I saw another video about someone's favourite pen and he gave the reason as check fraud. Apparently the uniball 207 is pigment based ink and doesn't wash away in acetone.

I just searched then on youtube for acetone pen check fraud and it looks like there's a 13 year old video about it, and a million copycats. Either copycats are lazy, or the 207 is still $2 13 years later.

I watched a video recently from someone, from memory the creator behind the youtube channel vsauce. Very briefly, he lost some notes to water. His words, thoughts and ideas vanished. His solution was switching to pencil.

I found the interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfY2JACiDGU

I'm addicted to people talking about pens and pencils. Adam Savage also has done a few videos on his favourite mechanical pencil.

Apparently Stephenson loves fountain pens and reluctantly gel pens. In general, those are water based inks and will wash away with water. There are one or two fountain pen inks designed to be more permanent and won't wash away with water.

Just something to keep in mind if you're currently writing or want to start.

I think this is the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdOITpaQvZI "This is a part from autobiographical film Neil made in 1972."

I found the video fascinating and thinking about how and who made these bootlegs is a fascinating mystery to me. It would have to someone in the industry with lots of contacts to get it made and distributed.

This was 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPUBXN2Fd_E&t=19s

A dude in the usa was arrested in a casino by police because the casino's facial recognition software said he had been trespassed before. He hadn't. I think there was height differences and eye colour difference. The police still arrested him, booked him. I think the prosecutors took it to trial.

Want to edit some raw video into a polished 20 minute video suitable for youtube? You don't open final cut pro, you tell your thin client to edit the raw video into a polished 20 minute video. Your monthly subscription includes AI and out pops an edited video.

I agree with "art isn't a one way street". But, it's also up to the artist whether people's interpretation is "right" or "wrong". Some artists love when people find meaning in their work that wasn't intentional, and some don't.

One story that's burnt into my brain, is about Ray Bradbury giving a guest lecture. This is meant to be a quote from Bradbury. It's hard to know what's real these days.

From "Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews"

"Weller: have you encounted academic misinterpretation of your work?

Bradbury: I was lecturing at Cal Fullerton once and they misinterpreted Fahrenheit 451, and after about half an hour of arguing with them, telling them that they were wrong, I said, “Fuck you.” I've never used that word before, and I left the classroom.'"

I think it's fine to read Fahenheit 451 and have your own opinions about its main theme, but, it's another thing to get into an argument with the author about it.

Bradbury said Fahenheit 451 is about the effect of mass media on society, if it was written today, it might be about the effect of AI on society.

It has been proven many times it's cheaper for the government, and therefore tax payers, for the government to get a loan and build public highways themselves. yet, all new highways are private.

big corp get given the land for the roads and have builtin toll price increases. One company raises prices 4% every 6 months. According to google, that means the toll doubles every 9 years.

For me to drive 22km to the CBD via toll roads costs $25 one way, and I save 10 minutes most time of the day. In 10 years time, it will probably be around $40 one way.

big corp make a billion or two in profit every year.

I suspect the biggest benefit is bike makers get to sell new bikes to people who don't need new bikes.

For professional riders who don't buy their own bikes, it's probably more about areo, and maybe weight, as the rims don't need a braking surface. They have more creativity with the shape and material. They only brake for emergencies and going into a corner on a downhill. A tiny fraction of a stage. The areo benefit is for the full length of the stage.

I don't know much about physics but even if the weight of the disks is more than rims brakes, the weight being closer to the centre of the wheel might be a benefit. I suspect in terms of performance, aero is the biggest benefit, though.

even the 12 speed cassettes, from what I've read, accelerating smoothly isn't the main point. for a professional rider, they spend a lot more time at the same speed than they do accelerating. so being able to dial in the perfect gear for the speed, wind and gradient is more important than being able to accelerate smoothly.

By the time they get serious and have access to professional coaches, they've had maybe 5 years of good quality training.

As well as bikes have improved a lot. Clothes have improved a bit. But the biggest factor of all are the drugs. I mean I don't know. I'm just cynical.

I think it's a level playing field, though. I think it was a level playing field during the armstrong era.

Maybe armstrong had better drugs, better doctors, but it's not like the other riders were clean.

chess.com happily took regium's money to advertise their scam to their audience.

It eventually got kicked off kickstarter, and then kicked off some other kickstarter clones before self hosting their own kickstarter clone website. That was a wide ride. searching youtube for "regium chess board" will get a few hits.

Pi board looks like a fun project that I'm sure will be refined over the years.

on lichess it does have an impact. lichess has a thing they call lag compensation where the server can add time to a player's clock after the server receives their move.

The goal is to make it fair for someone with high lag playing someone with low lag.

I don't know the exact cheating method used. I'll have a guess, though. What if someone spent a few seconds looking at the board before making their move, and then adding (edit: oops, subtracting) a few seconds to their clock in their response packet. The server would see the client made their move instantly based on the time in the response packet, but it took a few seconds for the server to receive the packet. i.e. lag. So it might add time to compensate for the perceived lag.

Lag compensation cheating is a frequent topic on the lichess forums.

> I sort of directionally think that if WPE had a strong case here, their opening bid wouldn't be a C&D

I believe, as a non lawyer, in some places to be able to sue for defamation you must first contact the defamer and demand they take it down.

I have no idea and no opinion if there is a case. If there is a case a C&D might be a necessary step.

My philosophy is skill level and rating doesn't affect enjoyment.

Whether I'm rated 700 or 2700, once my rating stabilizes, I win as many games as I lose.

I have the capacity to improve a little with a lot of work, but, eventually my rating will stabilize and once again I'll have equal wins to loses.

env -i DISPLAY=$DISPLAY DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS firefox

this doesn't, it gives me the "Firefox is already running, but is not responding." message

env -i DISPLAY=$DISPLAY firefox

Construction jobs were and still are in demand. I did a course and assessment, it was a government requirement, it went for 3 days and cost about $1000. There is a bit of luck getting your first position. While there are lots of positions needed, most want experienced people.

I just applied to maybe 3 companies, got an interview which was basically showing up with all your PPE, radio, etc, to prove you have them and they tell you you might be tried out in a week or two. Basically they had an urgent requirement one day and all of their other traffic controllers were assigned or rejected the job so I got a go.

After 3 months I was driving a traffic control truck and either working by myself or running small crews. I loved it. Pretty much worked on different sites everyday.

It's not exactly rocket science but you do get better with experience. After a week you've pretty much got it down, and after 6 months you'd be considered experienced.

On construction sites, there might be a truck every 5 minutes but more common was hours of doing nothing but standing, but needing to keep alert for pedestrians and an unexpected truck arrival. Some people hated the boredom and didn't do a good job at keeping an eye on things, were on their phone, etc. I loved it. Different strokes for different folks.

One time was a job in the construction industry for 6 months. It was the happiest I'd ever been. I went from struggling to get to sleep, struggling to wake up before midday in IT, to bouncing out of bed at 4am for a 6am start. I could have woken up later but I wanted an hour to relax and have a coffee before work.

I was outside all day, saw the sunrise and the sunset, my mood was amazing, my feet were sooo sore. I liked the people I was working with, about half the foremen were total pricks and I enjoyed dealing with them too.

I ended the shift physically worn out and ready to go home. I got home around 7pm, put my work clothes in the washing machine, had a shower, had dinner, put my clothes in the drier and was in bed before 9. I'd try to watch something but I'd fall asleep very quickly.

wake up 5 minute before my 4am alarm and hit my head on the ceiling bouncing out of bed looking forward to the day.

I did that for 6 months, I was thinking I would start looking for another job in IT when I was contacted by someone filling a role and got it.

So, I would say if you're serious about leaving, talk to your boss and ask for 6 months leave without pay, and go do something different. You then have the option of going back. Or, just quit, do something else for 6-12 months and if you feel the urge to go back to your old field, start applying for roles.

the building has many floors and practices. knew my doctor by name. knew I was there to visit him. wanted me to rate him.

very creepy.

I can't remember what article I read ages ago, not this one, but this one seems to say the same thing from skimming the top https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/jpmorgan-fa...

Instead of companies defending one class action suit, they (potentially) defend 1000s of individual disputes in arbitration and it ends up costing them more.

I'm just guessing here, I have no idea, if OP didn't settle and lost, it would have cost the company more than what they paid to settle.

These days I'd image you could do the arbitration over a video call. Easily worth my time for $2000.