McCleod of the Clan McCleod, as they said in Highlander.

And there's no point in doing good engineering and building stuff to last, it's just an academic argument.

No, I never said that. .NET is built to last, you just *might* have to prod it a little every 5 or 10 years. New framework versions don't usually require code changes you just leave it alone because the new versions will run the old code just fine. Just drag a copy to your new hardware and it'll run ok.

20 years is way beyond the lifespan of modern hardware so unless you build it cloud native, you're going to have to do maintained somewhere down the line.

Out of curiosity, what's the DR plan for a hardware failure on the old mainframes?

You won't believe this, but the place you bank with does what my bank does - they buy failed technology museums so they can asset strip the mainframes for parts. I shit you not. They always look for firesales when old companies fail too - Woolworths and others had a few that went for a good price because all the banks were interested and bidding against each other.

Re: What would be the point?

Visual Studio + C# is probably the most productive development environment I've ever used, but I'm not sure that "Develop on Windows, Deploy on Linux" is a compelling message, even though my experience of .NET Core is that it works well and is commendably fast.

I agree on the dev environment stuff - it is easily the most productive combination available today. However, having used Windows Servers since they first came out, I very much now do "Develop on Windows, Deploy on Linux" because it is just so very easy to do. It scales well. Its very cheap in the cloud.

Unless you're building desktop apps or have a specific need for a Windows Server, and I'm open to what that need may be, then I'd wholly recommend the DoWDoL approach. Its become my default way of working over the last few years, though for how many more years much of my code will even need a server (in the sense of me deploying it to one) remains to be seen due to advances in "serverless".

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.net core is not the same thing as .net. It's ~5 years old. 5. It's supposed to supersede .net and is not completely compatible, meaning that .net has effectively already been dropped.

On paper you might be right, but in the really real world, you're a mile away from that. The upgrade path from .NET framework to .NET Core is trivial at best for many apps unless you're doing desktop apps in which case you want to stick to .NET Framework.

My average migration across frameworks has involved approximately 2 minutes effort per application, so its not spectacularly different to a version upgrade for most things.

Hasn't .net changed hugely over the years? is your 20 year old code even compatible with the current versions? I seem to recall hearing from a few people about huge pain migrating from .net version X to version X+1.

No, because you can specify backward compatibility in the project settings to target older frameworks for specific projects. Most things should be decoupled behind an API or a queue anyway, so the upgrade path can be a piecemeal as you choose.

You can assert that you don't run it for business reasons all you like, but you also can't just run it as-is on the current version for technical reasons.

In 20 years of working with .NET I've never actually had a problem.

...you rewrote, rather than refactoring? I mean I guess that's cool if you're billing by the hour.

Try working in finance and refactoring 40 year old COBOL mainframe code to work in the cloud - there's lots of rewriting. You can't always refactor from on prem code to cloud code either - well, you can always do it, but its not always cost effective. And example, if I may? I might have a typical 3 tier app - web server, app server, and data server. Rewriting that to use a cloud native datastore eliminates one server and all scalability challenges but may come at a varied run cost (how much activity does the datastore see). I might also rewrite the app layer as serverless functions because I want to scale separate parts of the application to different levels. Its a different architecture to which you won't always want to refactor code designed for a different world.

1. I presume you have this in writing from microsoft? I mean surely nobody would make such a bold statement like this without having it in writing, right?

C++ will be used in anger in production for at least 50 years after Id ie of old age. How's that for a bold prediction? MSFT can't drop .NET because most of their core products are written in it (and C++, see what I did there).

2. They already effectively dropped .net by switching to ,net core. see my first point above

Not really. Its the same thing. Its literally mostly the same thing. The main diffs are around WPF GUI's for the desktop. I've spent almost no time relearning this "new" language or framework and almost no time "porting" our code to use it.

h, maybe not intentional: I see now: you're not building your stuff to actually last.

Sure I am, and while my 1980s colour telly still would work, I've replace dit with a massive LED back lit monster. Still works, but is no longer useful. There aren't any real businesses these days that don't sufficiently change their processes over 2 decades for you to keep a static codebase, so you have no argument.

Yes, sure, there is finance and the mainframes, but while I work in finance, we don't touch the mainframe stuff because that's how RBS keep knocking out their cashpoints. For the rest of the business, the process the code models changes so often that the code never gets to its 10th birthday.

Building stuff to last is the sort of academic argument you'd find in a university, but out in the real world people already know that everything changes and the pace of change always increases, thus the process you engineered 5 years ago is going to be out of date and eventually a rewrite looms large.

"I'll just keep using VB6. It'll be fine."

Until, I think, this year you'd have been right. C++ makes an even better case.

If you look at C (and even C++), you see hundreds of compilers from different vendors.

C is a great language, you'll get no argument from me there. A junior dev could build a great career on this one language choice and expect to work through to retirement. It's not what I chose but I still see real value in that option.

Also, .NET is "big"! If your vendor drops support, you will barely be able to maintain it for a few years.

.NET is 20 years old. 20. That most of my 20 year old .NET code is no longer executed isn't down to the platform or language choice its due to business changes requiring systems of a different scale, business failures, and rewrites to make things cloud native due to the opportunity there.

Microsoft aren't dropping support for it in our lifetimes - its baked into everything they do and most of what they've produced for the last two decades.

I am fairly confident I could port GCC from Windows 10 to "Windows 11". I am not confident that I could port Java's JVM or .NET's VM and CLR.

I'd probably not bother - I mean, the CLR runs just fine on linux, which is where I deploy most of my code and its open source so readily maintainable. If, and it is a ludicrously large sized if, but if there is a future version of windows in my lifetime that does not support the CLR, then I'll just leave the code hosted on linux, and worst case, switch to a linux desktop or virtual Win 10 machine for development on what would by then be my legacy products. I'd likely have adopted C#'s replacement, whatever that was and from whichever vendor it comes from for my new projects. Hell, I may just give up then and join you folks writing C and C++!

Re: Unsurprising

For general purpose programming I honestly don't see .NET having any attraction because most real world software would be tainted by Windows in some way.

And yet I only write cross platform software in C# for .NET Core and I usually only build it for Linux. I've never actually deployed it on Windows, but I've no specific reason to think it wouldn't work, after all it's written on a Windows laptop and it works there first.

Java is too EOL and Oracle no longer invests in the language, rather its sweaty asset time with charges for their JVM. I know there are alternatives such as Open JVM etc, and while that may be a good choice to keep legacy Java apps running, it isn't a sensible farm bet for the future.

Re: The problem as I see it

While .Net Core isn't as well known, and if anyone has heard of it then they think of it like "oh cute an open source version of .Net, how experimental. Come back in a few years when it's actually been used in production"

Core has been stable enough for production use for a number of years now. My bank uses .NET Core on linux for all cloud based development. There are no new development projects in Java, some in C++ (front office), and Python is used for ML projects and automation scripts. That's pretty much our technology stack (with js for the browser components). Some of the Java guys are moving to Kotlin, some are moving to Go, but one side of that group will have to give way to the other in the short term.

Fringe languages such as Go, F# etc are being phased out as the cost implications of supporting them all into the future eliminates the use case. Too many languages have been borne of Java's failure to modernize and lack of what people can see to be a stable future (thanks Oracle!), and there's no way more than one of them will make the grade.

If I were learning to program as an undergrad today, the only languages I'd consider would be C# on .NET Core, C++, JavaScript (including TypeScript, React, Angular etc), a bit of Python (one flavour of this language will be around for a while), and some Kotlin (I could be persuaded by Go but its a coin toss which one makes it really). The rest don't have the gas to go the distance.

Re: Show me the money

She's probably either doing it as a vanity project (CEO at last!)

Seems by far and away the most likely reason. If you're not the lead dog the view never changes.

or for a whopping pay deal

They won't be paying her more than Microsoft, not once all the oh so lucrative stock options get added into the mix. Her 5 year options will have more than doubled and she probably has several millions of those. Money is unlikely to be the driver at her time of life and with her likely wealth, she could probably spend 100k a week and never run out of money.... 100k a month otherwise... either way, latte's only cost so much.

Re: The equation to be evaluated ...

If you think I am exagerating, maybe you can tell me of a power that the new Chinese law gives their police that the UK police have not had for a long time (perhaps after jumping through a few very minor hoops).

I'll have a go if I may, though I'm quite happy to admit I may have this wrong in terms of application of both domestic and HK law.

The law isn't only about the powers it gives to the police but the powers it gives to Carrie Lam's office to appoint which judges will assess your case. We do not have any such law in the UK, as can be seen by Lady Hale [1] in the prorogation case.

It may be that such power is only ever executed justly and within the restraint of reason, however, surely you can see room for politically driven outcomes?

"Hong Kong's chief executive will have the power to appoint judges to hear national security cases, a move which has raised fears about judicial independence. Importantly, Beijing will have power over how the law should be interpreted. If the law conflicts with any Hong Kong law, the Beijing law takes priority."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53230391

1 - See any father that went through the family courts under her auspices for why she may not be universally considered fair or reasonable.

Re: Loaded words replaced by euphemisms

I would suggest that it's more like this sort of thing is being used to disrupt our civilisation and culture.

Its gone from being a legitimate protest at an arrest gone wrong, to becoming something more akin to a cultural revolution in the red guards sense of the term. History, for all its wrongs is being painted over and knocked down because some people don't like that it happened. It's literally the dumbest possible thing to do with history. If you hide the facts you lose the lessons.

Re: Loaded words replaced by euphemisms

Wait. Do you mean your race is white while his is black--or that your belt is white while his is black.

At one time or another both were true, however in the current context only the former, because we're both black belts now though he is still my teacher.

Re: Loaded words replaced by euphemisms

What do we gain by replacing words today? Some will feel better, sure. However, does any of this word-swapping game change people's minds? Do we solve the actual problem? As long as this is just a game hiding the symptoms, we are all worse of by playing this game.

Agreed - I mean, getting upset about master slave terminology because people once bought and sold another is to miss the point: There are places in the world today where slavery is still happening, where one man may own another, such as Libya. This is a real problem in the present day, not some ephemeral ancestral possibility over which to naval gaze.

Slavery was happening at scale in Britain until at least the 12th century, so its wholly possibly most of us are of slave stock if you look far enough back, and yet the impact of that upon 99.999999% of us is absolutely nil.

While we have real problems in the world, we should not be devoting any time at all to worrying about terminology one ancestor may have used to describe another, and should instead be fixing the real problems of today.

If you think master branches are a problem then it is because you have too much time on your hands, too thin a skin, and too few actual problems to occupy your mind. I have a master today, who I accord with the title as a mark of the respect he has earned in the style of martial arts he teaches me - I'm white and he's black, for those obsessed by racial games, and neither of us considers me his slave.

Re: General concern

You've been watching too much Monty Python. I have spent decades working in British engineering and have never seen any form of discrimination based on 'class'.

Try working in the City. Yes, it IS a meritocracy in parts, but try getting a senior role unless you're a BSD in the front office, or middle /upper class; you'll find the working classes are appallingly poorly represented - working class Northerners even more so.

Looking around the banks corporate hierarchy diagram, the main problem we have with diversity is related to class background.

whereas with the Nazi period they've been pretty good.

Pretty good? I think they've been nothing short of absolutely impressive in this respect rather than merely "pretty good". What more would you have them do?

Yeah lets bring up WW2 constantly, its what lead to Brexit etc..

Brexit started as a result of Gordon Browns treatment of Gillian Duffy, and became a nailed on certainty due to the behavior of Guy Verhofsdadt and that drunk fella Junker in the run up to the referendum. Absent any of those people and Brexit would never have happened; The vote would have been unwinnable. Collectively they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

ignoring our use of concentration camps

Point of fact, we didn't just use them, we invented them.

We are not blameless in this world and often just as guilty of genocide

Sure, its all about timing - I mean, the Romans or the Vikings weren't altogether entirely lovely people, but when the Scandinavians bring it up (which is all the time) it doesn't mean they endorse the enslavement, rape and pillage of our ancestors, only that sufficient time has passed that its OK to make jokes about it. Same thing for us and the Germans about WWII - I mean, their country really really embraced learning from the mistakes of their past and I think most Brits respect that, which is why we can and do laugh about it.

2 world wars and 1 world cup is a fun song to sing at football matches, but everyone in the stadium has lived to see more Germans lift the cup than Englishmen and everyone in the stadium knows it too.

Re: Welcome....

The Brexiters are still cheering that they can now tell any foreigner they like to fuck off. I can't see them welcoming another 3 million.

I voted to leave and I welcome them here - I even wrote to my MP about the idea months ago. I realize many remainers will disagree with my view that leaving the EU allows us to build a more open global Britain, but that is my hope. There's a whole world out there of opportunity, cultures, people, and possibilities.

My wife is an immigrant and I've not desire for her to "fuck off", as are many of our friends. All of my friends have married partners from elsewhere in the world, so I have to say I think you're generalizing unfairly.

This isn't about Brexit, its about doing the right thing by people we made a commitment too. Don't we all want our country to do that?

Re: Welcome....

Bit odd replying to my own post, but they've only gone and done it!

Well done Boris et al, regardless of who you vote for at elections, I think most people would agree offering a route to full citizenship to all affected is the right thing to do here. It enables us to meet historic moral obligations, hopefully without antagonizing China, while giving a choice to the protesters.

Hopefully it'll allow a little pressure out of the situation and produce an opportunity to avoid further escalation and bloodshed.

Re: Welcome....

We didn't back in the day when we stripped them of their UK residency rights before handing Hong Kong back. So why do you think in these anti-immigration times BoJo will roll that decision back?

Different times with different people in power. Mistakes of the past can and should be learned from.

I think Boris will open the door to it as a debt of honor and because we have no wish to watch 100,000's of young kids get massacred on telly. Educated and driven young people are going to be in demand the world over soon enough, so why not here?

I quite agree with another poster that many, most, maybe even all would not take up the offer, but I think we owe it to those people to offer the chance. I expect other nations will open their borders too.

Re: "we need clarity on what the laws will involve before we can decide anything"

Firstly, thank you for responding with your reasoning. Interesting stuff, but I'm not sure I agree with it all.

It matters a very great deal because the law will be a Hong Kong law with prosecutions managed by the Legal Department of Hong Kong Government and administered in turn by an independent judiciary

Sounds great. I'm not sure why that requires Carrie Lam (who I have enormous sympathy for because she's in an impossible position) to select which judges preside over these matters. Just keep in mind that she is appointed by Beijing herself.

This manoeuvre from Beijing is a direct consequence of violent protests last year

I agree, and it will end them just as surely as sending in the tanks did in Tienanmen square all those years ago.

in the absence of which there is no reason why the PRC would want to interfere with the HK system

If I recall correctly the protests were brought about precisely because Beijing interfered with the HK system making it easier to extradite people to the mainland.

Tienanmen Square was more than a generation ago, China has changed.

Not so long ago in my memory, having watched it on TV myself. I too thought China had changed, and up until a few years ago I would have agreed with your statement that it had. China has a wonderful heritage and has given the world many great gifts, but the way dissent is dealt with has always seemed to me to be stronger than was required. In free and fair democratic elections I honestly think the ruling party would spank any opposition because their system of governance (50 year plans etc) does have a lot going for it, and they are popular with the people.

The World has changed Xi Jing Ping will NOT want to taint his legacy

Then respectfully he should see that the whole world recognizes China's strength and requires no demonstration of same. The young of HK do not want to live as part of mainland China, and China has no need to force them. Time, patience, and openness will bring the two systems closer together - there is no requirement for one to crush the other.

Without a doubt China is one of my favorite parts of the world and I have always held a deep respect and love for its people and its culture, if not always its politics - the same I could say about America, I guess.

To me this feels like a mistake, but I am not Chinese, nor have I even visited HK, so I'll bow out here with best wishes for all involved to find a peaceful resolution.

Re: one country two systems agreement

That would be the agreement bequeathed to Hong Kong by Chris Patten

If memory serves it was originated by Deng Xiaoping. I'm happy to revise my view on that if you'd like to point me at a source?

Re: "we need clarity on what the laws will involve before we can decide anything"

What laughable nonsense.

Its very rare that Pascal & I agree on anything, but we do here. Please would you consider expanding your answer so I can better understand your reasoning?

Re: "we need clarity on what the laws will involve before we can decide anything"

It was never a question of if. It is now. If you value your freedom, you need to go elsewhere. Because, when China decides to "reeducate" the remaining Hong Kong population, well let's just say blood will be involved.

I've always had a love of pre-communist China, the culture, and the people. But sadly, I think you've hit the nail on the head here, which is why I for one am pleased that we are making ready to open our borders to those we left on condition of the one country two systems agreement that is now in tatters.

I still love China and its people and would dearly love to go back one day.... but their current leadership are projecting strength by force where there's no need - we can all see China is strong without any requirement of demonstration.

Re: I wonder why?

Care to try again without the hyperbole, Mr/s Lout? It's unbecoming.

I'll take that as agreement that you've not though through your position here and that you don't actually have an answer. Which rather begs the question then, why post?

Re: I wonder why?

Essentially, the vast majority of the folks bitching about Linus getting sweary HAVE NOT been subject to the swearing. In other words, they are upset on behalf of other folks

So your considered view on all those middle class folks at the BLM racist rallies is what exactly? They're not black so they shouldn't comment? Really?

In other words, said prima donna / drama queen doesn't play well with others, and insists on doing it his/her way.

Are you talking about the developer or Linus here? Its really hard to tell.

And you commentards who haven't actually spent any time contributing to the kernel, your opinions on the subject are completely worthless.

I look forward to near deafening silence on the subjects of taxation, economics, finance etc from the vast majority of commentards then, whose closest experience of any of them is user level rather than developer level (working in the City).

Sorry, you just don't get to gatekeep what people talk about or whose opinions have a value. Pull your head out of your arse and stop trying to copy Linus - you don't have the talent and I for one wouldn't put up with it even if you did.

I'm honestly not sure you've thought your post through very much before writing it. Try to expand your line of reasoning into other aspects of your life and see if it still works for you. It won't.

Re: I wonder why?

What sport do you and your team play?

Writing software for HF Algorithmic trading for a bank you have heard of, mostly. There's quite a lot of money on the line so every lesson is expensive, but regardless of the cost of a mistake, if you punish it instead of learning from it you're much more likely to have someone repeat it.

If the person that screwed up is around to tell the story then everyone joining the team learns to avoid the error. Our team is all in the one boat - if we crash into the rocks everyone goes under but if we make it to port then we all get shore leave.

Or are they a team as in horses?

No, but they are led by a donkey.

Re: I wonder why?

Linus' potty mouth notwithstanding, let's not forget that some of this shit is hard

Some of what my team do is hard too, but if someone spoke to a member of my team in the manner described by the person to whom you responded, I would take a dim enough view to invite them to a non-discretionary meeting to adjust their attitude.

People do their best work when they're supported by those above them in a hierarchy, and where mistakes are learned from rather than punished. Every shit boss I ever had or have ever seen has had the same poor attitude to 'subordinates' as described by the OP. They all had their "reasons" and they all had excuses, and while Linus is undoubtedly smarter than most crap bosses, he's still got a crap boss attitude.

That he has achieved a lot is beyond question. Could he have achieved more? Maybe.

You have already been given several reasons by other commenters, you just ignore them or dismiss them without actually refuting them

No, I haven't. I've been given this excuse by other remainers but no actual reasons. Come on, you're the one making a scene about it, so state your reasons for wanting to be in the rEU. The remain campaigns economic predictions ALL turned out exactly opposite to what they had predicted, so you can't make a case on those.

From the exodus of manufacturing

There's been no exodus of manufacturing - the work has been moved here! See Nissan closing factories all over Europe but not here.

to half our exports suddenly being less competitive thanks to tariffs imposed by our biggest export market

Only about 7% of our exports go to the rEU. What's the other 43% you think will gain tariffs? You're forgetting the balance of trade deficit with the rEU that means any tariffs they apply we can afford to directly refund to our exporters and still make a profit due to the tariffs we'll be charging them.

Our fishing industry, so beloved of people whining about sovereignty, currently sell most of their catch into the EU...

Their fishing industry sells most of their catch to us. Its a trivial deal to sort out once we have the main trade deal done. You seem to misunderstand that leaving the rEU means we won't be trading with them. We will, the trade deal just determines the level of tariffs.

So when the head man himself says that Nissan Sunderland is "unsustainable" in the event of No deal. Well... what? Do think he never said that? Thats its somehow lefty propaganda? Do you think hes lying? Just trying to get a handout? Do you think hes an EU plant? or do you just not care?

In the City we call that talking our book. You can see the brimming confidence he has because he's shuttered his rEU plants and brought the work to Sunderland. Its not what they say, its what they do. Do you just not understand reality, or are you trying to look through it because it doesn't fit your racist little europhile views? Are you actually so dim that you listen to what he is saying, see that it doesn't fit at all with what he is doing, and then just dismiss that as what exactly?

All of the evidence to date backs up the Leave campaign and destroys all economic arguments advanced by remain. That is why I'm still waiting to hear why you want to be in so badly. What specifically is it you think you gain from being in? The answer is nothing, you're just making much sound and fury signifying nothing because you don't want to accept defeat. The future is laughing at you - you're the modern flat earthers, and it is you that is immune to evidence.