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What. the. hell?
  • Don't say, "against their students", say, "against their customers". Which makes it sound even more ridiculous.

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    Trump is 'hanging himself' with his own rope as campaign spirals out of control: analyst
  • My question is how much "likely" translates to "voted". It seems easy to respond, "Yes", when asked on the phone, but requires a bit more enthusiasm to actually go stand in line and cast a vote.

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    What is your favorite mythological figure (of ancient religions only)?
  • Actually...yes. At least for the "war criminal". I think the point is that you can't hide your inner feelings from the feather. So if you genuinely, in the deepest depths of your heart, have no qualms about bombing civilians then you're fine.

    I think this points out the fundamental relativistic nature of morality and how the feather copes with it. Everyone has some sort of moral compass, and the feather measures how true you were to it. And really, what more can you ask of anyone? Decide, for yourself, what is right and what is wrong and stick to it.

    Putting aside the fact that a toddler probably lacks the intellectual or emotional development to have a truely personal morality, I cannot imagine that someone who "broods" all their life over kicking a kitten when they were three is anything other than the nicest most moral person you'll ever meet. I don't think that have any trouble with Anubis and Thoth.

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    Trump is 'hanging himself' with his own rope as campaign spirals out of control: analyst
  • Agreed, but I don't know the mindset of those people and how to think of them. Do we just take them out of the voter pool? Are they potentially swing?

    My take on 2016 was that the Dems were deeply unenthusiastic about Hillary - and who can blame them - so they didn't show up to vote. On the other hand the Reps were stoked about Trump so they turned up at the polls.

    Swing voters? I don't get it. I cannot see any rational person sitting in the middle comparing Trump and Harris and picking Trump as a better presidential option. Irrational people? My gut tells me they they are probably sitting and the far ends of either camp.

    My guess is that the people closer to the middle aren't actually swing voters, but they are far more likely to have their enthusiasm to vote influenced than the true believers.

    The big question, in my opinion, is how much - or how little - the polls reflect the enthusiasm to go out and vote. My impression is that Dem enthusiasm in high right now, while not so much for the Reps. It's possible that a 50/50 poll may hide the fact that a big chunk of one of the 50% is much less likely to actually vote.

    I'm Canadian, so I see the news but I don't have day to day experience with US voters. Of course, neither do the 90% of Americans that don't live in those swing states.

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    Trump is 'hanging himself' with his own rope as campaign spirals out of control: analyst
  • Isn't that true about all US elections? There are no "undecided" voters, just Dems and Reps and the result is always based on who can motivate their voters the most.

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    What is your favorite mythological figure (of ancient religions only)?
  • Anubis and Thoth weighing the heart of the dead to see if it is as light as a feather before letting them into the afterlife.

    I love the idea that there's no "do this, do that", or a concrete set of rules or commandments. But the idea that if you can look back on your life, and if your heart isn't weighed down with the burden of all of the things that you did that know we're just wrong...then you can go on to the afterlife.

    It's just no much more of a reasonable, adult approach to morality.

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    TIL about Reverse Polish notation, which is a different style of writing math equations. 3+4 is instead written as 3 4 +. One pro is that it removes the need for the Order of Operations.
  • Generally, with RPN you work from the inside out letting the results from operations inside the brackets sit on the stack until you need them. So the need for Order of Operations isn't removed, but you don't need special keys on the calculator for it. You do have to keep track of what's where on the stack, but this becomes second nature after a while.

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    Use eSIM plans on any Android phone with this handy adapter - Android Authority
  • The travel eSIMs are a bit different. My Orange plan covers Turkey and the UK, which I specifically wanted, and probably Switzerland as well. For my wife, I needed to get a "world" plan that covered Turkey, otherwise the Europe plan would have covered the UK.

    But that's an important point. The travel plans are NOT the same as regular plans in some ways.

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    Use eSIM plans on any Android phone with this handy adapter - Android Authority
  • I would have a couple years ago. In a flash. We replaced our phones a while back specifically to have eSIMs. It truth, considering the cost of Canadian roaming plans the phones have already paid for themselves.

    Both of our old phones were single SIM, so using a local SIM would mean disconnecting our Canadian numbers which would put us out of touch with people back home. Which means that this card wouldn't have work for us either.

    I was at the point of looking at buying a portable WiFi hot-spot, when I found out about eSIMs. So we went that route.

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    Use eSIM plans on any Android phone with this handy adapter - Android Authority
  • I have an Orange eSIM with a France number that I have kept alive by reactivating it at least once every 6 months. It's good for all Europe, without roaming charges, so that's easy to do. Having the same number all the time is convenient, but more importantly I have gone through the hassle of providing passport info to Orange, which is a government requirement if you want a number for more than a couple of weeks. I think that's an EU thing.

    The local number is good for calling hotels and for making restaurant reservations. Just having that is a game changer.

    For my wife's we don't need a number, so I just use Nomad for her data only eSIM, and get a new one each time. The cost is about $12-15, and you get whatever carrier you get, but the service has been good so far no I keep using Nomad.

    We can text each other using WhatsApp, and you can even use WhatsApp for voice calls. The sound quality is acceptable.

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    Use eSIM plans on any Android phone with this handy adapter - Android Authority
  • We bought phones that support eSIM because we do a lot of travelling. Canadian mobile companies charge usurious rates for roaming: $15/day! Times two phones. I can get 2 weeks of data only for Europe for about $11 total on an eSIM. With voice it goes up to about $25. Total.

    It has changed our lives when we travel.

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    Do I need open unifi or is a simple router okay for my setup?
  • Note that even if you start with an integrated wifi/router you can always by a stand-alone replacement for one function and continue to use the original unit for the other. For instance, I use my ISP supplied wifi router as a router and turn off its wifi, then use mesh wifi for whole house coverage.

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    What type of pen do you prefer to use?
  • Platinum also makes fountain pens. The Plaisir is notable because the cap seals incredibility well. The result is that it can go a loooonnnnggg time unused and the ink won't dry out and clog it up. A great pen for those that only occasionally need to use a pen. Fairly cheap, too. Around $20, I think.

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    What type of pen do you prefer to use?
  • Vintage Esterbcook nibs are often quite scratchy. Late 1940's and onwards Schaeffer pens have a much stiffer nib design and may be acceptable for modern carbon copy applications. I can't remember what that newer nib design was called, maybe "Imperial" or something like that.

    Also, the hooded nib of a Parker 51 could probably stand up to carbons too.

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  • Group Shot

    For some reason, the wife decided to pull out all of the amigurumi critters that she's made since she started doing this at the beginning of the year.

    So, here you go, the group shot:

    !

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    The Wife's Latest Creation

    !

    She said that the pattern was awful and that she had fudge all kinds of stuff to make it work. The hat needed to be completely redesigned.

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    Still Not Ready?

    I'm beginning to think that this sub will never be ready. What's the hold-up????

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    Amigurumi!

    The wife has started to make these amigurumi creatures. Here's her latest two.

    She uses worsted weight wool (she tells me) which generally results in bigger creatures.

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    I wanted one of these back in 1980 when I was 16. I remember that they were $1,200, but they might as well have been $1,200,000 as far as I was concerned.

    Many years later I had the $$$ to buy one, and this one is a beauty. Koa, with Bill Lawrence pickups.

    Look at all the knobs and switches!!!

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    I live in Canada, where we are graced with the most expensive cell phone plans in the developed world. One of the "features" of my plan is something they call "Roam Like Home". With this feature, I can use my data and time from my plan just like I haven't gone anywhere, for the low, low price of $15 a day!!!

    This is activated automatically the moment that they detect that I am roaming. I cannot opt out of this "feature", and the only way to avoid it is to put the phone in airplane mode and then activate wifi. There is a cap to the number of days you can be charged, but runs on a calendar month basis, so if you are away across the end of the month, you can get charged more than that maximum.

    For me, the answer came in the form of eSIMs. I ditched my old Galaxy S9, and bought a Pixel 7 in May. Then I purchased an eSIM for France for both data and talk (30GB for 30 days for around €45) and went to France for 24 days.

    I was really pleased with the Pixel 7 in the week or two that I had it before we left on vacation. The battery life was way better than the S9, and 2 hours at the gym, with YouTube Music on Bluetooth and "Strong" running to track sets and timing left me with close to 90% battery left. It would be closer to 50% on the S9.

    No heat issues here in Canada.

    When the plane landed in France, the eSIM automatically activated, and I turned it on for both data and voice/SMS. Nothing could be easier, and it works like a charm.

    At around this time, the issue with hot Pixels started, and eventually Google found the issue with their servers that was causing this. Hot Pixels with short battery life faded from the news.

    But not for me.

    Ok, so battery life was still better than my old S9, but not by much. And it got hot, too. It seemed to be particularly bad when I set up a hotspot for my wife - as this was the plan, she would use wifi off the Pixel hotspot since her phone doesn't support eSIMs. Out and about, I could expect to lose up to 15% in the first hour, and then it would maybe go even faster after it was down below 70%.

    Taking pictures seemed to be especially hard on the battery, too. Not surprising, really, as the new camera features use a lot of computing power. We had Android Auto in our rental car, and Google Maps would drain the battery at almost the same rate that the car would charge it.

    I was waiting for the new updates to drop, hoping that might have a fix, but as of June 13, we still haven't seen it. In the meantime, we've returned to Canada and I've turned off the eSIM.

    And now the battery life is back to where it was before we left. I haven't once noticed the phone getting hot either.

    So there you go. Has anyone else noticed this kind of issue with eSIMs?

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    When will this sub be ready?

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