Punkie

No. I have known a lot of attractive people get bullied by jealous bullies. Imagine you’re attractive, guys checking you out, and girls who work HARD to get noticed see you get noticed without much effort. You may even be, “no thank you,” like you have a choice. And they will seethe because they think it’s unfair you “have it so easy.” Logic and reason do not apply to bullies, they only know how to “preemptively retaliate” to keep the status quo in their head,

I read somewhere that stainless steel (like common household items, which also has some chromium in it) would outlive plastics, and could even survive in geological strata like fossils, escept they will last indefinitely. Recently, I saw some “premium toy site” sold “high quality stainless steel” butt plugs. Assuming it’s not being superfluous (one reviewer said “it’s nice and heavy,” and I don’t use butt plugs, but that’s a quality one wants?), this could confuse a lot of fossil hunters, especially 304 and 316 stainless, which has been known to last hundreds of years under the sea. 316 stainless steel, for example, is widely used in marine applications like boat hardware, underwater structures, and offshore platforms.

About 4 days. multiple times. I was really poor once. I used to take Tylenol and Tums to keep away the hunger pains, and I am surprised I still have a liver and kidneys.

Electrical power? I mean, not including camping, I think 4-5 days after a major storm.

The record is my maternal grandmother who lived to either 86 or 89, depending on what birth record you use.

I have a kaleidoscope for the blind.

One of only 150 or 250 made (I forget which). The artist (Reinhold Marxhausen) got Alzheimer’s in his final years, and is probably dead now. It looks like a metal blob, but the inside is hollow and it has are springs that vibrate and make tones to the slightest touch and heat change. Just shake it and hold it to your ear. It makes different and unique sounds depending on who is holding it, the weather, the air temperature, and so on.

I got it from a kaleidoscope collector, who sold it to me because the small handmade box it came in was damaged in shipping, and it wasn’t worth as much without the box. I keep it in a handmade suede bag.

Edit: I made an Imgur post about it: https://imgur.com/gallery/kaleidoscope-blind-Ab8Xz

Not mine, but from a post: First, you’re never going to win a head-on battle with an adversary that’s got you outgunned. That’s not the point of the Resistance. The point is to create friction, make it hard for your adversary to operate, to increase transaction costs.

Second, resistance doesn’t have to be a dramatic act. It can be a small act, like losing a sheet of paper, taking your time processing something, not serving someone in a restaurant. Small acts taken by thousands have big effects.

Third, use your privilege and access if you’ve got it. He and his buddies stole weapons from the Nazis by driving up with a truck to the weapons depot, speaking German, acting like it was a routine pick up, and driving away.

Fourth, part of the third point really, sometimes the best way to do things is right out in the open. Because no one will believe something like what you’re doing would be happening so blatantly. All good Social Engineers know this.

Five, bide your time. But be ready for opportunity when it strikes. Again, your action need not be dramatic. Just a little sand in the gears helps.

Six, and this is a no-brainer, operate in cells to limit damage to the resistance should they take you out. Limit the circulation of info to your cell, avoid writing things down and…

Seven, be very careful with whom you trust. Snitches and compromised individuals are everywhere. My dad was arrested because of a snitch. His friends weren’t so lucky, the Gestapo machine gunned the cabin they were in without bothering to try and arrest them.

Eight, use the skills you have to contribute. Dad was an electrical engineer. When the Nazis imposed the death penalty for owning a radio (the British sent coded messages to the Resistance after BBC shows) he said he became the most popular guy in town.

I also wonder what the trade value of gold might have been in that universe? For all we know, it might be an either/or situation. Like “Well, I could have my favorite takeout every Friday for a year, OR the newest smartphone.” Both are tempting but for different reasons. Like, “I could buy a lot of turnips, potatoes, and beer with one golden smurf and not have to worry every month if I have enough food, but then they taste REALLY good on their own.” Gargamel struck me as someone who didn’t have a lot of money, so having been poor myself, I understand this weird conundrum. Also, having a golden smurf to trade might bring unwanted attention from locals would who assume he has LOTS of them, and rob his home looking for them.

I was 38? Not sure. I was a teetotaller. I didn’t drink because alcoholism ruined both sides of my family, and I didn’t want to even be tempted. Drinking and being drunk had no appeal. When I drank ANY alcohol, my face would swell up: lips, tongue, sinuses, and throat. And that was stuff like Nyquil, or my wife at the time always wanted me to “just sip this foo-foo drink, and tell me it’s not great!” My wife drank (responsibly) and liked big, fruity drinks, and she always wanted me to taste what she was having. My lips would swell up, but I always figured that was because I never drank and was a lightweight.

I was at a friend’s wedding in Salem. Her side had maybe 5 people. The groom’s side had over 100. The groom’s side was Greek, and despite my multiple attempts to rebuff their stuffing wine down my mouth, it ended up happening because of stupid peer pressure. I probably had 2/3rds of a bottle. I felt like I had the biggest ENT infection ever; I saw amber, and then blacked out. Only I didn’t. I was later told that “your face was red, but it was hard to see in all the dim lighting (it was an outdoor event). You seemed a little out of it, but I was drunk, soooo…” I woke up at the groom’s brother’s house in their guest bed. No memory of how I got there. I wasn’t sick, as apparently I drank a lot of water, but I was pretty fucking terrified.

Everyone said I was nice, chatty, and I know I was awake because I texted sexy things to my wife. “Oh my god, you’re drunk, and I am not there to see it!” was one of her replies. Shit. My nose was runny, I could barely swallow, and when I looked in the mirror, it looked like I had rosacea. When I went down to the kitchen, the bride and groom were there, and my friend said “you don’t look so good.” I told her what had happened, and she got REALLY angry, since it was her father in law who had made me drink (he claimed if i didn’t drink his imported wine, he would be insulted, and it was bad luck). I drank lots of water, and eventually, the swelling went down and I could breathe normally. No sir, I didn’t like it. I didn’t see the appeal of being drunk.

Later, I decided that I wasn’t mad about it. I had decided to just deal with the effects of alcohol instead of making a scene at a Greek wedding. “I can now say I was drunk once, I didn’t die or make a fool of myself, and I still didn’t like it.” It kind of cemented “I will never drink,” and I still haven’t at 56.

A few years later, they were doing an allergy test, and it turns out I am allergic to alcohol. Not like anaphylaxis, but something called “flush” which is common with Asians, apparently (I am not Asian). That’s why my body reacts that way, only I didn’t know it because I never drank.

I have been using Kubuntu as a daily driver for almost 10 year now, and never regretted it. I had one Windows box for things like special cases (like dumb website forms that won’t let me use Linux), Pearson Vue exams, and edge cases related to work, but it’s on standby as a secondary system I RDP into. I am not a gamer, so I didn’t need it for that. I saved so much money not having to buy hardware in the last decade or so.

Sadly, Windows 11 won’t work on anything I have (TPM issues, too old), so I recently got a cheap Windows 11 laptop before the tariffs hit and I pay more for dumb Windows-only reasons.

Linux all the way, man. Gave me a career, a life, and my hardware back.

This has been my experience as well with Aliexpress. I know there’s a huge caveat emptor going on, but it’s like you said about batteries and storage, be careful unless you know exactly what you’re buying. Like a 64TB SSD for $15.99 proooobably not the real thing. But I have gotten a lot of SBCs, some stuffed animals, and cheap costume jewelry for my wife (who knows it’s cheap, but doesn’t care). Weirdest “quality” purchase? My “gold colored” tungsten wedding ring was $10, comfort fit, and in 6 years still looks like the real thing. But didn’t dent like my original wedding ring (which is why I needed a replacement, got smashed in a door accident). I’d never buy anything that I knew might cause a fire (like batteries) or possibly poison me (like pills).

Wish and Temu ripped me off in some of my first purchases. I was only out $30, and I know it was possible, so I just deleted my account and the apps.

This right here. I have worked with a dozen PMs in 30 years, only two were any damn good. One managed an IT team, and she didn’t know tech worth squat, but God damn, did she keep the flow going and know how to get shit done without being an ass about it.

On the other hand, I faught with a PM once because he didn’t understand the concept of priorities or how to manage a crisis. “You want me to fix the outage or attend a meeting about it?” “Both.” “Pick one. You have a choice. I can fix the issue in the data center, or join a blame session in the meeting room. Which one?” “BOTH!” I got to the meeting room, and he demanded we put down our laptops and pay attention. He invited EVERYBODY regardless of whether they were needed or not. Twenty seven people all bitching about the outage and not a single person fixing it. No meeting moderation. Just chaos until he had a panic attack. Just useless.

A lot of outsourcers do this. Here’s my experience with a few companies.

• The “team” you meet are competent, English speaking fronts. They are the demo models of the people who will work on your projects.
• After the contract is signed, these people are swapped out with randos of varying competence.
• In some cases, some of these randos are further hidden behind aliases: people with names that are actually more than one person sharing logins and passwords.
• They will string you along, trying to charge maximum hours worked without regards to product or services delivered.
• Most of these companies have a “bucket of crabs” mentality: the managers are horrible, the staff incompetent, and once the gain some skill, they leave for better companies. They backstab one another, hijack projects to fuck over coworkers, and lie and cover their tracks. Some of this is cultural, like a caste system, while some are just racist.

At one time, these people were pretty good, but they realized they had skills and left for other countries for better pay and better working conditions. The bids got more and more competitive, cutting costs until they were literally filled with low-skilled labor who can’t be promoted or leave for economic or competence reasons.