I worked homeless outreach in a rural area. My job was to connect people to housing, assist with obtaining government benefits, and mental health services if necessary. They would spend the day at local hot spots, well trafficked convenience stores in the morning, well trafficked stores like the local grocery store for most of the rest of the day. A lot of them would hang out in the stores as long as possible to escape the heat/cold and many would also hit up strangers for money at these spots

They were often very hesitant or completely unwilling to share where they actually slept. Even though I worked for a nonprofit a lot of them saw me as a government employee and even the ones who didn’t still were very hesitant to trust me or any of my coworkers with that info. I’m pretty sure they were scared that I would call the cops or something. Some slept in wooded areas, some slept behind stores, some couch surfed, etc from the ones who did share and who I found (part of my job was being the point of contact for police and other emergency services who found people staying outside in dangerous weather and getting them emergency housing).

Even though it was probably like 2013 or so that I did this job the absolute cheapest room that would rent to the homeless was $700/mo. There were cheaper rooms around but they tended to require big deposits and would often refuse to rent to someone that didn’t already have a permanent address. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal but they would get around it usually by being vague and ghosting. “Oh so sorry someone else got the room”, stuff like that, and you’d see it was still available for 3 more months. I can’t even imagine what the rent is like now

Super depressing job. It’s very difficult to escape that cycle once you’re in it. It radicalized me a lot to work with people who were literally left on the street in a town with hundreds of vacant apartments. By our estimate there were maybe 20-40 homeless people in said town at any given point

Speed or mallrats depending on what kind of vibe you’re going for

edit: upon reflection I will change my Sandra bullock movie to “the net”. Terrible, but strong 90s vibes

I mean like running their hypothetical control software/framework within a docker on a local server. Is that illogical? I do the same for the software that runs my ip cameras with my home server, instead of them needing to connect to some external server.

You’re ultimately right though, when it comes to docker I am at the proficiency level of “can deploy other people’s images” and not so much on the “have bothered to make my own”

You’re both wrong for speaking in absolutes. It could be pica but it’s impossible to fully assess such a situation based on a literal sentence description, you would need to know the context, frequency of behavior, occurrence with other items (eg is it solely soil). It could be soil eaten out of desperation to alleviate symptoms related to iron deficiency but again, impossible to know from a single sentence but a child eating soil would be grounds to evaluate for pica unless the child was specifically instructed or something (eg folk medicine)

brought to you by someone who spent 5 years doing neurodevelopmental evals of autism and intellectual disability in children, where pica came up a decent amount of the time (especially for the kids with ID)

A school district spends $180,000 (hyperbole, I don’t know actual numbers) of taxpayer money deploying this system between the actual hardware costs, maintenance costs to install the hardware, it costs to implement it into their network, and probably an ongoing contact with this dummy’s company. Maybe only for support but with the way things are now I’m sure they built this app to phone home to their servers (introducing a huge potential security risk over simply running it locally on the schools existing network infrastructure in a docker or something), calling it “cloud based”, and charging the district 1k/month to run the devices the district now owns and should be able to operate without the company. The company then talks about how they’ll back up records and safeguard data so you don’t have to worry about that (that it dept you pay is pointless!)

Three months after deployment it turns out the sensors can be tripped by many things not related to vaping, maybe increases in heat, mouthwash breath, etc. the false positives are due to a hardware flaw and cannot be fixed with a patch. Feel free to upgrade to sensor version 2.0, now with improved accuracy! (read: the problem still exists but isn’t as bad). Only another 40k to buy the new hardware, rip out the old hardware (which is now worthless), install the new stuff, and configure the software for everything (again, maintenance and IT costs)

9 months after deployment the company is doing poorly because their product is stupid and only a few idiots actually bought it (way to go idiot). There’s concerns because they sent a new Eula that outlines data sharing policies. They are potentially finding ways to harvest the data they agreed to safely store to try and create a new revenue stream to right their sinking ship. District counsel says fighting the Eula change will be expensive and there’s not much precedent for it, plus they state they will anonymize data before sharing so it’s not a ferpa violation, technically. It feels scummy but you can’t do anything about it. You also don’t really trust them to only sell anonymized data but you can’t prove they aren’t crossing that line so whatever, I guess

15 months after deployment they get hacked because they’ve run out of vc cash, never could get an actual profit stream going (turns out they’re spending 750,000/yr on salaries for 5 people and they’re all kitted out with sick work computers for what is basically coding a web app, but I digress). security of their servers was one of the budgetary constraints they chose to make to right the ship (but had to keep the $1800 office chairs and the 15-20k/mo rent loft they use as an office in a hcol area). The contract says this may happen and they’re not responsible unless there’s gross negligence on their part, which you can’t prove, and that they do some bare minimum reactionary shit after the fact to mitigate damage. So they’re legally blameless and now you get to notify your community their children’s data was leaked to god knows who, whoops

22 months after the fact they go out of business officially. You get a form email about the company’s journey and the difficult decision they had to make to stop fucking around on a dumb project that sucks because no dumbass vc will give them fun bucks anymore to keep playing tech bro billionaire. All the sensors stop working because they require a connection to the servers, which they shut off immediately without a sunset period. You’re reminded every day when you log in to the schools admin panel and get 350 “sensor not connected” error messages and your students bitch about the “sensor not connected: server not available” error pop up showing up on their classroom console. It takes IT a few days to remove their shit from the network and that costs you even more money in wasting your IT staff time when they should be fixing the broken computers in the computer lab or whatever.

Now your school has a bunch of weird boxes on the wall. Sometimes people ask you about them and you go “oh those don’t do anything” and remember that they cost taxpayers in your community tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars and wasted hundreds of hours of your supports staffs time that they could’ve been using to improve the school

But then you scroll on instagram and see there’s this new thing that will detect when kids are bullying each other. You just have to put a camera in each classroom. It’s okay, it won’t record. It will just use the power of AI and machine learning. You’re sold right there and the cycle starts again

there are almost certainly people propagandizing on chans, especially 4chans /pol/ as it has a fairly large user base and has proven to be very influential with dozens (or more) of academic papers written about its culture and dynamics.

https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/11075/11269/83226 this paper shows trends in pol posting surrounding major news events (mass shootings). Specifically after the Pittsburgh shooting they see a significant change of a small number of pro trump links circulated hundreds of times immediately in the aftermath, more so than before the incident. There are similar papers and many more describing the culture to help potential actors assimilate as quickly as possible

Again, the causal nature is impossible to prove (unless Hiroyuki starts leaking ips and they can be linked to someone somehow, I guess), but it appears someone(s) has been using that forum to make a concentrated effort to promote certain ideas, mainly pro trump propaganda and antisemitism.

Based on estimates 4chan gets anywhere from 20-60 million visitors per month. /pol/ alone sees well over 100-120k posts per day right now per 4stats.io, 4chans official stats. It’s by far one of the most active boards, running about the same as /vg/, dedicated to general gaming, and also full of bullshit but the whiny gamer kind (which is a well established pipeline to places like /pol/). whereas core 4chan boards like /b/ (random, the original board, where kind of anything goes), and /a/ (anime, probably the earliest board once it split from just /b/ for everything) being the next most active see barely half this, 40-50k posts per day.

Basically /pol/ sees a massive amount of discussion from a giant group of angry impressionable (often young but not always) people who are absolutely willing to campaign, make and spread memes, flood comment sections, etc. you’re foolish if you think that’s not being astroturfed and botted by people with vested interests. like is the trump campaign directly doing it? Probably not, but is one of their pacs kicking some money to some stormfront dudes who are? Maybe. It could also potentially be some weird trump group that spams and is otherwise unaffiliated with the campaign of course. That’s still propaganda, it’s just not sanctioned “officially”.

And this was touched on but the /pol/ influence is seen throughout the boards as well. They’ll spout their talking points on the videogame boards as mentioned like /v/, /vg/, etc to pull in gullible people but also the anime board (/a/), even slow boards like do it yourself (/diy/) which sees like 400 posts a day will get posts about immigration impacting trade jobs as a way to shoehorn in the typical rhetoric

In comparison according to fedidb lemmy has a bit under 400k users (a bit over 1/10th active, around 45k) and a bit over 8 million posts. That’s a footnote compared to 4chan which itself is dwarfed by the giants like reddit, facebook, etc that see monthly visitor counts in the billions. Of the fediverse mastodon would make the most sense to astroturf as it has significantly more users and posts. Unless they see serious growth potential and want to establish trust early on the platform, which would make sense I suppose, but looking at lemmys growth charted out that could be a very long wait for a return on investment. While posting is free paying people/bots to post isn’t. But perhaps they’re hoping it will become like /pol/, a niche forum on the internet that has decent enough traffic to become surprisingly influential. I do think this is unlikely, but who the fuck am I?

Of course, the statistics are not fully accurate here for either. 4chans traffic is estimated and sources vary pretty wildly, 4chans post counts should be accurate as that does come from 4chan. fedidb info is accurate but iirc doesn’t necessarily include all instances. That said it’s unlikely there’s an a few instances that would wildly skew the data and most estimates for 4chans traffic are on the higher end of 40-50 million visitors per month

There’s a theory that says this is the case (I can’t remember the name) but if it was accurate it’s probably been thoroughly destroyed by the modern diet which is laden with foods that push reward cravings (like excessive carbohydrates)

I don’t think I’ve ever deleted a contact from my address book for any reason whatsoever

I genuinely think I just can’t get into guitar. I played piano from 4 years old, I played drums from 4th grade, i played marimba and synth in wgi and dci, so playing for long hours and practicing hours on end is not something I’m not accustomed to, but for whatever reason I just can’t get into guitar.

For posterity my guitar is an epiphone les Paul clone. I don’t remember the exact model off hand. You are certainly correct that it’s crappy, it literally cost me $100 (back in like 2014 or so), but I think it’s serviceable, at least

Ibanez gsr200. Got it used locally for $150 in really good shape, basically never played. But new they’re like $200. Yamaha tsr/trbx was the other option I was looking at, similar price range. Both had pretty excellent reviews as long as you kept in mind they’re beginner basses but they’re very solid.

I did go to a shop and played them both before buying. Pretty comparable. Main differences were Yamaha was a bit heavier and Yamaha has 24 frets vs 22 on the Ibanez. The Ibanez is also not a passive bass, it has a bass boost circuit. It’s the smaller 4th knob on the front of the bass. This means the bass needs a 9v battery which some people may not like. Also means you can give the sound a bit of texture/growl when you want, or you can just leave it off for a clean tone.

I do like Yamaha gear a lot, my primary workstation/synth is a Yamaha and it’s been a workhorse for me since literally 2007, played almost daily and been on several tours. I also have a Yamaha marimba I got cheap from one of the corps I marched in like 09 or so and it’s held up great despite the fact that it was certainly abused in its former life, played hard, and toured constantly (plus I still play it regularly). But the Ibanez was a sweet deal and I didn’t want to spend too much (as you can see I’ve already spent way too goddamn much on music gear in my life)

Also shoutout to rocksmith, which has been so awesome

A cheap beginner bass guitar. I was like man will I play bass even? I’m a drummer mainly but I also play a decent amount of piano bc my main drum things are drum set and marimba and I played synth for 1 season in drum corp. I got a bass because I wanted to actually try playing bass parts for songs instead of clicking them in. It does sound better (well, eventually it did) but it’s just really fun to play. Like I had also bought a $100 used guitar and I just find playing that a chore. I can play a few songs but I’m a permanent beginner and have no real interest in growing. The bass though? I play that like an hour a day and it’s actually cutting into my drum and piano time

More like sponsored ”Product” for the first 8 results

No the rest of the comments commentary on noncompetes applies regardless of whether or not their is validity to a noncompete. Maybe that was unclear?

I don’t think you read past the second sentence of my comment in your rush to tell me I’m wrong. The rest of my comment underlines why the theory is useless. The opening is just defining why they might define a loss of noncompetes as causing irreparable harm.

I also don’t think it’s an effective strategy to solely paint the picture of the oppressed worker with hyperbolic statements and zero nuance. The worker is the oppressed person in this case and needs the advocacy for sure but you don’t win by being disingenuous

Well in theory it would, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that the point of the non compete? I have you sign it because if you utilize the skill set I gave you in the specific geographic area then my business will be harmed by you poaching clientele that would have otherwise come to me.

It’s another way of saying “fuck new small businesses, established businesses should be allowed to continue to consolidate power at the expense of everyone who comes after them” though. Aka fuck you, got mine.

It undermines capitalism. I’m not a capitalist but I thought the whole point of capitalism was to let the services and products duke it out on merit and let the best one win by letting the market decide. This is just another way we subvert capitalist ideals. we let the players who already have capital cheat to entrench their positions further and give themselves even more of an unfair advantage over anyone entering against them.

If I’m “New shop” going up against “5th generation store worth 8 million dollars with 10 locations” the odds are already hugely stacked against me, but now if I work for them and sign a noncompete I basically am barred from playing before I even try. Let alone that metaphor barely even works anymore because 99% of the time “5th generation store” is actually “global conglomerate worth 5 trillion dollars that has an army of lawyers who will either acquire you or sue you into oblivion the millisecond you become a threat”

I worked in a setting where we had to use them because people had to get audio prompts but still needed to be able to hear for situational awareness. They definitely work and work pretty well. You can even use them underwater. They can’t match the sound quality of actual headphones though. But for voice stuff or if you’re not super picky about audio quality they’re great, you can easily hear everything going on around you much more clearly than any of the “transparency modes” that modern noise cancelling headphones have because they don’t block your ears at all

heating built in. They make the kind that have mixing but as you said the hot water is contingent on your homes supply. In my house that’s like 90-120 seconds and that is a lot of time and wasted water for bidet usage. Plus I have a vanity instead of a pedestal sink so running the hot water line would’ve meant I had to cut a hole in the vanity and get a pretty long line.

this one was a decent bit more expensive but circumvents those issues. It also adds some features like a heated seated, a blow dryer to dry you when you’re done, and nozzle adjustment to make sure you get the right spot. Downside of this is that it needs electricity but I was much more comfortable running a new gfi outlet to the toilet than I was tapping the hot water line of the sink and cutting the vanity (or running a more permanent hot water line). Outside of the outlet the install is simple, install the mount the same way would any toilet seat, slide the seat into the mount (the seat can pop out of the mount with a button so you can clean it easier, which is nice), turn the water off and drain the lines, install a t adapter, reconnect the lines to tank and seat, turn on water, check for leaks, plug into power, done

It’s definitely some bougie shit but I don’t care, I love it. I got an open box and saved about $225 (mine is a toto washlet, I paid about $275). I’ve had it for about 5 years and it’s been perfect, reviews suggest they’re bulletproof and I plan to use it basically forever. there are more brands now though that are significantly cheaper with the same exact features though but not as clear as to whether they will last as long. toto is built super solid but I don’t know if it’s worth the price premium over some of the chinese brands that have popped up on ebay and amazon

bidet with warm water hookup. the toilet seat kind, I don’t have the space for a whole extra thing

That shit goes back way before reddit. It was a problem on digg, on 4chan, somethingawful and other vbulletin forums, Usenet, etc. it will be a problem here and every place that comes after

It’s easier to just agree with the group than do critical thinking. It’s easier to just repost the same stupid tired joke someone else just made than to be clever. etc

I think it’s spelled “anime”