We were just given a gift card to go to the movies as a family... I'm now dreading the experience. In a way, I feel like I'm being paid to go to the theater and watch a show and yet I'm still not looking forward to it.

It's true but... There's a guy in Ottawa who's been blogging about his Nissan Leaf through 3 winters... One technique he uses to extend winter range is to pre-heat the interior of the car by plugging it in at home/work, even if only a 120vac outlet because the interior of the car will already be warm by the time he gets in to drive. Then he keeps the interior relatively cool while using the seat heater and steering wheel heater to keep himself comfortable.

https://canadianleaf.wordpress.com/

Two AC's posting about 'the torrent site that everyone is going to' ... yup... I totally want to go there for all of my entertainment media needs ... AC has never steered me wrong before.

They should have two ribbon cutting ceremonies.. One in which the senator cuts the ribbon and officially opens the test stand. Then 5 minutes later, another one where he cuts the ribbon on the wrecking ball as part of his plan to save useless maintenance dollars when instead a pond can be built for Ducks

I don't know. I find myself offended by this sort of traffic management. Around here there's a real separation between inner-city rich people and urban-sprawlers who have to get through rich-people-land to get to work. But rich-people want quiet peaceful streets while also being able to walk to work. So they petition the city to put concrete planters, barriers, speed bumps, one-ways, etc so only they get to go through their neighborhoods and the riff-raff are confined to two highly clogged routes into the downtown core... These rich folk can often be heard at coffee shops and comment forums putting down the urban-sprawlers clogging up the streets while they themselves have built erstwhile gated communities that block off many other routes into town... My feeling is, if you want to live in the inner city, then suck it up and take the good with the bad... The bad being traffic, no parking, sirens, and street people.... If you want quiet, move out of town...

I know I'm tilting against windmills... My truck has about 14" of suspension travel. I can take their speed-bumps at the speed limit.

Or password protected RAR's which is even more infuriating because they're the correct size but the password collection thing is just a scam... I don't know how to get SABnzbd to stop downloading them and I don't know how to get Sickbeard to select a different one...

I grew up with albums. I remember many hours spent flipping through them at the record stores... But I didn't have good equipment so never really developed that Romance with vinyl that so many people have... Rare was the time that I just sat down to listen. Listening was always something done while vacuuming, or cooking, or studying or whatever... Having to flip the record or change it every 20 minutes was just a pain in the ass.. That's why I bought my vinyl and then immediately transcoded it to streaming tape...

High school aged children of my friends are all gaga over albums... They play the stuff on mom&dad's old turntables/amps in the basement... I've asked them and near as I can divine, they're into vinyl for the novelty of it. Their friends come over and they listen to records in social fashion but not because they sound better, or are more convenient, or have music available only on vinyl... They do it because it gives them something to look at while gossiping about who kissed who's whatever at the whereever... So I can't help but feel the novelty will wear off but clearly it hasn't so <shrug>.

I guess I disagree. I don't want to have to see "Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol" the first time in every article that mentions TCP/IP... I'm surprised you also didn't mention that "ARIN" wasn't expanded, or "IP"... Probably because you know what those mean. I've been in this industry for dozens of years and there are abbreviations that come up all the time that I don't know but I just google them... It's not a big deal.

Thankfully you inform the parents of all children who will come into contact with your child that there is a possibility he/she may be transmitting chicken-pox so they can make an informed decision about whether they want to let their child hang around with your child...

Also, I'm not sure where you read that the vaccine is highly likely to cause a case of CP. It was probably not a credible source because I just googled for it and could only find information that conflicts with your statement. I would be greatful if you could provide a credible citation for that statement, since it seems your reasoning revolves around it.

wow. that looks cool.

I hadn't paid attention to consumer kitchen appliances but I bought a Breville Blender and I've been nothing but impressed with it... I didn't want to spend the dough on a vitamix or whatever those thigns are ...

I wish I could find a toaster oven that works as well as my Krups (which is itself kind of a piece of shit but works better than any other toaster oven I've ever owned).

ok, so I'm off topic.

<quote><and zap them with a MIG Welder.</p></quote>

You're going to bathe them in a mixture of Argon/CO2 while poking them with a steel wire that has a small ball on the end?

wow.

I'm a fan of diesel engines, and I have two of them. I would like to see citations for all of your claims because based on what I know from many sources, each one of your claims is wrong. Did you just pull that stuff out of your butt?

I thought they were 'under-skirt sticks'...

48 here. Been coding since I was 12. Been doing it professionally since I was 18. On my team, I'm one of the younger coders. The folks who work nearest me are 51, 52, 49, and 55... There are young-uns on my team and my managers range from late 30's to early 50's in age. I ran my own company at one point, had up to 12 employees. That's where I learned that management was not my thing. I'm not a people person, I don't enjoy it, and as a result, I sucked at it. The company wasn't doing well so I shut it down and went back to working for others. The stress relief was amazing. Now I waltz in at a time that's convenient for me, and leave when I feel like it or when the work is done, depending on the current deadline. I bill for the hours I work. Annually, I get paid more than any of my managers do and I work fewer hours. They're not eligible for overtime but expectations are higher on them. As an old guy with tons of experience, I don't have to take every task they offer me. I make suggestions for things that need to be rewritten and get support for doing it. I have a fairly steady stream of solicitation from other sources so I grant myself some leeway. My current customer has had me for almost 10 years so I'm fairly certain they like what I do. Don't get me wrong, I do work hard and there are things I do that no one else on the team can do (though it'd be easy to hire someone else if they wanted).

I stay current by contributing to one or two open source projects here and there. I also hack on my own personal projects learning new skills in the process. My mind isn't what it used to be. I don't find myself 'in the zone' as often and I find that I have to force the code out of me more often. I keep wondering when someone in management is going to realize that I'm just not as smart as they think I am, but then I seem to consistently pull off something amazing and everyone's happy.

There are younger folks on my team who do some amazing things that I can't do and there are younger folks on my team who are largely useless...

I like this place in my life. I realize I'm one catastrophic medical event away from unemployment and have been saving accordingly. If necessary, I could stop working any time, simplify, and live on a fairly meager but manageable income. If I can hold it together for 7 or 8 more years, I can retire in relative comfort.

oh crap.

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HTML is trivial to learn. I use "<pre>" and "</pre>" for everything. I used "<img>" once... I also used "<blink>" once too but that was a stretch goal