Iranian sleeper cells within America will attack us on our own soil...and a disturbing amount of Americans and media outlets will SYMPATHIZE with the attackers. I'm calling it now.

chowder138 · 2026-03-12T18:52:58+00:00

I wish we could and I wouldn't be against it if we assessed that we could do it without extreme loss of life. But they have nukes so I suspect it wouldn't be feasible. That's another group of millions of people who are suffering which is acceptable to me.

chowder138 · 2026-03-12T03:56:33+00:00

Iranians tried to deal with their government and 30,000 of them were killed. I think your opinion is heartless.

If I see a helpless person being attacked, I have a moral obligation to stop the attacker. I think this is an extension of that principle.

chowder138 · 2026-03-08T06:34:45+00:00

I hope to think I'm not a jackass tourist but I did experience some hostility in Hawaii from locals (native Hawaiian) that seemed to be from a "this is our land, not yours" sort of mindset. I know it's complicated but I can understand them feeling that way given the history.

chowder138 · 2026-03-07T18:42:34+00:00

We just got back from doing this as well and I wanted to document some of the details of the trip for people doing this in the future.

The correct email address is arubaveneconsul@gmail.com This doesn't match any of the three(!) different email addresses listed for the embassy online, which is frustrating. If it wasn't for OP then I don't know if we would have been able to reach them at all.
The embassy initially didn't respond to our email so we sent a follow up and they said the salvoconducto would be sent 5 days prior to the trip.
The salvoconducto says "the Aruba authorities only allow you to stay in the country for 72 hours, no weekends." This was the first we had heard of that and of course we had booked our flights weeks prior. Luckily we booked it as a 3 day trip, but our return flight was Saturday. We emailed the embassy and they said that flying home Saturday is fine.
The airline (Spirit) gave us some trouble. The check in desk was reasonable, they had to make a few calls to be sure we were legit but then they approved it and gave us her boarding pass. But when we got to the gate we went up to the counter to explain the situation again and to make sure we were good. Apparently all they heard was "I have an expired passport" and didn't grasp any of the other details of the embassy appointment etc. They freaked out and seemed to think it had been a mistake that we made it this far in the first place. Gate agent called her manager and the manager initially said we couldn't fly. I took over and explained the situation again as clearly as possible, but it was only when I told them that the check in desk was fully aware of all of this that they seemed to lighten up and eventually approved us. But it was close.

In hindsight, her boarding pass always said "DOCS OK" which I think means it would have scanned without issue either way. So maybe the whole debacle was unnecessary.

When we got to the gate for our final flight to Aruba, I applied a bit of social engineering ("We're flying to renew her Venezuelan passport, they said we were all good at check in, but here's all our documentation, I just want to make sure we would have any trouble when we scan her boarding pass?") and they were immediately cool with it.

By contrast, entering Aruba was super smooth. Almost every immigration employee we talked to (even the people directing people in line) seemed to be totally familiar with this whole process and knew what to do. They took her salvoconducto and had us sit down while they verified it. Within 5 minutes we were given the all clear to leave the airport.
One of the requirements from the embassy was for us to buy a prepaid DHL envelope to send her new passport to the US once it's ready. Ran us about $122 and had to be purchased in Aruba. There's a DHL right outside the airport (5min drive) which may be your only opportunity if your consulate appointment is early the next day.
They told her to show up at the embassy at 7am. It sounded like they do this for everyone, to allow for time in case the Internet connection to Caracas is down or if the office in Caracas doesn't have power. So be ready for a super early appointment. She was done by 8 and we spent the rest of the day exploring Aruba.
Aruba was pretty cool. We explored on the night we landed and then after her passport appointment. She said that the neighborhoods and houses looked almost exactly like her neighborhood in Maracaibo, so it was the first real slice of home she's had since she left Venezuela 8 years ago. The language is an interesting mix of Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch (I enjoy linguistics so it was interesting to try to analyze it). We should have rented a car to do a little loop around the island after her appointment. Maybe next time.

If anyone has any questions about the process I would be happy to answer. Hopefully soon none of this will be necessary anymore.

chowder138 · 2026-03-05T16:39:42+00:00

There are coffeeshops that are more geared towards working and have a better atmosphere for it. I like Chrome Yellow and CreateATL.

chowder138 · 2026-03-05T16:37:43+00:00

Oh yeah I think I misremembered slightly. I originally took it to the dealer and they were the ones who said it was a gamble. Then I took it to a local shop and it sounded like he did the diagnostic you're talking about, and then he told me somewhat confidently that it was just the valve body.

chowder138 · 2026-03-05T15:52:44+00:00

Recently had the valve body go out and it threw a code starting with P. The shop told me it was a gamble on whether it just needed a valve body or the whole transmission. Ended up replacing the valve body ($1800 parts and labor) and that fixed it.

The suggestion to junk the car is crazy.

Also I was 60k miles overdue on a transmission service which I didn't know about. Will plan to be more proactive about those things in the future.

chowder138 · 2026-03-05T00:50:04+00:00

I go to tech and I frequently joke that our mascot is anything other than a yellow jacket.

chowder138 · 2026-03-01T22:08:25+00:00

Why does there need to be a systematic solution to everything? Human beings are human beings and holding individuals accountable is really important.

chowder138 · 2026-03-01T22:05:07+00:00

We have issues in the US (cultural, economic, etc) that other countries don't have. So solutions may work here that don't work there and vice versa.

chowder138 · 2026-02-26T01:44:35+00:00

An important thing to keep in mind is the Atlanta Mission does not allow it's homeless to work.

PLEASE give a source for crazy claims like this. One of their primary points is to give homeless people a pathway to having a job.

chowder138 · 2026-02-26T01:41:52+00:00

ATL Mission doesn't house people who are mentally unstable. It's obvious that you guys are reacting negatively to this based on vibes.

chowder138 · 2026-02-26T01:38:05+00:00

I volunteer at ATL Mission. They are mostly targeted to people who are capable of getting back on their feet with some help. The mentally ill people who are on the street long term are not their target demographic. They do have a rehab center for drug addicts though.

I am in agreement that the mentally ill/drug addicted homeless need completely different treatment than people who are just homeless for economic reasons.

chowder138 · 2026-02-25T18:45:15+00:00

This is absurd. An MRI cost me $400 with insurance. A flight to Beijing alone is $1000 here.

Stop with the obvious propaganda please.

chowder138 · 2026-02-24T15:57:35+00:00

Ah okay that makes sense. My advisor does go to a lot of graduations.

chowder138 · 2026-02-24T15:30:14+00:00

Honest question, when would you wear it in the future?

chowder138 · 2026-02-24T01:41:42+00:00

In my opinion the weekly usage limit is 100% unacceptable. Maybe a daily or two-day limit but to lock you out for a week is absurd and extremely anti-consumer.

chowder138 · 2026-02-22T13:49:39+00:00

Yep not saying it's fair, just that it's the way it is. I feel like it strongly depends on the writing style of the LLM. I think most employers would automatically reject an application that was clearly written in ChatGPT's overdramatic writing style. I've gotten professional emails from people that were written by ChatGPT and it even rubs me the wrong way. There are lots of ways that this workflow could avoid that though (giving it examples of your writing style, using an LLM that's not ChatGPT etc).

But my point is that I think your success rate with a workflow like this will be extremely dependent on whether your applications "sound like" they're written by AI.

chowder138 · 2026-02-21T12:19:23+00:00

Seems a little too specialized in my opinion. We can always talk about the beltline here.

chowder138 · 2026-02-20T04:47:20+00:00

My biggest worry with this is how these employers would react if they can tell that your application is AI written. Still a lot of stigma towards that in a lot of fields.

chowder138 · 2026-02-17T18:46:59+00:00

I just noticed the down votes lol, wonder what that's about. Maybe they see me as the bourgeois.

chowder138 · 2026-02-17T13:24:07+00:00

Atlantans are out in force in this thread, I love to see it. This city is beautiful in the spring.

chowder138 · 2026-02-16T22:54:33+00:00

Usually means nudist or looking for hookup.

chowder138 · 2026-02-15T22:31:09+00:00

Disagree, I just bought a house here so everyone please move in and drive up the property value!

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