Currently reading The Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow. Not sure how I feel about it yet. The positivity and inclusiveness were nice at first, but it’s being laid on so thick that it’s starting to feel uncomfortable. Like fan service in an anime.
It’s really good at making you feel like peace and progress are fragile while fascism feels iron-clad.
What do you do with the used oil? When I was a kid my family would dump it in big barrels, then we’d bury them once they got full. Obviously not something I want to do now. But I’ve asked the oil change places around here and they charge a fee to take the used oil.
I shed a tear and sing In the Arms of an Angel by Heather McLachlan every time I do this. Even for a single noodle.
It’s definitely not required, but ever since we got one I’ve grown to like it. If you have a ceramic sink it helps prevent scratches. It also helps dishes stay put, like pot lids that normally slide around. Most of all I like it when I put a strainer down. I know the strained liquid won’t touch the sink and flow back into the food, even if the risk was low before.
Ripped off the brand-ad, some would say.
I wish! It’s more of a loose collection of random business softwares in various states of abandonment. D365 CE is a platform for Sales teams to organize and track leads, quotes, contracts, etc. D365 BC is an ERP platform born out of the ashes of NAV, the core of which Microsoft bought decades ago. D365 F&O, D365 S&M, and others are various flavors of AX, another ERP platform Microsoft bought over a decade ago. They are direct competitors to D365 BC for some reason. None of these softwares can communicate directly with each other, and none allow direct access to the Azure SQL. Occasionally Microsoft will throw a bone towards integration stuff like DualWrite or Synapse or Fabric, but they can never seem to commit and eventually abandon those too.
I would actually be much happier if it was just crummy databases instead of an archipelago of rotting digital islands.
Against every developer’s advice, management has moved our entire stack to Microsoft Dynamics 365. It took over a year of prep, millions in ISV consulting charges, and it performs like trash. Now management is constantly complaining about outages, Microsoft nickles and dimes us for tens of thousands more than the estimates, and they are constantly jerking us around to half-baked tech by removing support for anything that actually works. “Want data out of F&O? We’re killing everything except Synapse Link. You spent months migrating yet it drops data? That’s not surprising since we fired everyone working on it. You should be on Fabric! No, that’s not finished either, but we need to test it on someone!”
I’m very bitter.
It worked for Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. For a while…
Plus that Gavin Belson guy keeps trying to jam his horrible signature into his products.
For those curious about the real answer, this is called compiler bootstrapping. If you want to write the first C compiler for a computer architecture you first write a very small compiler in machine code that can handle a very small subset of C. Just the most basic features. Then you use that to write a compiler in that simplified C that can handle more of the features. Do this a couple more times and you’ve got a C compiler written in C.
When I was in 5th grade my mom tried to have a teacher fired for something and I was teased about it every day until I went to high school in a different town years later. This poor kid will never hear the end of it.
This is exactly what my kid’s school is like every single morning and afternoon. 20 minutes of sitting bumper to bumper with lifted trucks and massive SUVs. I did that once before I knew what a mess it was. Now I just park a couple blocks away and walk for a few minutes. Or when it gets warm ride the bike with a kid trailer.
It’s just sickening to watch so many people waste so much of their life and money just so they don’t have to get out of their car and walk with their child for a few hundred feet.
The Liberty Hotel in Boston for those who want to avoid it.
I’m really proud of you! I started a diet two years ago and it was really rough at first. Eventually it gets easier and becomes second nature.
I had a lot of self esteem issues at the time because I felt like I had no control over myself. I realized that every time I was tempted to eat and didn’t I was proving that I was actually in control. It made a sort of motivational spiral or feedback loop.
So stick with it and recognize every small victory as proof you are capable of doing this. If you’re lucky that moment of pride can give you a tiny dopamine hit to make up for not eating that snack.
There’s a girl in my kid’s class named Eighmee. Pronounced “Amy”. I thought it was weird but there’s a street in a neighboring town named Eighmee Street.
That’s how I view it too. If you can consume something without financing further harm then the author doesn’t matter. Already own a Niel Gaiman book? Feel free to keep reading it. Pirated some metal music from a band that turned out to be neo-nazis? Go for it. Want to read Lovecraft? He’s long dead and his estate doesn’t seem to be supporting racism, so buy as much as you want. Want to check out Mein Kampf from the library? I will have questions when you return it, but you aren’t hurting anyone by reading it. Just understand the mindset that made them bad people and don’t let them sway your outlook to match.
But what if we flatten the cake and fry it in butter instead of baking it? Surely that would be healthy, right?
Hang on. It’s a little bland. I’d better pile more butter and liquified sugar on top.
Just finished Eversion by Alastair Reynolds the other day and now I’m partway through Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett. You can still tell it was written by a man, but it is refreshingly progressive and anti-patriarchy for being almost 40 years old.
This may be unpopular, but I don’t use the dividers at checkout. I just wait my turn. Once all the previous person’s stuff is scanned I start loading my stuff on the belt. By the time they finish paying, even with a tap card, I’ve got the belt full and I’m waiting again.
Some guy got mad at me at Costco recently for it. I guess he really wanted to get some stuff out of his cart while the person in front of me was still getting scanned. It feels like flooring it to every red light. You still have to wait, so what’s the point?