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[Ares Land]

That said, I continue to be dismayed by GUI tools for resolving git conflicts. Is there anything better than vimdiff yet? I need at least four simultaneous screens (the base common ancestor file, the local file, the remote file, and the edited merged file; I find most GUI tools omit the base common ancestor!).

Visual Studio Code isn't too bad at this, IMO.

On the GUI vs. CLI debate, it mostly depends on what you're doing most often. At work, I build and run development environment, sometimes I lend a hand to developers, and I package apps for production.
Most of that should ideally be automated, and in any case, it needs to be repeatable. You can't really beat CLI tools for that.

I'm also amused at the way our production teams buy overpriced toy. We have some huge Big Data(TM) thing for logs, for instance; in reality most if not all of our needs are covered by good-old fashioned grepping and awking.

[Ares Land]

Well, I don’t know much about South America, and don’t know much about meteorology either, but I am very interested in geology, so I did a bit of research, and managed to find a relevant article. As best as I can tell from that, the best place to find unexplored caves seems to be Mato Grosso.

And fron this map of South America, it seems the best place to hide strong winds is Santa Cruz Province of Argentina.

If you're looking for a place with both karst terrain and high winds, your best bets are probably the Sierra de San Luis in northern Venezuela, and the Madre de Dios Archipelago in Chile.

Thank you both for the suggestions!

[Kuchigakatai]

Visual Studio Code isn't too bad at this, IMO.

Is it possible to have my requested four screens? (Not a rhetorical question...)

On the GUI vs. CLI debate, it mostly depends on what you're doing most often. At work, I build and run development environment, sometimes I lend a hand to developers, and I package apps for production.
Most of that should ideally be automated, and in any case, it needs to be repeatable. You can't really beat CLI tools for that.

I'm also amused at the way our production teams buy overpriced toy. We have some huge Big Data(TM) thing for logs, for instance; in reality most if not all of our needs are covered by good-old fashioned grepping and awking.

Yeah, system administration inevitably involves a lot of scripting. Routines on lots of files.

It sounds like someone with power in your production team is a die-hard fan of GUIs, or is a bit gullible to buzzwords...

[Ares Land]

Is it possible to have my requested four screens? (Not a rhetorical question...)

Ah, I'm not sure about that. I don't think so.

It sounds like someone with power in your production team is a die-hard fan of GUIs, or is a bit gullible to buzzwords...

Oh dear God yes.

[Travis B.]

Is it possible to have my requested four screens? (Not a rhetorical question...)

Ah, I'm not sure about that. I don't think so.

I use Visual Studio Code (and IntelliJ, Notepad++, vi, and emacs) at work. Just for the record, you can't have the same project in more than one window at a time, to my knowledge, which makes it difficult to have all three of my monitors with windows for the same project on them, as I would wish.

[doctor shark]

Apart from deep concerns about the legality of my vote, I am also worried about whether it got accepted. If not, I will need to vote in person. As it stands, I have no idea how to check.

Many states are offering online tracking of mail-in ballots. (Illinois does this, for instance.) What does the official website say?

NC does as well: I got the confirmation that the ballot was accepted about two days after they received it. Check on the official state board of elections website; they should give you more details on who to contact.

[Linguoboy]

Apart from deep concerns about the legality of my vote, I am also worried about whether it got accepted. If not, I will need to vote in person. As it stands, I have no idea how to check.

Many states are offering online tracking of mail-in ballots. (Illinois does this, for instance.) What does the official website say?

NC does as well: I got the confirmation that the ballot was accepted about two days after they received it. Check on the official state board of elections website; they should give you more details on who to contact.

Unfortunately Missouri is one of about eight that doesn't have ballot tracking on the state level, but local jurisdictions have implemented it, including St Charles County, where malloc lives: https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/polit ... 6348efca63.

[doctor shark]

Many states are offering online tracking of mail-in ballots. (Illinois does this, for instance.) What does the official website say?

NC does as well: I got the confirmation that the ballot was accepted about two days after they received it. Check on the official state board of elections website; they should give you more details on who to contact.

Unfortunately Missouri is one of about eight that doesn't have ballot tracking on the state level, but local jurisdictions have implemented it, including St Charles County, where malloc lives: https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/polit ... 6348efca63.

Yay for state-level election organization. Though maybe why things are so well organized in NC for that is because of the huge military population that votes absentee.

In other random things, I have a bachelor's student this semester. Nice guy and seems to be interested in the project (at last!), despite the numerous hiccups the project's having, though he does have health issues (a tendency to massively oversleep, combined with minor OCD/repetitive behaviors) that are making planning around things a bit difficult.

[Raphael]

Last night, we had what was probably the first serious fall storm this fall here. I did wonder about the windows a couple of times. But there's a part of me that mainly thinks "Oh, how clichéd!" whenever it's literally a dark and stormy night where I live.

[Raphael]

In other random things, I have a bachelor's student this semester. Nice guy and seems to be interested in the project (at last!), despite the numerous hiccups the project's having, though he does have health issues (a tendency to massively oversleep, combined with minor OCD/repetitive behaviors) that are making planning around things a bit difficult.

Oh dear. I have similar issues. Good luck to him and to you!

[Linguoboy]

Last night, we had what was probably the first serious fall storm this fall here. I did wonder about the windows a couple of times. But there's a part of me that mainly thinks "Oh, how clichéd!" whenever it's literally a dark and stormy night where I live.

I was up all night thanks to this massive storm system moving through. The thunderstorms started about 10:30 pm and didn't let up until after 6 am. I haven't been outside yet, but fortunately it doesn't look like any trees came down this time.

[Ares Land]

Last night, we had what was probably the first serious fall storm this fall here. I did wonder about the windows a couple of times. But there's a part of me that mainly thinks "Oh, how clichéd!" whenever it's literally a dark and stormy night where I live.

I was up all night thanks to this massive storm system moving through. The thunderstorms started about 10:30 pm and didn't let up until after 6 am. I haven't been outside yet, but fortunately it doesn't look like any trees came down this time.

Oh, it's about 20°F outside (68 °F) which is totally normal for mid-October, ha ha, totally normal, aaaah nothing to see here, no no, that's definitely not global warming, everything is fine, move along...

(The weather's been unusually warm for I think... 15 months? and people still complain about bicycle paths and that they can't park. Oh by 'unusual' I mean, the past 15 months have been the warmest on record.)

[Linguoboy]

I was up all night thanks to this massive storm system moving through. The thunderstorms started about 10:30 pm and didn't let up until after 6 am. I haven't been outside yet, but fortunately it doesn't look like any trees came down this time.

Oh, it's about 20°F outside (68 °F) which is totally normal for mid-October, ha ha, totally normal, aaaah nothing to see here, no no, that's definitely not global warming, everything is fine, move along...

Yeah, projected high of 22°C today which is, let's just say "not typical" of Chicago in late October.

The other day, another local and I were reminiscing about when "thundersnow" was a novel freak occurrence rather than something which happens a couple times every winter. Ah, what a simpler time the 00s were!

[Raphael]

Oh, it's been pretty warm for October here, too.

[doctor shark]

It's been quite cool and wet for October here in the Netherlands, at least compared to what I'm used to for October in Luxembourg. (Most years, it was at least still comfortable through the first half of October before temperatures nosedived... I remember going sightseeing with my brother in shorts and a T-shirt, and this was in mid-October last year!)

In random other things: one thing I decided to use the semi-lockdown to do is to try cooking some new things. One such thing was Béarnaise sauce (because steak, and because it's seen as one of the harder French sauces to get "right"), and, oddly enough, I got it down almost perfectly on the first go! (Needed to work a bit on the seasonings, but the sauce was thick, creamy, and buttery... and the seasonings were perfect on try #2.) Makes me definitely want to try making Hollandaise during asparagus season next year.

[Kuchigakatai]

A few interesting photos from China from the 70s and 80s:
http://johngittings.tripod.com/photos_f ... 197191?i=0
It has six pages you access through the small numbers at the top.

This one of a bridge in Shanghai, from 1971, is pretty interesting:
http://johngittings.tripod.com/photos_f ... /JGCH4.jpg
The blogger notes: "The skyline has hardly changed since the years when Shanghai was dominated by foreign settlements. Very little motor traffic, and most goods are pulled on handcarts", referring to the pre-revolution foreign settlements.

This one, of a bookshop, from 1982, interestingly has traditional Chinese characters in the name:
http://johngittings.tripod.com/photos_f ... JGCH37.jpg
which isn't too weird even today, but as it literally just says "bookshop" (書亭, cf. simplified 书亭), it makes me wonder about the speed of adoption of simplified Chinese. Could it still be very much incomplete by that year?

[malloc]

My landlord (or business that owns this block of apartment buildings really) send me something saying that I need to put in a 60 day notice before my lease runs out. The letter says nothing about what this notice must include or the required format, only that it must be sent at least 60 days before the lease runs out. I have asked other people I know, but they have never rented an apartment long enough to worry about renewing the lease and have no idea what any of this means. My google searches on this matter keep turning up stuff for landlords rather than tenants.

[Pabappa]

I dont know what that means either and Ive been living in apartments for most of the last fifteen years.

I dont drink anymore, but my advice is the same as it was when I did ....

Breathe deep and let it go.

If it's a problem for you, it's a problem for everyone else in the apartment building too. Unless the whole building is panicking I'm sure you're going to be fine.

That's my solution for your problem. I hope it works for you.

[MacAnDàil]

That's a good point, Pabappa. Maybe contact people you know in the appartment block to find out how they're dealing with it?

[KathTheDragon]

My advice is to put in the minimum effort and if they complain at you, tell them they never said what had to be in it.

A suggestion: "This is a 60-day notice that my lease expires on [day]"