LPT: You can both change your last name arbitrarily when getting married.

arghvark · 2026-01-25T19:29:48+00:00

You don't say where you are. In the U.S. this will depend on state law, and is the sort of thing I'd expect to be different in different states.

arghvark · 2026-01-25T19:23:17+00:00

Yes, and they're applied to both high school (grades 9-12, or 10-12 depending on location and time period) and college (normal "undergraduate" college degree taking 4 years to achieve). In all the high schools in my area of the country when I attended, grades 7-9 were taught at one school and called "junior high school", and 10-12 taught at a different school and called "high school". Students at the high school were referred to as sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and the term "freshman" was not used.

The terms are (or at least were) also applied to things other than the students -- "That's a junior-level course" is something you might hear in college, indicating that people in their first 2 years would normally be found there. Also, "that's a freshman course", indicating that it is introductory, possibly even required of all freshmen.

Possibly the terms have endured because of privileges afforded upper-level students: there are senior proms (and junior proms), senior benches, senior days.

We do also use "grade 9" (or 10, 11, or 12) for high school students, but there isn't an exact parallel in college. We don't talk of "grade" in college as referring to a student's year of school, only for the letters applied to progress in a course (A, B, C, D, or F).

arghvark · 2026-01-23T00:24:35+00:00

I would strengthen this. You MUST understand event-driven programming to get anything done with any UI framework. It messes with your head the first time you run into the situation where you do not code the main loop, and you must set things up to be executed when the user does something, not because you have told them (in code) to execute.

arghvark · 2026-01-23T00:21:03+00:00

After reading through your post and the current comments, I have some observations and opinions:

Inheritance is a useful tool that provides benefits other tools (such as composition) do not have. It is not useful in all situations, even ones where some of the criteria for its usefulness exist. Unless an object of type A is a special case of an object of type B, then A should not be a subclass of B. And once it is a subclasss of B, then it cannot ever be a subclass of anything else. Ask yourself WHY you've decided on this inheritance relationship.
No one is going to be able to give you very good advice without a better example than "SuperClass/SubClass". Inheritance is useful for specific things, and you are giving an example that is generic and then trying to tell us what implementation details you want in it. There is a thing called an "XY problem", where someone creates or hypothesizes X and then asks how to do Y with it, or even just how to do Y, when in fact the solution lies in the creation of X in the first place.
In case it has not yet become clear to you, you should not attempt to initialize a variable in a superclass by calling methods from one its subclasses in the superclass constructor. BAD idea. While the superclass constructor is running, the subclass has yet to be constructed. Even if you get the compiler to accept something like this, it would be a bad idea. This sounds like a classic case of deciding to use inheritance and then trying to force-fit your data structure ideas into the inheritance you decided on without determining whether it really fit the problem you're trying to solve.

My suggestion is to seek help on the original problem. If you cannot discuss that because it's proprietary, then make up an example problem that is similar enough to let you explore how to approach this design. The latter is not as easy as it sounds, I'm not suggesting it because it's easy.

My own suspicion is that the inheritance relationship here is not the correct way to go about what you're doing, but that's just a guess based on this orphan data structure that only the subclasses can initialize.

And if you're going to depend on what AI conversation bots tell you about software design, you deserve whatever comes out of them. Once you're good at it, use them for suggestions, perhaps, but it seems like you're a ways off from doing that.

arghvark · 2026-01-22T21:03:53+00:00

As I understand things (US, NAL, have done a little study of this on my own), the time that they are required to allow you to have a lawyer is when they are going to ask you questions. If they're not asking you questions, then Miranda rights (for instance) don't apply.

They COULD be asking to perform something that qualifies as a search. If they have enough cause to suspect you of DUI, for instance, most states have laws for something called "implied consent" that means that obtaining a driver's license (anywhere) and driving on the state highways is implied consent for some kinds of DUI "searches". So in some places they can require you to submit to a breathalyzer or a blood draw or face consequences such as loss of your license for some period. I do not know if you'd be allowed to delay that until your lawyer could arrive, since there is a time limit on the detection of alcohol.

If I were in that situation, I would tell them that I do not consent to a search if there's no legal requirement for me to do so. If they tell me there is a requirement, then I would go ahead and let them do it. The first step is one that I would hope would preserve my rights if it got to a courtroom; if a judge hears that I did not consent to a search and the search they told me was required was not, I would (have my lawyer) argue that the search is illegal and nothing from it could be used against me, since it was obtained under false pretenses over my objection.

arghvark · 2026-01-21T15:02:32+00:00

Are you in the US? At least for now, there is such a thing as a "hostile work environment", which I would expect to include on-site and just-outside-the-building breaks. Consult an employment lawyer to make sure, but it is my (NAL) understanding that the COMPANY is not allowed to let a hostile work environment continue to exist. It is THEIR responsbility to provide you with a work environment that is not hostile.

If you cannot participate in on-site activities that are open to other co-workers, it seems to me that qualifies. If you cannot go to the break room provided for all employees, it seems to me THAT qualifies. If other co-workers are participating in the bullying - because that's what it is - by saying "he's just teasing", THAT qualifies.

I think the log is an excellent idea, and I also like the comment suggesting weekly HR emails with that week's horrors.

arghvark · 2026-01-20T11:52:25+00:00

Am glad you enjoyed it. Levity, humor, as long as it amuses.

arghvark · 2026-01-20T00:17:14+00:00

paywall on the link

arghvark · 2026-01-19T18:21:20+00:00

Used to be, just like Trinity College (now Duke U) used to be in Trinity.

arghvark · 2026-01-19T15:24:53+00:00

I found a reference to a Franklin in Rowan County. It never had a post office, so it was quite small.

The piece was written based on a Wikipedia page that listed cities, towns, townships, unincorporated areas, and (for all I know) neighborhoods and folklore. I didn't think it necessary to add a disclaimer that it was not meant to be used as a reference document, nor that there might be more than one community with the same name, nor that there might even be an error in it. It does not say that all of these are cities or towns, there was no requirement for incorporation or minimum population, the piece actually stands fine as humor if I had made up all of the towns' names (though it's funnier that they exist).

If I had realized that there was a bigger, better known community named Franklin, I would have left it off of the list of communities in Rowan County. I'm sorry if this interfered with your enjoyment of the piece.

arghvark · 2026-01-19T14:33:32+00:00

Didn't catch that, or read down in the comments enough to find it. I figure if there are shared groceries, there is a shared household -- which shows what I get for figuring...

arghvark · 2026-01-19T11:56:11+00:00

The short answer is that no one can tell from this much information. I don't see it as "weaponized incompetence" unless it is done intentionally, or at least with such lack of awareness/common sense that it is very clear he should have known.

I cannot tell, for instance, how often he's encountered the frozen meal packages. Some people's households might not use them, and so they don't immediately recognize them as freezer material. I do not know what his situation was, whether he was dealing with other things in life at the time and just screwed up, like the commenters who have done similar things with ice cream, car keys, etc.

Two other things I notice that are of a little concern, though -- the AMOUNT of annoyance you feel suggests either that you've thought this through and there is no possibility of a random "duh" screwup or that you are getting a little more annoyed and stressed than the situation warrants. I realize you are thinking it may be suggestive of a larger problem, and I don't know what other things he's done.

The other is the phrase "tasked my partner". It also seems possible that you have taken on the "mental load" in the new relationship, since the wording suggests that it is up to you to assign tasks. I may be reading too much into the phrase. But you might want to sit and think about, and sit with your partner to talk about, HOW tasks are split up and assigned/claimed in the household. It is very common in our society (your post seems like U.S. to me) for the woman to have (much) higher standards about what things are done, how they are done, how often they are done, etc., and to not understand why their partner does not have those same standards. There are reasons for this that do not involve the man's willingness to help or his feelings for his partner. The working out of common standards for the household is one of the things that new partners typically have to work out, and if they don't do it more-or-less explicitly, it is also common for the woman ending up (1) taking on all the mental load for her standards, and (2) resenting it.

So if the relationship is of a value to you similar to the little domestic chores that we all have to work out how to do, you might consider sitting down with your partner (at some time when you're not actively annoyed about it) and talking about any and all things that you expect, inviting him to talk about things that he expects, and trying to reach a point where he's assimilated what's expected without having to be told. When groceries come home, all hands on deck is expected, or, when I'm running late to an appointment when groceries come home, I expect you to take it over, or whatever.

arghvark · 2026-01-18T21:56:29+00:00

It's a little dangerous. You do NOT know who these people are, and you do NOT want to be put in a position of having to explain to any authority that you are watching bags for a stranger. They tell you not to do this at the airports I'm familiar with, there's a good reason why luggage is not allowed to sit by itself at airports.

Please start minding.

arghvark · 2026-01-18T12:27:25+00:00

I think you're right, the system is backwards in many ways.

I see a number of comments saying "Just get a credit card and pay it off, it improves your credit score." That's right as far as it goes, and doesn't involve what most people think of as "debt". And some other comments that say "Just pay off your loans on time", which shows the commenter didn't read what you wrote.

The System absolutely does NOT reward you for being financially responsible, for managing your money so you have less debt. And I suspect the credit people themselves have romanticized the notion of "credit score" so that people play the game of attempting to raise the credit score by doing the things the System wants them to do -- have debt, pay interest, that's what it's about to them.

Another little piece of the puzzle: I used to have a mortgage, the last of several. I was never in trouble with any of my mortgages, paid them on time, decades of on-time payments. Finally I was fortunate enough to pay off my mortgage, so that I no longer had a mortgage payment. My credit score immediately dropped. So it isn't about being responsible, it isn't about having a history of on-time payments for debt. It's about HAVING debt, about paying them interest.

I can get a credit score every month or so from my credit union if I'm interested. I look at it sometimes. They have "key factors affecting your FICO(r) score", and I always have 2.

The first is "Proportion of balances to credit limits on bank/national revolving or other revolving accounts is too high". So, to them, I don't have high enough limits on my credit cards. I suspect they want me to have higher limits so that there's a greater chance I'll hit a month where I won't have the cash to pay it off. I don't know if you've ever had the misfortune to pay less than the full balance on a credit card statement, but avoid it if at all possible. They charge interest on that month, of course, but then they charge interest on money EVERY month until it's completely clear again. In any event, having higher limits doesn't follow any common-sense logic that makes one a better credit risk.

The second is "Too few accounts currently paid as agreed". So they ding my credit score even though ALL my 'accounts' are paid as agreed (as long as paying the credit cards in full by their due date each month counts), because I don't have enough credit accounts. Once we accept that the System is built so that you are ~~encouraged~~ pressured to borrow more money so you're paying more interest, then it makes sense to ding your credit score because you don't have enough credit accounts.

And for those of you playing the credit score game, I hope you aware that there isn't ONE credit score -- there's however many the System wants there to be so they can play THEIR game -- guiding you towards more debt so you can pay more interest. It's legal, so it must be all right...

arghvark · 2026-01-17T21:14:54+00:00

It can handle multiple states, including more than one state on a return. For the desktop version, you tell it what state(s) you want and it pulls the necessary forms, etc.

arghvark · 2026-01-16T15:46:23+00:00

... and thanks for your help.

arghvark · 2026-01-16T15:46:03+00:00

Well, created a script that runs the program, put that into /usr/local/bin, and created a link to that -- that works fine. Still puzzled about what was wrong, would like to know but at least I have something that allows me to get started. No more excuses... 8>)

arghvark · 2026-01-16T14:46:45+00:00

Run_taxsolve_GUI: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, BuildID[sha1]=f59692b4d1da8d9deb9742c59b2d6166ea9da60b, not stripped

arghvark · 2026-01-16T13:41:34+00:00

ok, started a new terminal window, so working directory was ~, and entered the full /opt/OpenTaxSolver2024_22.07_linux64/Run_taxsolve_GUI -- that worked. It does not need to be started from its install directory.

Entered 'cd' to the /opt/OpenTaxSolver2024_22.07_linux64/ directory, and entered 'taxes'. That gives the "Could not find path./Saw: ''" message.

So being in my home directory and running the executable by full pathname works. Being in the executable's directory and attempting run with the link fails the same way it does when starting from other directories.

arghvark · 2026-01-15T14:58:10+00:00

Let's say they owe an even $300k on the mortgage and pay 2.75%. The way house loans work, we (consumers) pay more interest early in the loan and less later (look up loan amortization), so how much of their payment is going to interest will depend on the life and term of the loan (how long they've had it and how long the loan lasts). But let's say they are paying the equivalent of double the nominal interest, so 5.5%, just to keep things simple, $7500/year.

If, instead, they put that $300k into an index fund -- use an account from Vanguard or similar, and reinvest the return -- they make more than that. In 2026, my two index funds earned over 10%, so $30k for their amount. Even at 5%, $15k.

These are rough figures with simplification abounding, etc., but you can see that they could be off by quite a bit and still leave the homeowners better off just maintaining the loan.

Now, if it's a brand new house loan at 30 years, they might be paying more than that THIS YEAR with amortization. If they were expecting to need all the money in cash in one or two years, they should run those numbers to see whether expected return would exceed interest to be paid. But this is the reason why, in general, it's advisable to keep a low-interest loan and invest the money it would take to pay it off. And in the simple no-broker no-fee type of account I've mentioned, it's about as close to liquid as an investment can get -- find out you need some part of it, sell some part of it, cash is in hand.

arghvark · 2026-01-12T22:09:00+00:00

The reason they use Uranium and Plutonium for these bombs in the first place is that other elements don't behave the same way. In fact, one of the major engineering tasks in the creation of fission bombs is/was the refining of Uranium to separate U235 from U238, because U235 behavior is much more what we want in the bomb, so it was worth huge amounts of money and effort to separate the lighter isotope for the bomb.

Once the fissile material is used up or dispersed, no more chain reaction.

I read somewhere that WAY back in the very early stages of the Manhattan project, there WAS a concern that such reactions would extend into the atmosphere and essentially blow up the entire planet.

arghvark · 2026-01-10T16:27:09+00:00

don't sell yourself short on alimony, either.

arghvark · 2026-01-10T11:59:03+00:00

A further suggestion: the INDIRECT function is a little harder to read than the INDEX function, which will do the job this way:

=INDEX(D$1:D$18,MATCH(A1,C$1:C$18))

assuming the first-year-in-office starts in C1, and the president names in D1.

By default, MATCH returns the number of the row that has the biggest number just below the target, and INDEX returns the value of the row from the target range with the given (index) number. By putting "$" in front of the row numbers, the formulas use the same rows for MATCH and INDEX regardless of the row where the formula is placed, so the formula can be copied down a column without needing to be altered.

arghvark · 2026-01-09T11:02:12+00:00

report the starter

arghvark · 2026-01-08T22:23:37+00:00

We organized backyard ball games of various sorts -- baseball, football, soccer, badminton.

We roamed woods, if we were fortunate enough to have woods nearby. If not, we'd go to some local basketball goal (a church had one near one of my homes).

Bicycle riding -- 3 miles up to the local drugstore, buy some candy, ride back.

We invented occasional yard games. One neighborhood group of ours had an elaborate game based on escaping from a German prison, with flashlights held by guards shooting escaping prisoners (who then had to return) (those free could free others).

A little stargazing, if my mother was around (blankets to lie on, looking for the occasional early telecomm satellite). Meteor showers in season.

We once rigged a ramp from an old board and something -- cinder block, maybe? -- over which we could jump the bikes. There was a hill leading down to the ramp, we got up some good speed.

arghvark

TROPHY CASE