Hmm... That is actually a bit curious. I'm old but not that old. (I'm 58.) I seem to recall that, as a kid, $1.40 might have actually been what I'd have paid for one meal at a place like that. It might have been a little less - I'd not be surprised to find out that I could have picked up a meal for two at, maybe, $2.50 and that probably includes piece of pie or ice cream. It's a bit fuzzy but I seem to recall $0.10 for a soda and maybe $0.25 for the dessert. I suspect that the $2.50 would have even covered a tip.
Not that that has much to do about anything. I just figured it was interesting. I don't know, exactly what the prices were like back then. So, I'm kind of going off of a fuzzy memory. Hmm... The prices listed for 1962, in New York, for a fast-food hamburger was $0.20 (I cheated and used Google to double check) so I don't imagine I'm far off. I imagine, now that I look at it, it would be $2 for the whole meal - with a tip, a salad, fries, soda, or dessert. The meal could be made much less expensive - maybe get a shake instead of a dessert.
So, only a little related, I just realized something and I find it rather interesting. It's not so much related but it is (to me) interesting.
For two people... Rough guesses/memory:.2 (soda).4 (burger).2 (fries).1 (salad).3 (dessert - splurging) $1.20 so far....30 (movies, popcorn, drink).2 (gasoline).50 (fair and winning a prize).3 (gratuities for all those as needed/extra)
$2.50 for a whole date - that's even got extras and spending way more than needed for the movie.
Strangely enough, I was engaging in wanderlust and in Buffalo, NY. I bumped into a young lady and she stuck. She's now with me in Florida, where we'll spend the winter. It's a long story. I'll spare you the details but I'll add that I'm quite comfortable with the situation. Anyhow, the strange part is that I know inflation has gone up and made those prices so much more than they are today but, well, the price of a date seems to have expanded a great deal beyond inflation - which was what made me curious enough to type this. I not only pay more but it has reached the point where she now has one of my debit cards in her purse.
Hmm... I typed out a lot after that but i just deleted it. Suffice to say that the debit account is attached to its own account and that account gets topped off as needed. She's actually really frugal but has no "money of her own." Rather than be in a position which I could abuse, she just has her own account (not technically but will when we get back to Maine) and can freely make use of those funds a she sees fit. Even if she leaves, she's free to take that card and the remaining balance with her. I do not ask, or care, how much she spends. It'd be idiotic to steal from me - when she could get far more, much more easily, just by not being untrustworthy.
Now back to the point...
I can't really think of anything that has inflated as much as the common date. Well, not too many things. Maybe gasoline and milk?
I realize that this is only tangentially related but I do find it curious that the date has grown so much more expensive or, more accurately, some of the activities that might be done on a date have been inflated more so than many others. I wonder why that is? Why the date activities? Hmm... I have no idea?
Also, it ate the formatting for the prices. I'm too lazy to fix it right now.
Erf... Alright, I'll try to make this short but it does need a preface. Try to read this with an open mind and not take slight where none is intended. Okay? If you can do that, read on.
In short, I'm retired. This is fairly well known but I don't think I've interacted with you before. So, I'll mention it. I sold my business and retired. My business was definitely a "tech" business. In fact, it was very tech oriented as we were among the earliest to really get to "market" with traffic modeling. As in, we were using clustered, distributed, computing before it was fashionable. We had drive arrays that allowed us to work with data sets nearing a full terabyte - by the end of the 1990s. Yup - I dare say we were geeks and it was a tech industry. I sold and the sale was finalized just about today - back in 2008. (I'm comfortable sharing that, enough people here know me, some in real life even.)
So, I said that for a reason... Eventually, I needed staff that does the role that I think you're describing. Help desk? Support? If so then, please, understand that I actually held that role, in my own company, and probably have a very different view than you but I've at least experienced the work that goes into it. I'm told that I'm abnormal and I guess that's true - there's a point to all this. An example might be that I actually paid myself less than some of the people that worked for me. Sure, I still controlled the budget and still had the cookie jar, but the more that remained to grow the company, the larger and better we would be in the future. So, I paid the least amount that I could pay myself - to myself. It was actually much lower than some of us made.
That should be some background and give you a bit of perspective. With me still? Good... Now, this isn't going to come easy but... You're a janitor. Yes, you are not a rock star. You can be replaced, quickly and easily, by a whole bunch of other people. It'd serve you well to keep that in mind. But - do not stop here, read more before you reply, please.
I've shared a long story about a kid who broke into my office and how I got him a job with our cleaning company instead of putting his ass in juvenile detention. At first, before he went to that company, he worked directly for us at half-wages (I still paid him) so that he could pay for the damage done. He was, for the most part, ground's keeper or janitorial though he did spend some time with the devs and we tried to teach him some programming. He didn't seem too interested - even though, and I might be biased, he had access to the greatest traffic simulator ever made. (It didn't actually have any graphics at all, at that time. But it was still fun!)
Basically, he now owns his own janitorial service in Winston-Salem and hires underprivileged youth or at-risk youth to work with him. He recently opened an after-school facility to get kids off the street. I don't keep in touch but a friend keeps some tabs on him and, I guess, he's doing good things. He opened the center not too long ago and I know only because that friend forwarded a link to a blurb in the local newspaper.
Where am I going with this? Well, you're a janitor, as I said. Except, you should be appreciated. Even the janitor's job is important. If the facility isn't clean then there may be health and morale issues. If the janitor is behind then I don't care what your job title is, and this includes me, you help them lug out the trash. If the janitor's job is not essential to the company - then the company should not employ the janitor. If the janitor's job is essential to the company - then the company needs to treat that job, and that employee, like the valuable asset that they are. It's a matter of appreciation and respect and, judging by what you've written, that's what appears to be lacking.
Where can you go? This is a little difficult to say. What can you do? I don't really know. I'm too far, too distant in time, to really know and I'm entirely unfamiliar with corporate culture. I do, however, see a few choices. They're
I could not even imagine working in an environment like that. It shouldn't but it still does sort of shock, disturb really, me that not only did you feel compelled/obligated to keep such evidence but that you had to use such evidence. I just, I just can't picture having to do that sort of thing. This is probably going to be a bit longer than I'd like but there's a bit to say - some background, and an observation. 'Snot major or anything but, well... It's an observation, more than anything - at least I think that's what it will be. So, bear with me and I'll try to keep it reasonably short.
At the end, I had a few more than two hundred employees. I knew them all by name. We had an obscenely low turnover rate (like single digit) and nobody ever got "thrown under a bus." There was no bus to throw them under. Mistakes were made, sure. Nobody was malicious. If you made a mistake, the culture was such that you dealt with it immediately and asked for help cleaning up the mess. It didn't matter what your job title was, when a mistake was made you helped - and that included me and mistakes as small as someone knocking over the coffee pot.
The one employee we had who might have been like that was kind enough to realize that he was not an appropriate fit and tendered his resignation on his own - we did not need to ask. He came in to work early, worked through lunch, and stayed late. Well, it'd be more apt to say that he was in his seat early, more often, and longer. After a few weeks he began to point out this, to find fault in other folks work (where no fault was - that we could see, and we honestly tried), and to seem to think that his presence in a seat meant that he was due both additional monetary compensation and a senior position.
That last bit might sound well and good but we started people in that role at a figure greater than six figures (in the 1990s - programmers mostly though lots of cross training with modeling) and we never did bother really sorting out who was and who wasn't the manager. Err... We didn't need to? Oh, we also had benefits and bonuses. Times were a bit different then and most people who were into traffic modeling were in areas like fleet management, cargo, air traffic, trains, etc. We were also expanding into the area of pedestrian traffic modeling (think malls, arenas, and even some outdoor events - and things like optimization, patterning, and safety) and so it was a very interesting time and place. It was all relatively new and largely theoretical in some areas.
At any rate, they did not fit in well. They did not last long. As we'd paid both a signing bonus, relocation, and help with their tuition... Yeah, lesson learned. We were in a crunch and things were coming online at a very rapid pace. We could have taken them to court and recouped some of those losses but I chose to accept the resignation and accept the short term losses for the long term gain. I can not, for the life of me, see why people would let that person remain on staff. Let's just say that they were made keenly aware that their resignation was anticipated and welcome. The other option would have been less enjoyable but there was another option.
What I don't understand and what I'll probably never understand is how this is functional, how it got this way, or how these companies manage to remain in business. I don't know what programmers are like today but, well, had I kept that person on staff, had they not tendered and I accepted their resignation, then others would have just walked away. I have no doubt about that. I was never, specifically, told this but I'm quite certain they would have. This is the same group of programmers that, one of which, gave me my oft-quoted remark - directed towards me, the owner/boss: "Code comments go in the code, not on a coffee-soaked index card, asshole." That's nearly verbatim.
So, I don't know what changed or how it is even functioning. From the outside looking in, it looks like a house of cards. For all our quirks, and we had many, we were nothing - I mean ab
My friends and I keep a giant water cooler jug in my game room. They don't pay to use my game room (in fact, they use it even when I'm not home) but they all put their change in this jug. Every year I throw a Memorial Day party. The jug is pretty full by then. The person who can carry it the most times around the house (never more than twice, so far) gets to keep it. Some folks are excluded from the contest but they bow out gracefully, without asking.
Mostly it's just younger kids, some ladies, and even an old lady or two has given it a shot. And, as mentioned, it has never quite made it around the house a second time. It's kind of an unwritten rule that if you're the likely winner then you don't get to compete - no big, hard-working, rugged men get to carry it around. It's pretty heavy. At any rate, it totals about $400 USD most years - with some bills tucked in.
I think the youngest winner was a 13 year old girl. That would have been one of the earlier years. The youngest competitor would be around that age. Usually there's no real age restriction - just younger kids and maybe some ladies of varied ages. It's not really about who is the strongest but who will put the most effort in because (I'm not sure) I could probably toss it up on my shoulder and carry it around for quite a ways and I'm not that big or strong. I think the oldest winner would have been a lady in her mid-60s.
So, no... I don't actually have a good use for pennies either but that's what happens to them at my house. I've held the party for seven years in a row now. It keeps getting bigger and bigger. It's actually a whole lot of fun. We do a pig roast, smoke turkeys, bring in a real BBQ, have grills, have a whole ton of alcohol, a variety of games, a bunch of silly things, and generally have a hell of a time. It's large enough now that I have to bring in four port-a-poties. We rent a stage and there's usually at least one hired band but lots of people get up and play. We keep it *mostly* family friendly up until dusk. I rent some lights, there's a giant fire, and people camp out on the lawn, in the woods, or there's the house that was here when I bought the land and all the young kids end up staying in there with a parent or someone who's tasked with watching the little ones.
I don't rent it but have a friend who owns a rental company so we have several large tents and tables. There are four wheelers, trails, a pond if you want to hike out to it, and all the acreage you could want. There's one neighbor, about a half mile through the woods, and they have a farm. It's okay, they come to the party two - even though they're an older couple. Strangely enough, they're actually both down here in Florida with me right now as there's another couple that lives there with them and they're taking care of the farm - it's not a very big farm.
So, if you need something to do with your pennies, that's how I get rid of 'em. It's probably not the answer you were thinking of but it does work for putting those pennies to good use. It's kind of fun to see 'em lug 'em around. They can pick up the jug and put it back down but as soon as they've made one step to go around the house, they can't put the jug down again - once they do, that's the end of their run. I don't think we've ever weighed it but I suspect it's probably about 100 pounds or so? Err... I think that's about 45 kilos. It's probably somewhere in that range and will vary depending on how much change is in it. They don't get to keep the jug.
As it's the kids (or older ladies or whatnot) they end up emptying out the jug on one of the above mentioned tables and all the kids gather around and they spend a few hours counting it all out, rolling it up, and then putting them in bags. It works out pretty well, keeps them occupied, and has turned into a bit of an event in and of itself. It might sound odd but I'm kind of fond of it. Even more odd, I'm not home and won't be until spring but I've still been holding on to all the change that I've accumulated so that I can put it in the jug when I get home.
By some folks standard, I've accumulated a few dollars. I don't even spend $75 on lunch. I stayed in today, I did not feel well. Yesterday, I went to the Omelet House over in Panama City, FL (it's across the bridge/inlet and on the right - next to the EconoLodge thingy) and, I think our meals came to about $14.00 and I gave the waitress a $20 to cover the tip.
Now, I admit, that's not the best place in the world to eat but the food is awesome and the staff is amusing. It's real food with real people and that is comfortable. I could, obviously, get something different but I'd be hard pressed to actually find a place that I want to eat where I'd pay that much for lunch. It's possible, it's just not a place that I'd really want to go - in my experience.
Then again, I don't normally like ritzy hotels, fine dining, or the opera. I don't mind getting my hands dirty, operating a chain saw, pushing a broom, or driving a shovel. I didn't always have a couple of bucks and I don't think that having acquired a dollar or two has made me a different person or changed my outlook a whole lot. *shrugs*
But, to the point... $75 for lunch? Assuming that's lunch for one, I've even eaten at some pretty fancy places and had the total come out to less than that. What the hell are you eating? It probably doesn't help that my home is in Maine (I'm not there now) but for $75 I can (not counting gas) I can get 30 pounds of lobster. (Probably a few more pounds, I know people and no - I'm not sharing my source, I just get it off the boat.)
They'd probably shit a brick if they knew my cannon-loving friend. He owns multiple cannons. Yup, multiples. And oh what fun they are. They get dragged out and fire blanks (he usually brings three of 'em) at my Memorial Day party every year. If there are fewer people then they don't always fire blanks. We've experimented with a wide variety of shot over the years.
I met him back when I was still living in NC and he retired to Maine before I did. He's a bit older than I and is a licensed dealer. He has a whole collection of stuff and has a bit of a shop still but it's mostly a private affair (all lawful, with background checks and the likes). He still does some specialty smithing, custom bluing, and things like that. He'll even do reloads of rare cartridges. He's a whole fountain of knowledge and is remarkably good at getting me to buy stuff that I don't actually need.
I have, more than once, considered buying one of those cannons. I think the only reason that I haven't is that they're a bit labor intensive and I'm pretty damned lazy in my old age. They should be properly kept under cover, cleaned, kept in good repair, and they're damned heavy. Helping to move them just once per year is more than enough for me to realize that I don't want to own one. Unfortunately, he usually tries to get me to buy one - after it is already on my lawn and just before it needs to get loaded, with its friends, back into the truck and trailer. Clever bastard. Even the little one is pretty heavy.
Hmm... I own an AK-47, it's perfectly lawful and properly papered and taxed, as well as my acceptance of any additional burdens due to ownership. It is, technically, an M22 (Chinese made) that, as near as the papers can tell, was meant for the NVA but probably never reached its destination and somehow managed to get imported to the US via (of all places) Canada. We don't really know much more about.
I also own an M-14. That too is entirely lawful with, again, my acceptance of any additional burdens of ownership - such as having needed to pay an additional tax and fill out some paperwork. That, on the other hand, has a bit more complete history and we can tell a lot by the numbers stamped on it. It is also a whole bowl of fun and rather good if one wants to engage in wanton slaughter of innocent bits of paper. I'm quite fond of it, to the point where you could say that I'm a mass paper-murdering reprobate of the highest order.
Both are pre-ban. Both are entirely lawful and properly accounted and paid for. As near as I can tell, neither of them has killed anything other than paper and, a few times, some tannerite. In my defense, the paper was asking for it. I do admit, it was probably cruel of me to force the other bits of paper to watch their comrades die. It's just something about that paper - I've seriously got a grudge. It's probably because I had a paper cut as a child and suffer from PTSD which makes me end up murdering so many pieces.
I suppose, to make matters worse, I'm racist. I not only try, really hard, to aim for the black and miss the white but I'm actually pretty adept at it. This comes from lots of practice in my preparation for my paper murdering sprees. You could even go so far as to say that I hate when I miss the black. If I miss, I keep trying until I do get it. I'm not that prejudiced, I'll shoot any black - regardless of its shape, so long as it's one of the ones that I hate. I'll even go out of my way to acquire targets of varied shapes and sizes.
We could discuss how I have a whole bunch of them, technically locked in a safe against their will and for the sole purpose of keeping them enslaved for the periods of time where I wish to engage in a spree paper killing. In fact, that happens often when I'm home. I was going to go to a new place, meet new bits of paper, and shoot them today but I was ill earlier and decided to stay home. They may have escaped today but I'll redouble my efforts tomorrow.
It's a good thing that there's no hell or I'd be going to it! On the other hand, if you ever decide you want to murder some innocent paper and are in the area... It's a lot of fun and there are lots of things to learn. It's something you can practice and improve on - even if you're just murdering paper. It's calming, relaxing, and you can compete with others or yourself to see who's better or improving their paper murdering skills.
I would, on the other hand, recommend you try murdering paper with something a little more user-friendly at first. Not to worry, I've multiple choices - some better for different tasks than others. I actually probably have more paper murdering tools than most people, more than I can realistically use in a day, but that doesn't seem to stop me from wanting to acquire more tools for when I go on my spree paper killings.
Oh, I sometimes actually shoot living things with them. Then, I cut them open, yank out the bits I don't want, cut them up, char them over an open flame, and eat them. I really am a bastard! The thing is, if you can plot it on a graph, you'd find that I've killed (and eaten!) more things at a rate that has some correlation with age. By process of extrapolation, and I'm nearing this point, I'll have actually killed almost every portion of meat that I consume! (Some of it isn't shot. I tempt it with baited food, put a hook through its lip, drag it against its will out of its natural habitat, club it over the head with a stick to kill it, gut it, cook it, and eat it.)
Hmm... Maybe I need to see a priest or a shrink?;-)
I'm about as far away from California as possible. Well, not at the moment, at the moment I'm in Florida. However, my home is way up in NW Maine. I'm up above the 45th lat. and close to Canada. I prefer a very, very rural life. I then visit the areas where the people are - and then leave after I've had enough of them. So, I travel a lot, I used to travel for work and, I guess, I've really been traveling my whole life. I grew up in the military, was in the military, and then went through college. I then traveled as a part of my job (I owned my own business). I sold, retired, and I'm still traveling.
Back home, I can see the porch light is on (I can check the cameras by remote) and we're getting about a foot of snow. I see some tracks in the snow but the camera didn't catch it well enough - it looked to be the size of a small deer. I'd show you the feed but there's no reasonable way to allow others access - I keep it pretty locked down and it allows only specific hardware and IP addresses to contact it. But, it is beautiful in its own way.
Having seen your beaches, I'm inclined to say I like that too - I just couldn't live there for long. I just don't like it that warm or that rainy. I can brush the snow off my shoulders. Once the rain soaks in, you're wet. I like the cold because, if you know what you're doing, you can always get warm. There's a point where you can only take off so much clothing and still be socially acceptable. I'm also not a huge fan of air conditioning in and of itself, I don't mind it but (oddly) I hate fake air movement. I don't mind if it's windy outside but my body just doesn't like it inside. So, I live in Maine.;-)
It works. I'm fortunate in that I'm able to have a choice. Many folks can't make those choices. Many folks don't get to travel. To wax philosophical, I think that might be what's wrong with so many people. They don't travel. They don't realize how good they have it. They don't see the results of bad choices. Under a different moniker (and I will not share) I sometimes write about my travels. I've been to war-torn areas, I've been in active combat zones, and I've seen the aftermath of extremism. I've been doing this off-and-on but more so since I've retired. I see the extremism that people espouse as virtuous. I don't like it. I have seen where extremism (in any direction) gets us. It's really disheartening to see it and to realize that others might see the same things if they only took a few minutes to get off the beaten trails and see how good they really have it.
That said, I'll probably be back in your area at some point. I'd like to visit some of the other islands. I'd like to see some of the places that are not on the tour maps. I'll probably take the time in a few years but it's likely to have to wait. I have a busy year coming up and then I'll probably be occupied for a few years after that. I'm not looking forward to it but, fortunately, it's only for four or so months per year and then a few more months to catch up on things. (I'll be running for public office in the State of Maine. Not that I want to but that I've been asked to. To be honest, I don't really want the job but I do feel that I'm obligated to offer myself as I have the means and will do so to the best of my ability, unlike the person who currently holds that office.)
It is. I was really quite pleased to get that address. I jumped at the chance. I didn't really want a new email address but I just had to have the name - I caught the Outlook offering new email on the first day or close to it. I typed it in to see, my name was already taken, and there it was. So, I grabbed it.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with US politics but I'm pretty sure that you're familiar with what I used to do. In short, I modeled traffic. It's interesting that only a couple of folks have ever noticed the dates that I share. Without being too specific, the sale was finalized right about now in 2008. I don't like to share the total dollar value but, even though we were in the midst of a depression, my company was very highly valued - more so than normal. I suppose you might not be familiar with the verbiage being thrown around? It was about how billions of dollars was going to be spent on "shovel ready jobs" with, specifically, a whole bunch of that money going towards highways. That should be enough for you to put the rest together.
The company that is the now-parent company is a publicly traded company and almost a household name. They do, behind the curtains and mostly as an umbrella, almost nothing but fill government contracts. If one cares to, they can draw some lines between traffic modeling, government contracts, lucrative contracts coming online, and pushing money into a concentrated group of people. Me? I'm all set. I'm also really glad that I got out when I did. I'm not sure that I'd have reached a point where I'd be unable to look at myself in the mirror. *sighs* All sorts of similar companies sprouted up around that time. I've opined on their quality numerous times so I'll skip that. This is basically a long way of saying that you just might have hit the nail on the head and that it's not always obvious while/how it happens.
That's a bit old and the current thinking is that the two groups never actually met - the Clovis people died out before that. See Nova's documentary "Where do we Come From?" documentary for an easy to digest format. That's my understanding of the most recent conclusions. They are, of course, subject to change.
A neat effect on that page - scroll down until you see the metal loudspeakers and then scroll up and down with that image at the bottom - do it slowly and it almost has a 3D-esque effect. It's just about halfway down on the page, it's the guy looking up/working on the speakers. If you put it at the bottom of the screen and scroll up and down (so that it's not always on the screen) and do it with decent timing, it's kind of neat.
The dude's name is binary for 1488 which is some white supremacy/Hitler stuff. You can actually just ignore them or make fun of them and probably be okay with that choice.
Oh, but you can. I have DSL at home - home is (I'm not there until spring) NW Maine and many miles from the nearest village (not even a big town - 1200 people counting the general area that is the village). I paid for better lines and a CO. A neighbor chipped a little in to pay for what goes past my house. Their one mile did, a little, lower the per-mile cost so it worked.
It's expensive, let's be honest, but you can probably do it. I used to have point-to-point radio and I had satellite before that. I'm also one of a few people on the CO and the village don't do a while lot. I'm just about 24 miles outside of Rangeley, Maine. They put one CO in at their expense, I paid for the new line in, from just outside of the village and one CO. They gave me a fair price - I'm given to believe. I don't own the CO but paid some of it and the installation fee.
This would have been around 2011 or so that I finally got it done. In the long run, it was cheaper than ISDN. It may sound crazy but I feel like I get good value for it. I get to have my house where it is and I get to have broadband rated at 12 Mbps and I usually average about 14 Mbps, I've got static IP addresses though I only pay residential rates. I have three disparate connections on their own individual lines. For some reason, they send me hardware (for all three connections) at least once a year. I've never actually used any of it. Some years I get two which means that I end up with six.
This may not apply to your cabin but it applies to my house. (A map might show you how far out I am.) Err... Hmm... I think I'll skip mentioning the price. I've actually mentioned it before but this was five years ago - the price's are probably different and the ISP might be less willing to provision the services. As the signal is being passed on a telephone line, Maine law lets me use any ISP that wants to serve me and that the line owners must provision those services, at a fair price, to that company.
It was rather pricey but not as bad as one might think. I'm retired so being where I like to be and having connectivity is awesome. I only pay for three residential lines and have plenty of bandwidth for my needs. (The three disparate lines are there for a reason, it's a long story.) I can't really put it into better words than to say, quite separate from the actual numerical price, the expense is/was worth it to me. They not maintain and own the lines and the CO. I just had to pay for the roll-out, so to speak.
Take that for what it's worth - which isn't a whole lot. I've no idea where your place is or anything like that.
Now that I think about it and sorry to reply to myself - but, does this still work if you have disabled 'hardware acceleration' or started it from the terminal with the --disable-gpu-composting because if that's enabled then I think the browser just uses the regular RAM and not the GPU's RAM?
I'm quite positive that I'm missing something because it can't be that easy. I'm gonna scroll down the thread again. I keep getting stuck every few posts and ending up reading a few links from Google just to help me make sure that I'm understanding enough this to actually be able to benefit from it.
I'll thread this here so that hopefully tepples sees it too. Sometimes it's great to hit the threads late - I usually try to not go further forward than page 1 (unless I am all caught up) for that very reason. Oh, I work back to forward from the eldest unread thread.
Neither of which is here or there.
I could put this almost anywhere in this thread and, I think, it'd be perfectly on-topic. This is absolutely the best, most educational, insightful thread I have read on Slashdot in a *very* long time. This, this thread, is why I come here. Oh, I get great answers all the time but I'm actually in the process of re-learning some programming because my brain's getting mushy (opposite, really, it's plasticizing as happens with age) and this? This tells me a bit about how much I have missed.
I didn't do much of my own coding after about 1998. Yup... I'd say I did a bit more until 2000. Then I might have helped out with some suggestions (they'd moved to C++ and my code had been in C) or ideas for a while after that but I never actually typed a single line, comment, or made any commits. Instead, at most, I may have given a suggestion as to ways I thought of that they might be able to reach the goal - sometimes good, sometimes not so good. I am not a programmer -- I learned to program (some) because I had to.
It might even be accurate to say that I didn't do/most/ of my own programming after some time in the middle/late part of 1996. That's almost twenty years ago and I can still kind of remember the feeling of turning "my baby" over. I shit you not, it was a lot like seeing your kid go off on their first day of school - perhaps their first day of college. You're letting someone else control the destiny of something that you've invested your life in and, equally important and counting sharp ass metal bits inside of computers, you've spilled your own blood for it. I'd actually be surprised if nobody here knew what I was talking about - perhaps even better than I do.
I asked a question, above, and - after reading all this, I think it's still a fine question for me as I've not yet truly got an answer but I think I do. (Chrome might not have permissions to actually control the memory on the GPU or, perhaps, doing so is resource intensive - is that a penalty hit worth it for more anonymity in something called "incognito mode?") That was not, by the way, my question up above. Just stating what I've learned (or not) from reading this far down.
This is absolutely fascinating and really topical for me at this point. While I am looking at two specific languages, I'm trying to get my brain to work right again - thinking in terms of how and not the specifics. That's a greater process than it used to be and, well, far more complex than it was some 15+ years ago.
I guess what I'm getting at is that this is a fine place to express my gratitude. This was one of the reasons I had my first account long ago, have this account now, and return frequently. That's an overly complicated way of trying to thank not just you, nor just the people who are taking the time to answer, but also to thank those for asking questions that I might not have thought of on my own. Mushy sentiment? Sure but heartfelt and sober sentiment and true gratitude. Thanks Slashdot. We seriously should form a board and buy this place and let the community run it as a non-profit. Maybe I should look into that when I get back to Maine.
If the user has enough RAM, wouldn't it be possible to reserve a goodly chunk and then wipe the entirety (some resource hit here - I should think) when de-allocated/closed such as at the end of the session?
I'm slowly, but surely, getting back into poking at code - it's been like 8 years since I've even really looked at any and even longer since I've really done much of any. I'm seeing why this is happening (I think) but I'm not seeing why it's not being fixed. At least conceptually, I should think it'd be fairly trivial. I guess the language might matter here but I assume Chrome's written in a language with some specific memory allocation tools. (I don't actually know what it is written in, I kind of figured it'd be written in C or C++ and I know those both support some fairly neat things with memory if wielded properly.)
Sorry if 'tis a dumb question but I've found it's better to ask and learn then assume and look stupid. In case you're curious, yes, it was professionally hired programmers who helped me to learn that lesson. It's kind of neat what you can learn by admitting you haven't a clue but you're willing to learn. You can also bribe them with coffee or after-work beer. Pfft... They've probably now got a "manager" that thinks he knows everything, if the stories here are to any indicator, but I digress...
Managing programmers. Heh... You can kind of steer 'em but I tried managing. It was like herding cats. Give 'em something to poke at and they'll keep themselves busy and actually be productive. As far as the programmers I know, that seems to cross both genders. Ah well, that's a mini-novella in exchange for your (hopeful) answer. It's almost 2000 hrs and I'm old, so you get the short version.
I dunno. I don't have a word for it but if you understand then you understand. Hell, I've got words for most things, some things that aren't even real, but this one is lacking words. It's good to see that others experience it and it truly is magical. I don't know if you'd be rich if you could bottle it up and sell it - it might not be worth much if it could be captured. It's fleeting, intangible, and probably a little different for everyone.
If you have a good sound system and want to try something, I can share a little of it - it's one of the few recordings that still has that magic. Find a copy of "Hurt so Bad" by Susan Tedeschi. Go ahead and pirate it, she won't mind. Really, she won't mind a bit. Find something in fairly good quality and give the entire song a listen. It's in there - a little.
Anyone else is, of course, more than welcome to participate. I might be biased but I've known her since she was a coffee shop singer. I'll tell her and if she complains then I'll pay for everyone's download. In cash. To her directly. There's a Blues Fest in Rockland, Maine. It's in a giant, outdoor, area that's probably about a half mile from one end to the other. It's at the public wharf. I've seen her put the microphone away and fill that whole area with sound. I don't suggest the song and her because I'm a fan. I recommend that because it's that good. Seriously, go pirate it. I'll personally pay for every person who downloads it from here and I'll get her to take the money and if she doesn't I'll slip it to her husband.
So, pirate with glee Slashdot. (Like you weren't gonna anyhow.) Wrack up a big ol' bill for me. (No, multiple downloads don't count.) I'll personally ensure she gets more than she'd have asked for and more than she'd have gotten from the label. She's a special one and I usually keep the special ones secret so that people don't end up ruining a good thing. That one song, that one person, seems to have just a little magic in it - you'll know when it hits. With me? It's in the spine. Let it play until the end, you'll know when it's the right spot. I'll let you figure it out on your own but it might not be the right spot for everyone. If you were in a choir, well, you might appreciate this.
I don't really have words but, perhaps, that might explain it. If you download, lemme know. Lemme know what you think. I'll relay that information too. I'll even tell her the "troll" responses if applicable. She'll get a kick out of it. Again, try for optimal sound and don't be afraid of the volume button. Keep the distractions away. Use headphones if you must. However, you can't have her. She's mine! I'm not too worried, she's turned down the major labels and contracts enough times already. So, you probably won't ruin her. I'll share with you, just this once.
I even enjoy it when it's bumper to bumper. I really enjoy ever bit of it - until it stops, then I get a bit frustrated. I don't like when traffic is completely held up because of an accident. Other than that? Well, I modeled traffic. I kind of enjoy observing the flow. I kind of enjoy the interaction. I don't really ever get tired of it but, at the same time, I make it a point to not live where that is an issue. I'd grow weary of it if I had to deal with it constantly.
I go out to track days, I rent time on tracks, I've competed a number of times - I like rally racing, and I have gone to a whole ton of driving schools. I've taken pretty much every type of driving course out there - including asset protection, and really just enjoy it. It might not make sense to some people, and I can understand that, but I absolutely love it.
I also love the automobile. I'll probably get an autonomous vehicle when they come out. I'll probably be an early adopter. It won't be my primary choice but I can see it as having benefits - even if it's just for time when I'd rather use the travel time to do something else. The "purist" automobile enthusiasts don't seem to appreciate that I'm buying an EV either. I point to the instant torque and ask how they can not? How can they not want one?
My heart's big enough to have room for an EV too. I'll even make room for an AV if one tickles my fancy. I'll probably make it do horrible things that it wasn't meant to do, but I'll buy one. Now, if I can get an AV that allows me to control it at times then the machine and I will have time trials against each other. Some might ask how can I? I'd answer with, how can I not?
That's a pretty damned fair return on my investment. I let him borrow a couple of bucks and, I dare say, that makes my averages look like I know what I'm doing! The best part is, I'll have kept the investment in long enough so that it's a long-term investment and taxed at capital gains rates. Err... Don't do the math, 'tis kind of embarrassing.;-) There will be time enough for counting, when the dealing's done.
I have not yet not found a log that I was unable to read. (That's English, right?) I am downstream from you - I'm in the Ubuntu family (more often than not) but I prefer Lubuntu. At this point, and I'm a silent subscriber to all sorts of mailing lists, I have to wonder how many of those people who register their complaints here (and at a few other sites) are actually Linux users or have problems?
Now, as I said, I'm not a professional admin and I'll be the first one to mention that. That means, feel free to discard anything I say or take it with a grain of salt. I'm okay with either, my ego is not that frail. I make more mistakes in a day than some folks make in a month. I'm okay with that - that's how I learn. If I'm not breaking something then I'm not learning. I'm old, I don't want to stagnate. Err... 58 is old. Trust me on this one. I've had a rather eventful and active life. Bits of me ache in the morning - bits that I didn't even know I had and I swear, I feel my brain plasticizing. It really gets more difficult to grasp stuff - that's why I switched to using Linux exclusively.
That said, I don't really feel comfortable saying this next part because it sounds like an accusation and I'm not in a position to judge. But... I think it needs to be asked. How many people are having issues, perhaps of their own making, and laying the blame on SystemD because they are unable to properly place the blame, made a mistake they don't want to own up to, or are otherwise inept? Remember, some percentage of people are the least competent systems administrators in the field.
That should not be seen as a specific accusation directed any particular person, of course. But, how many of the complaints are of that type? Another thing is that happy people don't tend to speak up. I'm kind of in an odd position - I restarted my Linux use and then went through the SystemD change (in various distros) not long after. I'm inept with both init systems! Oh, I'm not kidding... You saw how I gave a description of my connection to this very page? Yeah... I did that *on purpose.* I wouldn't let me near a production server and I sure as hell wouldn't place any more stock in my views other than that as someone who's actually trying to be objective and is able to break most anything. I'm still booted to that same Live USB, by the way.
So, I haven't had a problem. It has even been helpful. I wrote "comments" earlier but I meant to say that I'd learned a few new commands. I've actually made good use of some of them. If something's flaked out then I know to check journalctl and whatnot. I can grep (sort of) and maybe find stuff - with some help from Google and some notes that I've kept. If it doesn't start then I can chroot into it and have a look around and see what's wrong. I keep good backups but don't actually rely on them much - I'd rather fix stuff than repair stuff now. I'm getting more comfortable, I kind of understand the actual processes and what is happening and why - like I was much more adept at with a Windows system. Hell, I was awarded a Microsoft MVP for quite a few years before I gave up participating and just paid for my own damned MSDN subscription. (Shell, IE/OE, and Security awards. Meh, something like six years.)
I really do have a knack for breaking stuff - and I try. That's how I learn. I break it, I fix it, and in the process I learn why I broke it, why what I did fixed it, and how to not break it again in the future. (Sometimes that last one takes a few lessons.) If there's a button - I'll poke it. If there's a bash command, I'll run it. (Well, within reason. I do keep good backups for a reason.)
Yet, everything else has been broken by now - I've been doing this for a couple of years and a year in earnest, SystemD has not caused me one issue. I can even add services to the startup, programs to the startup, disable 'em, change 'em delay 'em, and (I think) make 'em check for failure and restart. Yet, strangely enough, it hasn't broken and I've not yet found a log I couldn't read.
That's an interesting perspective. A comment to me, from a reply by me, is not related to the comment made to me. What a peculiar thought process you must have. It's even more curious that you'd attempt to control the narrative by using a pejorative.
I don't know much about you but I'd speculate that you don't really understand freedom or, more importantly, liberties. I'd be happy to explain them to you but, judging by your predisposition to use pejoratives, it's fairly easy to conclude that you'll not be swayed regardless of any information presented. (There's a name for that type of behavior, I suspect you claim to despise it, even if you exemplify it.)
I did note that Slashdot does not seem inclined to show the response - you might actually be missing that. However, I suspect you'd hand-wave that away too. Dismissal, with a pejorative, and with little ability to actually understand the concepts. It's okay, I've been afraid of things too. I used to have a nonsensical fear of the bats when I was a child. I'm quite positive that I let that fear impact my life to the point where that fear was clouding my emotions and preventing me from doing otherwise enjoyable things. I even went so far as to insist that friends who visited stay inside when they came over - lest I go out just after dusk and face those bats.
So, I understand what it's like to let cowardice cloud my judgment and make me try to stop others from enjoying themselves. The difference between you and I is that I'm no longer afraid of bats and I understand the idea that freedom carries with it inherent risks and that liberties are something to be preserved. I've also seen laws like the Patriot Act passed because people are afraid. I've seen what a group of properly motivated, fearful, people do in the name of protecting themselves against extremely low probabilities.
You can be a coward. That's okay. But you can't be a coward and claim to stand for freedom. The two are diametrically opposed. It's not my failing that has resulted in your unwillingness to grasp this and no amount of effort on my part is going to alter your views. No matter how much effort I put into it, no matter how much data I pull up, no matter how many times I show the faults in your logic - you will not budge. It's an internet debate, you'll not adjust your views one bit, no matter how much data is given to the contrary.
Again, you can be a coward if you want - that's your right. Your fear is not justification to take away the liberties of another. You can not speak of freedom while still a coward any more than a blind man can describe a color. A coward is not a free man. The goal should not be to entice others to join you in your cowardice but to rid yourself of your fear - by accepting that there are inherent risks in all activities. There's a huge swath of difference between "reasonable regulation" and "take them from you."
Yet it is I, the one using sound logic and reason who you're calling a 'nutter.' You're calling the person who is expressing the need to preserve our liberties a 'nutter.' You're using a pejorative to refer to the person(s) who are concerned with liberty while declaring that you too speak on behalf of freedom. I don't think the insane person is the one you think it is. It's remarkable that you're able to do that sort of mental gymnastics and keep a straight face. "I'll take your rights. I speak for freedom."
I stand by what I've said, I stand by my interpretations, I stand by my beliefs - because I am not coward. Fortunately, nobody with any power is ever going to listen to you. Hopefully, we'll get some sane enforcement of existing legislation and adequate mental health care. Probably not - the actual gun nuts have too much power. Thankfully, you're powerless to control the actual narrative because some of us will continue to speak up and ensure you do not control the narrative. Don't worry, we're the same ones that speak up when the real "gun nuts" speak up and try to control the narrative.
Not a whole lot that's major - it's me, my home servers, and desktops. If I break something then I learn something new as I'm fixing it. I actually make it a point to try to break stuff in new and interesting ways - it's how I learn to fix it and, with fixing it, I learn new stuff. How to make this short?
I'm retired. I used Unix for quite a while. I then used Windows. During that spell, I also used Unix (Solaris) on the workstations. I poked at Linux when it came out, or not long after. I kept using Windows. I mostly kept Linux installed on a partition but did little with it - some restoration, backup, or repair work - or just to update, play, poke, and maybe learn a little. I sometimes had Linux in a VM - maybe a server or two at home. Not much, really. I had dual boot configured but I never really bothered with it. A couple of years ago, I decided to use Linux more often and I sort of did but not really. I still just kept booting into Windows. I wasn't learning anything new, my brain was turning into a bowl of oatmeal, and I decided to change. So, I did something drastic. I let my MSDN subscription expire, deleted all my Windows partitions, reformatted everything, and installed pretty much every one of the major distros listed at DistroWatch (like all of 'em, at least in a VM). (Really, like all of 'em.)
Since then (about a year now), I've continued to poke, to play, to learn, to grow, and to continue to use Linux exclusively as a desktop/server. I do have a recently purchased Windows phone as I was tired of Android.
So, what can possibly go wrong? Nothing, really. It's not like these are production servers. It'd just be me breaking my own stuff and I've learned to not just keep good backups but to keep almost all data stored elsewhere, on a server, or at the least in a distinct/home directory. I wouldn't let me near a production server with a root password. Good heavens, no. I'd not pretend I was *capable* of that job. Not now, not yet, and probably not for a long time. In fact, I usually make a clear distinction that I am not, and should not be considered, a professional.
Hmm... That was actually kind of concise for me.:D
Holy shit!?! Seriously? You know the album? I found it on YouTube once and it had a half dozen views. (Listens, really.) I think the rest of them, since then, have been from me turning people on to it.
Now, I didn't upload the album on YouTube. I have it on LP and on 8 track and, somewhere, I have a copy that I dubbed to cassette. But, you're the very first person that I've ever met, online, that already knew what I was referencing. Obviously, someone else does - 'cause they uploaded it. I intentionally slip it into posts just to see if anyone mentions it - I literally look for reasons to mention it.
I'll be damned... You, sir or ma'am, are my hero for the day! If you've never listened to it on a real quadraphonic stereo system then you absolutely should consider it. Hell, if you get to Maine (after I get back this spring) you can come over and listen to it in my Dart! I'll even bring the weed!
You take a trip to the left and take a trip to the right, when you get done tripping gonna trip all night...
Oh, man... I've probably dropped the title into two dozen different threads over the Slashdot years - not one nibble. I've even *linked* to the YouTube, nary a nibble.
Hah, I had listened to a bit of it back during the holidays with my son. It started me off at the meditation segment.
Alright, I have to ask... How the hell do you even know about this album? I seriously didn't think it was rare or anything - all my friends knew about it back in the day. Today? Crickets... I've tossed it out there and you're the absolute first to know what I speak of. Man, listening to that stoned, in quadraphonic stereo, was absolutely mind blowing back in the day. I think there was even a four channel LP version but I'm not positive. There probably was - that might even be where my dub is from with proper channel separation? I suspect one of my kids has absconded with the cassette.
You are my hero!
Help!!! I'm lost in the refrigerator!
Oh my... Heh... The missus didn't listen with my son and I. I shall restart it from the beginning... Hmm... I should wait until we're back in Maine and can safely smoke again. Florida really frowns on weed so I don't have any. It just smells enough and the penalty is too high. So, I go without weed. Err, Florida has *other* options. I've, umm, I might have skied more since I got to Florida than I ever do in Maine. *chuckles* Don't laugh - I actually had several Slashdotters over for NYE festivities (we made things go boom) and they may (or may not have - I'll let them decide to tell their story or not) gone skiing with me. A big ol' pile of powder and you face plant your way to the bottom. That might explain the verbosity of my posts. Or not...
Oh yes, hah... Back to the question - I was hanging out with an older hippie chick, stoned obviously, when she turned me on to the album. She was a friend's mother and I was nearing the age where I graduated from high school. She caught us getting stoned and we thought we were in so much trouble. She made us share with her and she played the album for us. I think I have the timing right? I might be conflating it with something else. I seem to recall that the album was fairly new at the time, or at least not that old, so I'm thinking it was around 1973.
And if your friends are stoned too, they won't know what you're talking about either.
Oh man... I could go on but this is already long enough.;-) If you get the chance to listen to it in quadraphonic stereo (some record players had four discrete channels and some just had two left and two right channels) then then do so. It's actually best (in my opinion) in a car with a good sound system that is properly balanced. Oh man... Heh, I've got like 1,000 stories about this album and the times we had on it but I'll spare you the boring details. I hope you've got your own special set of stories
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm... That is actually a bit curious. I'm old but not that old. (I'm 58.) I seem to recall that, as a kid, $1.40 might have actually been what I'd have paid for one meal at a place like that. It might have been a little less - I'd not be surprised to find out that I could have picked up a meal for two at, maybe, $2.50 and that probably includes piece of pie or ice cream. It's a bit fuzzy but I seem to recall $0.10 for a soda and maybe $0.25 for the dessert. I suspect that the $2.50 would have even covered a tip.
Not that that has much to do about anything. I just figured it was interesting. I don't know, exactly what the prices were like back then. So, I'm kind of going off of a fuzzy memory. Hmm... The prices listed for 1962, in New York, for a fast-food hamburger was $0.20 (I cheated and used Google to double check) so I don't imagine I'm far off. I imagine, now that I look at it, it would be $2 for the whole meal - with a tip, a salad, fries, soda, or dessert. The meal could be made much less expensive - maybe get a shake instead of a dessert.
So, only a little related, I just realized something and I find it rather interesting. It's not so much related but it is (to me) interesting.
For two people... Rough guesses/memory: .2 (soda) .4 (burger) .2 (fries) .1 (salad) .3 (dessert - splurging) .30 (movies, popcorn, drink) .2 (gasoline) .50 (fair and winning a prize) .3 (gratuities for all those as needed/extra)
$1.20 so far...
$2.50 for a whole date - that's even got extras and spending way more than needed for the movie.
Strangely enough, I was engaging in wanderlust and in Buffalo, NY. I bumped into a young lady and she stuck. She's now with me in Florida, where we'll spend the winter. It's a long story. I'll spare you the details but I'll add that I'm quite comfortable with the situation. Anyhow, the strange part is that I know inflation has gone up and made those prices so much more than they are today but, well, the price of a date seems to have expanded a great deal beyond inflation - which was what made me curious enough to type this. I not only pay more but it has reached the point where she now has one of my debit cards in her purse.
Hmm... I typed out a lot after that but i just deleted it. Suffice to say that the debit account is attached to its own account and that account gets topped off as needed. She's actually really frugal but has no "money of her own." Rather than be in a position which I could abuse, she just has her own account (not technically but will when we get back to Maine) and can freely make use of those funds a she sees fit. Even if she leaves, she's free to take that card and the remaining balance with her. I do not ask, or care, how much she spends. It'd be idiotic to steal from me - when she could get far more, much more easily, just by not being untrustworthy.
Now back to the point...
I can't really think of anything that has inflated as much as the common date. Well, not too many things. Maybe gasoline and milk?
I realize that this is only tangentially related but I do find it curious that the date has grown so much more expensive or, more accurately, some of the activities that might be done on a date have been inflated more so than many others. I wonder why that is? Why the date activities? Hmm... I have no idea?
Also, it ate the formatting for the prices. I'm too lazy to fix it right now.
Erf... Alright, I'll try to make this short but it does need a preface. Try to read this with an open mind and not take slight where none is intended. Okay? If you can do that, read on.
In short, I'm retired. This is fairly well known but I don't think I've interacted with you before. So, I'll mention it. I sold my business and retired. My business was definitely a "tech" business. In fact, it was very tech oriented as we were among the earliest to really get to "market" with traffic modeling. As in, we were using clustered, distributed, computing before it was fashionable. We had drive arrays that allowed us to work with data sets nearing a full terabyte - by the end of the 1990s. Yup - I dare say we were geeks and it was a tech industry. I sold and the sale was finalized just about today - back in 2008. (I'm comfortable sharing that, enough people here know me, some in real life even.)
So, I said that for a reason... Eventually, I needed staff that does the role that I think you're describing. Help desk? Support? If so then, please, understand that I actually held that role, in my own company, and probably have a very different view than you but I've at least experienced the work that goes into it. I'm told that I'm abnormal and I guess that's true - there's a point to all this. An example might be that I actually paid myself less than some of the people that worked for me. Sure, I still controlled the budget and still had the cookie jar, but the more that remained to grow the company, the larger and better we would be in the future. So, I paid the least amount that I could pay myself - to myself. It was actually much lower than some of us made.
That should be some background and give you a bit of perspective. With me still? Good... Now, this isn't going to come easy but... You're a janitor. Yes, you are not a rock star. You can be replaced, quickly and easily, by a whole bunch of other people. It'd serve you well to keep that in mind. But - do not stop here, read more before you reply, please.
I've shared a long story about a kid who broke into my office and how I got him a job with our cleaning company instead of putting his ass in juvenile detention. At first, before he went to that company, he worked directly for us at half-wages (I still paid him) so that he could pay for the damage done. He was, for the most part, ground's keeper or janitorial though he did spend some time with the devs and we tried to teach him some programming. He didn't seem too interested - even though, and I might be biased, he had access to the greatest traffic simulator ever made. (It didn't actually have any graphics at all, at that time. But it was still fun!)
Basically, he now owns his own janitorial service in Winston-Salem and hires underprivileged youth or at-risk youth to work with him. He recently opened an after-school facility to get kids off the street. I don't keep in touch but a friend keeps some tabs on him and, I guess, he's doing good things. He opened the center not too long ago and I know only because that friend forwarded a link to a blurb in the local newspaper.
Where am I going with this? Well, you're a janitor, as I said. Except, you should be appreciated. Even the janitor's job is important. If the facility isn't clean then there may be health and morale issues. If the janitor is behind then I don't care what your job title is, and this includes me, you help them lug out the trash. If the janitor's job is not essential to the company - then the company should not employ the janitor. If the janitor's job is essential to the company - then the company needs to treat that job, and that employee, like the valuable asset that they are. It's a matter of appreciation and respect and, judging by what you've written, that's what appears to be lacking.
Where can you go? This is a little difficult to say. What can you do? I don't really know. I'm too far, too distant in time, to really know and I'm entirely unfamiliar with corporate culture. I do, however, see a few choices. They're
I could not even imagine working in an environment like that. It shouldn't but it still does sort of shock, disturb really, me that not only did you feel compelled/obligated to keep such evidence but that you had to use such evidence. I just, I just can't picture having to do that sort of thing. This is probably going to be a bit longer than I'd like but there's a bit to say - some background, and an observation. 'Snot major or anything but, well... It's an observation, more than anything - at least I think that's what it will be. So, bear with me and I'll try to keep it reasonably short.
At the end, I had a few more than two hundred employees. I knew them all by name. We had an obscenely low turnover rate (like single digit) and nobody ever got "thrown under a bus." There was no bus to throw them under. Mistakes were made, sure. Nobody was malicious. If you made a mistake, the culture was such that you dealt with it immediately and asked for help cleaning up the mess. It didn't matter what your job title was, when a mistake was made you helped - and that included me and mistakes as small as someone knocking over the coffee pot.
The one employee we had who might have been like that was kind enough to realize that he was not an appropriate fit and tendered his resignation on his own - we did not need to ask. He came in to work early, worked through lunch, and stayed late. Well, it'd be more apt to say that he was in his seat early, more often, and longer. After a few weeks he began to point out this, to find fault in other folks work (where no fault was - that we could see, and we honestly tried), and to seem to think that his presence in a seat meant that he was due both additional monetary compensation and a senior position.
That last bit might sound well and good but we started people in that role at a figure greater than six figures (in the 1990s - programmers mostly though lots of cross training with modeling) and we never did bother really sorting out who was and who wasn't the manager. Err... We didn't need to? Oh, we also had benefits and bonuses. Times were a bit different then and most people who were into traffic modeling were in areas like fleet management, cargo, air traffic, trains, etc. We were also expanding into the area of pedestrian traffic modeling (think malls, arenas, and even some outdoor events - and things like optimization, patterning, and safety) and so it was a very interesting time and place. It was all relatively new and largely theoretical in some areas.
At any rate, they did not fit in well. They did not last long. As we'd paid both a signing bonus, relocation, and help with their tuition... Yeah, lesson learned. We were in a crunch and things were coming online at a very rapid pace. We could have taken them to court and recouped some of those losses but I chose to accept the resignation and accept the short term losses for the long term gain. I can not, for the life of me, see why people would let that person remain on staff. Let's just say that they were made keenly aware that their resignation was anticipated and welcome. The other option would have been less enjoyable but there was another option.
What I don't understand and what I'll probably never understand is how this is functional, how it got this way, or how these companies manage to remain in business. I don't know what programmers are like today but, well, had I kept that person on staff, had they not tendered and I accepted their resignation, then others would have just walked away. I have no doubt about that. I was never, specifically, told this but I'm quite certain they would have. This is the same group of programmers that, one of which, gave me my oft-quoted remark - directed towards me, the owner/boss: "Code comments go in the code, not on a coffee-soaked index card, asshole." That's nearly verbatim.
So, I don't know what changed or how it is even functioning. From the outside looking in, it looks like a house of cards. For all our quirks, and we had many, we were nothing - I mean ab
My friends and I keep a giant water cooler jug in my game room. They don't pay to use my game room (in fact, they use it even when I'm not home) but they all put their change in this jug. Every year I throw a Memorial Day party. The jug is pretty full by then. The person who can carry it the most times around the house (never more than twice, so far) gets to keep it. Some folks are excluded from the contest but they bow out gracefully, without asking.
Mostly it's just younger kids, some ladies, and even an old lady or two has given it a shot. And, as mentioned, it has never quite made it around the house a second time. It's kind of an unwritten rule that if you're the likely winner then you don't get to compete - no big, hard-working, rugged men get to carry it around. It's pretty heavy. At any rate, it totals about $400 USD most years - with some bills tucked in.
I think the youngest winner was a 13 year old girl. That would have been one of the earlier years. The youngest competitor would be around that age. Usually there's no real age restriction - just younger kids and maybe some ladies of varied ages. It's not really about who is the strongest but who will put the most effort in because (I'm not sure) I could probably toss it up on my shoulder and carry it around for quite a ways and I'm not that big or strong. I think the oldest winner would have been a lady in her mid-60s.
So, no... I don't actually have a good use for pennies either but that's what happens to them at my house. I've held the party for seven years in a row now. It keeps getting bigger and bigger. It's actually a whole lot of fun. We do a pig roast, smoke turkeys, bring in a real BBQ, have grills, have a whole ton of alcohol, a variety of games, a bunch of silly things, and generally have a hell of a time. It's large enough now that I have to bring in four port-a-poties. We rent a stage and there's usually at least one hired band but lots of people get up and play. We keep it *mostly* family friendly up until dusk. I rent some lights, there's a giant fire, and people camp out on the lawn, in the woods, or there's the house that was here when I bought the land and all the young kids end up staying in there with a parent or someone who's tasked with watching the little ones.
I don't rent it but have a friend who owns a rental company so we have several large tents and tables. There are four wheelers, trails, a pond if you want to hike out to it, and all the acreage you could want. There's one neighbor, about a half mile through the woods, and they have a farm. It's okay, they come to the party two - even though they're an older couple. Strangely enough, they're actually both down here in Florida with me right now as there's another couple that lives there with them and they're taking care of the farm - it's not a very big farm.
So, if you need something to do with your pennies, that's how I get rid of 'em. It's probably not the answer you were thinking of but it does work for putting those pennies to good use. It's kind of fun to see 'em lug 'em around. They can pick up the jug and put it back down but as soon as they've made one step to go around the house, they can't put the jug down again - once they do, that's the end of their run. I don't think we've ever weighed it but I suspect it's probably about 100 pounds or so? Err... I think that's about 45 kilos. It's probably somewhere in that range and will vary depending on how much change is in it. They don't get to keep the jug.
As it's the kids (or older ladies or whatnot) they end up emptying out the jug on one of the above mentioned tables and all the kids gather around and they spend a few hours counting it all out, rolling it up, and then putting them in bags. It works out pretty well, keeps them occupied, and has turned into a bit of an event in and of itself. It might sound odd but I'm kind of fond of it. Even more odd, I'm not home and won't be until spring but I've still been holding on to all the change that I've accumulated so that I can put it in the jug when I get home.
By some folks standard, I've accumulated a few dollars. I don't even spend $75 on lunch. I stayed in today, I did not feel well. Yesterday, I went to the Omelet House over in Panama City, FL (it's across the bridge/inlet and on the right - next to the EconoLodge thingy) and, I think our meals came to about $14.00 and I gave the waitress a $20 to cover the tip.
Now, I admit, that's not the best place in the world to eat but the food is awesome and the staff is amusing. It's real food with real people and that is comfortable. I could, obviously, get something different but I'd be hard pressed to actually find a place that I want to eat where I'd pay that much for lunch. It's possible, it's just not a place that I'd really want to go - in my experience.
Then again, I don't normally like ritzy hotels, fine dining, or the opera. I don't mind getting my hands dirty, operating a chain saw, pushing a broom, or driving a shovel. I didn't always have a couple of bucks and I don't think that having acquired a dollar or two has made me a different person or changed my outlook a whole lot. *shrugs*
But, to the point... $75 for lunch? Assuming that's lunch for one, I've even eaten at some pretty fancy places and had the total come out to less than that. What the hell are you eating? It probably doesn't help that my home is in Maine (I'm not there now) but for $75 I can (not counting gas) I can get 30 pounds of lobster. (Probably a few more pounds, I know people and no - I'm not sharing my source, I just get it off the boat.)
They'd probably shit a brick if they knew my cannon-loving friend. He owns multiple cannons. Yup, multiples. And oh what fun they are. They get dragged out and fire blanks (he usually brings three of 'em) at my Memorial Day party every year. If there are fewer people then they don't always fire blanks. We've experimented with a wide variety of shot over the years.
I met him back when I was still living in NC and he retired to Maine before I did. He's a bit older than I and is a licensed dealer. He has a whole collection of stuff and has a bit of a shop still but it's mostly a private affair (all lawful, with background checks and the likes). He still does some specialty smithing, custom bluing, and things like that. He'll even do reloads of rare cartridges. He's a whole fountain of knowledge and is remarkably good at getting me to buy stuff that I don't actually need.
I have, more than once, considered buying one of those cannons. I think the only reason that I haven't is that they're a bit labor intensive and I'm pretty damned lazy in my old age. They should be properly kept under cover, cleaned, kept in good repair, and they're damned heavy. Helping to move them just once per year is more than enough for me to realize that I don't want to own one. Unfortunately, he usually tries to get me to buy one - after it is already on my lawn and just before it needs to get loaded, with its friends, back into the truck and trailer. Clever bastard. Even the little one is pretty heavy.
Hmm... I own an AK-47, it's perfectly lawful and properly papered and taxed, as well as my acceptance of any additional burdens due to ownership. It is, technically, an M22 (Chinese made) that, as near as the papers can tell, was meant for the NVA but probably never reached its destination and somehow managed to get imported to the US via (of all places) Canada. We don't really know much more about.
I also own an M-14. That too is entirely lawful with, again, my acceptance of any additional burdens of ownership - such as having needed to pay an additional tax and fill out some paperwork. That, on the other hand, has a bit more complete history and we can tell a lot by the numbers stamped on it. It is also a whole bowl of fun and rather good if one wants to engage in wanton slaughter of innocent bits of paper. I'm quite fond of it, to the point where you could say that I'm a mass paper-murdering reprobate of the highest order.
Both are pre-ban. Both are entirely lawful and properly accounted and paid for. As near as I can tell, neither of them has killed anything other than paper and, a few times, some tannerite. In my defense, the paper was asking for it. I do admit, it was probably cruel of me to force the other bits of paper to watch their comrades die. It's just something about that paper - I've seriously got a grudge. It's probably because I had a paper cut as a child and suffer from PTSD which makes me end up murdering so many pieces.
I suppose, to make matters worse, I'm racist. I not only try, really hard, to aim for the black and miss the white but I'm actually pretty adept at it. This comes from lots of practice in my preparation for my paper murdering sprees. You could even go so far as to say that I hate when I miss the black. If I miss, I keep trying until I do get it. I'm not that prejudiced, I'll shoot any black - regardless of its shape, so long as it's one of the ones that I hate. I'll even go out of my way to acquire targets of varied shapes and sizes.
We could discuss how I have a whole bunch of them, technically locked in a safe against their will and for the sole purpose of keeping them enslaved for the periods of time where I wish to engage in a spree paper killing. In fact, that happens often when I'm home. I was going to go to a new place, meet new bits of paper, and shoot them today but I was ill earlier and decided to stay home. They may have escaped today but I'll redouble my efforts tomorrow.
It's a good thing that there's no hell or I'd be going to it! On the other hand, if you ever decide you want to murder some innocent paper and are in the area... It's a lot of fun and there are lots of things to learn. It's something you can practice and improve on - even if you're just murdering paper. It's calming, relaxing, and you can compete with others or yourself to see who's better or improving their paper murdering skills.
I would, on the other hand, recommend you try murdering paper with something a little more user-friendly at first. Not to worry, I've multiple choices - some better for different tasks than others. I actually probably have more paper murdering tools than most people, more than I can realistically use in a day, but that doesn't seem to stop me from wanting to acquire more tools for when I go on my spree paper killings.
Oh, I sometimes actually shoot living things with them. Then, I cut them open, yank out the bits I don't want, cut them up, char them over an open flame, and eat them. I really am a bastard! The thing is, if you can plot it on a graph, you'd find that I've killed (and eaten!) more things at a rate that has some correlation with age. By process of extrapolation, and I'm nearing this point, I'll have actually killed almost every portion of meat that I consume! (Some of it isn't shot. I tempt it with baited food, put a hook through its lip, drag it against its will out of its natural habitat, club it over the head with a stick to kill it, gut it, cook it, and eat it.)
Hmm... Maybe I need to see a priest or a shrink? ;-)
I'm about as far away from California as possible. Well, not at the moment, at the moment I'm in Florida. However, my home is way up in NW Maine. I'm up above the 45th lat. and close to Canada. I prefer a very, very rural life. I then visit the areas where the people are - and then leave after I've had enough of them. So, I travel a lot, I used to travel for work and, I guess, I've really been traveling my whole life. I grew up in the military, was in the military, and then went through college. I then traveled as a part of my job (I owned my own business). I sold, retired, and I'm still traveling.
Back home, I can see the porch light is on (I can check the cameras by remote) and we're getting about a foot of snow. I see some tracks in the snow but the camera didn't catch it well enough - it looked to be the size of a small deer. I'd show you the feed but there's no reasonable way to allow others access - I keep it pretty locked down and it allows only specific hardware and IP addresses to contact it. But, it is beautiful in its own way.
Having seen your beaches, I'm inclined to say I like that too - I just couldn't live there for long. I just don't like it that warm or that rainy. I can brush the snow off my shoulders. Once the rain soaks in, you're wet. I like the cold because, if you know what you're doing, you can always get warm. There's a point where you can only take off so much clothing and still be socially acceptable. I'm also not a huge fan of air conditioning in and of itself, I don't mind it but (oddly) I hate fake air movement. I don't mind if it's windy outside but my body just doesn't like it inside. So, I live in Maine. ;-)
It works. I'm fortunate in that I'm able to have a choice. Many folks can't make those choices. Many folks don't get to travel. To wax philosophical, I think that might be what's wrong with so many people. They don't travel. They don't realize how good they have it. They don't see the results of bad choices. Under a different moniker (and I will not share) I sometimes write about my travels. I've been to war-torn areas, I've been in active combat zones, and I've seen the aftermath of extremism. I've been doing this off-and-on but more so since I've retired. I see the extremism that people espouse as virtuous. I don't like it. I have seen where extremism (in any direction) gets us. It's really disheartening to see it and to realize that others might see the same things if they only took a few minutes to get off the beaten trails and see how good they really have it.
That said, I'll probably be back in your area at some point. I'd like to visit some of the other islands. I'd like to see some of the places that are not on the tour maps. I'll probably take the time in a few years but it's likely to have to wait. I have a busy year coming up and then I'll probably be occupied for a few years after that. I'm not looking forward to it but, fortunately, it's only for four or so months per year and then a few more months to catch up on things. (I'll be running for public office in the State of Maine. Not that I want to but that I've been asked to. To be honest, I don't really want the job but I do feel that I'm obligated to offer myself as I have the means and will do so to the best of my ability, unlike the person who currently holds that office.)
It is. I was really quite pleased to get that address. I jumped at the chance. I didn't really want a new email address but I just had to have the name - I caught the Outlook offering new email on the first day or close to it. I typed it in to see, my name was already taken, and there it was. So, I grabbed it.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with US politics but I'm pretty sure that you're familiar with what I used to do. In short, I modeled traffic. It's interesting that only a couple of folks have ever noticed the dates that I share. Without being too specific, the sale was finalized right about now in 2008. I don't like to share the total dollar value but, even though we were in the midst of a depression, my company was very highly valued - more so than normal. I suppose you might not be familiar with the verbiage being thrown around? It was about how billions of dollars was going to be spent on "shovel ready jobs" with, specifically, a whole bunch of that money going towards highways. That should be enough for you to put the rest together.
The company that is the now-parent company is a publicly traded company and almost a household name. They do, behind the curtains and mostly as an umbrella, almost nothing but fill government contracts. If one cares to, they can draw some lines between traffic modeling, government contracts, lucrative contracts coming online, and pushing money into a concentrated group of people. Me? I'm all set. I'm also really glad that I got out when I did. I'm not sure that I'd have reached a point where I'd be unable to look at myself in the mirror. *sighs* All sorts of similar companies sprouted up around that time. I've opined on their quality numerous times so I'll skip that. This is basically a long way of saying that you just might have hit the nail on the head and that it's not always obvious while/how it happens.
That's a bit old and the current thinking is that the two groups never actually met - the Clovis people died out before that. See Nova's documentary "Where do we Come From?" documentary for an easy to digest format. That's my understanding of the most recent conclusions. They are, of course, subject to change.
A neat effect on that page - scroll down until you see the metal loudspeakers and then scroll up and down with that image at the bottom - do it slowly and it almost has a 3D-esque effect. It's just about halfway down on the page, it's the guy looking up/working on the speakers. If you put it at the bottom of the screen and scroll up and down (so that it's not always on the screen) and do it with decent timing, it's kind of neat.
Yes, I'm easily amused.
The dude's name is binary for 1488 which is some white supremacy/Hitler stuff. You can actually just ignore them or make fun of them and probably be okay with that choice.
Oh, but you can. I have DSL at home - home is (I'm not there until spring) NW Maine and many miles from the nearest village (not even a big town - 1200 people counting the general area that is the village). I paid for better lines and a CO. A neighbor chipped a little in to pay for what goes past my house. Their one mile did, a little, lower the per-mile cost so it worked.
It's expensive, let's be honest, but you can probably do it. I used to have point-to-point radio and I had satellite before that. I'm also one of a few people on the CO and the village don't do a while lot. I'm just about 24 miles outside of Rangeley, Maine. They put one CO in at their expense, I paid for the new line in, from just outside of the village and one CO. They gave me a fair price - I'm given to believe. I don't own the CO but paid some of it and the installation fee.
This would have been around 2011 or so that I finally got it done. In the long run, it was cheaper than ISDN. It may sound crazy but I feel like I get good value for it. I get to have my house where it is and I get to have broadband rated at 12 Mbps and I usually average about 14 Mbps, I've got static IP addresses though I only pay residential rates. I have three disparate connections on their own individual lines. For some reason, they send me hardware (for all three connections) at least once a year. I've never actually used any of it. Some years I get two which means that I end up with six.
This may not apply to your cabin but it applies to my house. (A map might show you how far out I am.) Err... Hmm... I think I'll skip mentioning the price. I've actually mentioned it before but this was five years ago - the price's are probably different and the ISP might be less willing to provision the services. As the signal is being passed on a telephone line, Maine law lets me use any ISP that wants to serve me and that the line owners must provision those services, at a fair price, to that company.
It was rather pricey but not as bad as one might think. I'm retired so being where I like to be and having connectivity is awesome. I only pay for three residential lines and have plenty of bandwidth for my needs. (The three disparate lines are there for a reason, it's a long story.) I can't really put it into better words than to say, quite separate from the actual numerical price, the expense is/was worth it to me. They not maintain and own the lines and the CO. I just had to pay for the roll-out, so to speak.
Take that for what it's worth - which isn't a whole lot. I've no idea where your place is or anything like that.
Now that I think about it and sorry to reply to myself - but, does this still work if you have disabled 'hardware acceleration' or started it from the terminal with the --disable-gpu-composting because if that's enabled then I think the browser just uses the regular RAM and not the GPU's RAM?
I'm quite positive that I'm missing something because it can't be that easy. I'm gonna scroll down the thread again. I keep getting stuck every few posts and ending up reading a few links from Google just to help me make sure that I'm understanding enough this to actually be able to benefit from it.
I'll thread this here so that hopefully tepples sees it too. Sometimes it's great to hit the threads late - I usually try to not go further forward than page 1 (unless I am all caught up) for that very reason. Oh, I work back to forward from the eldest unread thread.
Neither of which is here or there.
I could put this almost anywhere in this thread and, I think, it'd be perfectly on-topic. This is absolutely the best, most educational, insightful thread I have read on Slashdot in a *very* long time. This, this thread, is why I come here. Oh, I get great answers all the time but I'm actually in the process of re-learning some programming because my brain's getting mushy (opposite, really, it's plasticizing as happens with age) and this? This tells me a bit about how much I have missed.
I didn't do much of my own coding after about 1998. Yup... I'd say I did a bit more until 2000. Then I might have helped out with some suggestions (they'd moved to C++ and my code had been in C) or ideas for a while after that but I never actually typed a single line, comment, or made any commits. Instead, at most, I may have given a suggestion as to ways I thought of that they might be able to reach the goal - sometimes good, sometimes not so good. I am not a programmer -- I learned to program (some) because I had to.
It might even be accurate to say that I didn't do /most/ of my own programming after some time in the middle/late part of 1996. That's almost twenty years ago and I can still kind of remember the feeling of turning "my baby" over. I shit you not, it was a lot like seeing your kid go off on their first day of school - perhaps their first day of college. You're letting someone else control the destiny of something that you've invested your life in and, equally important and counting sharp ass metal bits inside of computers, you've spilled your own blood for it. I'd actually be surprised if nobody here knew what I was talking about - perhaps even better than I do.
I asked a question, above, and - after reading all this, I think it's still a fine question for me as I've not yet truly got an answer but I think I do. (Chrome might not have permissions to actually control the memory on the GPU or, perhaps, doing so is resource intensive - is that a penalty hit worth it for more anonymity in something called "incognito mode?") That was not, by the way, my question up above. Just stating what I've learned (or not) from reading this far down.
This is absolutely fascinating and really topical for me at this point. While I am looking at two specific languages, I'm trying to get my brain to work right again - thinking in terms of how and not the specifics. That's a greater process than it used to be and, well, far more complex than it was some 15+ years ago.
I guess what I'm getting at is that this is a fine place to express my gratitude. This was one of the reasons I had my first account long ago, have this account now, and return frequently. That's an overly complicated way of trying to thank not just you, nor just the people who are taking the time to answer, but also to thank those for asking questions that I might not have thought of on my own. Mushy sentiment? Sure but heartfelt and sober sentiment and true gratitude. Thanks Slashdot. We seriously should form a board and buy this place and let the community run it as a non-profit. Maybe I should look into that when I get back to Maine.
Heh! Did you once work for me?
Do you mind a dumb question?
If the user has enough RAM, wouldn't it be possible to reserve a goodly chunk and then wipe the entirety (some resource hit here - I should think) when de-allocated/closed such as at the end of the session?
I'm slowly, but surely, getting back into poking at code - it's been like 8 years since I've even really looked at any and even longer since I've really done much of any. I'm seeing why this is happening (I think) but I'm not seeing why it's not being fixed. At least conceptually, I should think it'd be fairly trivial. I guess the language might matter here but I assume Chrome's written in a language with some specific memory allocation tools. (I don't actually know what it is written in, I kind of figured it'd be written in C or C++ and I know those both support some fairly neat things with memory if wielded properly.)
Sorry if 'tis a dumb question but I've found it's better to ask and learn then assume and look stupid. In case you're curious, yes, it was professionally hired programmers who helped me to learn that lesson. It's kind of neat what you can learn by admitting you haven't a clue but you're willing to learn. You can also bribe them with coffee or after-work beer. Pfft... They've probably now got a "manager" that thinks he knows everything, if the stories here are to any indicator, but I digress...
Managing programmers. Heh... You can kind of steer 'em but I tried managing. It was like herding cats. Give 'em something to poke at and they'll keep themselves busy and actually be productive. As far as the programmers I know, that seems to cross both genders. Ah well, that's a mini-novella in exchange for your (hopeful) answer. It's almost 2000 hrs and I'm old, so you get the short version.
I dunno. I don't have a word for it but if you understand then you understand. Hell, I've got words for most things, some things that aren't even real, but this one is lacking words. It's good to see that others experience it and it truly is magical. I don't know if you'd be rich if you could bottle it up and sell it - it might not be worth much if it could be captured. It's fleeting, intangible, and probably a little different for everyone.
If you have a good sound system and want to try something, I can share a little of it - it's one of the few recordings that still has that magic. Find a copy of "Hurt so Bad" by Susan Tedeschi. Go ahead and pirate it, she won't mind. Really, she won't mind a bit. Find something in fairly good quality and give the entire song a listen. It's in there - a little.
Anyone else is, of course, more than welcome to participate. I might be biased but I've known her since she was a coffee shop singer. I'll tell her and if she complains then I'll pay for everyone's download. In cash. To her directly. There's a Blues Fest in Rockland, Maine. It's in a giant, outdoor, area that's probably about a half mile from one end to the other. It's at the public wharf. I've seen her put the microphone away and fill that whole area with sound. I don't suggest the song and her because I'm a fan. I recommend that because it's that good. Seriously, go pirate it. I'll personally pay for every person who downloads it from here and I'll get her to take the money and if she doesn't I'll slip it to her husband.
So, pirate with glee Slashdot. (Like you weren't gonna anyhow.) Wrack up a big ol' bill for me. (No, multiple downloads don't count.) I'll personally ensure she gets more than she'd have asked for and more than she'd have gotten from the label. She's a special one and I usually keep the special ones secret so that people don't end up ruining a good thing. That one song, that one person, seems to have just a little magic in it - you'll know when it hits. With me? It's in the spine. Let it play until the end, you'll know when it's the right spot. I'll let you figure it out on your own but it might not be the right spot for everyone. If you were in a choir, well, you might appreciate this.
I don't really have words but, perhaps, that might explain it. If you download, lemme know. Lemme know what you think. I'll relay that information too. I'll even tell her the "troll" responses if applicable. She'll get a kick out of it. Again, try for optimal sound and don't be afraid of the volume button. Keep the distractions away. Use headphones if you must. However, you can't have her. She's mine! I'm not too worried, she's turned down the major labels and contracts enough times already. So, you probably won't ruin her. I'll share with you, just this once.
I even enjoy it when it's bumper to bumper. I really enjoy ever bit of it - until it stops, then I get a bit frustrated. I don't like when traffic is completely held up because of an accident. Other than that? Well, I modeled traffic. I kind of enjoy observing the flow. I kind of enjoy the interaction. I don't really ever get tired of it but, at the same time, I make it a point to not live where that is an issue. I'd grow weary of it if I had to deal with it constantly.
I go out to track days, I rent time on tracks, I've competed a number of times - I like rally racing, and I have gone to a whole ton of driving schools. I've taken pretty much every type of driving course out there - including asset protection, and really just enjoy it. It might not make sense to some people, and I can understand that, but I absolutely love it.
I also love the automobile. I'll probably get an autonomous vehicle when they come out. I'll probably be an early adopter. It won't be my primary choice but I can see it as having benefits - even if it's just for time when I'd rather use the travel time to do something else. The "purist" automobile enthusiasts don't seem to appreciate that I'm buying an EV either. I point to the instant torque and ask how they can not? How can they not want one?
My heart's big enough to have room for an EV too. I'll even make room for an AV if one tickles my fancy. I'll probably make it do horrible things that it wasn't meant to do, but I'll buy one. Now, if I can get an AV that allows me to control it at times then the machine and I will have time trials against each other. Some might ask how can I? I'd answer with, how can I not?
That's a pretty damned fair return on my investment. I let him borrow a couple of bucks and, I dare say, that makes my averages look like I know what I'm doing! The best part is, I'll have kept the investment in long enough so that it's a long-term investment and taxed at capital gains rates. Err... Don't do the math, 'tis kind of embarrassing. ;-) There will be time enough for counting, when the dealing's done.
I have not yet not found a log that I was unable to read. (That's English, right?) I am downstream from you - I'm in the Ubuntu family (more often than not) but I prefer Lubuntu. At this point, and I'm a silent subscriber to all sorts of mailing lists, I have to wonder how many of those people who register their complaints here (and at a few other sites) are actually Linux users or have problems?
Now, as I said, I'm not a professional admin and I'll be the first one to mention that. That means, feel free to discard anything I say or take it with a grain of salt. I'm okay with either, my ego is not that frail. I make more mistakes in a day than some folks make in a month. I'm okay with that - that's how I learn. If I'm not breaking something then I'm not learning. I'm old, I don't want to stagnate. Err... 58 is old. Trust me on this one. I've had a rather eventful and active life. Bits of me ache in the morning - bits that I didn't even know I had and I swear, I feel my brain plasticizing. It really gets more difficult to grasp stuff - that's why I switched to using Linux exclusively.
That said, I don't really feel comfortable saying this next part because it sounds like an accusation and I'm not in a position to judge. But... I think it needs to be asked. How many people are having issues, perhaps of their own making, and laying the blame on SystemD because they are unable to properly place the blame, made a mistake they don't want to own up to, or are otherwise inept? Remember, some percentage of people are the least competent systems administrators in the field.
That should not be seen as a specific accusation directed any particular person, of course. But, how many of the complaints are of that type? Another thing is that happy people don't tend to speak up. I'm kind of in an odd position - I restarted my Linux use and then went through the SystemD change (in various distros) not long after. I'm inept with both init systems! Oh, I'm not kidding... You saw how I gave a description of my connection to this very page? Yeah... I did that *on purpose.* I wouldn't let me near a production server and I sure as hell wouldn't place any more stock in my views other than that as someone who's actually trying to be objective and is able to break most anything. I'm still booted to that same Live USB, by the way.
So, I haven't had a problem. It has even been helpful. I wrote "comments" earlier but I meant to say that I'd learned a few new commands. I've actually made good use of some of them. If something's flaked out then I know to check journalctl and whatnot. I can grep (sort of) and maybe find stuff - with some help from Google and some notes that I've kept. If it doesn't start then I can chroot into it and have a look around and see what's wrong. I keep good backups but don't actually rely on them much - I'd rather fix stuff than repair stuff now. I'm getting more comfortable, I kind of understand the actual processes and what is happening and why - like I was much more adept at with a Windows system. Hell, I was awarded a Microsoft MVP for quite a few years before I gave up participating and just paid for my own damned MSDN subscription. (Shell, IE/OE, and Security awards. Meh, something like six years.)
I really do have a knack for breaking stuff - and I try. That's how I learn. I break it, I fix it, and in the process I learn why I broke it, why what I did fixed it, and how to not break it again in the future. (Sometimes that last one takes a few lessons.) If there's a button - I'll poke it. If there's a bash command, I'll run it. (Well, within reason. I do keep good backups for a reason.)
Yet, everything else has been broken by now - I've been doing this for a couple of years and a year in earnest, SystemD has not caused me one issue. I can even add services to the startup, programs to the startup, disable 'em, change 'em delay 'em, and (I think) make 'em check for failure and restart. Yet, strangely enough, it hasn't broken and I've not yet found a log I couldn't read.
Ah well.
That's an interesting perspective. A comment to me, from a reply by me, is not related to the comment made to me. What a peculiar thought process you must have. It's even more curious that you'd attempt to control the narrative by using a pejorative.
I don't know much about you but I'd speculate that you don't really understand freedom or, more importantly, liberties. I'd be happy to explain them to you but, judging by your predisposition to use pejoratives, it's fairly easy to conclude that you'll not be swayed regardless of any information presented. (There's a name for that type of behavior, I suspect you claim to despise it, even if you exemplify it.)
I did note that Slashdot does not seem inclined to show the response - you might actually be missing that. However, I suspect you'd hand-wave that away too. Dismissal, with a pejorative, and with little ability to actually understand the concepts. It's okay, I've been afraid of things too. I used to have a nonsensical fear of the bats when I was a child. I'm quite positive that I let that fear impact my life to the point where that fear was clouding my emotions and preventing me from doing otherwise enjoyable things. I even went so far as to insist that friends who visited stay inside when they came over - lest I go out just after dusk and face those bats.
So, I understand what it's like to let cowardice cloud my judgment and make me try to stop others from enjoying themselves. The difference between you and I is that I'm no longer afraid of bats and I understand the idea that freedom carries with it inherent risks and that liberties are something to be preserved. I've also seen laws like the Patriot Act passed because people are afraid. I've seen what a group of properly motivated, fearful, people do in the name of protecting themselves against extremely low probabilities.
You can be a coward. That's okay. But you can't be a coward and claim to stand for freedom. The two are diametrically opposed. It's not my failing that has resulted in your unwillingness to grasp this and no amount of effort on my part is going to alter your views. No matter how much effort I put into it, no matter how much data I pull up, no matter how many times I show the faults in your logic - you will not budge. It's an internet debate, you'll not adjust your views one bit, no matter how much data is given to the contrary.
Again, you can be a coward if you want - that's your right. Your fear is not justification to take away the liberties of another. You can not speak of freedom while still a coward any more than a blind man can describe a color. A coward is not a free man. The goal should not be to entice others to join you in your cowardice but to rid yourself of your fear - by accepting that there are inherent risks in all activities. There's a huge swath of difference between "reasonable regulation" and "take them from you."
Yet it is I, the one using sound logic and reason who you're calling a 'nutter.' You're calling the person who is expressing the need to preserve our liberties a 'nutter.' You're using a pejorative to refer to the person(s) who are concerned with liberty while declaring that you too speak on behalf of freedom. I don't think the insane person is the one you think it is. It's remarkable that you're able to do that sort of mental gymnastics and keep a straight face. "I'll take your rights. I speak for freedom."
I stand by what I've said, I stand by my interpretations, I stand by my beliefs - because I am not coward. Fortunately, nobody with any power is ever going to listen to you. Hopefully, we'll get some sane enforcement of existing legislation and adequate mental health care. Probably not - the actual gun nuts have too much power. Thankfully, you're powerless to control the actual narrative because some of us will continue to speak up and ensure you do not control the narrative. Don't worry, we're the same ones that speak up when the real "gun nuts" speak up and try to control the narrative.
There's a new public firing
Not a whole lot that's major - it's me, my home servers, and desktops. If I break something then I learn something new as I'm fixing it. I actually make it a point to try to break stuff in new and interesting ways - it's how I learn to fix it and, with fixing it, I learn new stuff. How to make this short?
I'm retired. I used Unix for quite a while. I then used Windows. During that spell, I also used Unix (Solaris) on the workstations. I poked at Linux when it came out, or not long after. I kept using Windows. I mostly kept Linux installed on a partition but did little with it - some restoration, backup, or repair work - or just to update, play, poke, and maybe learn a little. I sometimes had Linux in a VM - maybe a server or two at home. Not much, really. I had dual boot configured but I never really bothered with it. A couple of years ago, I decided to use Linux more often and I sort of did but not really. I still just kept booting into Windows. I wasn't learning anything new, my brain was turning into a bowl of oatmeal, and I decided to change. So, I did something drastic. I let my MSDN subscription expire, deleted all my Windows partitions, reformatted everything, and installed pretty much every one of the major distros listed at DistroWatch (like all of 'em, at least in a VM). (Really, like all of 'em.)
Since then (about a year now), I've continued to poke, to play, to learn, to grow, and to continue to use Linux exclusively as a desktop/server. I do have a recently purchased Windows phone as I was tired of Android.
So, what can possibly go wrong? Nothing, really. It's not like these are production servers. It'd just be me breaking my own stuff and I've learned to not just keep good backups but to keep almost all data stored elsewhere, on a server, or at the least in a distinct /home directory. I wouldn't let me near a production server with a root password. Good heavens, no. I'd not pretend I was *capable* of that job. Not now, not yet, and probably not for a long time. In fact, I usually make a clear distinction that I am not, and should not be considered, a professional.
Hmm... That was actually kind of concise for me. :D
Holy shit!?! Seriously? You know the album? I found it on YouTube once and it had a half dozen views. (Listens, really.) I think the rest of them, since then, have been from me turning people on to it.
Now, I didn't upload the album on YouTube. I have it on LP and on 8 track and, somewhere, I have a copy that I dubbed to cassette. But, you're the very first person that I've ever met, online, that already knew what I was referencing. Obviously, someone else does - 'cause they uploaded it. I intentionally slip it into posts just to see if anyone mentions it - I literally look for reasons to mention it.
I'll be damned... You, sir or ma'am, are my hero for the day! If you've never listened to it on a real quadraphonic stereo system then you absolutely should consider it. Hell, if you get to Maine (after I get back this spring) you can come over and listen to it in my Dart! I'll even bring the weed!
You take a trip to the left and take a trip to the right, when you get done tripping gonna trip all night...
Oh, man... I've probably dropped the title into two dozen different threads over the Slashdot years - not one nibble. I've even *linked* to the YouTube, nary a nibble.
Here, again, for those who are unfamiliar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Hah, I had listened to a bit of it back during the holidays with my son. It started me off at the meditation segment.
Alright, I have to ask... How the hell do you even know about this album? I seriously didn't think it was rare or anything - all my friends knew about it back in the day. Today? Crickets... I've tossed it out there and you're the absolute first to know what I speak of. Man, listening to that stoned, in quadraphonic stereo, was absolutely mind blowing back in the day. I think there was even a four channel LP version but I'm not positive. There probably was - that might even be where my dub is from with proper channel separation? I suspect one of my kids has absconded with the cassette.
You are my hero!
Help!!! I'm lost in the refrigerator!
Oh my... Heh... The missus didn't listen with my son and I. I shall restart it from the beginning... Hmm... I should wait until we're back in Maine and can safely smoke again. Florida really frowns on weed so I don't have any. It just smells enough and the penalty is too high. So, I go without weed. Err, Florida has *other* options. I've, umm, I might have skied more since I got to Florida than I ever do in Maine. *chuckles* Don't laugh - I actually had several Slashdotters over for NYE festivities (we made things go boom) and they may (or may not have - I'll let them decide to tell their story or not) gone skiing with me. A big ol' pile of powder and you face plant your way to the bottom. That might explain the verbosity of my posts. Or not...
Oh yes, hah... Back to the question - I was hanging out with an older hippie chick, stoned obviously, when she turned me on to the album. She was a friend's mother and I was nearing the age where I graduated from high school. She caught us getting stoned and we thought we were in so much trouble. She made us share with her and she played the album for us. I think I have the timing right? I might be conflating it with something else. I seem to recall that the album was fairly new at the time, or at least not that old, so I'm thinking it was around 1973.
And if your friends are stoned too, they won't know what you're talking about either.
Oh man... I could go on but this is already long enough. ;-) If you get the chance to listen to it in quadraphonic stereo (some record players had four discrete channels and some just had two left and two right channels) then then do so. It's actually best (in my opinion) in a car with a good sound system that is properly balanced. Oh man... Heh, I've got like 1,000 stories about this album and the times we had on it but I'll spare you the boring details. I hope you've got your own special set of stories