I'm too chicken to step into an actual boxing ring. I'm not too chicken to admit that though.

How about substituting Punch-Outfor the actual boxing?

I don't want to risk hurting anyone even though I never actually had my hands registered as lethal weapons. I've been openly carrying them all my life.

I've voted for "the other candidate" numerous times and never felt this way about an incoming president. I started hating trump ~35 years ago. It's not political for me. trump is evil. He always had been.

And I will never forget or forgive him for violating his oath of office on January 6th.

That's funny because most of my actual jobs have involved working on Unix systems of one flavor or another even if I accessed them through Windows most of the time. It might skew the results, because it might look like I'm coming from a Windows machine when I'm at work - because I am. But they pay me to do stuff on the Unix (and database) side. The Windows is just a convenient means of accessing it all because...well, I guess that way we don't have 30 different variants of different operating systems on everyone's desk and it's easier just to standardize and hire a few Windows sysadmins. I dunno.

But at home I've been Windows almost all the time. Right now I've got Keith Richards on one monitor, Slashdot on another and a third is just showing me what's going on outside - my security cameras, just in case the SWAT team decides to raid my house on New Year's Day.

I'd like to be able to say I had some wicked Linux configuration here, but I have other things to spend my time on when I'm home. I only became a geek because I didn't have anything else to do at the time, but now I have more things to do than I have time for. Oh well.

I got to use NeXTStep at a job for a time and really liked it but it was different enough from my previous experience on mostly System V Unix that it was hard at first and then I switched jobs again and never really played with it again.

It wasn't so much the operating system that was hard for me, but the whole Objective C vs standard C and I wanted to make everything perfect when I should haven't tried to be such a perfectionist. For example I spent way too much time making little things work just exactly the way I thought they should rather than just making it good enough for a user to get their job done.

And for some reason our database was on a Sun Solaris machine and the backup tapes were all unreadable. My predecessor had dutifully backed up the system every night but had done nothing to make sure the tapes were still usable and I guess after a few years of that none of them could be read without errors.

You know you're in trouble when you ask about their disaster recovery plan and they point to a shoebox full of unorganized magnetic tapes in your new office. Just kidding - I was too naive to ask about any disaster recovery plan back then. I just expected at least one tape would work. And I'm not even the one who deleted the thing I was trying to restore - that was my predecessor's mistake.

My boss was paranoid about the idea of someone being able to access our network via dialup and there were NeXTs two with modems, one in my office and another for someone else who needed one for some reason. I "tested" security one night from home. I just wanted to see if failed login attempts would generate any kind of logging for me to notice. I dialed into my co-worker's machine and entered her login (her first name which was the standard there IIRC). Then I entered a password I didn't think could possibly be right (also her first name, the same one I just typed for her username). I don't think I need to explain that no log was generated for a failed login attempt because that was her password.
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I almost forgot to mention this part. Part of that business was basically a media department and they published a magazine specifically for the business who were our clients (mostly landlords). They ran their own little network of Macintoshes and they liked it. I think there were only 4 employees in that department but they were incredibly low maintenance as far as I was concerned. In fact, they didn't need me at all which was good because I was running around trying to do everything else at once.

One time my boss even had me up in the ceiling pulling old cable that was leftover from some ancient computer older than NeXT, I can't even remember what exactly. All I ever saw of that system was leftover cables and a few 8" floppy disks.

I don't think Amazon is better. They routinely misdeliver items. Seeing their drivers run around it seems they're under extreme time-pressure too. My mail carrier sometimes makes mistakes, but not nearly as often especially considering the volume. My mail-carrier knows my name too. I don't know about the Amazon drivers. UPS and FedEx drivers often seem rushed too.

I think I would have benefitted from getting a Masters. My father encouraged me to get an MBA and I did take the GMAT and did well, but I wasn't excited about that and was enjoying my first "real job" after graduating from college. I have a similar undergrad degree as my father, but he did get an MBA and has done better financially than I have, but I'm not unhappy.

If I could I'd advise my younger self to do a few things differently I'd have probably gotten a Masters, but maybe not an MBA. I might have wanted to delve deeper into tech. I still enjoy that more than business or financial stuff. I'd tell my younger self to buy Apple stock and Bitcoin when they were really low and also exactly when to sell them.

Remember the sports almanac from Back to the Future? I'd prefer to gamble on the stock market than sports - seems more lucrative.

  I bought Enron stock when I should have been dumping the Enron stock that I did NOT buy years earlier when it was at a much lower price. I cannot blame my investment in Enron on my lack of an MBA though. My father thought it was a good idea and lost money as well. Just because you're smart and well educated doesn't mean you can't make decisions that in hindsight were bad.

/It seemed like a good idea at the time.

If they do, they're fancy "smart watches". I'm wearing one that was about $45. Unfortunately it doesn't have all the features of the cheaper ones I've used. I bought a couple for around $20 too. I had a telehealth appointment with a doctor and when asked if I had anything to take my BP with I mentioned one of those cheap watches - and how unsure I was if it could be trusted and the doctor told me not to bother. Sometimes it seemed accurate, but I wouldn't trust it for health purposes. Maybe if I had spent $600 on one. No thanks.

I bought it to track my sleep but I would probably do better by writing it down in a notebook because although it detects when I fall asleep most of the time if I wake up and go back to sleep it often misses that last part. Not only that, but after years of not wearing any watch at all I often don't even think to look at it when I want to know what time it is - and sometimes when I do, like earlier tonight, the battery needs to be recharged and I didn't notice the alert.

And just because I'm sure it phones home to China, I only put the app on an old phone which doesn't have service anymore. Basically, I hardly check the app anymore because the data is bad and it's not as easy as it should be to see.

No, it's because they call everybody communists/socialists/Marxists It's all just a pejorative to them much like "woke".

I do agree that those temps seem like a good compromise to save electricity, but I really see a difference between summer and winter. In winter my gas bill goes up and my electric bill goes down and I start being more efficient than the average neighbor. Typically from June through September I use more than the average neighbor. I do like my A/C, but the fan I bought helps. Oh my, that uses electricity too. I'm sure it doesn't use as much as the A/C.

I noticed a box for a fan in my neighbor's trash last week though, so they're not only running their A/C but also a fan. They got a box fan and I bought a tower fan though. I wonder if I can hijack this thread to have a discussion of which is better and why and the optimal placement of such fans.

  Also, from much personal experience including sleeping under ceiling fans I can assure everyone that I'm either dead or fan death is not a real thing. I did know someone who got hit in the head with a blade that came off a ceiling fan but it didn't kill him. I suppose it's theoretically possible though. What great timing for a freak accident - it was the last day of summer camp when all our parents came to pick us up. He was fine - they slapped a bandage on him and profusely apologized to his parents.

Someone should mod this "funny".

It's not that bad. I come from a much hotter climate than where I live now. I'm actually looking forward to seeing my electric bill.

The power company tells me how I'm doing compared to similar homes in my neighborhood. If any home used less electricity than me in July I suspect it's because it's vacant.

It's getting late enough in the year that I think I may just wait until next spring to get it fixed. Imagine getting it repaired in the middle of August with a 90-day warranty and only actually using it for about 30-45 days before the warrant runs out. I don't know what kind of guarantees or warranties are offered, but I'm imagining.

That reminds me of something Arlo Guthrie once said.

The Pause of Mr. Claus

This next song we're going to dedicate to a great American organization. Tonight I'd like to dedicate this to our boys in the FBI. .....

During these hard days and hard weeks, everybody always has it bad once in a while. You know, you have a bad time of it, and you always have a friend who says "Hey man, you ain't got it that bad. Look at that guy." And you look at that guy, and he's got it worse than you. And it makes you feel better that there's somebody that's got it worse than you

But think of the last guy. For one minute, think of the last guy. Nobody's got it worse than that guy. Nobody in the whole world. That guy ... he's so alone in the world that he isn't even have a street to lay in for a truck to run him over. He's out there with nothin. Nothin's happenin for that cat

And all that he has to do to create a little excitement in his own life is to bum a dime from somewhere, call up the FBI. Say, "FBI?",
They say "Yes?".
Say, "I dig Uncle Ho and Chairman Mao and their friends are comin over for dinner." (click) Hang up the phone

And within two minutes, and not two minutes from when he hangs up the phone, but two minutes from when he first put the dime in, they got 30,000 feet of tape rollin, files on tape, pictures, movies, dramas, actions on tape. But then they send out a half a million people all over the entire world, the globe, they find out all they can about this guy

Cause there's a number of questions involved in the guy. I mean, if he was the last guy in the world, how'd he get a dime to call the FBI? There are plenty of people that aren't the last guys that can't get dimes. He comes along and he gets a dime. I mean, if he had to bum a dime to call the FBI, how was he gonna serve dinner for all of those people? How could the last guy MAKE dinner for all those people. And if he could make dinner, and was gonna make dinner, then why did he call the FBI?

They find out all of those questions within two minutes. And that's a great thing about America. I mean, this is the only country in the world ... I mean, well, it's not the only country in the world that could find stuff out in two minutes, but it's the only country in the world that would take two minutes for that guy

Other countries would say "Hey, he's the last guy ... screw em", you know? But in America, there IS no discrimination, and there IS no hypocrisy, 'cause they'll get ANYBODY. And that's a wonderful thing about America

That's probably not fair since the last time I was in one was in 2020 early in the pandemic because I wanted a monitor right away. There didn't seem to be many employees.

I walked in and looked at all the monitors they had on display and picked one out (but of course I couldn't just grab one and take it to a cashier). I then got in a very socially-distanced line and listened to the guy who just sold a phone to some attractive woman drone on endlessly about how she could use the features. She had already paid for it! There are customers waiting and I for one was not happy about being in a Best Buy during a pandemic either. And nobody likes waiting in line that long anyway.

I finally got to the front of the line, but they didn't have the monitor I wanted in stock. And they didn't have my second choice. And they didn't have this one or that one either. I felt like I was in a Monty Python sketch which substituted monitors for cheese. I finally just asked if they had ANY monitors that they could sell me. There was ONE. Apparently the display models were not for sale, but they had one monitor I did not want so I left somewhat pissed off.

I hit Sam's Club on the way home and was in and out in 10 minutes. Reasonable price and the one I chose was in stock.

And as a side note there used to be a guy on usenet who used "Friends don't let friends go to Best Buy" or something like that. IIRC he was a frequent poster on rec.autos.driving

They might be more open to it if the police could also show it deters crime rather than being the constant eye in the sky.

Poverty doesn't force anyone to become criminals unless maybe they're literally starving and steal a loaf of bread. I don't shoplift because I don't need to. Of course there are many things I can't afford, but why would I risk the hassle of being arrested for the first time in my life over something I merely wanted as opposed to needed?

There are numerous types of mental illness. Most don't involve criminal acts.

I could see an argument for certain types of trauma leading to criminal activity later in life but that's not my field of expertise.

I'm from Houston. What "crime-ridden area" do you "volunteer" in?

If Houston had the same murder rate today as they did in 1981 when there were 701 homicides there would have been over 2500 murders last year. Feel free to check my math. It's been a while since I calculated that and I don't remember the exact number but it was over 2500. I'm just using figures for the city of Houston, not the entire metro area or Harris County.