Keep in mind most firefighters in the USA are volunteers who just drive to the station when there’s a fire - not paid professionals.

My station just hired our first full time paramedics, we have a few part time paid firefighter+EMTs, and some volunteer firefighter+EMTs.

While we’re not getting that many fire calls, the few we get are pretty bad. Like, would burn down a neighborhood bad, because everything is now made from fast burning plastics. Sofas, carpets, house paint, siding, roofs, furniture, and clothes are all pretty much petroleum based. And will burn extremely hot and fast when it catches, spreading to all the surrounding exposure buildings.

My buddy works at Underwriters Laboratories and was saying they just did a burn test that showed the typical house today will catch neighboring houses on fire just from the infrared radiation through their windows. Even if the neighboring houses are soaking wet, the insides can still catch fire through the windows.

So we’re in a jam - we hardly ever have real house fires, but they are extremely dangerous and will burn the whole town down if we don’t get there asap.

Not to mention all the car crashes, hazmat spills, EMS lift assists. I’m sure there’s a way we can improve the situation, but I honestly don’t know what it would look like. The US is a huge place that’s very spread out, I don’t think we’re ever going to fully go away from volunteer firefighters, as much as I think it would be more efficient.

Long story short, if you’re able to lift a 30lb box overhead, the volunteer fire service is desperate in most places. Volunteerism is down like 90% from it’s peak. But most fire stations are entirely volunteer. So there’s a very real need for more folks to pitch in. I’m happy to chat with anyone who is curious and wants to get into it. I highly recommend it, it’s done wonders for my personal life.

Right by the bridge a few years ago there was a farm you could camp for a few bucks. A very affectionate donkey would sniff over your shoulder for treats

Firefox on Android is pretty good and you can still install an ad blocker.

I second this, a monitor is useful in so many more ways! It turns your phone into a whole computer. If you use Android, you can install a terminal and be able to do all kinds of cool stuff on it.

I put a computer monitor with an HDMI to usb C adapter in my kitchen so I can plug in my phone and put on MST3K while cooking.

It’s also useful because you can use it as an external monitor for another computer.

Whoa whoa, what do you want to do, crash the entire US stock market over here?! Our whole economy is propped up by the story that AI is the future and will replace all jobs forever. We’ve got MS paying OpenAI paying Nvidia, and that’s making the line go up.

So let’s be cool with throwing around “numbers” that “prove” the emperor has no clothes. Because, like, we gotta pretend he does at least until the next thing that needs every video card ever.

If it’s small you might try printing the files on archival paper with archival ink. Then you can put copies in multiple safe deposit boxes. Also you could bury copies rolled up in plastic water bottles. I think those are unlikely to degrade anytime soon. Or glass bottles with plastic lids.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode

yeah, but like, fuck cars

I disagree, other than a few notable counter examples most times folks are only successful when they build reliable business relationships. Most relationships will dissolve if one party is playing games.

On average it’s more effective to follow “The No Assholes Rule”. There’s plenty of studies (referenced in the book Good To Great) that indicate that humble business leaders produce build more stable and long term profitable companies.

Lying manipulators can sometimes get ahead but just as often they get found out and blackballed.

I think it might be like a game theory type situation where if everyone is honest, then the first liar might get ahead a lot (although I suspect in that situation they’d immediately be shunned by all honest folk if found out). If everyone is a liar then honest folk have nothing to hide and probably will just be really defensive in their dealings.

I used my old standby QMK and just wrote the config with cursor/vim.

Here’s a cool picture of my soldering job, I didn’t test it until the end, and it all worked first try!

“the poor dopamine seeker, I fear his long-standing obsessions have affected him”

In Costa Rica elections are a whole thing, like everyone’s out with flags on cars and megaphones yelling about one of the 20+ political parties.

Also Semana Santa is a week long Catholic holiday.

Despite all my rage, I’m still just a rat in a cage

Tiramisuitcase

A few favorites:

• Constantine
• The Last Jedi
• Jupiter Ascending
• Minority Report
• Prometheus
• Valerian
• Logan’s Run

A wedding can cost almost nothing. I found a very small local poor church and offered them $100 bucks to use the place on a Saturday. I baked a big cake, decorated it plain white. I overnight smoked a brisket, made a pan of Mac and cheese.

Got a friend to officiate, and told our friends and families a month in advance. We told everyone it was a potluck. We got $100 plain rings. My grandmother ended up buying some cool flowers for decorations. A friend played some music on the church speakers.

All in, it probably cost us $400 out of pocket, and we got enough cash from attendees to cover that and pay for us to take off work for the week to just hang out and move in together, staycation style. To be fair, I don’t think either of us would have wanted a vacation style honeymoon, we did that kind of thing later. That first week was a lot of figuring out how to live together, so that took time.

So it’s possible to have a big party with friends and family, but spend very little. Just have everyone bring some food and it’ll work out.

Studies show that folks are less likely to have a happy long term marriage the more they spend on a wedding. It’s a pretty clear correlation that expensive weddings typically make folks more unhappy and starts the relationship off with more financial stress. So, don’t feel bad about being frugal! As long as you are both happy, it can be very inexpensive.

I’m pretty sure it’s Shaun of the Dead.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_of_the_Dead

Let’s be real, Witcher 3 is just a Gwent launcher.

Also I’ve definitely played more Pazaak than KOTOR.

I mute a ton of communities, and I really like quickly getting to the “end” of All. Then I’ve blocked some other dopamine sites, so I get bored and go play outside 🤣

I’m sure someone will be like “um akchuly” to my explanation. But for me it’s good enough to think if it that way.

I’ve worked in Haskell and F# for a decade, and added some of the original code to the Unison compiler, so I’m at least passingly familiar with the subject. Enough that I’ve had to explain it to new hires a bunch of times to get them to to speed. I find it easier to learn something when I’m given a practical use for it and how it solves that problem.