Blackcap Blog

Published at 18:16 on 15 May 2018

It’s so-called “talent management software” that many HR departments use. It’s also a piece of total garbage. Typical Taleo experience:

1. Follow a link from Indeed to the Employer’s site, which uses Taleo.
2. Be blocked from going further because you must log on.
3. If you don’t have an account, you must register, and when you do that, Taleo “forgets” the job that brought you there. You must go back to the linking site and follow the link again.
4. If you do have an account, it still doesn’t matter. Taleo will virtually always claim the job doesn’t exist anymore after you log on. Again, you must go back to the linking site and follow the link again.
5. You will then be prompted to enter, by hand, basically your entire résumé. You cannot just cut and paste it in one fell swoop, because Taleo is coded to break everything into zillions of fields (employer, address, phone, dates worked, etc.).
6. You will then be asked to upload your résumé.
7. Odds are, you will never receive a call back, because you failed to include some obscure keyword that Taleo was insisting be there for the job in question.
8. None of the work you did will matter for any other employer that uses Taleo, as there is no information sharing happening. You will have to key in your entire résumé by hand again.

Regarding forcing users to register, why the fuck do that? Isn’t the goal of advertising anything (be it a job vacancy or pork chops at the supermarket) to attract people? Forcing applicants to register just says “go away, we’re really not that serious about filling this position.”

Regarding uploading a résumé, this is a completely reasonable thing to ask. Thing is, most every other job application system out there can parse a résumé (there’s stock libraries for doing this; it’s a solved problem). Only Taleo forces you to key in the thing from scratch, anew. Again, this basically amounts to a “go away, we’re really not that interested” sign on a virtual door.

How unreasonable Taleo is may be underscored by comparing it to the experience of applying to a job in the pre-Internet days: You’d compose a cover letter, and stuff that along with your résumé (copied on a copier, not typed anew for each employer) in an envelope, put a stamp on it, and drop it in a mailbox.

Taleo may also be shown to be unreasonable by comparing it to Indeed.com, which lets employers manage applications (if they pay Indeed for that service). You get asked for your contact information, get a box in which to compose a cover letter, and get asked to upload your résumé. A complete analogue of what you did in the snail-mail days (absent paying postage and sometimes waiting most of a week for delivery to complete); simple and totally reasonable.

Or compare Taleo to competitors like Jobvite, which prompt you for your résumé first, then parse it and populate the form fields automatically, allowing you to correct any mistakes the parser made. A little more work, but still pretty reasonable, even if it does go through the unnecessary step of forcing you to register and log in.

The mystery, to repeat, is why this piece of absolute garbage even exists. It’s got to be crap for the HR people to use, as well (software is very seldom crap in just one area; if one part of a package is crap, the crap quality typically extends package-wide). There’s so many better options already out there.

If market forces worked like capitalism fans theorize they did, Taleo would have been compelled by such forces to fix their garbage software or would have gone out of business years ago. Yet Taleo remains, one of those counterexamples to the assertion that markets inevitably foster excellence.

Published at 08:29 on 14 May 2018

It is a favor for domestic Christian fundamentalists (a core part of Trump’s base), who believe that:

• The Old Testament of the Bible is a title deed that allows the Zionists to occupy and claim land by force, and
• Israel needs to occupy that land (all of it, from the river to the sea) in order to fulfill the prophecies in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation.

That it is a favor for Christian fundamentalists (and not Zionists) perfectly explains why this pastor was invited to speak at the embassy’s opening.

Published at 12:12 on 12 May 2018

Just finished these. Going to try and sell at least one of them next week at BC Faerie Camp.

Published at 06:49 on 11 May 2018

The Washington Post had a good article that delved into the politics of places in the rural Midwest that typically vote Democrat but which didn’t in the last election. Two quotes stuck out to me.

Quote No. 1:

Shaynan Holen, who lives in nearby Vernon County, where a similar pattern had occurred, blamed Clinton’s defeat on an intraparty split among Democrats, caused by the bitter primary contest with Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.). “Once Bernie was eliminated, they abandoned Hillary,” she said, referring to Sanders’s supporters. She added: “They came right out and said, ‘I’m voting Republican.’ ”

First, the attitude that Hillary was entitled to the votes of anyone who voted for Sanders. I may sympathize with the attitude that it was stupid to vote for such an obvious fraud as Trump, but nobody is entitled to anyone’s vote. Votes must be earned. (And if you think that quote shows a serious attitude of entitlement to votes, wait until you read some of the comments about it.)

Hillary quite simply failed to do enough to earn enough votes in those places, a failure that is underscored all the more by how those same places typically vote for the Democrat. Heck, Hillary’s campaign wrote many of those states off and decided not to even bother campaigning in them.

Second, it’s just an anecdote, but it shows once again that Sanders was almost certainly the more viable of the two candidates.

Quote No. 2:

Smicker recalled that many of those he encountered were mad, fed up with the state of things. “This is my observation, it is not necessarily my belief,” he said as he described their motivations. “Number one, they said minority political people have been well taken care of. Small business and working people have been identified as the source of income to take care of those people.”

This of course has prompted plenty of howls of outrage about the racism of Trump voters in the comments section. And yes, it is a racist sentiment. Minorities do not have it easy. Whites are privileged.

But, and this is critically important, there is still a grain of truth in the above sentiment. Whites are still privileged, but not as much as before. And many working-class whites have slipped down the economic ladder in recent decades. By contrast, identity politics has made things get gradually better for minorities. Bitter losers helped Trump win.

The problem isn’t so much the presence of identity politics as the absence of class politics in the Democratic Party. This has caused the white working class to be in the unique position of having grown collectively worse off over the past few decades. Of course they’re upset; who wouldn’t be?

And note that while, to reiterate, it is a racist sentiment to say that minorities are privileged, many of these same racist white people also voted for Obama… twice! It is simultaneously possible to be a racist while also not being an incorrigible racist, and still having a better side that it is possible to appeal to.

Absent any Democratic finalist that could appeal to those workers’ better sides, Trump alone was trying to appeal to them, to their worse sides.

Racism is an ugly thing, but it exists and must be dealt with. Candidates have to win in the world that actually exists, not in some hypothetical ideal world that we might wish existed. Throwing tantrums about how unfair it is that Trump can appeal to racism won’t help the Democrats win one little bit. Figuring out how to appeal to voters’ better sides with a class-based message can.

Published at 10:48 on 10 May 2018

Any breakthroughs in Korea won’t act as a get-out-of-jail-free card for Trump’s corruption. And remember, there haven’t really been any big breakthroughs yet.

Nixon isn’t best remembered as the president who began détente with the USSR or who opened relations with China, he’s best remembered for Watergate, and for being compelled to resign in disgrace over it.

It bears mentioning that despite the parallels between the two leaders, Nixon was a much more thoughtful and cautious leader than Trump. Nixon didn’t run around ruining international goodwill and the trustworthiness of the USA by tearing up multiple international agreements (Paris, NAFTA, TPP, Iran) like Trump has.

It also bears mentioning that Trump’s corruption possibly rises to the level of treason, and thus is potentially vastly more serious than Nixon’s.

Finally, Nixon had a record of working across the partisan aisles and proposing politically moderate legislation that both parties could back. Nixon won landslide victories due to his ability to appeal to the votes of normally Democratic voters. Trump is an abrasive, rank partisan with historically low approval ratings for a president.

In trying to use foreign policy to distract from domestic scandal, Trump is playing from a weaker hand with a strategy that has proven a failure in the past.

Published at 18:54 on 9 May 2018

The Large-Leaved Avens (Geum macrophyllum) is mistaken as some sort of buttercup (Ranunculus sp.) by many. It’s an understandable mistake, as buttercups tend to have the same five yellow petals (albeit far glossier) as this avens does. The foliage of this plant also somewhat resembles the foliage of many buttercup species. Completing the deception, the Large-Leaved Avens typically grows in the same sort of moist, wooded areas that is favored by both a native and an invasive buttercup.

Of those two buttercups, the one that starts blooming at the same time as this avens has much smaller flowers. The other buttercup starts blooming later, and although its flowers are larger, it has a spreading habit that this avens lacks, and moreover is not typically as tall as the Large-Leaved Avens, either.

Despite appearances, this plant is not even closely related to the buttercups. The latter are in the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae); the Large-Leaved Avens belongs to the rose family (Rosaceae). This plant and our woodland buttercups have evolved to have a similar form because they grow in similar environments, and are thus subject to similar pressures of natural selection, a process is known as convergent evolution.

By late summer, this avens’ fruits will have ripened into burs that stick to clothing and fur.

Published at 16:25 on 9 May 2018

Some observations:

1. It totally underscores how much the NRA is a right-wing moonbat outfit (and how little it is a civil rights outfit) that they would elect such a figure to their highest leadership post. If they took the Constitution whose Second Amendment they pretend to revere seriously, they would consider a figure like North, who subverted the rule of law at the highest levels of government, to be radioactive. They would be ashamed to so much have him as even a lowly routine member of their organization.
2. By doing the above, the NRA has reinforced in the minds of a public increasingly skeptical of it how the right to keep and bear arms really isn’t a right worthy of being considered like the other rights in the Bill of Rights. It dovetails perfectly with the message that it’s just something the moonbat Right is a fan of, nothing more. The NRA has thereby made it easier for the Second Amendment to be successfully ignored* in the future. As someone who supports the right to keep and bear arms, and does consider it to be an important civil right, I personally find this distressing.
3. That the Right would so elevate a figure whose claim to fame is illegally arming the Islamic Republic of Iran at the same time they are saying that Iran cannot be trusted is more than a little ironic. Sort of shows how hollow the reasoning is behind tearing up the Iran nuclear deal. They’re mostly just a brainless cheering squad for anything their Dear Leader does.

* Repeal is very unlikely, but ignoring is quite likely. All it would take is a Supreme Court ruling that there is no individual right to keep and bear arms enshrined in the Constitution. There’s even some very convenient “well-regulated militia” language in the amendment to help them do that. Make such a ruling and the Second Amendment might as well not exist anymore. It’s that simple to neutralize.

Published at 12:33 on 8 May 2018

Really, this should come as no surprise.

Published at 11:11 on 8 May 2018

The Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) bushes are in bloom. The warm days we are having are really making things go fast. I took this picture just a week ago when it seemed the blossoms were just opening, and already they seem more than half-done.

Elderberry flowers tend to get ignored by many, or at least not much talked about. That’s always been a mystery to me, as they are quite ornamental. The flowers occur in pyramidal (not flat) clusters and ripen into shiny red fruit.

This is our native elderberry. It has a reputation for being poisonous, which is mostly true. The exception is that the ripe fruits can be eaten provided they are cooked thoroughly first. I have yet to try them, so cannot offer my opinion as to how good (or otherwise) they taste. Birds relish the fruit and in so doing disperse the seeds of this shrub.

Those who travel to the east slopes of the Cascades (or to select areas of the east slopes of the Olympics) might be familiar with the related Blue Elderberry (Sambucus mexicana or Sambucus cerulea), a shrub or small tree that bears choice fruit. The Blue Elderberry’s flowers resemble those of the Red Elderberry, but occur in large flat (never pyramidal) clusters. As its name implies, the ripe fruit is covered with a bluish waxy bloom.

The Blue Elderberry is a close relative of the European Black Elderberry (Sambucus nigra); and like that elderberry its fruits are edible and its flowers can be used to make syrups or tea.

Published at 09:45 on 7 May 2018

Since many centrists act like I’m some sort of starry-eyed idealist when I claim that Bernie could have won, I figure it’s time to prove them wrong by describing what I believe things would be like if Bernie would have won.

I am going to be utterly realistic here and describe a scenario operating under US politics as it actually is, not under how this anarchist might wish it would be. I am not going to assume any great increase in class consciousness; I am going to assume that the nonideological pragmatists which a Sanders campaign would appeal to would remain for the most part nonideological pragmatists.

First, the campaign would have been ugly. Trump would have tried to paint Sanders as a Stalinist-style communist, bringing up things like his trips to the USSR and 1980’s Nicaragua as evidence. However, and to the mystification of most Establishment pundits, this would have mattered far less than Trump (and the pundits) believe it would. Sanders would have proven amazingly resilient to the attacks, much as Trump proved resilient to the attacks against him based on his tawdry past actions.

Second, Sanders would have been really able to draw blood in his attacks against Trump, correctly painting Trump as a phony populist who was in fact a rich coastal elitist who inherited his wealth and who had a long track record of contemptuously screwing “the little people” over. This would have been the magic bullet that pushed Sanders to victory in November.

Third, in many ways the Sanders campaign and then the Sanders Administration would have been a left-wing mirror to the Trump campaign and the Trump Administration in the eyes of the Establishment. You have your Never Trump crowd on the right; well, there would be a Never Sanders crowd on the left. There would be prominent Democrat analogues to anti-Trump Republicans like Rick Wilson and Ana Navarro in the pundit world.

Fourth, the capitalist class would have been merciless to Sanders. There was some talk about a Trump victory prompting an immediate Wall Street crash; that didn’t happen. The unelected right-wingers that run Wall Street would however have been much more likely to destabilize a new Sanders Administration with such a tactic. The problems that are now only partway unfolded due to Trump’s annoying the capitalists with a trade war would be far more unfolded at this point in a Sanders Administration.

Republicans and the right wing of the Democratic Party would be blaming Sanders and Sanders alone for causing the Wall Street crash. Because there would not be any magical increase in class consciousness as a result of the Sanders victory, such blaming would carry real traction. The Sanders Administration would be in the toilet in terms of popularity in the opinion polls.

Fifth, Sanders would have inherited the same unfortunate part of the business cycle as Trump has. This recovery is already long in the tooth, and we are due for a downturn no matter who occupies the White House. When a downturn kicks in, the current administration always gets blamed for it, no matter how much or how little (typically the latter) it has to do with the downturn. This isn’t fair, it’s just the way things are (and long have been).

Add up the third, fourth, and fifth points and it’s obvious that a Sanders presidency would be a presidency under siege, much like the Trump presidency is. Many of the things on Sanders’ wish list would have gotten bogged down in Congress and gotten nowhere. There would much talk of a coming “red wave” in November—and it probably would come.

Sanders is, unlike Trump, not a corrupt or emotionally immature individual, so an early end to his term would be unlikely, but he would be a one-term president, to be followed by a GOP president winning in 2020 largely due to criticizing Sanders on the economy and blaming him for the recession. It would be a latter-day Carter Administration.

Still, and this is the important part, a latter-day Carter Administration would be a far better outcome than the Trump Administration we actually got, and whichever Republican succeeded Sanders would not be a fascistic populist like Trump. In the wake of the Trump loss, the GOP would have changed its primary process to make it less amenable to being hijacked by an outsider like Trump, most likely by instituting something similar to the Democratic Party’s system of superdelegates.

It is in no way necessary to believe that Sanders would have been perfect and would have ushered in a lasting new era of New Deal (or even more fancifully, democratic socialist) politics to believe that his presidency would still have been a vastly better outcome, and that he was the better candidate than Hillary.