HN user
Went to a new doctor. As part of the check-in process, I was asked to "sign" a little digital pad, so, as I was told, they could properly use my insurance. I asked to see the hard copy of what I was signing and they couldn't find one. Then, for some reason, they were unable to print one. I gave up and scribbled my sig with my finger and then was seen by a doctor. It's maddening.
One one hand, it's political news, which I abhor on HN. On the other hand, international travel out of SF provides underlying support for the tech industry and without it, would cause deep headaches. On balance then, yeah, I don't mind this on HN.
Yeah, we got sucked into the hopefulness, the promise and the excitement of a new technology. It was a great feeling and primarily one of optimism. I remember being blown away by the promise of HyperCard when I first read about it.
That promise and excitement didn't last long but it kept me employed. And the optimism certainly went south.
I certainly don't condone the experience I had in junior high school, although it seemed to work for our specific environment.
As a child I went to a well funded Catholic school in Chicago. Fighting was discouraged by priests who would put the two kids in a boxing ring - we were made to use gloves (but I don't remember helmets). Both kids would have a priest in their corner, but really for their own amusement. Then they would ring the bell and the two combatants would have at it.
What those who don't box don't know is that unless you are trained, boxing exhausts you almost immediately and the gloves very quickly become so heavy you can hardly lift them to punch. At the end of the first round, the priests would ask us if we wanted to continue, we would exhaustedly decline.
My only introduction to the ring ended with my opponent becoming a best friend, and most bouts ended the same.
Again, I'm not condoning this practice, and I'm not nostalgic about the period, but it seemed to have positive effects in a milieu that seems no longer to exist (I'm 73).
I can recommend A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. Heartily recommend in fact.
And if you're like me, always looking for a series to fill the time, I can recomend the Solar Clipper series by Nathan Lowell. It's nothing dramatic, just human interactions, which I found refreshing.
It didn't grab me at first but your comment makes me think I should give it another go, thanks. I remember that initially I had a world of trouble with Conrad's Heart of Darkness but I hit it again and was amply rewarded, so Ill give Blindsight another try, thanks.
It seems that low quality human customer support, or rather, no support at all, has been normal for some time. I don't enjoy talking to an AI, but if they are constructed to be efficiently helpful, I welcome it, grudgingly.
In my personal experience, a divorce, money (child support), if I couldn't change it, I'd ignore it. But to ignore my own adversity, I had to intensely focus on something else, typically a new interest or hobby. I dove into medieval history, and now have a suberb library on on the topic - the reading and the collecting books both informed me and kept my mind off the troubles I couldn't avoid. And I dove into baseball which to be honest, broke my heart but baseball despair is an infinitly more palatable despair than love loss.
What aspect of technology or science is reflected in this report regarding a crime? Does this type of reporting belong on HN?
<protect our first-party products from abuse like scraping>
Abuse from scraping has long been a serious problem for many, good job!
It might have been 2002, can't remember, when they upgraded the e-QIP software for the security check form.
I was doing my mandatory update coincidental with the roll-out and when I got to the question, "mother a US citizen" I had to check the "no" box and the immediate pop-up was "date of first contact?" which actually got me thinking along existential lines for a moment.
My offhand impression is that when I was in Germany, consumers were oddly suspicious of the Internet in general and very suspicious of social media in particular. That suspicion was somewhat translated into a lackadaisical attitude about service quality. Perhaps that attitude is finally changing because DT simply won't care unless there is a sufficiently large enough vocal public to force the issue.
I read von Daniken as a very young kid and loved it. But I read it, and enjoyed it very much, as a science fiction genre. I never bought it, but I admired the effort. And so I thank him for stimulating a child's imagination. Well done Mr. V!
Many thanks for this entry. Knowing the reason for the shutdown hang is very valuable. It prevents me futzing my brains out and doing damage whilst trying to repair it.
I did experience something odd however. At some point during tweaking various settings, both in the new OS (linux) and BIOS, I was unable to F2 access the BIOS during start. I thought to find the CMOS battery to reset the BIOS but I COULD NOT FIND THE DAMNED THING. So before sending it back to ASUS, I removed the PCIe drive since it had personal info on it.
But booting AFTER removing the PCIe drive gave me access to the BIOS. I thought BIOS boot was independent of hard drive presence?
Anyway, after booting the BIOS I rescued my new machine and only had two screws left over after taking the darn thing apart!
trivia: first boot into linux resulted in "no hd found". Turns out this ASUS BIOS won't detect the linux hd unless you set VMD to disabled which enables AHCI. Thanks for the obfuscation ASUS!
It's less dangerous but man oh man did my life improve when I quit. I now wake up refreshed, my cognition seems sharper and my sleep now generates dreams again, which I suspect is cognitively healthier. I would very much like to see improved education about the various downsides of using this less dangerous drug, as I'm sure lives would be improved by less usage and moderate recreational use instead of habitual overindulgence which was my error.
Back when my daughter was small, I was waiting in a line to get to the ticket window at the ballpark. A woman walked up to us, said my daughter was lovely, and gave us 2 tickets to the premium section of the park (the fancy bathroom section as my daughter called it). We saw Manny Ramirez hit his 500th! What a nice gesture. Whenever we went back, and when I was making a bit more money, I always bought one or two tickets after that to give away. Being unexpectedly nice in an unexpected way not only put a bit of joy in my life, it prompted me to do the same. That reminds me. I need to do something unexpected for a stranger. Thanks for the reminder!
Libraries are community centers in many cities and towns, and, to my own family offer much to pre-school learners in events and activities - friends are made during these events and enrich the community. Librarians offer personalized assistance to reading seekers, both to children and adults, and are a quiet haven for readers of all incomes. Library periodicals on offer can only be accessed online by paid subscription and the audio book offerings are great for those who prefer audio to reading, for whatever reason. No. Libraries offer something quite different than the internet, and communities would be diminished if they closed.
That said, the idea of funding home internet for the poor is an excellent idea, and should be entertained. I'd be for it.
A few more than 30 years ago it was possible to buy plane tickets from the classified pages from people who, for whatever reason, couldn't take the flight. And of course the ticket was in their name, but no one cared. It was treated by the airlines like a purchased token. You had the token, you flew.
Happened to me in the '80's. '71 Buick Skylark. When we went to lunch, our receptionist asked us to drive her Buick as it "was making funny noises." We found it in the 5 storey carpark, took it out and it drove fine. However, we got back rather late, and the carpark was full so we had to park it on the highest level. When we returned, I asked our receptionist, "I thought it odd that you had a St Christopher statue on the dash, I thought you were Baptist?" "No, I don't have a St Christopher on the dash," she replied.
Apparently we took the wrong Buick. The owner, we conjectured, was going to report it stolen since it was sitting 4 floors up on the exposed level.
Not knowing what kind of liability to which we were exposed, we kept it to ourselves.
Speaking of junk, I was in Syria, many years ago, when it had about 250k tourists yearly, under Hafez al-Assad . I was in the company of an Assyriologist and in a shop of a vendor I knew (who sold artifacts under the table).
The vendor proudly showed us a new acquisition, an ancient cylinder seal. The archeologist examined it and told him it was a fake, because he explained, "I can read this language, and it is gibberish."
The UCLA archeologist, then excavating at Tel Mozan with Giorgio Buccellati, had 2 dead languages under his belt, a requirement for his Phd. I was rather in awe of the fellow - 2 dead languages!
Pro-tip: never buy artifacts without an archeologist to advise you. It's likely ethically wrong anyway, and likewise stupid unless you're an expert.
Eagerly anticipating the article in some fru-fru travel blog, "Man travels 28 countries with nothing but his passport and Cosco ID."
"It's a livesaver," the traveler gushed, "Never leave home without it."
I lived 14 years overseas (federal agency), in various countries, and my living quarters usually had a safe room, typically just a bedroom steel door with ballistic and forced-entry protection . Additionally, my quarters usually had a guard, or guards - sometimes all day, but certainly at night. In one country, an armored personel carrier with a .50 cal on top was just outside my door.
I never thought much about it, although I did feel rather safe. I dismissed the feeling, just a price of doing business.
Fast forward to retirement in the US. Of course, no guards, no safe room, and glass doors with zero ballistic or forced-entry features. I confess to being so greatly unsettled at the, what seemed to me, the extremely insecure nature of my retirement residence that it drove me to a therapist who described my insecurity as a form of PTSD.
I sleep easy now, no longer panicking at the normal groans of a house, nor need to take anti-depressants - but it was a long haul to get there.
I'm making no point, just relating a personal experience.
<Maybe AI assistants in random places just aren’t that compatible with people on HN but are possibly useful for a lot of people not on HN?>
Coincidentally today, I received an automated text from my heath care entity along the lines of, "Please recognize this number as from us. Our AI will be calling you to discuss your heath."
No. I'm not going to have a personal discussion with an AI.
<That’s only because doctors collude to limit the number of available residency places.>
Available residency slots are dictated by the funding made available through the Medicare program and ultimately Congress.
I'm ok with this decision.
In my 3 decades experience of being responsible for handling and storing classified, including comsec material, no one goes to jail for mishandling classified. The only exceptions to this case might be personnel who fall under UCMJ as the military does things differently - and I have seen that. All others? Civilians? Might lose their job, might be censured, might lose a promotion opportunity - but no one goes to jail.
In fact, the only time jail is threatened, is when the incident is IN ADDITION to other charges, often related to espionage.
Frankly, the cases of people accidentally mishandling classified, accidentally taking it home, improper storage etc. are very, very, common and are simply dismissed with minor (or major) implications but never imprisonment.
The violation's charges are so subject to selective (and subjective use) that I would be uncomfortable with selectively employing it in cases so fraught with partisan politics.
<Watching this film set me off in a Herzog marathon - amazing director.>
While in Alaska for the shoot, Hertzog took the time to address students at the U of Alaska in Anchorage. It was in the evening, in a teeny classroom, with only a few people there.
The only thing I remember (man, that was awhile ago) was how personable Herzog was. He told the story of his start, that when he was just a very young teenager, he stole (stole!) a rather expensive camera to shoot his first story. "You stole it?" someone conversationally asked? "Yes, I REALLY wanted to film," Hertzog gleefully replied.
Thanks very much for this recommendation!
Libraries are excellent gatekeepers for content quality. Generally, library books are scrutinized and determined as "worth paying for".
Previously, publishers would do similar due diligence - someone at the house would actually read the book, if not work with authors.
Due diligence of this nature is not now particularly common. There is no cost risk with a digital book. It could be, and often is, written by those without the talent to match their ambition. If one is looking for new authors to read, it's very difficult to sort through the dreck.
Let the libraries sort through the dreck for you. Pro-tip: gift your local library a mere $100. They'll love you for it and invite you to all sorts of interesting gatherings. You might meet a good book, or even better, a good person.
Is the US really "bracing" for this event? Girding their loins to brace in anticipation of this event? Bracing their bodies or their minds? Will the Walmart people make runs on toilet paper? If I want to properly brace, what do the experts say?
Brace, brace, brace. Brace for bugs.
For me, I choose a field that I was not particularly well-educated about, and dove in - medieval history. It's a fascinating and deep topic, and I began to collect a library of the significant histories. Went off the deep end and collected more books than I read. But the reading was fascinating, as was trying to determine who the best historians were, finding their books, and reading them for comprehension.
In short, collecting.
I suppose any type of immersion in a collectible thing might do the trick, but for me, it was both collecting the books and reading them that took my mind off burn out (and a troubled personal life).