Sir_Osis_of_Liver

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 4 days ago

@RickiTarr

Dated a girl back in highschool and university. Her dad had passed away and left her $20M in trust, which she could access once she turned 18.

I was just scraping by working part time and paying my way through university. She wanted to go to NYC to see a Broadway show and do the tourist thing. I said I couldn't afford that, and it ended up in a huge fight.

When we ate out, I was expected to pay. And she made sure to let me know that my beat up Ranger wasn't up to her standards. She bought herself a Volvo 740GLE as a high-school graduation present, about $30k at the time. No way I could compete with that. When we went out, she insisted I drive and put fuel in it.

Eventually, I pulled the plug. She was pretty and could be nice, but mostly, uh, difficult. Yeah, I'm a slow learner.

Also knew a guy who's a heir to a billionaire. Had I not known who his father was, you'd never have guessed.

He worked as an engineer, was good at his job, and worked hard. Would head out to the pub on Fridays with the rest of us and drove a Mazda3 and used an ancient Nokia brick.

He was really empathetic to the people around him, and if we were buying rounds, he'd go along with the rest of us, no question. He also did some charity work, but I've long since lost track.

So I guess my experiences are mixed.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 4 days ago

@RickiTarr

Between 50k and 200k population is ideal.

Currently in a place with 800k, too many.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 7 days ago

@mentallyalex @RickiTarr

I had that hanging on the notice board in my old office:
"A failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

A senior manager I worked for in a previous office was a stickler for project managers developing a plan and schedule and sticking with it. If a design package was to be issued, work on the package was to be complete by Thursday, so admin had Friday to do what they needed to do to get it sent out.

We had a few PMs that would try to push through last minute changes on Friday. I rather enjoyed pointing to the sign and letting them know that they'd missed their own deadline.

There were exceptional cases, but for the most part things went smoothly, as everyone knew what to expect.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 7 days ago

@ScotttSee @mentallyalex @RickiTarr

Related to this, our best project managers were senior engineers who'd successfully managed ever increasingly large projects over very long careers. None of them had PMP certification.

Some of the most disastrous project managers had BAs /MBAs and PMP certification and very little experience.

It isn't a difficult guess which one had the higher salary, and why companies lean towards the 'cheaper' solution.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 8 days ago

@RickiTarr

Airplane! also Monty Python's Holy Grail or Life Of Brian.

/Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 9 days ago

@glasspusher

Vancouver should be taken out of service for deep cleaning while they're at it.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 10 days ago

@elilla

Same thing is happening in "big" engineering.

We've got an office in India that doesn't do work in India (too competitive and corrupt). Most of their projects are in Europe and North America with the rest in Asia.

The work is done by Sandeep, Sanjay or Sunita, but the people signing off on the work and stamping the drawings are John, Sandra or David.

The client thinks the work is done locally, they're charged local rates, and the company makes a windfall margin by still paying typical Indian salaries.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 10 days ago

@middleclasstool @RickiTarr

DS9 and subsequent series were more like Emo-Trek. They tossed the optimism, everything sucks, people suck and never change.
Also added mysticism BS.

So basically today's civilization, but with FTL spaceships. Hard pass.

🙂

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 10 days ago

@RickiTarr @middleclasstool

TOS and TNG managed to maintain the optimism and people, especially leadership, had a sense of justice.

That wasn't good enough and they added the insipid ensign Ro, in order to set up DS9 and it all started going downhill from there.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 9 days ago

@RickiTarr @middleclasstool

For sure.
Aside from "Kick vs Picard", "Why DS9 sucks" is the second most common online discussion I've been having since about '96. It's all a bit stale at this point.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 12 days ago

@the_etrain

Silk pajamas? Ridiculous. Spiderman pajamas, now you're dressing for success.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 13 days ago

@RickiTarr

A lot of talking revolved around household logistics, updates on the kids, or on the neighbours and so on.

I thought that that was fairly universal. Maybe not.

It's a way of reconnecting, especially since I was away fairly often.

Also, freewill is an illusion.🙂

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 13 days ago

@GottaLaff

Welcome! 🍁 🙂

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 19 days ago

@RickiTarr

"Up next on the BBC World Service, a massage from the Swedish prime minister..."

Happy Anniversary! Enjoy your message!🙂

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 20 days ago

@RickiTarr

Odd. I'm not its biggest fan, but I'll eat it, and wouldn't begrudge anyone from enjoying it.

But I do know people like that who make a huge production if people are doing something they don't personally enjoy, as if their opinion has any bearing at all on the situation.

Let people like the stuff they like without the commentary.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 22 days ago

@GayDeceiver

The company has arranged for a bunch of us to stay in an apartment tower for a long term project.

We arrived, and it was an older building, but seemed in decent condition. So far, so good.

The live-in building manager, had an apartment down a short hall off of the lobby.

And lining both walls of that hallway were an army of porcelain walking dolls. All with their heads rotated towards the lobby. Creepy AF.

Also, the manager herself was the spitting image of Petunia from Futurama.

Also also, my apartment was decorated in Nubian statuettes, busts, facemasks, various prints and, of course, a shield and spears.

When my wife came out for a visit:
"Who's the private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks?
(Shaft)
Ya damn right"

Sorry, but you triggered a long gone memory. 🙂

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 22 days ago

@GayDeceiver

There had to be 50 maybe more of them of them. All in different home-made outfits. I did take a picture, but that's long gone. This was almost 20 years ago.

Coming back to the apartment late at night, especially if we'd been to the pub, totally creepy.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 21 days ago

@mentallyalex @GayDeceiver

It didn't really help with frame of mind that me and my brother used to watch cheesy, horror movies growing up, including the entire Puppet Master series.

🙂

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 22 days ago

@kde @kde

I use DDG on Edge, and haven't seen this.

I've got Mint on an old laptop. It seemed to require the least amount of fuckery to get working. No idea what Plasma is.

I just want an OS and browser, not a project.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 22 days ago

@PureTryOut

It showed up on my feed. I see similar advice posts regularly "Just ditch windows and..."

Aside from my work tools not working on Linux natively, there are usually a few other steps involved in making the transition. Most people don't want to fuck around with that sort of thing.

I played around with Ubuntu back in the early 00s, before reverting back to Windows.

I looked into what was the easiest current distro to install in order to revive an old laptop. The consensus seemed to be Mint. It works fine and the old hardware was all recognized and so on. I'm still primarily a Windows user, even with all the the BS that goes along with it.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 21 days ago

@areyouevenreal

You have to realize just how alien that sounds to anyone unfamiliar with the Linux ecosystem.

I was vaguely familiar with different distros, and how it's basically the Lego of operating systems, from tinkering around with it twenty years ago.

It was funny asking for recommendations and getting everything from Mint to Arch.

For someone else who had absolutely no idea, and who'd only ever used Windows, it would absolutely be a project.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 23 days ago

@thepoliticalcat @Kierkegaanks

You have my sympathy. This all sounds so familiar, right down to the left ankle, though not nearly to that extent yet.

It seems like every old injury likes to stop by for a visit randomly. Sort of Ghosts of Injuries Past.

I was out on the motorcycle for about 5 hours this morning. My right shoulder: "Hey, remember when you high-sided in 2018? That was awesome."

So now I'm sitting with an ice-pack and Tylenol.

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 23 days ago

@thepoliticalcat @Kierkegaanks

<Record scratch> "Yup. That's me. You're probably wondering how I got here...."

I just fall back on the "poor decisions make for great stories, eventually" and take some consolation from that. 🙂

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 24 days ago

@thomasfuchs

When I started in grade 1, there was a vaccination team there. Everyone got a shot, then a few weeks later a second shot, no exceptions, no excuses.
No shots, no school.

Polio, smallpox, and the like were still in recent memory, so people were very familiar with how important vaccinations are.

I still ended up with chicken pox, mumps and measles in the first three months of school and was sick as hell. (The MMR vaccine wasn't available in my area yet)

Sir_Osis_of_Liver, 20 days ago

@Shanmonster @RickiTarr

I was hoping someone would post him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrSFKAHl0HY

Classic stuff.