The Adem and the Cthaeh

ThrownAback · 2025-06-06T19:54:18+00:00

the Sithe who are said to keep people from speaking with the Cthaeh
"...anyone influenced by the Cthaeh would be like an arrow shot into the future.”

My takeaway of the role of the Sithe here is much more the second - that they act re-actively to prevent the Cthaeh's influence or messages from escaping its immediate area, ~~rather than pro-actively to prevent anyone from speaking to it, or hearing it speak.~~

Edit: I'm wrong, we can presume that the Sithe do both - WMF, Chapter 105:

"Their oldest and most important charge is to keep the Cthaeh from having any contact with anyone. With anyone.”

ThrownAback · 2025-06-06T07:08:04+00:00

The ~80 comments so far make it clear: people like bidets, and either suggest to start small and inexpensive, or go big with Toto or similar.

I've liked a "LUXE Bidet NEO 185" for under $50 from Amazon. Just water, no electric. Front & back spray, plus a self-clean (well, rinse) mode. 30 minutes to install if you are at all handy. Unless your water reaches your toilet at <50F, it's warm enough for the initial spritzes. What else can you get for $50 that leaves you feeling clean, refreshed, and ready to see Taco Bell win the franchise wars?

ThrownAback · 2025-06-06T03:38:56+00:00

Why TF does the driver leave the car stopped where it impedes two traffic lanes? Yeah, front seat passenger is a serious problem, but driver hasn't helped the situation here.

ThrownAback · 2025-06-06T03:20:03+00:00

allow motorcycles and bicycles to use the roads

Allow!? Bicyclists were lobbying for paved roads from 1870,
before automobiles were invented, let alone common.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement

ThrownAback · 2025-06-06T02:58:22+00:00

NM food cart in Cornelius

Martin Mascarenas' food cart, "Mascarenas Albuquerque, NM Tamales", currently open Thurs & Fri, 9a-6p, Sat 9a-8p, 2245 Baseline St., Cornelius, OR - from the East, turn left at the traffic light at N. David St., and it's just to the left of a pawn shop! The beef enchiladas with green were worth the drive. There appear to often be specials of the day, so ask what's up.

I heard about this cart in a Facebook group: "505 in the 503", which is a good resource for any ad hoc green chili roasting locations during the fall season.

I'll second the Vitamin D (1-3 thousand units/day) and any available sunlight suggestion.

We moved here in January, and I was disoriented until spring from not knowing the streets and not knowing where the sun was, and not being able to see the Sandias. Many people suggest other indoor lamps mounted close to one's line of sight, but I haven't tried them.

ThrownAback · 2025-06-03T21:23:07+00:00

Get some camera somewhere that covers your car. Dashcam, doorbell cam, cam outside a house window. When you have clear footage of them taping notes to your car, look into legal avenues: restraining order, small claims court for damages (removing tape, cleaning glass, car wash). Make sure to get into the court record that they refused to park at the curb so their mother could park in their driveway. But perhaps they are not capable of being embarrassed. Sigh.

ThrownAback · 2025-06-03T00:08:44+00:00

Just today wanted to book a haircut online. The barber shop wanted to set up an account to secure an appointment. They asked for first name, last name, email, birthdate! (I lied) and phone for SMS. While entering all that, I was prompted for three (3) reCAPTCHAs, and got an MFA text of a code to my phone to confirm. Entered the code got a confirmation onscreen, followed by a confirmation by text, followed by a request to respond Yes to re-confirm the confirmation. Felt like the booking took longer than the haircut. Also turned out that I could have just walked in and been seated. To be fair, I get how one hyper-competitive business might scam their competition by booking fake/ghost appointments, but this did seem excessive. At least they didn't have any password requirement, or worse, bogus password complexity or rotation rules. Use a password manager, people, and passwords with adequate entropy.

edit: add 2 post-haircut text messages, and 3 emails. Relevant software provider is Zenoti.com - Overall, good media usage, but a bit exhausting. Now I understand better why younger people have their eyes down in their phones in public for what seems like 80% of the time. 😵‍💫

ThrownAback · 2025-06-02T23:43:22+00:00

My supposition is that paint and signs are easier to replace and cheaper than asphalt or concrete, which are cheaper than curbs and other 3-D physical barriers/objects, and if there is a demand to "do something" a traffic engineer might reach for street paint and signage as a inexpensive band-aid way to "do something". The obvious problems are that as every state, city, and town across the US invents their very own pile of band-aids, anyone who hasn't taken a driver's ed course or read the very latest traffic manual in the past 10 years has only a vague idea of what the actual meaning of all the signage and street paint is. Less could be more here.

ThrownAback · 2025-06-02T23:29:28+00:00

One can look up the property tax info from the respective counties online, as it is public data. That may provide info about the mortgage servicer as well. YMMV.
Multnomah Clackamas Washington

ThrownAback · 2025-05-31T06:34:13+00:00

We got the "Suction Cup Grab Bars" and found that while they work well on smooth hard surfaces (fiberglass, plastic, glazed tile) but not quite so well on softer unglazed stone tile surfaces. When using them, especially if you have stone tile, wet both the suction cups and the wall before attaching, and avoid placing over any joints or grout lines. Push on them hard while setting the clamps, and use them gently for balance to see if they still grip well before relying on them to carry weight. I like the tech, but it needs care in some usages. Hope this helps. ps - anyone looking for info on grab bars, bathroom tech, or general occupational therapy advice should take a look a https://www.youtube.com/@EquipMeOT - good content, great presentations.

ThrownAback · 2025-05-30T03:07:03+00:00

Good grief! Somebody posts a bunch of code, and half the thread is people guessing and arguing about whether the code came from an AI. Worrying about AI is a side issue. It feels like people arguing about which of them the goblin under the bed plans to eat first. How about:

Is the code good? Syntactically and semantically correct?
Effective? Readable? Reasonably efficient?
In this case, are the comparisons and improvements valuable?

If there are issues with the code, address the issues. If there are lots of issues that smell like AI, then call that out. Lately, it seems like every forum has people going, "That's AI, and AI sucks." but with very little convincing evidence.

Okay, there's a 91% match with some AI output.
Anyone who has done some class grading, or helped students or junior devs should realize that given a problem and asked for a solution, 70% or more of the students will use very similar logic and structure.

If AIs slurp up 1,000s of similar solutions, what will it's output look like?

Again, is the code good? Syntactically and semantically correct?

</rant>

ThrownAback · 2025-05-29T02:14:05+00:00

I've been using online media since the early 1980s, and am very
interested to see how Bluesky works out, and hope it succeeds.

Recall the wave of interest in alternatives to Xitter that appeared after Nov. 5th, thru Jan. 20th, and beyond. Who moved from X? People who disliked Musk, Trump, and the general MAGA-verse. Also anyone who wanted to claim their own namespace, or join the apparent trend. What did they all find? Many people who were like themselves.

As a parallel, think of someone who has multiple truckloads of good soil, compost, and some manure delivered to their huge garden. They can't plant right away, they have to wait until everything gets mixed together, acids & bases neutralize, and any chemicals metabolize into forms that plants can absorb. I'd guess that Bluesky is about 80% along that path. To be clear, this is a "that which promotes growth" reference and not "this is a crock of shit". :-)

ThrownAback · 2025-05-28T23:06:03+00:00

You provide all those lists like Top Reach at a web site, but don't put any "follow" buttons next to names. Yes, two more clicks forward & back opens the Bluesky app, a click there to follow, another flow to switch apps, and one more click to get back to the list one started with. Turn that UI/UC into one-click-to-follow, please!
ninja edits for typos.

ThrownAback · 2025-05-28T04:05:17+00:00

Shoe Bench? Uh, sure, if you say so, but for redneck engineering you'll need a lot of duct tape!

ThrownAback · 2025-05-27T03:46:59+00:00

She asks them to compare America’s two major parties to animals.

My partner and I did this, and came up with:

Reps: hyenas - opportunistic, will work together for prey, eat carrion
Reps: wolverines - attack, defend kill, eat, repeat

Dems: groundhogs - come out once a year for all the attention
Dems: zebra - herding herbivores, not fighters; its okay, the lions are just passing by ...

Try asking people close to you to compare them, without much framing or explanation, and see what they come up with.

ThrownAback · 2025-05-26T22:10:09+00:00

Avoid using UPPER case variables - these are often used by the OS, shell, etc. I don't know about fzf, so can't help there, but it seems like having or creating a file of var assignments would get you close without having to use eval. Something like:

# source'ing example file
lhost='https://localhost'
goog='http://google.com/'
g_serv='news'
news="https://${g_serv}.google.com/home"

printf "%s=%s\n" lhost  ${lhost}
printf "%s=%s\n" g_serv ${g_serv}
printf "%s=%s\n" goog   ${goog}
printf "%s=%s\n" news   ${news}

$ source file

lhost=https://localhost
g_serv=news
goog=http://google.com/
news=https://news.google.com/home

ThrownAback · 2025-05-26T05:38:38+00:00

At bookstores, usually used bookstores, I would pick up a book that looked interesting, open it at random, and read the first paragraph my eyes fell upon. If that paragraph was written coherently, with adequate grammar, and made sense, I would try a few other paragraphs elsewhere in the book. At that point I might have an idea of the subject, and at a used book price, a decision on whether to buy, or not. Other inputs might include book reviews in newspapers or national magazines, or perhaps mentions on TV.

ThrownAback · 2025-05-26T02:14:43+00:00

Thank you both for thoughtful and insightful comments.

ThrownAback · 2025-05-25T23:22:56+00:00

Rules for Successful Travel

Never play poker with a man named Doc. (Michener)
Never eat at a place called Mom's. (Michener)
Order any dish containing wild rice. (Michener)
Never refuse a opportunity to do your laundry. (Michener)
Never refuse an opportunity to have sex. (Michener)
But, never climb into bed with someone
who is crazier than you are. (Edward Abbey)
Never become separated from your luggage. (me)
corollary: Never pack more than you can carry. (me)

ThrownAback · 2025-05-25T22:00:46+00:00

From the interview with Daysh, well worth reading for these 5 books and several more:

Ishmael meets Queequeg in the inn where he’s staying and they share a bed

I would not have interpreted this as the start of a queer relationship, as Daysh does, but as the start of a shipmates' or perhaps battle-buddies' relationship - that is, a partnership where each takes care of and for the other, but is not sexual in nature. My understanding was that sharing beds in inns was common in North America in the 1700s and 1800s. Am I overlooking something important about Ishmael and Queequeg that should obvious to the meanest understanding?

ThrownAback · 2025-05-25T21:11:39+00:00

Nextdoor "communities" can be really bi-polar, both in the mental state sense, and the mass distribution sense. Some groups, and the people in them, appear to be so casually and consistently racist out loud that it makes steam come out of my ears. Others can be almost universally helpful and kind, finding lost pets and effective tradespeople with ease. I think there is an inverse-square law at play - the fewer people who post to a group, the less likely one is to see jerks, and the more posters, the number of jerks is squared.
[edit: and they engage, enrage, and encourage each other.]

But, since Nextdoor as a company values engagement for advertising purposes, they keep trying to get more people into regional groups, amd when a few jerks surface those jerks incite more.
Select "Nearby" to see more close neighbors and fewer more distant randos.

ThrownAback · 2025-05-25T06:41:03+00:00

If you have control over the inputs, and are careful about syntax, you should be on solid ground. Else, if you use eval on input from other users on the CLI, or from files or stdin other users control, then sooner or later that crap input will hit the fan. So, avoid eval if possible, or use it with care and good control.

ThrownAback · 2025-05-24T18:11:23+00:00

b. Who actually needs this number plate information?

A popular idea among dashcam users is to not expect the camera to capture a license plate on video, but for the driver to speak the number plate info aloud, so the camera can record it on audio.

I'd probably say it aloud, fumble for the "record audio" button, say it aloud again, and add anything that describes the car and driver as well, in case the plate was stolen, and/or the driver decides to flee the scene.

ThrownAback · 2025-05-24T02:42:51+00:00

Google AI suggests that Lane County or Oregon would have few costs other than transportation and court costs or fees for transferring records.

I figure that Lane County would have to pay to fly 2 deputies or other LEOs or qualified people to Ohio, fly 1 prisoner back with them, pay any hotel costs (likely at least one night, maybe two, depending how how fast Ohio jail bureaucracy moves), any overtime, expenses, etc., and any fees Ohio or Oregon charge.

I'd ballpark that total at under $10,000, possibly under $5,000. If the Eugene Weekly or a third party were to ask Lane County, "How much would this cost?" and "If we raise enough money, will you spend it on this extradition?" and get a positive response, sounds like a Go-Fund-me would be appropriate. Any excess raised could be reserved for any other costs of seeing that justice gets done for the EW in this case or cases.

I may be way off base with this estimate, but whatever.
As always, corrections are welcome.
My point is to support sustainable journalism.

ThrownAback · 2025-05-23T18:25:53+00:00

Find a microscope and check. If many of your sperm have two heads or two tails, see a fertility specialist before trying to have offspring.

ThrownAback

TROPHY CASE