In MUCH lighter news, I think it says something about the way you're raising your kittens when you raise your arms, roar at them, and walk towards them menacingly, and they just pop their tails straight up and watch you with big eyes, wondering, "Ooooh! What are you going to do next?"
It's the same energy as "I didn't plagiarize." "Then why does the document history show the paper went from blank to 3 pages in 2 seconds, and why does the text match the Wikipedia article word-for-word?" For me, flagrant lying to defend yourself is a built-in defense mechanism that you at least have to work somewhat to overcome. It's a character flaw. But lying to "protect" your kids? That is the road to raising a true sociopath. The one guy I know of who was convicted of and jailed for murder in my school year? In 3rd grade a friend and I reported him to the principal's office for attacking us after school. The principal brought in his parents. They listened to what we had to say, then said, "Oh, our little angel could never have done that! We raised him right!" And year after year, report after report, his parents denied that he could possibly be the monster everyone else was describing. I hope they're enjoying watching their little "angel" spend his life in prison. EDIT: Amusingly enough, when I chaperoned the kids (almost) universally appreciated me, because if I exonerated them, there were no further questions. Everyone knew that if I knew they did it, I'd throw them under the bus, and if I didn't know, I'd say I didn't know.
And through it all, just constant lying. From the kids and their parents. That's the one that constantly gets to me. The kids could leave behind a school sweater, a folder with their itinerary, and one of their signed permission slips naming the student and the student would say, "Wasn't me, someone must have stolen it!" And then their adult (parent or chaperone) would agree with them! "Oh, yeah! We were outside their doors the entire time so they couldn't possibly have done it! It must have been the kids from another school trying to frame us!"The flagrant, in-your-face lying in spite of concrete evidence proving your guilt is exhausting to me.
Public Service Announcement: Kittens and cherries DO NOT mix. Apparently cherries are the perfect size and texture to be tiny little kitten toy balls, and the stems give them a convenient way to pull them out of the bowl when they've lost/lost interest in their previous "toy". Sooooooooo many cherries... all over the floor... throughout the house... at $9/pound!
Um... I can't name a mother who likes Mother's Day. It's a manufactured holiday created by greeting card companies to make a profit, and families typically botch it so badly that mom's "wish" is that they'd forget the day exists and take her out to breakfast some OTHER day when all the restaurant places aren't overbooked to the point of dining in a sardine can. And yep, if you wake up earlier than the rest of the family you're stuck sitting around doing nothing because they'll be hurt if you do, but they end up just leaving all the crap you didn't do for you to take care of tomorrow. Did I mention I loathe Father's Day?
Please tell me that at least one of them wrote "Actually, he was only the 'Pretty Good' Gatsby." I think it should be multiple choice: "How was Gatsby?"
There is nothing quite so delightful as flinging kittens at your spouse in the morning to "help them wake up".
Gaming Karma: As I've mentioned, Tomb of Annihilation makes no secret of, "If you don't have a wizard in your party you're going to die." It goes so far as to drop powerful wizard-only items (spellbooks, magic items, etc.) in almost every single dungeon. And yet as I've also mentioned, Problem Player came in with the fundamental attitude of:
So, after his fourth PC died (this time in a fight that killed half the party), he finally relented and brought in a wizard. On Wednesday we had the first session with him. We handed him the spellbooks we'd been toting around for no reason. And in the second spellbook? "Here's the command word that shuts down all the constructs that killed half your party last week." His refusal to play a wizard got his own character killed. I am pleased with this revelation.
Amusement of the morning: We got the kittens on the 28th (almost two weeks ago). At 3:49 am Impus Minor came into our room. "I can't take the kittens any more!"
So, when we got Fluffy she was alone and we didn't want her terrified and alone for the first night so we put her in Impus Minor's room for one night. He concluded that kittens always have to be with someone, and for the last two weeks he's been dealing with the two kittens (who can keep each other company) waking up at all hours of the night to play in his room. I am astonished at the young man's patience...
Righteous irritation:
So, my brother's cat had kittens, and we offered to fly up to Seattle and take a couple. Not exactly cheap. With every other kitten we've ever adopted, whether it was a shelter kitten, kitten from a friend, or kitten from a breeder, they did due diligence and took the kittens in for their initial vet checkups, vaccinations, and so forth. Nope. Brother never bothered to take mother or kittens in to see the vet, because he's very much a, "The world will sort itself out," kind of guy. He's not anti-vaxx, he's "lazy vaxx".
So, once we get home we have to shell out $300 per kitten for check-ups, blood tests, de-worming, vaccinations, and all the other "normal" stuff you're supposed to do when a kitten hits 8 weeks old. If my brother had said, "We don't want to pay the vet fees for someone else's kittens, but if you want to pay we'll take them in on schedule," I would've at least understood. But he just didn't bother, completely in line with his nature. Then while I was at the vet with the kittens, his S.O. texted, "Hey, have you had your kittens tested yet? Our vet says that if you tested yours and they came back negative then we don't have to test ours." So yep. They didn't do diddly until after we picked up ours. Then they knew we were responsible pet owners so we were going to do all the testing. Then they tried to save money by piggy-backing off of ours. And yes, he's worth significantly more than I am, so it's not like money's an issue. It's just a "lazy jerk" move. See? At least trying to keep the griping behind spoilers.
Yeah, yeah, I know. "Griping about what once was" and all that, but seriously? As of Windows 11 I noticed that my Word documents are now always opening in 2-page, side-by-side format. I hate it. So I Googled how to fix it. And learned that Microsoft removed that functionality from Word: You can no longer save your preferred view, adding two extra button clicks to every doc I ever open. Hate you so much, Microsoft!
Spoiler:
The inputs seem straightforward enough; you're putting in primes, so it would be:
f(2) = 3
f(3) = 7 f(5) = 23 f(7) = 47 f(11) = f(13) = f(17) = The difficulty is that I can fit a nigh-infinite number of curves to the output. A Taylor series. A Fourier series. A stepwise function. Various combinations of the previous outputs (use last 1, use last 2, etc.) So two easy solutions are:
(2) Since most such problems are, "Find the polynomial that fits these points," that solution is f(x) = -1/15 x^3 + 2 x^2 -71/15 x + 5. This leads to the rather ugly set of results: f(2) = 3
Which I don't think is the "desired" solution because of that 0.2 EDIT: I had one other idea of f(n) = the nth prime, but that doesn't fit at all. EDIT 2: The other interesting bit of trivia is that throughout K-12, college, and grad school, the definition of a prime was, "A whole number whose only factors are 1 and itself." By this definition, 1 is a prime number. Apparently rules lawyers got involved because it's been redefined to, "A whole number that has exactly 2 unique factors," which eliminates 1. I feel much like I did when they demoted Pluto from planethood. "Was that really necessary?"
So, given the parameters and my expectations of such mathematical "games", I'd expect either solution (1) or a visual puzzle I'm missing.
Before humans, I don't think anything that wasn't caught by mom was going to become lunch... I was thinking poisonous plants, but maybe mom doesn't set up a territory where such plants are growing... Or it could just be that cats have tapped into crazytown and dun left the rules. I don't think they have. Red squirrels on the other hand... Truth. We have squirrels that don't give a s*** about the cats being within 5' of them. The hellions are barn kittens. In a couple of months I'm going to have to look up squirrel recipes.
KITTEN FARM UPDATE: I swear. Across every species. Stripey is the most ridiculously tiny kitten we've ever adopted; on arrival she weighed in at 2.26 pounds (just over 1 kilo). And, as with all runts of all species, she is overflowing with personality and spunk:
Beware the tiny. They are forces to be reckoned with.
KITTEN FARM UPDATE: When the Cranky Calico died, we were rather astonished that the Fluffernutter appeared to miss her. They'd hissed at each other, avoided each other, chosen separate areas of the house to inhabit, and even fought on occasion for 17 years. But the Fluffernutter was clearly sad and lonely after her passing; she spent all her time lying around seeming miserable in her room and barely ever purred. We expedited bringing in Fluffy just to try to give the fluffernutter a new companion. It's been just under 2 months. The Fluffernutter has made it clear that she mislikes this new intruder. Then we brought in two more kittens. She makes it clear this is unacceptable... ...and her weight is skyrocketing. She's purring like she hasn't purred in years. She and Fluffy spend every afternoon lying together on the bed, just out of reach of each other. Today when I served her her lunch Fluffy walked up and bonked heads against her trying to get at the food. It took her a moment to remember to growl. I am happy and content that we made the right call for her.
KITTEN FARM UPDATE: Fluffy, the Most Perfect Kitten Ever, gets to sleep in our room with us because the Fluffernutter "tolerates her with great hostility". (She yowls and protests Fluffy's presence, but then settles down and they can sleep within 18" of each other without incident.) The hellions are blocked in the living room with a large plywood board. This morning about an hour after I got up and fed everyone, Fluffy came to the board and gave me those big, impossible-to-resist eyes. "Play play?' I removed the board. The hellions trotted out. There is much happy chirruping in the kitchen. They like each other. A LOT. As for pictures, at the moment I know of know major plans this weekend, so I'll at least start trying to get some of Fluffy's early kittenhood pictures up...
This is a sad day. My masculinity weeps. You should have a doctor check that...
Today's gripe: Web pages that won't load unless they're active. So, you go to your bank site. You sign in. You know it takes 30-40 seconds for the page to load so you go to a different tab. After a minute or two you go back to the bank tab. It hasn't done a thing because it won't load unless it's the active tab. No! Bad coders! It's not "security" to prevent a page from loading when it's not active (unless Vanykrye corrects me about some exploit I don't know about), it's just forcing users to sit there while all your idiotic features I never use load. EDIT: And it's a particular pain point for me because our new corporate UI uses the same "don't load unless active" mechanism, so I spend HUGE amounts of my day waiting on loading screens 'cause I can't switch to other applications while waiting.
OMG. In seventeen and a half years, we never managed to teach the Fluffernutter nor the Cranky Calico to use the cat door into Impus Minor's room; they just couldn't get used to the flap. It look Fluffy all of 30 seconds, but it was really sticky and she went in there so often and caused so much trouble that he locked it, and she spent some time banging her little head against it but then decided he wasn't worth her effort. So, to give me a break he took the M's into his room for a while. (Their formal names are Morrigan and Mephistopheles Q. Meaball, so we call them either "the hellions" or "the M's"). His room sprung a kitten leak. They figured out the cat door on their own, lock and all. Did I mention they get into EVERYTHING?
That'll be the little love in 2 weeks. I am already terrified.
On the one hand, I'm trying to avoid my stereotypical tirades on FaWtL. On the other, on top of a very stressful work week, Dearest Kitten In the World's injury, and New Kittens' poor discipline, Mother-in-Law just called AGAIN because she can't fricking even reboot her computer correctly. GothBard: Don't they make computers for completely clueless people?
EDIT: OK, in this particular case I must relent and blame the computer manufacturer. Mother-in-law, being old-school in all things technical, pressed the power button and held it down until the screen lit up, a period of 3-4 seconds. Apparently holding the power button down for that long sent the laptop into some kind of diagnostic mode. I was able to replicate all the weird issues she's been having, BitLocker lock included, by holding the power button down too long. So I showed her to just tap it briefly and wait, and everything worked fine. Bad manufacturer! No biscuit!
KITTEN FARM UPDATES: Fluffy: Her limp is significantly improved this morning, so gee, avoiding exercising the injured limb helps it heal. Who knew? Unfortunately, we have developed a drug-resistant kitten. The drugs yesterday afternoon barely calmed her down. This morning she got a full dose and you out-and-out can't tell. Pupils dilated, attacking anything and everything. Please calm down and nap, kitty! Blacky and Stripey: They made their first break for the front door this morning, foiled by the puppy cage around it (we call it the airlock). They are unbelievably sociable; if you sit down in their area they will be in your lap within 5 minutes. But they are completely without discipline and will climb your legs, claw you, grab your food and drink, etc. And since I'm the only one in the room with them all the time, I get all of this "love". At some point I'm going to drink my water and it's going to come pouring out of all the holes in my legs... Fluffernutter: Just pretends that none of the others exist.
*SIGH*. It's going to be a stressful week. Fluffy's limp was way worse today and the whole area was sensitive. It's consistent with her overworking the joint so we're hoping it's that and we doped her up to sleep the day away. But we love her so dearly that we're terrified she won't manage to heal her way through this. In the meantime, the new kittens are exactly what you'd expect from my brother. He doesn't believe that it's his place to tell animals what they can and can't do so they're completely undisciplined. Fluffy was raised by a cat fanatic -- she *never* uses her claws, didn't climb on the furniture for at least a week after we got her, and listens to us when we tell her not to do something. (Did I mention Perfect Kitten?) These two do whatever the h*** they want and, even worse, have been trained to climb over barriers. 24" puppy cage? It's what my brother used so it took Stripey under 30 minutes to figure out it was the same kind of thing, and now it doesn't even hold her for 2 seconds. 48" whiteboard? Jump on a chair to make the first half, then flying leap to catch the top of the whiteboard and get over. They think nothing of digging their claws into people to climb them, sticking their faces directly in people food, and otherwise trying to boss their humans around. They are *so* kittens raised by my younger brother. So in addition to worrying myself sick about Fluffy, I have to teach two kittens discipline. They have already learned that ignoring "No" gets them a bop on the head, so "No" now results in them flattening their ears and continuing to do whatever I'm trying to stop them from doing. Now they're getting jail time in a room with closed doors. But it's work that a properly-trained kitten would already have been through. Ah, well. At least they're young...
No matter what they say about animals and how they use their acute senses of smell to far surpass puny humans and their limited vision, I offer this counterexample: New kittens came home. We will call them Stripey (F) and Blacky (M). Older kitten (Fluffy), continuing in her quest to be the World's Most Perfect Kitten, wasn't bothered in the least and tried to approach them to make friends. Blacky would have none of it and hissed her away, but Stripey was interested. Within 5 minutes, Stripey and Fluffy touched noses, so I let Stripey out of kitten jail and they started socializing. Unfortunately, Fluffernutter heard the whole family in the living room and came out. She pointedly ignored kitten jail and pretended all the kittens around her didn't exist. She settled in on the couch. Stripey, seeing a white fluffy cat, ran up to her. And got the living stuffing knocked out of her wee little head. She then started hissing at Fluffy, thinking Fluffy was the one who attacked her. So yeah? Identifying by sense of smell? Not so much in kittens, apparently. "You were nice to me then beat me up! Hate you!"
Kittens #2 and #3 are through security and approaching the airport gate. If all goes well, we will be up to a 4-cat household in just over 5 hours. And OMG. Current kitten was comatose on drugs for most of the day yesterday, so she has not stopped playing since 4:30 this morning. Cats sleep 16 hours a day? Not this little one... [EDIT]...I type, as she curls up on my mouse pad and mouse and starts purring and falling asleep...
Day 3. Kitten healing factor has fully taken over. Refused her pain meds and running around like a lunatic with a limp you'd only notice if you knew she'd been injured. I think Stan Lee based Wolverine on an injured kitten.
Vets can be hilarious. This morning, kitten had a terrifying limp. I sent a video to the vet and she said, "No, get her to urgent care." All day kitten was lethargic, barely moved, barely walked, and we were incredibly concerned. Hundreds of dollars of sedation and x-rays later it turns out her leg is only sprained, not broken. So they put her on painkillers and told me, "No climbing. No playing. She should just relax and be sedate for about a week." A 4.5-month old kitten. Relaxed and sedate for a week. Pull the other one.
For you, I'll try.....what about me? I hate everything about the modern cyclist. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
In FFXIV, our sister guild has taken to calling me "Mom". "I was really upset with you, but I talked to Mom about it, and she helped me work it out so I think we can work together again." I am nothing but delightment. And yes, that's a word. EDIT: Cue LM: "You are a mom! Just an uglier, hairier one..."
I think I've been pissed off at you exactly once since I first met you, and that was many years ago when you were still drinking. For you, I'll try harder. Because I care.
Random Dumb Old Man Crap After meeting you in person, I expected no other response. :D
And a free story time while I'm here. NobodysHome's Story Time: A tale of poor pet ownership and crappy landlords: As you know, we have a kitten. We will soon have 3. If I stay, I will at some point post pictures. This is not intended as bribery. We let her out in the back yard on a leash, as we do the Fluffernutter. Yesterday it was too cold so I didn't let them out. Which was a fantastic coincidence, because a medium-sized black dog showed up at our back door and started posturing aggressively at me. I locked both cats in the bedroom, made sure Impus Minor was clear, and opened the door. "Aggressive" dog immediately relaxed her shoulders, wagged her tail, and did the little submissive bow that means, "Can we play now?" And at that point I realized she was a young black labrador I hadn't recognized because of her posture. Relieved, I got her to sit still long enough to check for tags (none), so I put one of the cat's leads on her (they're steel cable and she was maybe 45 pounds, so I figured it'd hold), and walked her to the vet. So, she was amazing. She responded to voice commands. Leash commands. I'd say "stop" at the corner. She'd stop and sit. I'd say, "C'mon", and she'd move. The *only* issue we had was that she knew the vet's office and there was no way in heck she was going in there. First, she slipped her collar, but the moment it came off she sat rock still and let me put it back on again. Then I tried to bodily carry her in. She nearly knocked over a passerby. I finally opened the door and said, "Get in," and she sheepishly went in, then moved as far from the counter as she could.
The vet scanned her microchip and gave the number to the company, and I kid you not: They called the owner and left a message. "There has been an incident with your animal. Call this veterinary clinic as soon as possible." Sadistic ****ards. Panicked wife called from SFO where she'd been about to board an international flight. The vet receptionist wasn't particularly useful because "privacy laws" so he finally let me talk to her. She was my back yard neighbor and the dog grew up around cats, so she likely followed her "sister" (a tuxedo cat who visits our yard) into our yard. She was about to leave the country, and hubby was 90 minutes away, so could I please just put her back in her yard? Sure! Relieved that I had a well-trained, absolutely lovely young dog, but irritated that they'd left such a sociable puppy (5 months) alone in the yard in the cold all day, I walked her back home. She was overjoyed to get out of the vet's with nothing but treats and took me straight to her house and I let her in the back yard. Unfortunately, apparently in the time it took me to walk around the block she went through the fence again and out my open gate (which I'd taken her through to get to the vet's). While I was patching my back fence she got into neighbor-with-a-toddler's yard, so he locked up his house and called animal control. Just after my lunch break everything came to a head. Animal control tried to catch poor girl so she started barking. By miracle, husband had gotten the call from his wife, quit work and headed home, heard the barking, and interceded. He used my name, which relaxed neighbor-with-a-toddler immensely. I came out and explained everything that had happened to everyone and everyone was happy (yes, even animal control, because she didn't want to take "such a beautiful dog" to the pound). But I am VERY sure that roaming well-trained dog will not be seen outside of her yard again. Panicking the wife was bad enough. Seeing your dog being loaded into an animal control truck must have been fricking terrifying. Oh, almost forgot the "crappy landlords" part. When our previous neighbor died of old age, a property management company snapped up the property and they're churning through tenants like Kleenex during flu season, so the chances of them going in halvsies with me to actually get the fence fixed are virtually 0. I hate property management companies.
So, I know a couple of things:
(2) As a parent and pet owner, I've spent decades learning to anticipate the needs of those who can't communicate verbally. Knowing that some people have neither kids nor pets, I'm forgiving towards them if they can't auto-anticipate such things. -- BUT -- Our housecleaner has raised 3 daughters. She's known our cats for their entire lives. Yet when the Fluffernutter flees to WhimseyShire to hide from her, she closes the door, trapping the Fluffernutter in a room with no food, no water, and no litterbox. I've pointed this out to her before and asked her not to do it. She still does. Today she did it again, and I re-opened the door, and she re-closed it. She cannot get her brain to make the connection "cat in room. Cat cannot open doors. I should not close this door". It's not malicious, it just never crosses her mind. On the bright side, the fluffernutter's poops are looking just fine. Found a prime example in the middle of the WhimseyShire floor 'cause she had nowhere else to go.
It is impossible to hide food from a growing boy. OMG. Yesterday was all kinds of "fun" for exactly this concept. Fluffernutter is supposed to be on two medications: Pepcid AC to help her eat, and Rejensa to fix her arthritis. She doesn't mind the Pepcid in her food, but the Rejensa is in chewable dog tablets, and even the feline vacuum cleaner kitten took one lick and spat one out. Mixing it in with the Fluffernutter's food, the cat treat lickables, or anything else doesn't help, so we've had to resort to the "nuclear option": Mix it with baby food. Unfortunately, the chicken baby food just went on sale and was sold out at every store, so I had to get Gerber ham baby food, which is really at the bottom of the barrel in terms of what you can give your cats: Ham is pretty bad for them anyway, and of course being Gerber they can't not add crap to their baby food, so this one has corn starch, which is a known irritant for feline digestion. But, beggars can't be choosers, and I figured the Pepcid AC would help counteract the corn starch, so I put the medicated baby food in the room with the Fluffernutter and closed and (I thought) latched the door. Unfortunately, kitten, being The Most Perfect Kitten Ever, is also brilliant. She got the door open and looted the baby food. So yesterday was a LONG morning and early afternoon of projectile kitten vomiting (not as cute as it sounds), kitten diarrhea (their poops are toxic waste to begin with, so ugh), and calling the emergency vet because kitten was exploding everywhere and having the vet say, "Yeah, she'll work it through her system eventually." Hours of cleaning later, she recovered. And promptly went after the Fluffernutter's food again. Really?
I am... bemused. I'm old enough and cynical enough to laugh at/scorn Tik Tok "life hacks" as only a Gen Xer can. "Really? You call that a 'hack'? Did you parents give you a trophy when you learned to tie your own shoes? Or can you do that yet?" But I'm addicted to YouTube's Daily Dose of Internet, and he's typically very reliable in what he shows. So he showed a Tik Tokker demonstrating how to tell a pineapple is ripe. It's irritated me for several years now that my host family trained me very well to pick good pineapples by smelling the cut stalk, but as my sense of smell has diminished so has my ability to pick good pineapples. So, just for yuks, I tried the "pineapple hack". And every single family member reacted with, "OMG! This is a fantastic pineapple! Where did you get it! It's way better than any pineapple I've had before!" So, well done, Tik Tok. I am mature enough to be able to say, "I was wrong. You did good." How to pick a ripe pineapple: The woman in the video was amazingly straightforward. Go through the pineapple rack and for each pineapple, try to pick it up by a single leaf at the top; preferably one of the long ones near the center. If it pops out without lifting the pineapple, the pineapple is ripe and you should take it. If you can lift the pineapple by the leaf. Leave it alone. I did it at Andronico's and it took me about 10 pineapples to find one the passed the test, and it was a great pineapple. I also really like this test because it's non-damaging: The pineapples that aren't damaged by the test get left at the store, and you take home the one that is damaged. All in all, I have my permanent new pineapple test.
I always thought the Shire was silent. Only on Sundays.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: (1) Be on time.(2) Do your job*. You will be the best employee your employer ever had. * OK, it's a little more than that. It's, "Since your boss is paying you to be there, you should be doing something work-related when you're on the clock." The example I give is when I worked at the video store. Most employees would just sit there watching movies unless a customer directly interacted with them. Since the store was usually empty, they got paid to watch movies. Since I was being paid, I'd go through the store, tidy up the racks, make sure all the movies were in the correct racks, make sure everything else was organized, and then, once the store was completely in order, I'd watch movies. It took less than half an hour to put the store in order before settling in. But the boss considered me "the most incredible employee" ever because of it, and I could use him as a reference for everything. It's not hard. You're being paid. Do what needs to be done before you slack off. Done.
...Snippy...It's also intetesting to see the world that we are in now develop around us- so many of my staff and younger coworkers DO NOT KNOW how computers work. They know their phones and tablets think they are the same as their computer and are incredibly frustrated when they discover they are NOT the same. It's obvious to me, but the frustration and even anger is incredibly real to them and it has lead to some issues at work, especially when they get a tablet from work that does indeed work like their phone but has to interact with a desktop computer program in some way. I still wonder how we got her some days and who is right or wrong. I would love nothing more than to sit down with you and vany and see what you think. Virgin drinks only. The answer would be pretty short: I have no patience and no sympathy. Impus Minor has *no* medical training, *no* experience in optometry, and started a job this week as an assistant at an optometry clinic. They showed him the machines. They gave him the checklist of steps he needed to perform. They made him walk through it. And in a single 4-hour training session he had successfully examined all four people at the clinic to the lead optometrist's satisfaction. (1) Assume you don't know anything.
If you can't handle that, you can't handle employment. EDIT: I think the best comparison I can come up with is if I were suddenly forced to work at Burger King. I've been cooking for 45+ years. But I'm sure even though they have stoves and griddles and spatulas and all these things that look familiar to me, there's a very strict process they go through to make their food consistent. So I'd go in with an open mind and try to duplicate how they do things, not what I've learned in all my years of cooking. Because they're the ones paying me to do it their way.
So, my mother is about to turn 94 and has suffered two strokes. And yet whenever her phone/tablet/computer shows her something new, she Googles it to find out what it is/does and whether she wants to bother with it. And I still remember the process of teaching her something. No, you could not sit at the computer; she had to do it all herself so that she'd remember it. You could point, but not touch. And she'd have a stack of post-its and if you said something she thought was important, she'd put it on a Post-It. And the next day you'd find her monitor surrounded by all those Post-Its as she practiced and learned what you'd taught her. There are people who want to learn, people who are willing to learn, and people who refuse to learn. And I am utterly exhausted with the final category. EDIT: And yes, a text message every few days of, "I just got this email/message. <Screenshot>. Is it a scam?" is SOOOOO much better than a once-per-two-or-three-months, "I got an email and followed the link like it told me to and now I can't get into my account!"
I have two guesses: (1) You, like me, don't trust Microsoft as far as you could throw them. So you used the workaround to sign in using a local account instead of a Microsoft account. If you're using a local account and not using OneDrive, it doesn't auto-enable BitLocker on you. Just to confirm, I checked my gaming desktop (all local accounts, no OneDrive) and there's no BitLocker on any of its drives. (2) EU GDPR. So much goodness in such a brilliant piece of legislation.
Speaking of being (somewhat) positive, I've complained about the appalling ineptitude of my co-workers many, many times. Just last week we had another classic, "Wow! You're so stupid that if I were in charge I'd fire you today!" moment. (40-person Zoom call. Presenter did not mute participants on entry (dumb presenter). About 5 minutes in one participant started a loud phone call, drowning out the presenter. Presenter muted everyone at the meeting. Presenter continued. About 3 minutes later we were drowned out by the phone call again. Yep. The person took the time to unmute themselves, *then* go back to the other call.) And it happens in meetings at least half a dozen times a year; this person wasn't even unusual in this behavior. So imagine when I found out that someone had deleted users from the machines that *I* manage and I was ready to go on the warpath but first I checked the other two owners and one said, "Oh, no! It couldn't have been me! I don't know what any of those settings do so I never touch them!" Knowing what you don't know. The first baby step on the path to enlightenment. Good job, co-owner!
Interesting neighborhood situation, and I'm fascinated to see how it turns out. When they first moved here in around 2005 or 2006, they weren't in great financial shape and Stepfather offered to pay their utilities to help them get by. Over the years, as their finances stabilized they took over the utilities, until in 2018 they may the last switch and took over their garbage company payments...
Stepfather continued to pay for garbage at the address. They started paying for garbage at the address in 2018. The garbage company assumed that it was 2 units, but somehow never got around to providing a second set of garbage cans to clue them in that something was wrong. Daughter once asked, "Are you still paying for our garbage?" and Stepfather responded, "I don't know; I'd have to check." So we just got new cans last week and neighbors received THREE full sets of cans: One they were paying for, a second set because they were somehow double-listed, and a third set from their stepfather's account. And now comes the fun: Technically, they only ever used one garbage service for the last 7 years. I can testify to that, since I took care of their cans when they were on vacation. So they should have only been billed once; the garbage company was NOT providing the service they were paying for. So the garbage company should theoretically be on the hook for around $5000 in refunds. But I have no idea what the law is link in this case nor how the garbage company will react. "Sure, we didn't provide you with garbage cans and we never did a pickup, but you never complained and continued to pay, so we provided perfect service. Thus you get no refund." Will that fly in court, I wonder?
Ah, the joys of older cats and medicine. Vet: Her kidney numbers are so high that she's probably nauseous and dizzy most of the time. You should give her some Pepcid AC; it does wonders for kidney patients. Fluffernutter: Oh, is it time to start throwing up all the time and refusing to eat? Can do! *SIGH*. We've got three medications that are supposed to vastly improve her life, and she's decided to go Roman on us.
2 months of life in a nutshell: NobodysHome: No significant changes.
So all in all, not much to report.
I am convinced the modern generation of UI designers doesn't actually work with computers. "Scroll bars are ugly! Let's auto-hide them so they don't mess up the feel of the page!" "That page full of critical data is too crowded! Let's make the cells bigger and add a bunch of white space so the page doesn't look so cluttered!" "Only really technical people ever use this, so let's hide it all so the only way to discover it is using a Google search." "People don't need to save any more and they can just use the browser's Back functionality, so let's remove all those buttons from the page!" Working in a data-intensive field with such <unmentionable> people designing your UI is... painful...
So, ever since the innocuous-sounding, "Your doctor doesn't want you to know..." way back when , trust in medicine and medical science has plummeted. And it's even infected our vets. Vet #1: "All of Fluffernutter's problems are because you feed her dry food. Check out this well-researched web site for all the answers."
Vet #2: "Well, she's obviously got advancing arthritis, but before we put her on anything that may be hard on her system, let's try these dietary supplements."
Vet #3: "There are three main treatments I'd recommend for arthritis in cats. The first one performed so well in clinical trials that the company immediately saw dollar signs and pulled it for human trials because they want to get FDA approval ASAP to rake in hundreds of billions. Which is a good sign it's pretty d**ned good. After I read the research I started using it on my 12-year-old Saint Bernard and at least for her it's been just as good as the research says it is. So, it's not approved for cats and I can't give it to you because they've locked down distribution, but here's where you can get it.
Why did it take me 3 vets to find one who actually believes in clinical research? And therein lies politics...
In Baldur's Gate 3 you can take off the underwear... In Baldur's Gate 3 we killed Astarion (deservedly and hilariously -- he tried to bite GothBard's character and she responded with a Strength check to shove him off, and apparently a natural 20 drives a stake through his heart). For reasons we do not understand, his body disappeared but his underwear remained in camp. For. The. Entire. Campaign. No matter which camp we were in, no matter where in the game we were, we could wander the camp and find Astarion's Eternal Undies. Drejk, write 'em up!
I have been gently poked into posting, so here was my initial response:
LOL. Yeah, it was a largely unintended event. There was all the political back-and-forth, and LM asked us to stop, and I posted something, and someone flagged it and it got taken down, and I thought, "You know, I need to back the heck off for a minute."So I took a week off. And I realized that all I ever seemed to post was negativity. Complaints about politics Complaints about the kids' schools. Complaints about the neighbors. Complaints about my co-workers. An endless litany of negativity. So I decided to take all of February(?) (March?) off. And kitten arrived and made life interesting, and I haven't really had a strong motivation to reappear. So, sounds like I need to catch up on a few hundred messages, get some kitten picks uploaded, and otherwise rejoin the community. Though if I'm not complaining like a cranky old man, I don't exactly know what I'll be up to...
So, California's trying to secede again, which is always entertaining. Will California ever be allowed to secede? This map says, "No." (For those who don't trust links, in terms of net Federal money, California's one of 11 states that fund the other 39. So we're a cash cow. End of secession discussion.) |
