BC TECH
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

man, this tablet project.
so it stopped charging. it was at 23%, I charge it for a couple hours, still 23%
I turn it off and leave it on the charger for 23%, confirm it's charging, and 8 hours later... 21%

 so I get on the internet and order a replacement battery.
in the two days it takes it to arrive, the tablet somehow charges to 100%?
it arrives and I'm like "eh, fuck it. I have the battery here, that one is old, I might as well swap 'em.
I try to open up the tablet, following the instructions, and... the digitizer cracks.
it turns out the fact I had to replace the digitizer before meant that the new one wasn't glued in as well as it should be, so when I pried it open, the wrong part came off. Whoops.
that's okay, because of an amazon mix-up long ago, I actually have a spare digitizer on hand for this tablet! I can just replace that after the battery.
so I finish taking out the old battery, start inserting the new battery, screw it in, and... the power connector won't attach. Odd.
Maybe they sent me the wrong battery?
The old battery connector looks like this in my microscope.
and the new one looks like... oh shit.
so I go back to amazon and tell them "THIS BATTERY IS DOA REPLACE IT" and they're like "sure. just drop off the bad one at a drop-off place"
so I put the tablet mostly back together so it won't get damaged while I wait for the new battery to arrive, and...
oh. it's not just the digitizer. the screen cracked too. motherfucker
so I get on ebay and find the replacement screen and order that. I put the battery to be replaced back in the packaging and put it by my bedroom door, and go to sleep
I wake up in the morning and I'm like "I'm gonna go get coffee and drop off that amazon box!"

the box isn't there.
apparently while I was asleep, my lovely wife cleaned up some boxes in the room, and thought the box-in-a-box was empty. so she put it outside our room, in the hallway, to be taken to the trash/recycling. uh-oh
so I go out there and... it's not there either.

oh goody. my roommate was nice and proactive and didn't procrastinate on cleaning up boxes for trash/recycling and... it's gone.
and today is the day the truck comes and empties out the trash & recycling.
but good news:
it turns out she took it out AFTER the truck came!
I go out to the trash bins and it's sitting there, on the bottom of the recycling bin.
see it turns out that it being after the truck came makes it harder to get: if the truck hadn't come, it would have been sitting on top of a big pile of recycling.
since the truck did come, it's now on the bottom of the recycling bin.
6 feet (2 meters) away
so I go get my grabby arm thing and grab the outer box, and... it falls over. throwing the battery box out of it.

so now I can't grab the small box.
so I go back in and grab a pole I had handy and shove the battery over to the lower end of the recycling bin and FINALLY I GET IT
so now I can return it to amazon, and the recycler isn't going to get a Spicy Exploding Surprise
this is how far the story goes at the moment.

The drop-off point is less than a mile from my apartment, but at this point I half-expect that I'm going to make it halfway there and my car will get hit my a train
there's not a traintrack I'm going to cross to get there, but that's just how this project is going
anyway the replacement screen is on the way too.
it's probably going to arrive folded in half
also I'm pretty sure I passed the point where it would have been cheaper to just buy a new tablet like 8 steps back
anyway I haven't because of the Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
I can always afford a 20-30$ replacement part. I can't afford a 400$ tablet
anyway bring this fact up reminded me that a family member sent me a cheque for chrimbas, and I haven't cashed it yet. I should do that now!

and my bank's mobile app (which can cash cheques) is down.
I would normally take a screenshot of this to show you, but it turns out my phone just goes "image is null" when I try to take a screenshot. I think that's because my bank app uses that security protocol thing to disable screenshots.
normally when I run into this problem I just take a picture of my phone's screen using another device.

usually that's my tablet. *sigh*
I could use my webcam, but it turns out my webcam isn't working.
(I had a major USB Crisis the other day and disconnected a lot of USB hubs and shit to diagnose it, and haven't yet reconnected them all)
there we go, got it to work. sorta.

good to know it's on their end.
god, I bet they turned off the fucking backend servers (running cobol) for the christmas-new-year break.
just because they don't have any techs in-office to refill the punchcard bins
I say that like it hasn't been under like 8 hours since I was last researching building my own punchcard machinery.
an amusing related thing about banks and history:
I noticed that the #1 time I am most likely to brainfart and use my birth name is signing cheques.
You'd think that might make sense: I've had my current name for like a decade, cheques are getting less common, so most of my cheque-signing was naturally back in the Dark Ages of the 90s and early 2000s, when I had my boring name.
and it seems to make sense, for about 10 seconds, then you remember I'm ME.
I live in the 1990s PROFESSIONALLY.
I have like 3 Win95 machines within reach. There's actually almost a dozen pentium computers sitting on my bed right now!
but I'm never making an account on a BBS using a real dial-up modem and think "oh I'll just type in my old name here!"
it's only cheques.

More from foone

foone
foone
@Foone
Lockpicking Floppies!

I don't know why twitter is refusing to insert a card for this one. In any case, It's the @LockPickingLwyr, and it's a floppy-drive-lock.


so I've been meaning to do a video or thread on these sorts of locks myself. I have several, of different designs.

generally they're all designed vaguely like this one: it's a plastic insert that goes into the floppy drive, then it has some bit that rotates with the key to hold itself inside.

and they pretty much universally use super-cheap low-security tubular locks like this. You can probably pick most of them with a ballpoint pen
TECH
foone
foone
@Foone
WOULD YOU LIKE TO ADD HOLLYWOOD STYLE TITLES TO YOUR HOME VIDEOS?
NOW YOU CAN!


This is the Sima ScreenWriter, a device for putting titles on your home videos.


The back


It's apparently from 1992, and takes a CR2032 battery


The very minimalist IO panel. composite in, composite out, power and a switch.
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foone
foone
@Foone
Do I look like I know what an MPEG is?


di i look like i know what an mpeg is


do i liook like i pw what am ,[eg os
FUN
foone
foone
@Foone
So a weird thing about ultraviolet light, like blacklights and UV-C disinfecting light, is that it's invisible. Kinda. And also Kinda.

See there's a distinctive look to blacklights, they look like this.


But it turns out this isn't the ultraviolet that you're seeing.
See, the light produced by the bulb isn't perfectly monochromatic UV. Blacklights are in the UV-A range, which is 315 - 400 nm. The human vision range is 380-nm to 700nm.


There's a little overlap there, between the high UVA and the low end of human vision...
And there's multiple types of ultraviolet lights, but the kinds used in blacklights peak at 370nm or 340nm

so while most of the light coming out of the bulb is in the invisible UV range, some of the light is a bit higher up in the spectrum, which makes it slightly into the visible violet range.

So the light you see from UV lights is either the not-UV light it produces as a side effect, or something else fluorescing.
TECH
foone
foone
@Foone
Something that I didn't realize but hurt my brain to learn:
John Norman (aka John Frederick Lange Jr.), of the Gor series of sci-fi/BDSM novels, is still alive.
He released two books (one of them a Gor book, #35), in 2019.


I guess with the fact that the series started in 1966 and feels like it's always a historical thing... I assumed he had to have quit writing and/or died back in like 1986.

Nope. Still alive, he's 89, and was apparently still writing as of 2 years ago.

also, my brain being what it is, I totally just googled for the book's cover image by entering "trans man of gor" which is NOT the title.

in my defense, how many book serieses look like this WITH THE SAMEAUTHOR FROM BOOK #1 to BOOK #35?


Anyway if you look at any this and think it's a suggestion that you should try reading any of these novels or learning anything about them, you are quite mistaken.

Gor is bad sci-fi and bad BDSM, and you should skip it for either reason.
CULTURE

More from Tech

Novid Houellebecq (That's Hollaback)
Novid Houellebecq (Tha...
@GarouGothic
Ok, here is a thread for you.
What happens when you have:
Netflix
Apple
Amazon
WarnerMedia +
Disney+
SonyCrackle (Reboot)
Verizon All Access (after they buy CBS/Viacom)
UniversalSkyMedia
By 2021
Answer? Internet Slows To A Craw and Dies.
Why?
Bandwidth.

Netflix's gets 35% of all internet traffic.
Now we all know Apple Coming to Netflix Corner.
We know that WarnerMedia Planning One
We Know about Disney+
Now how will the net handle 8 Streaming Platforms all at once?
Answer - IT CANT.

But Novid, the speed, the 4K the all everything?
NOOOOO BUDDY.
Even if you could do it and even if AWS ran six million clouds, The Net Will still slow to a crawl. 35%, goes to nearly 90% if any of the 8 or all of the 8 eat at netflix's numbers.

Oh, they wouldn't be running at once.
FOOL. You forget how bad things were when game of thrones season premieres came around. HBO SERVERS FALL DOWN GO BOOM!

Now see if a season like 2021 come around and they air shows on a same day. It gets crazy. AT&T and others gonna realize they cant build out forever. Something will give and it might be your entertainment consumption big time.
TECH
Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
Most software founders, particularly in B2B, need to get radically better at sales. @Steli , who is the best person for explaining the scrappy stages in the beginning and then building out a team with scripts and processes, wrote a guide to:

For technical founders it is irrationally, obscenely hard to reverse years of programming (ba dum bum) that sales is a value-destroying activity. Sales is CLEARLY a value-creating activity, contingent on you have a value-creating product.

The world will not drop what they are doing to adopt your work. This is particularly true in B2B, where simply building a better mousetrap won't overcome the activation energy required to get people with additional non-mice problems to prioritize changing mousetraps today.

This is very non-obvious for founders because founders are not often people who *want* to be sold to. We often come from a background where trying out tools is a bit of a fun hobby. We like looking at all the options, making charts, and ripping out partially complete tests.

"This week I unsuccessfully trialed four software options for automating that thing that has been killing us. Our actual production process remains the same as last week. Don't worry; this was a great use of time." is not a thing you want to write in a progress report to manager.
TECH
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Robin Berjon
Robin Berjon
@robinberjon
Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details): https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.
TECH
Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
The New York Times article about SlateStarCodex is finally out and it is...bad. There's a lot I could parse, but let me just walk you through one paragraph that is so misleading as to be

Take the first sentence of this paragraph. Now, technically the clause--"who proposed a link between race and IQ"--could simply modify "Murray" and have nothing to do w/ SSC.


But 99% of readers are going to assume that the clause actually defines SSC's alignment with Murray. In other words, the author is strongly implying that SSC shares Murray's racist beliefs.

And that would be big(!)...if it were at all true. It is not. Indeed, if you go to the hyperlink, you'll find that SSC's purported "alignment" has nothing to do with Murray's "Bell Curve."

What SSC & Murray agree about is that poverty is partly hereditable and thus very sticky, so much so that the proposition job retraining programs will meaningfully address mass economic disruption is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy.
TECH
Aviral Bhatnagar
Aviral Bhatnagar
@aviralbhat
I spent 1.4 lakhs on Zomato alone this year

Once these platforms build a habit, it's hard to leave

Lifetime value of customers is immense, which recover marketing costs and more

These very "loss-making" companies eventually become money-making machines

I love the assumptions people are making here to try to work out how this is possible, but I'll not share the math to just keep this fun.

Few hints: I have excellent cardiovascular fitness, love fine + healthy dining and order with my wife and brother

Guess AOV and order freq
TECH

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Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
RISHI PINGALA:THE ANCIENT INDIAN SAGE DISCREDITED FOR HIS MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO MATHEMATICS & PHI

Have you ever heard about,"The Golden Ratio"?
The Golden Ratio or Phi(Greek) is a mathematical ratio of nature. Mother Nature is the most exquisite artist in herself.


&Its this Phi she uses to create all the beauty in World.
If anyone uses this ratio correctly in their art,it can turn into a spell-binding piece of work.Such is the significance of'Phi'.But my thread isn't about it.Its about somethin called'Fibonacci Series'&who actually made it


Phi is related to Fibonacci series(0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34...)
&this series is responsible for everything dat is beautiful on this planet. Just try to calculate the ratio of any 2 successive numbers ÷ each of them by the number before it in above infinite series.

E.g. 3/2=1.5, 5/3=1.666, 8/5=1.6, 34/21=1.61904 and so on. Did you notice something? The ratio is coming almost same every time. This ratio is called 'Phi 'which is numerically represented as 1:1.618. This Golden Spiral is made in exact proportion of 1:1.618.


The thing I want to emphasize here is that we always find only those things appealing and attractive that have Phi. It's in our subconscious. Isn't it some revelation? We are the part of this Divine proportion of the God or the Mother Nature. Check these:
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Suchi Sharma
Suchi Sharma
@Suchi_sharma_
#THREAD
1.Meenakshi Amman Temple(472ft High)also called as Meenakshi Sundareswarar is a famous Hindu temple located on the southern bank of Vaigai River in temple city of Madurai, #TamilNadu.It is dedicated to Parvati(Meenakshi)& her consort Shiva(Sundareswarar). @LostTemple7


2.Madurai Meenakshi Sundareswarar temple was built by King Kulasekara Pandya (1190-1216 CE).This popular temple visits over 15000 visitors daily & around 25000 on #Friday !Friday sees the most number of devotees visit the temple with the number going as high as +25,000.


3.Meenakshi Temple also hosts an annual festival called Meenakshi Thirukalayanam that is held in April. A celestial wedding of the god and goddess marks the end of the festival. About 1 million devotees visit the temple during this festival.


4.the temple has been tagged as one of the seven wonders of India along with stunning Architecture.The temple is built using Dravidian South Indian style of architecture, and is one of the most impressive temple structures in South India.


5.The principle deity here is MEENAKSHI, a form of Goddess Parvati. The idol of the goddess is carved in emerald hued stone. The Meenakshi idol has 3 breasts as Meenakshi was born with three breasts and was blessed that the 3rd breast would vanish once meets right man of her life
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STEALTH JEFF
STEALTH JEFF
@drawandstrike
Andy McCabe has some explaining to do.


Andrew McCabe was reported to the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs for making an unauthorized leak of classified info to the media about @GenFlynn in early February 2017.

If you’ve wondered exactly who it was who leaked the classified info from that intelligence report on @GenFlynn’s phone calls with then-Russian ambassador Kislyak to the media, you are right now seeing a huge honking clue who it was.

To those responding to this info by sneering "Nothing's gonna happen":

Up.

Your.

Game.

You just might be too stupid to be following me.

The then-Deputy Director of the FBI get's caught targeting @GenFlynn with an illegal leak so he can 'investigated' by Peter Strzok?

Now that we know it was McCabe who set up Flynn for a fake 'perjury' investigation by his pet attack dog, Peter Strzok, the next name that's going to surface is...Joseph Pientka.
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Invest Like the Best
Invest Like the Best
@InvestLikeBest
In 1937, a trucker got frustrated waiting for his cargo to be unloaded. He later sold his company for $1.1 billion.

Here’s the story of how Malcom McLean made a billion dollars and which startup could be following in his footsteps. (Inspired by our episode with @laurabehrenswu)


In the early 1950s, the shipping industry was a dying business.

New York’s docks were handling half as much domestic cargo in the early 1950s as they had been in the depressed 1930s.

In thirty years, no one had invested significant money in coastal shipping.

Why?

As McLean found out, loading ships was difficult and slow.

A truck or train would deliver items to the port. Each item was unloaded separately, recorded, and carried to storage.

When a ship was ready, each item was taken from storage, counted again, and hauled on-board.


The cost of this labor was significant. As one expert at the time explained:

“A four-thousand-mile voyage for a shipment might consume 50 percent of its costs in covering just the two ten-mile movements through two ports.”


Yet, despite the industry’s issues, it felt little pressure to change.

Foreigners were barred from operating domestically. Cartels ran international routes. And gov. subsidies eased the pain of labor costs.

Reshaping the industry needed an outsider.

Enter Malcolm McLean.
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Anu Satheesh \U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3
Anu Satheesh 🇮🇳...
@AnuSatheesh5
Velimalai Kumaraswamy Kshetram
Kumarakovil, #Kanyakumari
#Tamilnadutemples 🚩

Velimalai Kumaraswamy Temple is a Murugan temple located in Kanyakumari District of Tamilnadu.

Muruga faces east and is said to be facing Sthanumalayan (Paramashiva) of Suchindram. Muruga is of


eight feet vigraham and Valli thayar is six feet tall. Eventhough Thiruthani is believed to be the place where Subrahmanya married Valli, it is also believed that Valli’s thayar's marriage took place with Murugan here.

There is a Kalyana Vinayakar sannidhi
who helped Muruga's


marriage with Valli. Kumarakovil is also known as Kumara Kshetram and Subrahmanya Sthala. The Tamil epic Chilapathikaram refers to the temple as Chera Nattu Aeragam

Wedding of Valli and Murugan is celebrated here in the Tamil month of Panguni (March-April).

Om Muruga
🙏🕉🙏
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