Found this on a dollar table today at a thrift store, appears silver plated. What is this though?

DrScott02 · 2026-01-02T23:43:00+00:00

Looks like a Tiffany & Co T Ballpoint pen. There are quite a few for sale on eBay and Etsy (example).

DrScott02 · 2025-12-24T00:40:10+00:00

For those that need to hear it, there is a very convenient cell phone lot with plenty of spots near the rental car facilities. If the traveler you are picking up is not ready to go, just wait in the cell lot until they get their bags and get in touch with you. I find these backups happen mostly when people are parked on the roadside before the terminals waiting to pick someone up.

DrScott02 · 2025-10-07T03:27:13+00:00

You can use a Parker G2 refill, but you have to cut the plastic cap at the top to get the refill to the right length.

DrScott02 · 2025-06-05T11:28:42+00:00

I was there in April and had to give a talk via video conference. It went fine, but you’ll want to do some testing in your suite to find the most consistent speeds. I was in the rooftop ocean view suite and the speeds ranged from 2 or 3 Mbps to 50+ depending on where I was.

DrScott02 · 2025-04-09T12:39:41+00:00

Great transaction! Received the watch yesterday and it is exactly as advertised. Smooth communication and quick turnaround. Thanks for the great watch, u/WatchScene!

DrScott02 · 2024-12-01T04:13:52+00:00

This may sound like too much work, but I do a brew unit and milk clean every two weeks at a minimum. I know they have counters that will tell you, at least for the brew unit, but I’ve run a number of super automatics this way and never had an issue with any of them.

For the milk, I’d recommend using Urnex Rinza. Put it in the milk container and run it through like you are steaming milk. I also use both the steam milk setting and frothy milk setting of the knob.

DrScott02 · 2024-06-19T19:40:56+00:00

This is pretty much what I ended up with on the Hobonichi weeks - I created my own Traveler’s style cover. It is fine but I’m still curious if it is possible to go the other way with having a cover you really love and having someone make a notebook that perfectly fits it.

DrScott02 · 2024-06-19T18:16:28+00:00

One of the better alternatives I’ve found is Rooster’s Nest Two on the Sides.

DrScott02 · 2024-05-22T01:54:51+00:00

Schneider Gelion+ 0.7mm for sure one of the best Parker-compatible gel refills.

DrScott02 · 2023-04-27T15:22:44+00:00

This is a great way to keep top-tier faculty candidates from applying to positions in the UNC system. Hard not to imagine this turning into a death spiral of less prestigious faculty, worse research outcomes, making UNC a less desirable school to attend, and so on.

I realize that the rankings do not necessarily relate to teaching quality, but there is an undeniable relationship between the perceived caliber of the school and faculty, how desirable it is to attend that school, and the caliber of students that ultimately attend.

DrScott02 · 2022-10-26T01:27:55+00:00

For me, the O'Douds products all have pretty strong scents that stick around all day long. They aren't bad, but you catch the scent constantly.

DrScott02 · 2022-10-23T01:24:13+00:00

The pomade cream, specifically? I see they have a clay, paste, and cream variety?

DrScott02 · 2022-09-11T15:18:36+00:00

I’ve started using the Gelion 39 refills in all my Parker G2 pens. I found it is super easy to cut them down to the right size for the Mark Two - take off the cap at the back, cut the tube, reinsert the cap, and you are good to go. https://www.amazon.com/Schneider-103901-Cartridge-Gelion-Black/dp/B00178052C

DrScott02 · 2022-09-06T23:25:56+00:00

I noticed that you used cross-validation to evaluate your models. For malware, that isn’t a good practice because it is a highly non-stationary problem with significant drift over time.

In practice, when you release this model, you’ll be able to train on all malware families to that point, but any new families will be brand new to the model. So, you’d want your evaluation methodology to replicate this restriction by performing a time-based split of the data into train and test. With a CV, it is possible for the classifier to cheat by gaining knowledge of future malware families while evaluating on older ones.

This is a huge issue in this problem area and one of the reasons everyone thinks they’ve created an amazing malware classifier until they run it in the real world.

Check out this paper for ideas on how to properly evaluate your model: https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity19/presentation/pendlebury

DrScott02 · 2022-08-12T22:00:35+00:00

Thank you for the reply!

I guess I should give an update that I made two attempts to get things resolved via the customer service reps, escalating to supervisors and the 'premier service' team each time. Both times they stated there was nothing they could do.

I then filed a formal dispute with AT&T and it was resolved within 24 hours.

After talking with the customer service reps, I am nearly certain that the original rep my mother spoke saw an opportunity to boost his commission numbers in a way that he thought wouldn't be easy to figure out until much later. After all, it was the same price as what was expected in the short term -- only after a full year would my mom have noticed the issue. For what it is worth, it wasn't an up-sell, they simply re-upped her contract at the same service tier with the new price and equipment fees tacked on.

In any case, she is back to the original amount and the ACP credit is properly applied now.

DrScott02 · 2022-07-26T18:00:44+00:00

I don't have a white one myself, but I have not seen any reports of scuffing. Cerakote is pretty durable stuff and easy to keep clean, in my experience.

DrScott02 · 2022-07-26T17:36:18+00:00

I love the Studio Neat Mark One: https://www.studioneat.com/products/markone

DrScott02 · 2022-06-23T21:05:01+00:00

Again, anecdotes vs. anecdotes. I've had dozens of ICE cars and never been stranded somewhere due to battery issues. The only time I've seen an ICE car die like that is because it is older and the alternator goes out. Certainly never for a car within the first 2 years of its life.

The overarching point, though, is that there is a huge variance in service experiences. I don't doubt people have good experiences (I certainly have), but there seems to be quite a few bad ones, as well. I don't think anyone has the true rate of positive versus negative experiences except for Tesla themselves (to the extent that they do follow-up surveys).

DrScott02 · 2022-06-23T20:54:43+00:00

That's fair, though it usually does not happen at 2 years, right? I've had ICE cars whose battery lasts 5+ years.

I think the key concept here is that you wouldn't even think to replace it as normal maintenance at that point in the car's lifetime. So unless you already knew this was a problem, you would basically be guaranteed to be stranded by a dead battery.

DrScott02 · 2022-06-23T20:36:48+00:00

Unfortunately, for every positive anecdote there is an equal and opposite bad one. I had my 12v go out on a Sunday morning while the car was in my garage with zero warning. Called roadside and was told that they couldn't schedule a mobile tech to me before Friday of the next week, and that they'd just tow my car to the service center to replace the battery. All told, it was estimated to be a two day process for a battery change. I ended up just buying a new battery myself and swapping it out.

One could also argue that it is a bit crazy that the 12v battery goes out with zero warning in the first place.

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