limelight79
@limelight79@lemm.ee
- Comment on Stop whining. Do it yourself. 3 weeks ago:
Lemmy Explorer will do it…I think. “Newest publish time” sort is what you’re looking for, I think.
- Comment on YSK about Darkpatterns.games, a website that rates mobile games on their "Dark patterns" 3 weeks ago:
Invested / Endowed Value - Having already spent time and money to improve your status in the game, it’s difficult to throw it away.
Isn’t that every game? I can’t think of a single game, back to old Atari 2600 or arcade games, that doesn’t have this element. Many people are playing to see how far they can get, to beat the game.
- Comment on Not allowed to work from home 3 weeks ago:
Ha, actually they played themselves on that front. I don’t want to get into all of the details, but basically there’s literally not enough space for all of us to be in on the same day. There used to be, but they shrank the footprint to save money.
Honestly I think the plan from our upper management was to allow a lot of full-time remote working, but that got killed by even higher up people. So, now we have this. I actually think our upper management isn’t really the bad guy on this one and are just trying to make the best of a bad situation, dealing with idiotic requirements coming from on high.
I also think there are some artificial factors keeping it at one day a week, for now. It might go up to two at some point in the future, but a lot can happen between now and then. And two days might start running into that space limitation again, and they won’t easily be able to expand the footprint - nor will they want to spend the money.
- Comment on Not allowed to work from home 3 weeks ago:
After four years of work from home, since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ll soon have to start going back in once a week. I know, that’s a lot better than many people that have been forced into 5 days a week or similar bullshit, but it’s definitely one more day a week than I want to go in. DC area, too, so you know traffic is going to be a nightmare, as always.
I’d even be willing to go in quarterly or whatever for special meetings. But weekly? We’ve proven we can do this.
They’re pushing this whole “hybrid” working and “rethink how you work!” and “it’s all about teams!” But they didn’t require any sort of coordination on coming into the office for teams, or anything along those lines - it’s a free for all. So instead of sitting at home on a call, we’re going to be sitting in cubicles on phone calls. It doesn’t make any sense.
And even if they had decided teams should coordinate in-office days, my area in particular works with so many different teams that we’d still be remote for most of them. Or in the office every day, which would not go over very well.
But I’m sure the Popeye’s (fast food chicken place) across the street will welcome us back. The one that has survived over four years without us. No one I know has ever gone there.
We’re going to lose a bunch of people as a result. And hiring is a disaster that isn’t likely to be resolved any time soon. It’s gonna be a fun few years…
Counting down the days until I can retire. Unfortunately, there are too many, I’ll have to deal with this. Or find a completely remote job.
- Comment on There you go little guy 1 month ago:
I can see those kinds of things working in or near cities, but out where I am - fairly rural - there’s just too many miles of road to install a bunch of speed humps or similar things. It would take a monumental amount of money. They don’t even have shoulders on most of the roads. I admit even I speed when I’m driving them, although I’ll slow down for bends in the road so as not to clobber a deer, cyclist, pedestrian, etc. that might be lurking out of sight.
(I got into a fun argument here on Lemmy a few months back with someone who insisted horse and buggies should have lights, and I was like, “What happens when you come around the bend too fast and there’s a tree laying in the road?” He just couldn’t accept the problem is the driver, not the horse and buggy. Basically, that’s what’s wrong with drivers in the US: We, as a group, have a bizarre expectation that things will always go to plan.)
I’m also nervous about these solutions for another reason - I’ve seen towns install those kinds of calming measures in a way that hurts cyclists. In one example, they extended the curbs out to the lane, which does slow down traffic - but it forces cyclists who could previously ride on the shoulder into the lane, thereby further enraging drivers. I had one asshole pass me in that very narrow section some years ago, so now I make sure to ride in the middle of it, so they’d actually have to hit me. They won’t do that because they don’t want to damage their precious car, so I’m safe.
And I say this as someone that lives in an area that’s actually pretty good for cycling, that is, most drivers are actually pretty good about passing safely and all that.
- Comment on There you go little guy 1 month ago:
Interesting. Mostly what I see is people slam on their brakes near the camera, then take off again after it.
My theory: There’s so little enforcement of the traffic laws here, they might as well not exist. You’re almost certain NOT to get caught, so people will do whatever they want and will practically always get away with it. I don’t really want to argue for more cops, but when I’ve driven in areas with more traffic enforcement and visible police presence, people tend to drive much more sedately.
I drive and ride bicycle, and I would LOVE if the cops came riding with me some time. I see some of them doing the 100 mile ride for charity in our county, so I know they have people on the force who ride fairly seriously. Join one of our regular group rides wearing cycling clothes (not police gear), get another cop stationed ahead in a car or motorcycle…and start pulling over some people who buzz us or roll coal. Word would get out very quickly.
- Comment on Home Depot 1 month ago:
I didn’t see anyone link to the original!
- Comment on Oh Elon 2 months ago:
Wasn’t he on some sort of advisory committee during Trump’s first term? My memory is that they disbanded basically because it was a waste of time, for obvious reasons. Let me search…
- Comment on Make this thread look like it's your first day on the internet 2 months ago:
My 56k modem was internal, so not much to look at.
But the Hayes…
- Comment on Make this thread look like it's your first day on the internet 2 months ago:
I still have a Hayes Smartmodem 1200 here. Aluminum case and all. It’s a work of art.
A useless work of art. But still…
- Comment on Some basic info about USB 2 months ago:
Yeah. I grew up in the days of serial ports and parallel ports, and USB in general is so much better for most purposes. (I recall plugging my first mouse into the serial port…but wait! Where will my Hayes Smartmodem modem plug into then? Also, don’t plug and unplug things from the serial port while the computer is running.)
And USB-C is even better. My tablet needs a charge? Well my laptop charger is right here… My phone is low and needs a quick charge? Well my USB-C tablet charger will give it a decent boost very quickly. No worries about getting it plugged in the wrong way, either.
I have a docking station for my work laptop, so when I had to replace my personal laptop, a laptop that supported USB-C power delivery was mandatory. I don’t use it with the docking station very often, but knowing I can without an issue is great. My wife also has a Macbook that works on the docking station, too, in case she ever wants to use my dual monitor setup. All three laptops, from three different brands, are just plug in and go.
- Comment on Oh no! I dropped (5£ to) Anna's Archives. Beware the mess, people. 2 months ago:
The second one gave me a message that the domain has been seized. :(
- Comment on Elon Musk loses fight with ex-Twitter staffer, must pay $600K 3 months ago:
Shouldn’t it be an X 2.0? Did he just deadname his own company?
- Comment on USA | Police Are Increasingly Encrypting Their Radios to Block Scrutiny by Journalists 3 months ago:
A “local news” Facebook page is all up in arms about this. The page sometimes provides useful information about road blockages and the like. I’m pretty sure he just listens to the scanner all day and posts what he hears. Our local emergency services (police, fire, etc.) are replacing their radios with encrypted ones soon.
But I’ve wondered if they were simply replacing old radios, and encrypted radios are now what is available - i.e., buying unencrypted radios now might be like trying to buy an old cell phone that doesn’t do digital communication. Of course, there are solutions to the issue that emergency departments could take in the name of transparency, like streaming the communications online.
- Comment on Google Is the Only Search Engine That Works on Reddit Now Thanks to AI Deal 3 months ago:
Some subs are very negative. I remember antimlm was, as well, people spent all day mocking people who got involved in MLM schemes. I subbed for a while because my wife was in one, and I was hoping for help, advice, tips, etc., but it was all just mocking them and calling them “hon bots” or whatever the term was. I had to unsub, I don’t need that negativity in my life.
The hobby subs, on the other hand, always seemed extremely supportive, or at least the ones I was in were. For example, the radio control (cars, planes, boats, etc.) sub members were totally into it and totally supportive of whatever it was you were doing. It was inspiring and made me want to get back into the hobby. Those kinds of subs were the best part of reddit, and unfortunately we haven’t recreated that energy for things like that here - just not enough users.
- Comment on Elon Musk says SpaceX HQ officially moving to Texas, blames new CA trans student privacy law 4 months ago:
Uh shouldn’t it be Earth?
- Comment on NSA Claims It Can’t Watch a Tape It Recorded in the 1980s 4 months ago:
Can I bitch about that redaction for a bit? Someone hit our car while it was parked on federal property. There were cameras, and the security people figured out who did it (and called them, and they denied it). When we finally got the police report, all of the information for identifying the guilty party had been redacted, along with the officer’s name and any other useful information. For a literal fender bender. Shitty driver got away with it. The police report was completely useless. I can only imagine my insurance company was like, “We waited 3 weeks for THIS?” They might as well have sent over a blank page.
I get the idea behind redacting stuff in general, but that one just pissed me off.
- Comment on Is a cloud backup an acceptable backup for a home server? 4 months ago:
Because I didn’t know it existed until now. :) I’ll have to look into that, thanks.
- Comment on Is a cloud backup an acceptable backup for a home server? 4 months ago:
This is a tough one. The problem with local only backups is, what if there’s a fire?
I use Amazon Glacier to store my pictures. It’s $0.0036 / GB per month, so I pay less than $2/month for ~535 GB of storage that I’m using right now. There is also a cost for downloading, but if I need it, I’m going to be happy to pay it (and the costs aren’t crazy). Uploads are free.
(The other problem with Glacier is that it’s not really an end-user-friendly experience, nor is it something easily automated. I use SimpleAmazonGlacierUploader, a Java program someone wrote, to do it. You can also upload to S3 and have it archive things to Glacier automatically - I’ve never tried this but it should work.)
I considered getting my brother or a friend to build two storage servers (with RAID5 or something) that we’d each keep at home, and just sync to each other. Good if you have a friend or family member willing to do it (or at least host your offsite box). Down sides: Cost to build it, time to build and maintain it, cost to replace things that break, plus cost for electricity. I’ve been using Glacier for many years, so by now maybe I would have spent less on that theoretical backup system, but I also did not have to worry about it.
- Comment on T-Mobile In Trouble After It Decides To Build Cell Tower That Is 'Not Safe' For Residents 4 months ago:
I wonder what the wifi access in the school is like?
- Comment on Pioneering internet messenger ICQ shuts after 28 years - CNA 4 months ago:
I have no idea why I remember mine, 520009. Haven’t used ICQ in many years; I didn’t know it was still up.
- Comment on Galaxy S10 til the wheels come off 4 months ago:
I have an old S9 right here on my desk. I cracked the screen, and took it to one of those screen replacement places, and he asked if I had insurance. I told him I didn’t, and he said, wellllllll it’s going to be a lot more expensive than you think to replace this screen.
That wraparound screen they had was basically also the frame of the phone - you’re not so much replacing the screen as you are moving the rest of the components to a new phone body. I wasn’t sold on value of that wraparound screen in the first place; this didn’t improve my opinion of it.
We put a plastic screen protector on it and a new case, and I used it for a few months until we were ready to upgrade phones.
- Comment on What everyone gets wrong about the 2015 Ashley Madison scandal 4 months ago:
Some kind of miracle, I know. Actually I got more messages, but many of them were either spam or never even made it to a date.
- Comment on What everyone gets wrong about the 2015 Ashley Madison scandal 4 months ago:
Back when I was in online dating (I got married in 2010, so it has been a very long time), this is how it seemed to work in the hetero arena:
- Women (by which I mean, legitimate accounts from women who were actually looking for dates): Get 1,000,000 messages, approximately 999,900 of which are dick pics.
- Men: See 1,000,000 ads, of which about 3 are legitimate people looking for dates.
So, both could be true in relation to the image.
I remember a guy once telling me that basically you have to respond to EVERY AD and hope something sticks. I never did that, and I felt bad for what the women must have had to deal with when I heard that. I had very limited success - dates with, at most, two or three women, and none of those really went anywhere. I ended up marrying someone from work instead.
- Comment on Arizona toddler rescued after getting trapped in a Tesla with a dead battery | The Model Y’s 12-volt battery, which powers things like the doors and windows, died 4 months ago:
Most cars I’ve used with it won’t lock until you put it in drive or start moving at a certain speed; I assume that’s because of incidents like this one.
- Comment on Elon Musk Begs Advertisers to Return as Twitter's Revenue Plunges 4 months ago:
I can’t find the exact quote right now, but I saw in another article he said something like, “If they don’t pay for advertisements, X will be gone.”
It seems Musk thinks he’s tending another Mona Lisa or some other world cultural artifact that society would hate to lose. Not some website that’s fairly easily recreated by, say, a bunch of hobbyists.
- Comment on xkcd #2929: Good and Bad Ideas 6 months ago:
I prefer to cut the top off.
- Comment on xkcd #2929: Good and Bad Ideas 6 months ago:
Yeah, I’ve used mine while cycling in freezing temperatures without an issue.
- Comment on xkcd #2929: Good and Bad Ideas 6 months ago:
It might just be a joke. I use transitions in my cycling glasses, where I might be in shade or when it starts to get dark (but I’ll still have something protecting my eyes). I use regular sunglasses in the car, as transitions generally won’t work there.
- Comment on Tesla to lay off everyone working on Superchargers, new vehicles 6 months ago:
SpaceX also has Starlink. I don’t know how it’s doing financially, but I do know it’s quite popular in places where wired internet isn’t available, and for people who are mobile. I’ve even seen pictures of cruise ships using it for internet access.