“When we call, they are out. When we call back, the phone computer gives us a bad connection. When we ask for any member of the Brandt family, every phone in South America rings.”

Fancy it up a bit (mostly nicer appliances) beyond that and you take a $300k house to a $1M house.

Developers make about 20% on the total ( https://www.nahb.org/news-and-economics/press-releases/2025/... ). They'd rather make 20% of $1M than 20% of $300k. Same work crew either way.

Next question then becomes "is it better to sell 3 houses at $1M each ($600k for the developer) out of 10, or all 10 houses at $300k ($600k for the developer)?"

This also applies to apartments. Do you build 200 "luxury" units? or 200 affordable ones?

The designer diary: https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogpost/111646/designer-di...

    We're three siblings from a gerrymandered district in Austin, Texas, and this is the story of how we designed a board game about gerrymandering — and ended up at the Supreme Court with 82 copies of Mapmaker: The Gerrymandering Game.

7th life is dark. 5th life is a close second.

https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:...

    What is your definition of underemployment?

    The definition of underemployment is based on the kinds of jobs held by college graduates. A college graduate working in a job that typically does not require a college degree is considered underemployed. This analysis uses survey data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network (O*NET) Education and Training Questionnaire to help determine whether a bachelor’s degree is required to perform a job. The articles cited above describe the approach in detail.

Yes, this has unemployment computer engineering at #2 with 7.8% and computer science at #5 at 7.0%.

Philosophy is at 5.1% unemployment.

The next column is also important to look at - the underemployment rate. Is the graduate in a profession that requires the degree.

    The underemployment rate is defined as the share of graduates working in jobs that typically do not require a college degree. A job is classified as a college job if 50 percent or more of the people working in that job indicate that at least a bachelor's degree is necessary; otherwise, the job is classified as a non-college job.

Underemployment for computer engineering is at 15.8% (3rd lowest) and computer science is at 19.1% (9th lowest).

If you want a unemployment rate for computer science that matches philosophy the answer is easy - hold your nose and take the front desk receptionist job.

Also... sort by "median wage early career." Computer engineering and computer science are #1 and #2 at $90k and $87k. There's something important there too - most college graduates are not getting $100k/year jobs. That expectation of Big Tech wages out of college and turning one's nose up at a job that offers the median claiming that "it isn't competitive" may be contributing to the unemployment rate.

There isn't an existential crisis there. Most college graduates are finding jobs in the profession and computer science and engineering (from that data) are the highest paying college majors.

https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html

    How do I protect my recipe?
    A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection. Note that if you have secret ingredients to a recipe that you do not wish to be revealed, you should not submit your recipe for registration, because applications and deposit copies are public records. See Works Not Protected by Copyright (Circular 33) (PDF, 113 KB), section "Names, Titles, Short Phrases."

https://copyrightalliance.org/are-recipes-cookbooks-protecte... also goes into it.

2nd paragraph, 2nd sentence, the "I" in "It" is slightly different. 5th paragraph, 2nd sentence, the "s" in "space" is likewise. Then in the next chapter, there's an "e" in "every" and later another "e" in "eye".

And as you spell it out (and in some editions), it ends with...

"I see you found my eighth-notes."

Some of it aged... interesting.

Top comment:

> Microsoft doesn’t do everything right but the GitHub acquisition has honestly gone better than I ever expected. Rather than forcing GitHub to adopt Microsoft centric policies, Microsoft has adopted more GitHub stuff, especially from a product POV. GitHub still runs as a separate company (different logins and health care and hiring systems) with its own policies and point of view.

> ...

---

One employer I had gave a test that included such questions as "It is ok to get into fights behind the store if you are not on the clock" and "It is ok to take inventory as long as it costs less than $5."

There are people who failed that test.

"Perfect homework, blank stares: Why colleges are turning to oral exams to combat AI" https://apnews.com/article/college-oral-exam-ai-chatgpt-7795...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon

> ... There are other Man versus Horse races — in Scotland based at Dores, near Loch Ness, in Central North Island, New Zealand and in the U.S. city of Prescott, Arizona.

And the Arizona race page: https://managainsthorse.com

https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/hu...

> Lobb’s victory came on a hot day, as did Florian Holzinger’s subsequent victory in 2007—a significant detail, according to a new study in the journal Experimental Physiology from Lewis Halsey of the University of Roehampton in Britain and Caleb Bryce of the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust. Halsey and Bryce gathered historical data from three endurance races that pit humans against horses, including the Man Versus Horse Marathon, to test the idea that humans are uniquely adapted to run for long distances in hot weather.

> This idea has been around since the 1980s, and it gained prominence when Harvard anthropologist Daniel Lieberman and University of Utah biologist Dennis Bramble published a 2004 Nature paper hypothesizing that running had “substantially shaped human evolution.” They argued that our ability to keep running at a moderate pace even on hot days allowed us to run prey like kudu to exhaustion or outcompete other animals in the race to scavenge carcasses left by other large predators.

There's a plot with the analysis of the Old Dominion with weather stations in there that show a steeper negative slope for horses compared to the humans.

> Overall, for every increase of 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), the horses slowed down by about 1 percent—or 0.07 miles per hour, to be precise. The humans, on the other hand, slowed down by just 0.04 miles per hour for each extra degree of heat. That 36 percent advantage for the humans was statistically significant.

---

For the Man vs Horse, the weather conditions ("Hot", "Rain/sun/windy" - not exact values)... the entry for 2022 was the human winning by 1:51 on a warm day, and 2023 was a human wining by 9:44 on a sweltering day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon

> The Man versus Horse Marathon is an annual race over 21 miles (34 km), where runners compete against riders on horseback through a mix of road, trail and mountainous terrain. The race, which is a shorter distance than an official marathon road race, takes place in the Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells every June.

> ...

> The event started in 1980, when local landlord Gordon Green overheard a discussion between two men in his pub, the Neuadd Arms. One man suggested that over a significant distance across country, man was equal to any horse. Green decided that the challenge should be tested in full public view, and organised the first event.

While the horses had a string of wins from 2008 to 2019, 2022 to 2025 had three wins for humans and one win for a horse.

The next race event: https://www.green-events.co.uk/man-v-horse

I've worked at small companies that had revenue per employee of under $150,000.

The NYT has a revenue per employee of $470k ( https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=New+York+Times+revenue+... ) ... and a profit per employee of $50k ( https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=New+York+Times+profit+p... ).

https://www.levels.fyi/jobs/company/the-new-york-times-compa...

If an employee there got an offer in Big Tech, they're going to make more.

Until you hit Big Tech or companies trying to compete with them for talent, you can always find an employer that will pay more than your current one.

Music for Airports is ok ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_1:_Music_for_Airports https://youtu.be/vNwYtllyt3Q ... but there are parts in there that I recognize in the loop that bring me out of it being background and into something I'm listening to).

But yea... I want a soundscape and it doesn't bother me if it was something that was generative in 2018, or in 2026... or loops of recorded sound... I want something that isn't silence and that I can not listen to for four to eight hours... bonus if its enough "noise" that it doesn't even get picked up after noise suppression in a Teams call.

Space Banjo is great ( https://spacebanjo.com be it https://youtu.be/CLnHStt4mbs or https://youtu.be/ygYfJSTc_qQ ) ... but I like to listen to that when I can listen to it more.

There's also things like https://youtu.be/_egA9RZrD5k (and in this realm, I get picky https://www.youtube.com/@resomat6474 is pretty good, but some of it hits higher notes ... https://www.youtube.com/@TheJapaneseTown-jt6fy is pretty good too).

Again, this is more about wanting sound rather than music.

https://www.governor.nd.gov/news/burgum-one-worlds-largest-d...

> WILLISTON, N.D. – Gov. Doug Burgum today announced the construction of one of the largest data centers in the world near Williston as North Dakota continues to emerge as a hub for high-performance computing, including cryptocurrency mining.

> The Atlas Power Data Center being built by FX Solutions Inc. is part of a $1.9 billion, multiyear project that will require more than 100 workers during the two-year construction period and create more than 30 permanent jobs, according to Richard Tabish, president of Missoula, Mont.-based FX Solutions. Atlas Power, an operator of high-density facilities serving cryptocurrency mining and high-performance computing utilizing alternative power generation, will own and operate the data center following its completion.

> ...

> The first phase of the project will consist of 16 buildings, each 350 feet long by 30 feet wide, to house tens of thousands of servers that will conduct high-performance computing using 240 megawatts of electricity. Phases 2 and 3 call for expanding to 500 megawatts and then 700 megawatts, adding additional buildings and servers.

And later...

https://kfgo.com/2023/06/25/williams-co-residents-frustrated...

> WILLISTON, N.D. (KFGO) – Residents west of Williston were hopeful for a few hours on Tuesday, June 20, after the Williams County Commission voted unanimously to instruct the local power co-op to shut off electricity in a portion of a local cryptocurrency mine. But Corey Seidel said he knew the effort had failed by nightfall, when the servers were still operating at their usual levels.