Does the pet store offer returns?

The feds blackmailed and jailed some of the most respected members of the community. That’s kinda when it fell apart.

• Step 1: Figure out why you’re not doing thing.
• Step 2: Take steps to address the reason why you’re not doing thing.

Seems simple, and in a way it is, but in other ways it can be very difficult.

On step 1, I recommend first researching the term “maladaptive daydreaming”. Seems relevant to what you’re describing.

Council Bluffs, IA. I once had family there and there’s a story in our family. One of them had a radio of some sort that works on trucker frequencies and he overheard a conversation between trucker CBs that went something like:

• “I’ve never been to Council Bluffs before. What’s it like?”
• “Well, if the earth needed an enema, Bluffs is where they’d put the tube.”

It used to be a railroad town, but the railroad pulled out and left economic carnage in its wake. Meanwhile, Omaha, just across the river, is comparatively very affluent with skilled jobs in tech, so Bluffs is kindof “the slums” (casualties of the worst end of capitalism.) and Omaha is all gentrified and hip, which rubs salt in the wound, and those who are still in Bluffs are the ones who lacked the wherewithal (luck, credit (social, financial, or otherwise), mental health, etc) to move to Omaha. Last time I was in Bluffs (and that was even before I knew the rail background story) it really felt like there was just a pall over the whole place. The strangers you saw at the grocery store or whatever just seemed “down and out” in an undefinable way. The local government seems some combination of corrupt and incompetent and the few folks I know of who still live in Bluffs there are racists and MAGA nuts and grifters and (I say this with love) deeply mentally ill. It’s a disturbingly strange and depressing place.

Bah! Ok, yeah. That’s super annoying. Hopefully they move uncharacteristically fast for you.

You sure deleting your cookies wouldn’t fix it?

Very possible it wouldn’t, but it’d be the first thing I’d try.

Tardigrade’s underwhelming skill on the micro-cello is greatly outstripped by Tardigrade’s enthusiasm.

He’s bowing on the wrong side of the bridge.

Some of these are more than just one sentence, sorry.

“I just do what I’m told. That’s why I’m paid the big bucks.”

“Yeah, I quit <previous position> because the management wouldn’t step in to help me with <problem>, so the team was just completely run by the biggest personalities.”

“They don’t pay me enough to be on call outside business hours.”

“Yeah, I never turn my camera on in Zoom meetings.” (Particularly good if you have a remote position. Triggers scrum people because “Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication”.)

“Oh yeah, all the tickets where I work are super detailed. Really helps avoid distractions like having to go talk to the person who filed the ticket.” (Have you heard agile people “working software over comprehensive documentation” or “a ticket is a placeholder for a conversation”?)

“Why? Oh, I don’t know why they wanted me to do <such-and-such feature>. I just did it because they asked me to.”

“How is the business supposed to plan without the dev team coming up with an estimate in days up front?”

“Yeah, we’ve gotten better with our daily scrum meetings. They’re only like an hour now-a-days.”

“Yeah, we do demos every sprint. They go a lot better now that product doesn’t attend any more.”

“Yeah, <name of most senior dev> is the person who always works on the sprint goal. Everyone else works on whatever they’re a SME in.”

“Yeah, we missed the Big Deadline™. It was <intern>'s fault.”

“I think it would be better for the company to outsource its IT department.”

“Our JIRA board columns and swim lanes are standardized across the department ever since the JIRA Enforcement department took that over.”

And this next bit is just me editorializing. I personally have mixed feelings about agile in general. I’ve seen it completely disregarded to great peril, and I’ve also seen it taken extremely seriously in ways that actively cause problems. (Problems bad enough to be dealbreakers that prompted me to leave that particular employment position.) I also have great respect for the agile coach at that place, but there were definitely things he did that pissed me off too.

So, in the debate of agile vs. not-agile, I guess I think what’s best is for everyone to just appoint me supreme dictator for life so I can teach them all the right way to do things. 🫡

• Get one made that says “kick me”.
• Give it as a gift.
• You know who.

In my efficient capitalism?

(/s)

LLMs aren’t capable of doing any better. The only reason you or anyone might think they are is because of aggressive marketinggrifting by the very few people in a position to profit by convincing the world LLMs are basically the main ship computer from Star Trek when in fact they’re more like ELIZA.

As a super Dune nerd, Erasmus.

From DC: Larfleeze and Volthoom tied. Oh! The Anti-Monitor too.

From Supernatural (the TV series), Crowley is amazing.

BSG: Dr. Gaius Baltar.

Username checks out.

Can’t tell if its the propaganda machine invading, or annoying teenage tech-bros who are detached from reality.

Does it matter? Either way, it’s just a symptom of the hype/bubble around “AI” lately.

Me with an inclined plane: “Challenge accepted.”

Because Democrats are less petty?

• Video Killed The Radio Star cover by The Presidents of the United States of America
• Major Tom (Coming Home) by Shiny Toy Guns
• Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These by Marilyn Manson

Way ahead of you.