cheese_van

8 ms·

1.
by cheese_van 14d ago
My smart phone is essentially bricked, allowing only text and voice. I have not in the least found it "extremely painful" or "basically required" to have phone connectivity as I only use my laptop for connected activity
2.
by cheese_van 20d ago
It is an easy request. When the announcement blurring was made available, I made the request just to see if it they would do it - and they did! Now, if anyone in the neighborhood asks me, "Why is your house blurred?" I reply, &qu
3.
by cheese_van 3mo ago
Went to a new doctor. As part of the check-in process, I was asked to "sign" a little digital pad, so, as I was told, they could properly use my insurance. I asked to see the hard copy of what I was signing and they couldn'
4.
by cheese_van 4mo ago
One one hand, it's political news, which I abhor on HN. On the other hand, international travel out of SF provides underlying support for the tech industry and without it, would cause deep headaches. On balance then, yeah, I don&#x27
5.
by cheese_van 4mo ago
Yeah, we got sucked into the hopefulness, the promise and the excitement of a new technology. It was a great feeling and primarily one of optimism. I remember being blown away by the promise of HyperCard when I first read about it. That p
6.
by cheese_van 4mo ago
I certainly don't condone the experience I had in junior high school, although it seemed to work for our specific environment. As a child I went to a well funded Catholic school in Chicago. Fighting was discouraged by priests who woul
7.
by cheese_van 4mo ago
I can recommend A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. Heartily recommend in fact. And if you're like me, always looking for a series to fill the time, I can recomend the Solar Clipper series by Nathan Lowell. It's nothing dr
8.
by cheese_van 4mo ago
It didn't grab me at first but your comment makes me think I should give it another go, thanks. I remember that initially I had a world of trouble with Conrad's Heart of Darkness but I hit it again and was amply rewarded, so Ill
9.
by cheese_van 4mo ago
It seems that low quality human customer support, or rather, no support at all, has been normal for some time. I don't enjoy talking to an AI, but if they are constructed to be efficiently helpful, I welcome it, grudgingly.
10.
by cheese_van 4mo ago
In my personal experience, a divorce, money (child support), if I couldn't change it, I'd ignore it. But to ignore my own adversity, I had to intensely focus on something else, typically a new interest or hobby. I dove into medi
11.
by cheese_van 5mo ago
What aspect of technology or science is reflected in this report regarding a crime? Does this type of reporting belong on HN?
12.
by cheese_van 6mo ago
<protect our first-party products from abuse like scraping> Abuse from scraping has long been a serious problem for many, good job!
13.
by cheese_van 7mo ago
It might have been 2002, can't remember, when they upgraded the e-QIP software for the security check form. I was doing my mandatory update coincidental with the roll-out and when I got to the question, "mother a US citizen"
14.
by cheese_van 8mo ago
My offhand impression is that when I was in Germany, consumers were oddly suspicious of the Internet in general and very suspicious of social media in particular. That suspicion was somewhat translated into a lackadaisical attitude about s
15.
by cheese_van 8mo ago
I read von Daniken as a very young kid and loved it. But I read it, and enjoyed it very much, as a science fiction genre. I never bought it, but I admired the effort. And so I thank him for stimulating a child's imagination. Well d
16.
by cheese_van 9mo ago
Many thanks for this entry. Knowing the reason for the shutdown hang is very valuable. It prevents me futzing my brains out and doing damage whilst trying to repair it. I did experience something odd however. At some point during tweakin
17.
by cheese_van 9mo ago
It's less dangerous but man oh man did my life improve when I quit. I now wake up refreshed, my cognition seems sharper and my sleep now generates dreams again, which I suspect is cognitively healthier. I would very much like to see
18.
by cheese_van 9mo ago
Back when my daughter was small, I was waiting in a line to get to the ticket window at the ballpark. A woman walked up to us, said my daughter was lovely, and gave us 2 tickets to the premium section of the park (the fancy bathroom sectio
19.
by cheese_van 1y ago
Libraries are community centers in many cities and towns, and, to my own family offer much to pre-school learners in events and activities - friends are made during these events and enrich the community. Librarians offer personalized assis
20.
by cheese_van 1y ago
A few more than 30 years ago it was possible to buy plane tickets from the classified pages from people who, for whatever reason, couldn't take the flight. And of course the ticket was in their name, but no one cared. It was treated b
21.
by cheese_van 1y ago
Happened to me in the '80's. '71 Buick Skylark. When we went to lunch, our receptionist asked us to drive her Buick as it "was making funny noises." We found it in the 5 storey carpark, took it out and it drove f
22.
by cheese_van 1y ago
Speaking of junk, I was in Syria, many years ago, when it had about 250k tourists yearly, under Hafez al-Assad . I was in the company of an Assyriologist and in a shop of a vendor I knew (who sold artifacts under the table). The vendor pro
23.
by cheese_van 1y ago
Eagerly anticipating the article in some fru-fru travel blog, "Man travels 28 countries with nothing but his passport and Cosco ID." "It's a livesaver," the traveler gushed, "Never leave home without it."
24.
by cheese_van 1y ago
I lived 14 years overseas (federal agency), in various countries, and my living quarters usually had a safe room, typically just a bedroom steel door with ballistic and forced-entry protection . Additionally, my quarters usually had a guar
25.
by cheese_van 2y ago
<Maybe AI assistants in random places just aren’t that compatible with people on HN but are possibly useful for a lot of people not on HN?> Coincidentally today, I received an automated text from my heath care entity along the lines o
26.
by cheese_van 2y ago
<That’s only because doctors collude to limit the number of available residency places.> Available residency slots are dictated by the funding made available through the Medicare program and ultimately Congress.
27.
by cheese_van 2y ago
I'm ok with this decision. In my 3 decades experience of being responsible for handling and storing classified, including comsec material, no one goes to jail for mishandling classified. The only exceptions to this case might be perso
28.
by cheese_van 2y ago
<Watching this film set me off in a Herzog marathon - amazing director.> While in Alaska for the shoot, Hertzog took the time to address students at the U of Alaska in Anchorage. It was in the evening, in a teeny classroom, with only
29.
by cheese_van 2y ago
Thanks very much for this recommendation!
30.
by cheese_van 2y ago
Libraries are excellent gatekeepers for content quality. Generally, library books are scrutinized and determined as "worth paying for". Previously, publishers would do similar due diligence - someone at the house would actually r

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