Note: This post may contain some vulgarities, but no obscenity, at least as defined by the Supreme Court in Miller v. California (1973)
So, my morning started off early, with a lovely bike ride. It was nice and cool in Southern California, where I am this week, so I had a lovely 20 miles. Then, I took my phone out of my pocket and was confronted with two really shitty posts. The first was on twitter, and the second was so shallow that it may as well been a tweet.
I love Twitter, I’ve been on for almost ten years, and as a data nerd, and sports fan, it is like the end all be all of services. However, for discourse, 140 characters leaves out the ability to for any nuance or subtlety. (See the President of United States, not that he had any nuance or subtlety to begin with). However, when you legitimately want to critique something, prose works far better than a 140 characters.
The First #$%, er Tweeter
So I got back from my ride, and the first thing I saw was:
Richie, that tweet was school on Sunday dude. Not cool—I get that you may not like the sessions picked, or general direction of the organization (I certainly disagree with a ton of what PASS does, and am moderately vocal about it). But when you write a tweet like that, you are basically inferring that a bunch of shitty speakers, submitted a a bunch of shitty sessions, and the program committee organized a total shit show. You probably didn’t mean that—I personally think the new emphasis on development isn’t the right approach for a database conference. However, that’s a) not my decision, and b) a more nuanced thought than “Summit sucks, haha.”
The old saying about “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything”, is wrong. However, if you don’t have anything constructive to say,don’t insult 150+ speakers,volunteers, and potential sponsors who might be reading your stream.
The Second #$%e, Blogger
I’m not linking to this guy’s shit. Because it’s shit.
Here’s the gist of this post—Azure SQL Database and Azure Blob Storage are completely $%^&ing insecure because they have public IP addresses. Never mind, that you can completely lock them down to all IP addresses, and Azure. (Granted a database or storage account that no one can access is probably of limited value). However, these services are fully accessed controlled and have built-in security. Additionally, in the case of SQL DB, you have the option of built-in threat detection that will detect anomalous behavior like SQL injection, or rogue logins.
Currently, Azure doesn’t have the ability the put your database on a VNet. I’d be shocked if the Azure team is not working on said feature. In the article, the author makes a point of Amazon having the ability to do this for RDS. That’s cool, and probably why Microsoft is working on it. But instead of focusing on how to secure your app in a hybrid platform, he just shits on the vendor with a clickbait headline.
Wheaton’s Law
Wheaton’s Law, which also happens to be the core of our HR policy at DCAC, is simply “Don’t be a dick”. Think before you write and tweet—don’t write clickbait crap, and if you want to criticize an org, do it carefully, and write a blog post. Or send someone a DM.
Completely agree.
Pretty ballsy to mention the schedule as being a good reason for skipping the Summit when your boss is one of the speakers.
After 12 years of service to PASS, 9 of which was on the BoD, I’ve come to accept that PASS is an easy target for people. There are a handful of reasons why this is the case. Most notably that as a group of volunteers it is rare that anyone would want to engage in arguments online at the risk of harming PASS or our employers. As such, tactics such as this have come to be the norm, and it’s not something I will miss as I leave the BoD this year.
We are always open to feedback, in any form, even in poor form such as this. We do our best to put on events that offer content for the community as a whole. It is understandable that this content isn’t perfect for everyone. What isn’t understandable is why anyone would feel that their needs are greater than the needs of the community. On top of that, to say that you don’t have time to volunteer, but you expect everything to be perfect for your needs, smells of someone that believes they are entitled to have things the way they want, when they want, without having to do any work.
There are a lot of good people working behind the scenes to create events such as Summit. Comments like these also make it harder to convince anyone to step forward and serve. I’m not saying we need everything to be unicorns and rainbows. But I think most of us are at an age now where they would understand that it’s best to treat people how they would like to be treated. A little empathy goes a long way. You may not agree with someone else, but you should always treat them with respect.
Unfortunately, respect seems to be in short order these days, especially online. The level of discontent and trolling on every possible topic is at an all-time high and getting higher. It’s easy to let comments such as this create division between members of a community, or country. When we start fighting amongst ourselves it makes us weaker. This makes it easier for individuals to use bullying tactics to create further division. I would urge everyone to keep that in mind when they see comments such as this on any topic.
We get better by staying together. And together, we can make things better.
(BTW, applications for the BoD will open on 16-Aug, in case you were interested in serving what has been the most rewarding, and at times the most frustrating, group I have ever had the honor of serving.)