Tenhundfeld

I thought annual pricing started around $60 per laptop for small businesses. That’s pretty approachable, IMO.

Yeah, I think it's fairly normal to have an officer outside of or at the entrance to a polling location. They're not actually in the room with poll watchers, etc., and certainly nowhere near the private voting booths.

It has never felt inappropriate to me – maybe because I typically vote at a public school, where it's normal to see a crossing guard or public safety officer outside.

I buy a lot of fresh produce, which is way faster with a good cashier who knows all of the codes. I also tend to buy multiples of an item, which is also way faster when the cashier can swipe one and then hit 6x or whatevs.

And that's assuming the self-checkout system is working perfectly, which is rare. They often have some janky anti-theft sensors that freak out if you remove a bag or item from the bagging area. Self-checkout is fine or maybe even better if you have a few items, but for a cart full of groceries, it is inarguably way slower than a decent human cashier.

Very easy to switch, in my experience. It is like muscle memory. It might take a few weeks to get comfortable with manual, but once you do, it doesn't require much thought to switch gears.

It's a sequence that just happens, similar to typing. You still need to think about what you're saying, etc., but you don't have to consciously think, "now I'm typing an S."

I drive automatic now, but I miss stick sometimes. One of our family cars was a manual when I was a teen, 20 years ago.

I feel driving manual encourages a deeper focus on the road ahead and deeper connection with how your vehicle operates. You tend to plan ahead a bit more, be more aware of hills and curves, cars slowing down ahead, etc. – anything that'll make you need to switch gears. You could still have distracted driving, especially on highways, but driving stick lessens it, I think, though I have zero evidence to support that feeling.

Amazing. I expected you to double-down and reply aggressively defensive, but that was a sincere, thoughtful reply. Thank you. Maybe 2019 isn't so bad after all. ;)

And I agree it's a fairly obvious risk if you stop and think about it, but it's not necessarily true that losing access to a feature, which is a reversible state, also permanently deletes all configuration data associated with that feature.

The OP clearly says, "It’s my fault for not reading the fine print more carefully."

They then further go on to say, "... when upgrading back to a Pro account, any branch protection rules you had before were permanently deleted when you downgraded to the free tier. They will all have to be recreated from scratch."

That is useful information, to me. People write blog posts about all types of things that are obvious to some and useful to others. Why be so nasty about this short post that seems to be useful to a lot of people? I guess that's 2019 for ya.

It's easy to ask snarky questions. That doesn't mean it's helpful or witty.

Full coverage auto insurance still only covers repairs from accidents. It doesn't cover the cost of, say, brake pads needing to be replaced or a window motor going bad.

For covering normal wear and tear maintenance, that would be an auto warranty – or extended warranty, service contract, protection plan, etc.

At least, those are the standard terms in the United States.

Yeah, I've been in environments where they completely locked down internet access, and we had to "fight tooth and nail" to get an exemption for a handful of sites like StackOverflow. I agree it can be a huge productivity problem.

Again, my experience is very limited compared to many, but the best mix I've seen is programmers had basically wide open internet access BUT everything was still logged. And they must have had some type of automated review. A coworker was planning her wedding, and while sitting on conference calls, browsed around a bunch of wedding sites. She got an email from IT asking about that. (It wasn't a big deal, just embarrassing.) Also, certain categories of data could not be copied to a local computer; they had to be manipulated on a server. Technically you could transfer data from the server (again logged), but it was a firing offense if you were found with sensitive data from on your laptop.

Yes, from my very limited to exposure to this (not in SV, but in healthcare), these are two key points:

absurd amount of anomaly detections per day, usually with a 99.9% false positive rate

Adding lots of red tape and restrictions and wasting time investigating employees who've done nothing wrong

What I've seen/heard about is that you end up with some EVP pissed off that IT/SEC is bothering their people – rightly or wrongly, it'll inevitably get used an excuse for why something is late. So the EVP (virtually) marches into the office of the IT/SEC director and issues an edict that everyone in <this super special department> are too important to be bothered and any access restrictions or investigations affecting <the department> must get prior approval from the EVP's office. That's of course a huge pain in the ass, which results in that department effectively being exempt, i.e., a perfect place for an internal spy.

The IT/SEC director, often several rungs down from the angry EVP, usually has the authority to stand up to the EVP, technically, but that is a risky move, can easily start a turf war.

So, for these programs to be effective, they must get buy-in from the absolute highest levels with no exemptions, which is not easy in the highly political world of huge organizations.

Average ticket price in the US is about $9. If you prefer watching movies at night (non-matinee prices) or prefer IMAX or 3D, your average ticket price would be much higher. But let's just say it's $10 for a nice round number.

So that's 24 movies per year, 2 per month. That's not an insanely high number. I certainly don't come close to that now; with a family and the hassle of getting a babysitter, etc., I'm closer to the national average of 5 movies per year.

But when I was younger, in HS & college, I probably saw around 24: one each weekend during the summer (nice cold theater to get out of the heat), a few around the holidays, and a few scattered throughout the year.

And if you really enjoy IMAX and/or 3D, your average would be at least $16-20 per ticket, which means you'd only need to see 12-15 movies per year for the math to be favorable.

There are about 50 million people in that HS & college age range in the US. So yeah, I agree that this plan does not hold much appeal personally, but that seems like a pretty big market to me. I certainly would have loved this as a birthday/holiday present when I was younger.

I'm sure it's different in different places, but that's not my experience with HR, not at all. In my experience working closely with folks in HR, they are hamstrung by management.

To put it another way, they typically know when they're recruiting for a position where the compensation and job expectations don't align, and they hate it. They hate wasting their time, your time, etc. They argue against it, but at the end of the day, they're not setting the salary benchmarks/pay bands. Those are set by some Director/VP and dictated to HR.

I'm curious how much firsthand knowledge you have of these systems.

1) The electrical shock is not truly painful. It's startling and highly unpleasant, but it's not painful, for short bursts. I can't speak for all systems, but for the ones I tested (albeit holding the collar in my hand, not on my neck), it was no worse than typical electric fencing, which is widely used.

2) These systems have the benefit of not affecting other animals, and dogs and other animals cannot get stuck in them. We had an electric fence around a duck nesting ground growing up, and I'll never forget the morning we found a whimpering fox that had somehow gotten tangled in the wires. I guess it had jumped at the shock and pulled a wire off the fence? I don't know. But it had the electrified wire wrapped around a back paw. At least it was a pulsing fence (rather than constant current); so the fox didn't appear to have a bad burn, though I'm sure being stuck in it for hours was terrible (and truly painful).

2b) They also do not impede the traffic or cut off travel corridors of other wildlife, which can be a real problem in some areas.

3) Ordinary fences are (often) less effective. Given enough time and a large amount of fence that cannot be thoroughly checked & repaired regularly, dogs will find a way to escape. They'll dig under, they'll jump over, they'll climb, they'll chew holes in, etc. We had a super smart lab who figured out how to climb a chain link fence. Depending on the risks of escape, this can be highly dangerous.

4) The risk of shock is typically very low. When these systems are installed, they are typically buried along natural boundaries, and when they aren't, you put temporary flags in the ground to show the dog where the boundary is. So the dog very quickly learns the boundary, learns what the beep means, and rarely gets a shock after the first couple of days.

Overall, I don't think these systems are signficantly less humane than other types of fencing – probably more humane if you're comparing them to traditional electric fencing.

That said, these fences aren't perfect either. I have another friend who installed one to keep his husky from leaving his ~3 acre yard, because the dog was breaking into a neighbor's chicken coop. It worked for a while, but eventually that husky realized she could just get a running start, jump over the boundary, take the brief shock, and then be free. The drive to get those chickens was just too compelling. Of course, the drive to return home was not quite as strong. So she'd sit at the edge of boundary, whining to be let back into the yard.

A traditional fence might have been more effective in that case, though I think that husky would have found a way out. She was relentless and clever. They had to get rid of her eventually, when their neighbor threatened to put out bowls of antifreeze – now that's disgusting! (To be fair, this was in rural Alabama ~15 years go, and that neighbor depended on the chickens/eggs for food. Still disgusting, but the frustration is understandable if a dog is literally taking food out of your kid's mouth.)

Sure, agreed, I totally get that point. I was trying to figure out to what degree he was involved in the organization and to what degree they officially supported him, endorsed his ministry, etc.

Like I said, it wouldn't affect my high opinion of him, but it could affect my opinion of the church somewhat. I know the church honored him when he died, but I was curious if they considered his show a Presbyterian ministry – i.e., outside of a church does not mean outside of the church.

Interesting. I think it's a rather small mistake, which does not invalidate the whole story, but I agree it does change the perspective somewhat.

Do you know how much he was involved in the church? Was he a member of a presbytery? Did he attend synods or general assemblies? (I might not be using the terms exactly correctly.)

I'm just curious, doesn't change things much either way. My grandfather was a Presbyterian minister and very much still considered himself active after retiring from being a pastor to a congregation – I think in large part because he attended a lot of the organizational meetings, mentored young pastors, etc.

Okay, reasonable point, but from the website: The Walrus is a general interest magazine about Canada and its place in the world.

Criticizing a clearly Canadian website (even has a .ca TLD) for speaking to a Canadian (or North American) audience seems a bit silly, IMO.

The other thing is, as a developer there is a strong urge to try to use new tech because 'hot tech' = 'higher pay'.

That's a great point. We developers do often engage in "resume driven development" – often not intentionally, just subconsciously observing that some tech is hot and there's a lot of demand for it. So we look for excuses to use it, which is of course backwards.

I get your general point, but it also depends on the scope of X and the scale of the organization.

If X is big, say, "build a new data mart (over the next 6 months)," then your considerations are very relevant. That should have a plan and buy-in from all of the relevant stakeholders; it's a legitimate project and needs the organizational ceremony involved in such.

If X is small, say, "make this internal API return an additional integer field from a datastore it's already using," then that sounds like bureaucracy and politics needlessly impeding development. This is a minor enhancement.

I guess the trouble is that even a small change like my example could be substantial in a large enough organization. Maybe adding the integer field means a new version of the API has to be published, or maybe adding the integer field means DB indexes or caching strategies have to be updated. Even so, the API team should have established processes for solving these issues. So instead of a simple change taking a few hours, it takes a few days, still not a huge divergence of resources.

From the parent using the example "Fine I'll do it for you, I need it now," I'm assuming they're talking about very small scope problems, which would not substantially affect the schedule for Y.

And remember, Y is already being affected, because it requires X to get completed.

So it's not really a matter of working on X when you should be working on Y; it's that progress on Y has halted due to a missing X dependency. What can we do to get Y moving forward again?

Yeah, came here to echo the idea that fasting is MUCH easier on a low carb diet. If you start reading about keto, you'll probably see the classic macro ratio of 75% fat, 20% protein, 5% carbohydrate – sometimes even higher percentage from fat.

My advice is that starting out, I wouldn't get too hung up on the ratio. It's actually pretty hard to get 75% of calories from fat. IMO, the important part is to limit the carbs. If you're hitting something like 60% fat, 30% protein, 10% good carbs (mostly green veggies, maybe some berries), you'll still see most of the keto benefits in terms of fewer mood swings and cravings, ability to fast more easily, etc.

Healthy eating is one of those areas where a lot of people (myself included) let perfect become the enemy of good. Even moderate low-carb, just eating cutting out sweets and starches, can be enough for a lot of people to see waistline and mood stability improvements.

This, in spite of a family insisting I was the greatest.

Some would argue it's because of your family insisting you were the greatest, in part.

At some point I decided if I had to work at anything, I didn't want to do it. If I couldn't immediately answer the question, I felt [it] was just stupid and it wasn't worth my time.

Yep, you are a smart, great person. Your family loves you because of all of the smart, great things you do, in part. If something is hard and doesn't come naturally to you? It must be something stupid and not great. So don't worry, you are still smart and great, and people still love you. Don't try anything hard.

I'm obviously being facetious, but according to some experts (though not all, not even most), that emotional dynamic is encouraged by praising kids for their intelligence or abilities, instead of effort. I don't know how much I believe it, but that type of weird insecurity does seem fairly common among intelligent people who were extremely precocious.

While vitamin D can help with sleep overall, I've read that vitamin D can temporarily interfere with melatonin production immediately after ingesting. So you shouldn't take it at night, too close to bedtime.

Of course, I've also read many people take it at night with no negative effects – and that, as a hormone, it absorbs more efficiently overnight in a sleeping state.

So, this is probably one of things that affects people differently, but it's just something to be cognizant of. If you take it a night and feel restless, try switching to the morning.

I also have a close friend who gets severely constipated with most vitamin D. It took her a lot of trial and error to find a brand that did not constipate her, which I cannot remember right now.

Not necessarily. It depends on why the offspring couldn't crawl or walk for longer. If it's associated with something that increases survival in mature members of the species, it might be tolerated, even selected for.

For example, if the child is delayed in walking because more metabolic resources are being channeled to larger brain development, that could be a survival benefit. I use that example, because that's essentially the theory of what happened in humans, in comparison to chimpanzees. (Obviously not 1 child randomly taking 2x or 3x to develop, but a slow evolutionary process.)

Chimps are relatively helpless when they are born too, relative to most species. They nurse for years, stay with parents for years, are totally reliant on them for survival, etc. But they are not so helpless as humans. It's estimated human gestation would have to be about 18 months for newborns to be at a comparable stage of cognitive development as newborn chimps.

So, from this perspective, we do take 2x the time in comparison to chimps, and yet it was tolerated. I guess my overall point is that evolution is more complicated than how quickly an offspring can crawl or walk or be independent.

I'm curious what you consider the specific attributes that are required to turn "cooking for your friends and family" into "hosting a dinner party."

IMO, they're both variations on communal in-home dining, but I can see how they fall at different ends of a spectrum. Cooking for a large family gathering doesn't feel like a "dinner party;" that's just family dinner. Whereas inviting 10 (relative) strangers to dinner feels like a dinner party.

But then there's a whole gray area in the middle where I'm not sure. For example, I cook family dinner on Sunday for 4-8 family members in the area, and I sometimes invite a neighbor family or a few friends over to join that meal. Does inviting the non-family people turn it into a dinner party?

I don't know. It kind of feels like one. A lot of people who don't know each other well (or at all) and don't normally eat together are sharing a meal, some drinks, some stories. If that's not a "dinner party", what other attributes would need to be present to turn it into a dinner party?

I suppose it depends on the definition of dinner party. (I only skimmed TFA, so apologies if you're addressing something specific in the article.)

IMO, a dinner party doesn't have to be some stuffy affair. It's just a group of people getting together to share a meal, typically in someone's home. I often host a Sunday dinner for family and occasionally a friend or two and their families. The numbers are sometimes in the 10+ range, including kids. It's usually a pretty casual event, some food, some drinks, some nice conversations.

You might say that's just having a few people over for dinner, not a "dinner party." Maybe you're right. But I think the act of communal in-home dining, involving some family and/or friends, is very common across cultures. The WASPy "dinner party" is just one variation on that.

Yeah, I think that's true for a lot of people. The other aspect of this is that your enjoyment/appreciation of a book can greatly depend on what's going on in your life at the moment.

So, it's not just if a book is good or not; it's also if it finds you at the right time. I don't just mean maturity; I also mean what big ideas are swirling around your head at the time.

For example, I read One Hundred Years of Solitude in HS and hated it. I read it again several years later, having mostly forgotten it, and I loved it, thought it was a masterpiece. I recently reread it, several years passing and having mostly forgotten it again, and I couldn't finish it, just didn't resonate the same way and moved too slowly to keep my attention.

If you try reading a classic and are still hating it after 50 pages or so, I recommend just putting down and trying again later in life. Of course, that doesn't work so well for required reading when a teacher wants everyone in the class to discuss the same book.

FYI, I think you mean canon, not cannon. I'm not trying to be an OT pedant; given your comment, I thought you might appreciate the feedback.

I have a couple of SQL habits along these lines that I haven't seen others do.

If I'm typing an ad-hoc DELETE or UPDATE statement, I'll slap the WHERE keyword on the end of the main command line. For example:

  UPDATE items
  SET 
    active = 0,
    deleted_at = now() WHERE
  category = 'Foo'

  DELETE FROM items WHERE
  category = 'Foo' AND
  customer = 123
 

I also tend to wrap destructive DML in comment blocks. So in my query editor, I'd actually have:

  /*
  DELETE FROM items WHERE
  category = 'Foo'
  */

EDIT: I've actually never made a catastrophic mistake of this nature, but there have been some very close calls. And I've seen it happen several times, from excellent programmers who just made a mistake.

I feel like the world is one big battery technological advance from a fairly monumental and far-reaching change. Batteries I think are the real missing link in renewable energy (IMHO).

I agree. We are nearing a maturity level in renewable energy, by say 2050, where we will be able to produce vast amounts of extremely cheap electricity with minimal environmental impact – but only in certain locations at certain times. The problem is storing and transmitting that energy.

If I could go back a couple decades and redo my college days, I would be very tempted to focus on battery technology. It does seem to be missing piece to get us the last step in our journey over the last ~200 years of transitioning (worldwide) from an energy-scarce civilization to an energy-abundant civilization.

Having effectively free, effectively infinite energy seems to be on the horizon – not necessarily by 2050 but very possibly by 2100. (I mean for the average person, not industrial/commercial/scientific use.) That will undoubtedly result in monumental, far-reaching changes. But I don't see how we get there without a breakthrough in energy storage.

But who knows, maybe somebody will invent an inexpensive magic cold-fusion energy box that fits in the back of a pickup truck and requires zero maintenance. I'm not holding my breath. :)

I'd like to know more about "damless hydro". I keep hearing about water turbines used in conjunction with tidal currents or offshore wavepower. Some of the numbers they throw around seem promising, e.g., $0.055/kWh, which is ~1/4 of nuclear or 1/6 of coal.

But I have no idea where those ideas are in their maturity. I agree that dam hydro can have some nasty consequences, even if it does look super attractive at first.

Exactly. Or remap it to any key combination that makes sense for your work, if you like using Capslock for its original purpose, which I happen to.

For example, I have jj and jk mapped to ESC. So I just tap j twice while in insert mode, and it switches to normal/command mode. If you find yourself needing to type jj or jk often in insert mode, just pick other letters that make sense for you.

To use mine, plop these in your .vimrc:

  inoremap jj <Esc>
  inoremap jJ <Esc>
  inoremap jk <Esc>