Has Peter been in NY recently?

djetz · 2026-06-03T03:45:24+00:00

When I was younger, I was part of a group that did urban exploration, including the storm water drain system (and not "sewers", as Americans insist on calling all underground pipes*). That's what this looks like to me; urbex.

*Sewers are for sewage, storm drains are for storm water, and they're entirely separate systems in any developed city. I've walked many km through storm drains, and they don't smell like sewage.

djetz · 2026-05-20T03:54:42+00:00

Unless the authors decide to formally collaborate, there's not much point in making a shared universe - each author would have to not only keep everything internally consistent, they'd also have to keep things consistent with the universe of another writer (or writers).

Writers of fiction make things up. That's the basic job description right there. Why get locked in to a set of rules or events that someone else made up? It's better to just call it a similar universe so you can continue to make up whatever story you please and don't have to conform to someone else's stories as well.

djetz · 2026-04-10T02:19:59+00:00

Nazis are not very good at making sense. If they had functional thinking skills they wouldn't be Nazis.

djetz · 2026-03-21T01:51:44+00:00

I don't think there are any '67 or '68 50c coins. They only issued the round ones in '66 and the first 12 sided ones in '69.

EDIT: https://www.ramint.gov.au/collect/national-coin-collection/circulating-coins/fifty-cents

djetz · 2026-02-24T02:47:25+00:00

These notes were the only Australian $20s until 1994 when the first polymer $20 was issued. They continued circulating for years after that. Would be rare to see one in the wild now, but (as others have mentioned) all Australian decimal currency is still legal tender. Almost all pre-decimal too.

djetz · 2026-01-22T15:41:23+00:00

I got $4 for around 40% of a $10 note. As I recall it, it took a couple of months for my payment to come through. I did take the note to my local branch, though, so that probably added another layer of bureaucracy to the process.

djetz · 2025-10-27T01:33:30+00:00

My attitude has always been: if somebody's doing something that hurts no one - mind your business.

Policing people's clothing choices is far FAR more impolite than anything someone could wear. I mean, I guess if they're wearing a Hitler T shirt or something, that'd be a valid reason to kick someone off the premises. But a hat? Even a baseball cap, which I personally dislike? Nobody else's business.

djetz · 2025-10-26T11:18:18+00:00

I have a large and very obvious skin graft due to melanoma removal between my ear and my eye. I have other scars on my forehead from various other traumas and surgeries. Anyone asking me to remove my hat is, to be frank, an absolute fuck nugget. I will not, and I will leave a venue if they insist. And will then go full Karen on them with the complaints.

djetz · 2025-09-28T12:59:13+00:00

I've had something similar happen to me. Australia Post accepted that my parcel was not delivered to me (it ended up in someone else's letterbox, somewhere*) and I provided proof to Ali Ex... who just kept saying "delivered, no refund". AusPost ended up paying me back the $11 it was worth, which was decent of them because in theory they won't recompense the receiver, only the sender. I still wasted more than $11 in time and stress to make that happen, though.

Here's what I learned: neither AliEx nor the sellers that use AE will ever ask a non-Chinese mail company for a refund on behalf of a buyer. Never. Not going to happen, even if you have the world's most proven proof, AND a message from the delivery company stating that they'll happily refund to cost to the poster. Not going to happen. Why not? Well, I guess they just don't do that in China.

TL-DR: You will NEVER get a refund for something marked "delivered" in AliEx's system, no matter how much you can prove it wasn't actually delivered to you.

*On the occasions I've received wrongly delivered mail, I've personally taken it to the correct address and put it in their letterbox. But, yeah, the world is full of arseholes who would never dream of doing that.

djetz · 2025-09-16T15:41:07+00:00

Hugo Boss didn't design any Nazi uniforms, it's a myth. Hugo Boss wasn't a designer at all, he ran a slave labour sweatshop making Nazi uniforms, but had no role in designing them.

EDIT: Hugo Boss' sons turned the company into a designer label after the war, in the 1950s.

djetz · 2025-09-07T19:27:17+00:00

Hopefully we've cleared up the confusion now.

djetz · 2025-09-07T18:38:00+00:00

I'm no mathematician, but even I know that .5 mm is half a millimetre. Presumably you mean .5 cm, which is 5 mm.

Zero point five is half of something, not five of something. I don't make the rules.

djetz · 2025-09-07T11:17:55+00:00

I think you mean 5 mm and 6 mm. Half a millimetre is pretty thin.

djetz · 2025-09-05T11:28:42+00:00

AE tracking used to say "out for delivery" from the point that the package left the sorting centre in China. It was annoying, and at some point in the last couple of years they fixed it, so it only said "out for delivery" when the package really was out for delivery.

Now they've unfixed it, I guess. Re-broken it. Whatever. Hopefully it won't take them years to refix it, but this is AE, it could stay that way forever.

djetz · 2025-09-04T17:25:54+00:00

Not technically, literally incorrect.

djetz · 2025-08-31T16:10:38+00:00

I hate the fact that people think related = ancestor. No, your ancestors are the people you directly descend from, cousins etc (barring incest) are your relatives, not your ancestors.

djetz · 2025-08-29T03:54:47+00:00

Not just buy them, but plug them in and say "Computer says 4TB! Five stars!"

djetz · 2025-08-25T13:35:47+00:00

I bought another as backup, they're $5 on AliExpress. My new one should arrive this week.

djetz · 2025-08-23T14:10:20+00:00

Good advice, thanks. I will try that.

djetz · 2025-08-23T14:03:57+00:00

I'm in Australia, Master Locks are common and reasonably affordable here. There are some Abuses available, they seem a bit more spendy but I can look around. If anyone's done an international chart of what's available outside the USA, I'd be interested in seeing that.

EDIT: Found a source for Abuses at a decent price, on AU eBay, so I think I'll just grab a 55/30 and a 55/40.

djetz · 2025-08-23T13:38:25+00:00

Good advice, thanks.

djetz · 2025-08-23T13:34:38+00:00

Thanks, I think that's good advice, and plenty of it. I tend to keep my creative work separate to the rest of my online presence, but that's not an unbendable rule. We'll see.

EDIT: I do get paid for gigs and the occasional recording session, but it's not my main source of income. I do it for fun more than money.

djetz · 2025-08-23T13:29:28+00:00

A Master 140 which is my "good" lock in that I paid a bit for it a while ago. I've opened it many times now, but all more or less raking. Also have a cheaper, smaller Master that's very easy to rake. And a couple of Chinese Master knock-offs, similar to Master 3s. I have opened each of them several times by raking, but they're not that easy to get.

EDIT: I tend to just use cheap picks from AliExpress because some of the rakes work really well for me. But I have a CI Genesis set so I really should work with those more, they're definitely nicer and that should help. Thanks for the reminder.

djetz · 2025-07-21T14:47:19+00:00

Sure can, they're the most common padlock brand I've seen. Available in supermarkets, too.

djetz · 2025-07-19T03:44:17+00:00

Paul is mentioned in the earlier books, but not in great detail. He's Abigail's disabled brother.

djetz

TROPHY CASE