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Small Unworthy Things, Starting with Blue Monday


Fragile Bird

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Donna Strickland is a Canadian physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 2018. To everyone’s shock at Wikipedia, she didn’t have a Wikipedia page. Oops. She had a Wikipedia page that Wikipedia editors decided wasn’t important enough so they deleted it.

Turns out that only 19% of the pages about people are about women. Also, 90% of the volunteer editors are male. There appears to be systemic bias at work.

I’ll link a story when I have a moment.

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Much of this week has been quite horrible, including the death of a dear friend and the illness freshly discovered of another.  The new week begins horribly too -- a hurricane (Henry) heading our way tomorrow and Monday and then off to clobber Connecticut, cutting right across where several of our dear friends live.

We are guessing ... considering the path of Henri so far charted as of noon today ... that we, right here, though getting lots of rain and heavy winds, won't flood, etc.  And Henri seems to be moving very fast, so that's an additional hope that we may be spared the worst.

 

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That rare time when they screw up your food order and you end up coming out on top big time: priceless.

A chicken sandwich turned that plus a burger, fries, hot wings and spicy nuggets. Best part is I was offering to order for those in the house and no one was hungry. Free food changed their minds. 

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18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That rare time when they screw up your food order and you end up coming out on top big time: priceless.

A chicken sandwich turned that plus a burger, fries, hot wings and spicy nuggets. Best part is I was offering to order for those in the house and no one was hungry. Free food changed their minds. 

Adjacent tale. I went to Walmart yesterday and afterwards found a free 7-pack of lighters at the bottom of one of my bags, under my bananas. 
 

One smokers loss is this pyromaniacs win. 

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On 8/16/2021 at 6:42 PM, maarsen said:

Wait till the next day when it come out. 

Eh, that's not really an issue given how much spicy stuff I eat. The salsa I just made with peppers from my garden is way hotter than the aforementioned burger. People are coughing after they take a bite of it. My face is burning up, lol. 

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Can someone explain something about the way the US telephone system works? (And elsewhere, I guess?)

I just heard a news piece about people with accounts at Coinbase, a company that sells various kinds of Bitcoin, getting their accounts hacked and getting cleaned out. Bitcoin has denied any liability because the fault isn’t on the Bitcoin end but on the client end, through their phones.

Apparently the hackers contact the phone company requesting a new SIM card, and get the card sent to them instead of the customer. With the new SIM card the hackers change the account password and transfer out the Bitcoin.

I’ve never heard of such a thing. The phone company can send out a new SIM card with all your phone’s information on it? I had no idea this could happen.

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It is a thing and does happen. Not so often though, as the hackers have to be able to convincingly impersonate their target when contacting the phone company. Phone companies should (and generally do) perform security checks, especially when the new SIM card is to be sent to a different address. If I were the people concerned here, then I would be looking at suing my phone company.

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4 hours ago, L'oiseau français said:

Can someone explain something about the way the US telephone system works? (And elsewhere, I guess?)

I just heard a news piece about people with accounts at Coinbase, a company that sells various kinds of Bitcoin, getting their accounts hacked and getting cleaned out. Bitcoin has denied any liability because the fault isn’t on the Bitcoin end but on the client end, through their phones.

Apparently the hackers contact the phone company requesting a new SIM card, and get the card sent to them instead of the customer. With the new SIM card the hackers change the account password and transfer out the Bitcoin.

I’ve never heard of such a thing. The phone company can send out a new SIM card with all your phone’s information on it? I had no idea this could happen.

Something similar just came up on CBC? on my phone as the next target of scammers is sim cards because texting is so poorly protected. Your bank, or the CRA will send a text for 2 factor identity verification and it can then be intercepted by a duplicate sim card. Usually this is done by someone with access to your phone, or by someone who knows your habits.

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GameStop stock shenanigans just keep resurrecting.  This time around, Pod Partner, made nearly a million yesterday, as after the last round he made so much, locked it in, but he's kept control of nearly 3000 shares that he's had all these years, so.  The 'real' market lost again in its attempts to upend GameStop and the 'rogue' Reddit sorts. I really don't know quite what to think about this.  Pod Partner doesn't either, as this just happens because he has all these shares which for so long seemed worthless but he had them, and just kept them because he liked the company and those who run it.

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He locks the earnings / profit in but never -- or hardly ever -- takes anything out to put it in the bank, because he's have to pay taxes on it.  His taxation profile is so distorted at this point due to GameStop, that he's in the highest percentile now, something like 30% -- and he's really, um shall we say? frugal?  hates to spend money?  All these years he just takes out money for things such as paying for daughter's private school, then college at Georgetown, then Harvard Law.  But he never goes on vacation, etc.

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It’s going to be the irony of the universe if I get laid off as part of “efficiency improvement” at the end of the year after I joined a big ass multi national company for jOb sEcuRiTy… seriously what is even going on with my life…?

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Another small unworthy thing for today. 
I just went to the grocery store and paid $8.5 for a 0.5 l bottle of olive oil and a 500g bread. What the…?  Dear world economy, this is Eastern Europe, the hourly minimum wage is $3.25. What the actual…?
(Yes I know, I am very fortunate to have such problems on a global scale and even locally, I could buy 1l of sunflower oil and a 1000g bread off brand at a discount store for $3.25.)

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33 minutes ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

I won't be eating any muffins from Jewel-Osco anytime soon. I ate a cinnamon muffin Monday morning and ever since I've had diarrhea and now a headache.

Oh yikes, no fun. Is there a Marianos near you?  I typically buy theirs instead of Jewels.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

What grade are your kiddos?

1st in high school ("gymnasium") in Slovenia - no idea how that compares to any school system you are familiar with, but basically they are 14-15 years old.

And now we are on day 2 of our introduction camp, and I have to be responsible for a group of 29 teenagers for three days, including overnight. It is just one improvised step after another. It is quite stressful.

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