Vanykrye's page

I did ask a parent with a leashed kid if the child was feral. I got a confused look that I took for "don't know what that means". So I rephrased. Was your kid raised by woodland animals? Not housebroken yet? I'm confused why you need a leash on your kid. Does it also come with a bell on the harness?

I may have been more than a tad upset with this person. Spent more time posing for selfies in the grocery store than actually shopping or paying attention to...the world around them in a general sense...

Friend of mine doesn't understand what I do for a living.

I ran into a strange audio issue on 2 of the three PCs in the house. Minor annoyance, I'll get to it later.

He's trying to help me troubleshoot, unasked. He's just trying to be helpful, and he is a friend. I'm trying so hard not to tell him to just go away.

I made peach sourdough discard muffins for breakfast this morning. They were freaking amazing.

You mean AI made you some peach sourdough discard muffins for breakfast.

*Waves at NH*

Ouch TOZ. Been there. You have my sympathies.

I hope the election goes in whatever direction you feel is clearly best.

Last time Mieko went to the vet it took three people to get a simple blood draw.

Mieko was twice as successful and sent two of them through the bite protocols and showed them how drawing blood is done professionally.

See Freehold? NH gives in to the Chaos Lords on occasion.

Sophie is at her new home.

Orthos and I are not doing well.

*Hugs*

Drove to Indianapolis for Sessanta v2 tour yesterday. That was one of the best concerts I've ever been to.

Sessanta = A Perfect Circle, Puscifer, and Primus. However, they do not each play a set with long breaks between bands. Nope. They weave in and out every few songs, no breaks, and eventually you start noticing different members playing in different bands...until eventually it just doesn't matter and everybody is on stage.

Then the unfortunate part was I chose to drive straight home. That wasn't best.

As a side note, not only is the highway through gran's town a giant construction zone, so is the next major town over...all the way through to the state line.

I almost stopped at a certain hotel on the way back, but I remembered it's Memorial Day weekend and it would take longer to find a room than it would to just drive the rest of the way home.

Scintillae wrote:

Yeah, I've already looked into the tax brackets, and if I've done my math right, we're still coming out ahead. My retirement was never going to be secure, even starting on my investing as early as I did. I really hate that my generation was raised with hope only to have it ripped away right as our careers were beginning.

You're talking to an early Gen Xer:

(1) "Social Security? It will be bankrupt well before you retire. And pensions were phased out in the 1970s. You're on your own."

(2) "Medicare? Don't make me laugh!"

(3) "Oh, you think we're doing a terrible job as your leaders? Well, just try to vote us out! Oh, look at that! There are too few of you! You'll *never* have leadership positions!"

And at least #3 has come true in spades. Check for Gen Xers at any level of government and we are grossly underrepresented. An article I saw last week was titled, "GenX: The biggest loser generation" and I was wondering how someone was going to shift the blame onto us, but the entire article was, "Before you complain about your generation, this is all the ways in which GenX was screwed over."

So yep. We're legendarily bitter.

You do not summon The Latchkey Kids unless you have no other choice. We live on the edge of the woods for a reason.

And it's over. I've turned in my keys, cleaned my classroom, took down everything. It hurt more than I expected.

*Hugs*

Sometimes you're just at a loss for words:

Customer: When I apply a filter to the search I see fewer results. This is really impacting my work and I'd like to know whether this is expected behavior.

I punted. "This is indeed how our application works. I'm sorry that's not working for you. Can you let us know what you expected?"

Surprising absolutely no one except likely the customer, I would have been somewhat less tactful.

"Yes, because that is, in fact, how filters work. It's the very definition of the word 'filter'."

Option 2:
"Right."

Cyz successfully presented her CRP proposal yesterday and can continue forward in her program. It also means she is allowed to submit her paperwork for internship.

Congrats!

We are a terrible support group.

I was going to post a bunch of stuff about the problems caused by youth teams this weekend, but, frankly, it's so much that I feel like y'all might not believe me. Suffice to say, it really sucked and I'm glad that I didn't have to deal with it.

My mother, grandmother, mother's best friend, my ex-wife, my first ex-stepmom...all teachers.

Also there was a time I was in high school, and I know what we did.

I would believe you.

Also, we're starting to sound like a support group.

Stone-Baked Men isn't better either.

All of them. Also a couple of real ones, just to see who's paying attention.

Freehold DM wrote:

Math is evil.

{quickly skims character sheets of everyone in thread, notes lisamarlene's and Freehold's inventory; much secretive dice rolling behind screen}

Freehold's jade amulet of protection from Alton Brown grants a +4 to his Fort save. Similarly, lisamarlene's fresh cookies rations grants a +2 to her save. Everyone else in the thread takes 1 point of Taint from the corrupting effects of mathematics in the Shadowlands OffTopiclands. Celestial Hippeh Lawyer, due to your current low hit points and very low caffeine points, this proved fatal; you are now "pining for the fjords."

Wait- that can't- Noooooooo... {fades from existence }

Wait...what happened with my taint?

NobodysHome wrote:

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!

This is why I still use 10.

Which is no longer being supported in October.

Large Denomination Bill Issues

Honestly, we can run into those issues with $50 bills, let alone $100.

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.

That's usually not the web page. It's a newer feature of browsers, usually Chrome-based ones, to lower network bandwidth and memory usage.

It's intended to be used with people who routinely have multiple tabs open and they only look at a couple of them once every few hours or whatever. No need to auto refresh those tabs if the user is never looking at it. However, the initial page loading getting paused because you switched off would be a bit of an aggressive overreaction.

Well crap. Devin Townsend has a single 3 week tour in May, and then he's going on indefinite touring hiatus. Closest he gets to me in s Milwaukee, but it's part of a 3 day festival and I have no interest in the other bands. I can't justify the cost on this one.

Granted, better than his fans living anywhere West of the Continental Divide. You get a single show in LA. Enjoy.

Kind of figured on a "don't know" answer. I've got a friend in Omaha - she likely can't take on a 3rd dog, but she might have an interested coworker.

Unfortunately (or, depending on viewpoint, fortunately), Scint and Orthos are the only people I know in Kansas.

I'm sharing the link in a couple Discords I'm in.

Also ..how is Sophie with other dogs/cats? Should probably include that in the adoption post.

Random Dumb Old Man Crap

No need to be so melodramatic. Get your ass back in here.

I missed something too.

It is impossible to hide food from a growing boy.

I always thought the Shire was silent.

gran rey de los mono wrote:

Drejk wrote:

gran rey de los mono wrote:

Ugh, Bitlocker. The old computer for the front desk used to require you to put in the bitlocker code every time it rebooted. The computer it was replaced with has plenty of issues of its own, but at least you don't have to type in a massive alphanumeric string (like 32 characters, if I remember correctly) every time it restarts.

Was the code written on a stick-it note next to the computer?

Almost. It, and several login/passwords for various accounts were typed up, printed out, and taped to the monitor stand. Very secure.

But don't worry, our current system is MUCH more secure.

The logins/passwords are taped to the printer next to the monitor stand.

Rage

Would the BitLocker functionally brick the disc if not unlocked, or could you still do a clean reset of the system losing the data in the process?

If you don't have the key the only thing you can do is format and reload.

The idea was to keep thieves from bypassing login by removing the physical drive and plugging it in to another computer. Mostly originally intended for laptops.

Interesting neighborhood situation

Will that fly in court, I wonder?

In my highly learned opinion, the clear answer is "Not a damned clue."

If I can claim an art form, it would be music.

Alienation

You create from alienation. There is a distance not only between yourself and others, but between yourself and what you are expected to be, yourself and your own humanity. Your honest self feels too divorced from what it should be for it to have any place among everyone else. Your art is an expression of your estrangement from normalcy and other's expectations. It is strange and shocking because you feel that is what you are when you are not pretending to be otherwise. You do not create things to be pretty or pleasing to others, but to be raw and confusing. You have always felt different, so you want to create things that are remarkably different from the norm. It is an expression of your own strangeness, which seems to have no place but in your art. Your work is a sanctuary for everything that alienates you from the world at large.

Vet Stuff

One of our cats is on the same monthly shot. She's got degeneration in her hips and that shot makes her act 5 years younger.

Welcome back, Dumbledore.

The Millennium Falcon was obviously designed by Henrik Fisker.

That cannot be. It wasn't reliable enough to be a John DeLorean venture.

It is entirely possible that I'm working too much.

Quibble...you may or may not command more respect from your people if you... perhaps...wore more clothes.

Not a guarantee.

Don't even know how it got here.

Seriously, that hip isn't mine.

It's not my hip.

I swear it wasn't me this time.

Please just shoot me.

Vibe Coding

Extemp practice

Student: I'll go with the middle one. points to "Should drug cartels be on the list of international terrorist organizations?"
Me: Doing drugs today, got it. pause I cannot explain how much I wanted the principal to walk in for that.
Student: Oh, no...

One of Mom's students started claiming the tile mosaic floor was moving.

"You're either on drugs or you need to be."

I can't argue that one.

Goodbye John.

We've got various counties in Illinois passing non-binding resolutions to secede and create their own state, as they feel Illinois politics is centered lopsidedly towards Chicago.

...

But...

Um...

Speaking as someone who does not live in the Chicago Metro Area...

Chicago and the surrounding suburbs is just shy of 75% of the state's population. Yeah, farm communities are important, and we need to have policies that help them, but 75% of our people are located in 10% of the state's counties. Something tells me there's a reason we focus on that part of the state more.

So...back to the secession idea...what exactly are you going to do for an economy, tax base, etc, etc, etc as your own state? Genuinely curious if anybody has logically thought that one through beyond "I hate Chicago".

Vanykrye wrote:

They found that someone had hidden an electronic device to the underside of the desk that makes the noise.

That that sounds like an office joke, or are they the type of company where corporate espionage is a real concern?

It's an office joke within a municipal government. So, um, the people in charge are pissed off about it.

Yesterday afternoon I had to drive out to Chillicothe. They were hearing a "chirping" noise and they thought it was coming from the server or UPS.

I get there, and the person who sits near the server gives me a list of all the times it went off. They are not on a regular interval.

I hear it, pretty sure it came from the server. Which is really odd. Really, really odd. Three little buzzy beeps. Not like a dryer buzz, but pitched almost like a bad electronic cricket.

I test the alarm on the UPS just to make sure. Definitely not that.

This stuff is under a desk, so I check all the drawers and boxes around, just in case it's some other device. Don't find anything.

I log into the server and start combing through the logs. Nothing looks wrong.

I note the times when I hear it beep. On the last one I noticed it went 4 times instead of 3. It hadn't done that before.

I let them know that I really don't know why it's "chirping" like this, but I'll do some more research and get back to them. About 3 hours spent driving and investigating. Also involved my boss because I was running out of ideas.

Today I spend 45 minutes on Google and go back through logs in case I missed something, and can only come up with some vague references that could be plausible, and let them know that to test the possibility I'd have to do a server reboot after hours and check some BIOS settings.

The boss from there emails me back.

They found that someone had hidden an electronic device to the underside of the desk that makes the noise.

I think the ghost scared everyone away.

Also been a couple weeks since NH disappeared. Someone at Global Megacorp may have black-bagged him.