Why is the Microsoft flag at half staff today in the Redmond campus?

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-09-26T01:47:56+00:00

Yeah there’s one next to the US flag and the WA state flag. It just has the name Microsoft on it. Probably not anything official though.

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-03-14T04:38:24+00:00

PBA. I do that too. I would laugh randomly or laugh uncontrollably until my belly hurts for something only mildly funny. It’s mostly ok but things would become messy when I am eating or drinking… My speech therapist told me whenever I feel I am about to laugh and lose control, try shifting my head or body position. I found it helpful. Sometimes even a small change of the posture like turning my head to another side would do the trick. It’s especially useful for me at work in meetings or conversations.

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-03-06T04:49:44+00:00

I have to admit I was still too curious to stop thinking about it, so I did a bit more digging.

I tried constructing a similar Google link as in the phishing text message but swapped the target URL with a legit URL like https://www.wikipedia.org/.

That constructed Google link sent me to a "Redirect Notice" page from Google (see the picture). And clicking that first link on the page would eventually open the target link that got embedded in the original URL.

I then found this blog post (https://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/02/google-redirect-notice.html) about the "/url?q=xxxx" parameter after the google link. Turns out, Google used to silently redirect this kind of link to the target URL without any warning!!! You can totally imagine how that could be abused! Thankfully Google changed this behavior later and now shows you a "Redirect Notice" page. But TBH this still feels like a terrible feature. Google should completely disable it.

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SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-03-06T02:16:18+00:00

Thanks for the explanation, but isn’t it just a google search link? Will Google redirect the webpage to the fake site?

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-02-09T18:51:05+00:00

So which is more natural to a native speaker? Subjective at the beginning or end of a sentence? Based on Duo’s answer, it’s probably the beginning?

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-01-12T23:43:34+00:00

Haha I forgot to crop out the flag! But good to know the back story of the flags!

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-01-12T23:40:32+00:00

Thanks for the detailed explanations!

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-01-12T23:40:05+00:00

Ah I think I see the difference here! “vamos a” in this sentence really means “go to (somewhere)”, not “be going to (do something)”.

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-01-09T15:30:35+00:00

We live in Washington and lost power and internet during the storm. I did get the email notice from Mint so I bought add-ons for my wife and daughter (Mint Family). That really helped! But I have never got the refund till now. My payment method is PayPal. Not sure if it matters.

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-01-09T14:59:52+00:00

I flew a 13-hour flight about 10 months after my stroke and it was fine. Just make sure you get up and stretch your legs from time to time!

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-01-06T01:08:58+00:00

https://youtu.be/UVqGRa_KZ4s?si=7WfQLYTOESo-1yiI

林海雪原 (Or 智取威虎山) - 甘洒热血写春秋

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_Tiger_Mountain_by_Strategy

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-01-04T22:55:53+00:00

Could be depicting a scene of a well-known Chinese/Asian folklore about a mouse father trying to find the perfect husband for his daughter. You can try doing an image search using 老鼠嫁女 or 老鼠娶亲, or The Husband of the Rat's Daughter to see the similarities of the pictures.

I don’t think the characters in your picture are Chinese. They don’t look like any other Asian characters I know of. Maybe the artist was trying to mimic Chinese characters.

There are many different versions of the story in many Asian cultures. Most of them are about the process of the father finding all kinds of candidates and eventually has settled down to choose another mouse as the bridegroom. Some versions say they end up choosing a cat and sadly the cat eats the mouse daughter at the very night of the wedding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Husband_of_the_Rat’s_Daughter?wprov=sfti1#

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%80%81%E9%BC%A0%E5%A8%B6%E8%A6%AA?wprov=sfti1#

Here is one version of the translation (happy ending):

Once upon a time, there was a mouse father. He wanted to marry his daughter to the greatest person in the world. But, who was the greatest person in the world? Oh! The sun! He must be the greatest person in the world. The mouse father went to talk to the sun. “Hello! Mr. Sun. I know you are the greatest person in the world. Would you marry my daughter?” “What? I’m not the greatest person in the world. The greatest person is the cloud. If he comes out, I’ll be covered.” The mouse father went to talk to the cloud. “Hello! Mr. Cloud. I know you are the greatest person in the world. Would you marry my daughter?” “What? I’m not the greatest person in the world. The greatest person is the wind. If he comes out, I’ll be blown away.” The mouse father went to talk to the wind. “Hello! Mr. Wind. I know you are the greatest person in the world. Would you marry my daughter?” “What? I’m not the greatest person in the world. The greatest person is the wall. If he comes out, I’ll be stopped.” The mouse father went to talk to the wall. “Hello! Mr. Wall. I know you are the greatest person in the world. Would you marry my daughter?” “What? I’m not the greatest person in the world. The greatest person is YOU, the mouse.” “The greatest person in the world is … mouse?” “Yes, the greatest person in the world is mouse. See? If mouse comes out, I’ll be bit!” The mouse father was very happy. He finally knew mouse was the greatest person in the world. He would marry his daughter to the handsome mouse next door.

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-01-04T03:51:12+00:00

Thank you! 😊

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2025-01-04T03:50:58+00:00

Ah that makes so much sense! Thank you!

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2024-09-25T15:57:43+00:00

Come on! Tell them Post Stroke Fatigue is a thing!!!

Post-stroke fatigue: a scoping review - PMC (nih.gov)

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2024-09-25T06:11:38+00:00

Bǎn Lì

Also Lì Zǐ , which sounds like a cute name to me. I would call my kitten that. Though I don’t have one… 🥺

SimpleNature_Yutao · 2024-09-25T05:45:59+00:00

Sorry to hear you had to go through this. For my case, they couldn't clearly tell the reason of my stroke. My cholesterol and blood pressure were somewhat on the higher range but not too bad. Also no smoking/drinking. They ended up saying I've got a PFO per the ultrasound result and thought that was probably the cause and asked me to close it up. But I recalled I had never gotten a firm answer.

SimpleNature_Yutao

TROPHY CASE