Firewall configuration embarrassment and higher education
We learn how to avoid embarrassing ourselves when misconfiguring e.g. firewalls, and what higher education is for. (Among other things.)
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New articles
Locking Yourself Out With Firewall Configuration
TL;DR: the incantation to avoid embarrassment is sometimes something along the lines of service pf restart && sleep 120 && service pf stop. But in some sort of nohup environment like tmux!
Full article (1–4 minute read): Locking Yourself Out With Firewall Configuration
Flashcard of the week
There's something that's always irked me about meritocracies. They're never as meritorious as they at first seem.. Higher education is a specific case of this:
Higher education is a machine for...
Scott Alexander phrased this particularly well:
...laundering privilege.
He describes it thusly:
Harvard accepts (let’s say) 75% smart/talented people, and 25% rich/powerful people. This is a good deal for both sides. The smart people get to network with elites, which is the first step to becoming elite themselves. And the rich people get mixed in so thoroughly with a pool of smart/talented people that everyone assumes they must be smart/talented themselves. After all, they have a degree from Harvard!
[...]
People ask why Harvard admissions can still be bribed or influenced by the rich or well-connected. This is the wrong question: the right question is why they ever give spots based on merit at all. The answer is: otherwise the scheme wouldn’t work. The point of a money-laundering operation is to take in both fairly-earned and dirty money, then mix them together so thoroughly that nobody can tell which is which. Likewise, the point of a privilege-laundering operation is to take in both fairly-earned and dirty privilege, then stamp both with a Harvard degree. “Fairly-earned privilege” means all the brilliant talented ambitious youngsters admitted on the basis of their SAT scores and grades and impressive accomplishments; “dirty privilege” means the kids of various old-money aristocrats, foreign potentates, and ordinary super-rich people. Colleges mix them together, with advantages for both groups.
This happens not just with universities, but all over the place. And even the "75 % smart/talented" people probably won't be admitted on talent alone – it takes a certain level of privilege to maintain a university-going lifestyle. Someone who needs to work double shifts to take care of their family isn't going to hit the library after that.
But of course, even if one was privileged enough to go to university, once one has graduated one can pretend it was all effort and talent and no privilege.
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