Zompist Bboard Again

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Mar 12, 2025 12:05 pm I've had an absolutely miserable start to the year. February I was sick more days than I was well. I'm not entirely out of the woods, but at least I'm doing better. Fingers crossed it holds.

Sorry to hear that you weren't well -- hopefully you'll be feeling better from this point out.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Mar 12, 2025 2:42 pm

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Mar 12, 2025 12:05 pm I've had an absolutely miserable start to the year. February I was sick more days than I was well. I'm not entirely out of the woods, but at least I'm doing better. Fingers crossed it holds.

Sorry to hear that you weren't well -- hopefully you'll be feeling better from this point out.

get better soon, Linguoboy!

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Mar 12, 2025 12:05 pmI've had an absolutely miserable start to the year. February I was sick more days than I was well. I'm not entirely out of the woods, but at least I'm doing better. Fingers crossed it holds.

That's just like me! The first week back after the New Year is the only one I had no time off sick on any day.

Thanks, everyone!

alice wrote: ↑Wed Mar 12, 2025 3:55 pm

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Mar 12, 2025 12:05 pmI've had an absolutely miserable start to the year. February I was sick more days than I was well. I'm not entirely out of the woods, but at least I'm doing better. Fingers crossed it holds.

That's just like me! The first week back after the New Year is the only one I had no time off sick on any day.

I made it through most of January in fine shape and thought I'd be in the clear. Then it was colds, flus, and a cascading series of other issues.

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Mar 12, 2025 4:16 pm I made it through most of January in fine shape and thought I'd be in the clear. Then it was colds, flus, and a cascading series of other issues.

Ouch! I hope you're doing better. Have you been to a doctor? I wouldn't go for one cold, but a succession of them might be something else.

zompist wrote: ↑Wed Mar 12, 2025 4:24 pmOuch! I hope you're doing better. Have you been to a doctor? I wouldn't go for one cold, but a succession of them might be something else.

It's been an historically bad flu season this year. Unfortunately I'm not the only person in this boat.

I did consult someone for one of my ailments and he told me there was a chance it was caused by an underlying issue with my immune response, though he doubted that. I told him that I'm due for a blood panel, which should reveal any anomalies in my WBC. If that's the case, I'll follow up with my physician.

Commiserations and get better, Linguoboy!

I had occasion to log into Glassdoor for the first time in a while. They are forcing me to “contribute” to “enjoy another 12 months of access”. Way to ensure I never use you again, Glassdoor!

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Mar 12, 2025 12:05 pm

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 4:01 amIt really seems like you lacked some life coaching from your family. Try asking a relative or a co-workers how to handle a speeding ticket.

My dad used to "fix" speeding tickets all the time. (He was--as y'all may recall--a small-town lawyer in Troy, MO.)

The question is whether this speeding ticket is too severe for my lawyer to fix. If they fail to acquit me, I will spend six months in jail and have a misdemeanor conviction, permanently ruining any chance of getting another job. Even if acquitted, I will have to pay considerably more for car insurance every month and that means cutting out the last few luxuries and probably some necessities from my budget.

On less catastrophic news, the walls of my apartment are utter crap at blocking sound and I can't sleep because people are shouting and carrying on outside. I need better earplugs that don't just dampen sound but eliminate it entirely.

malloc wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 7:04 pm Some pretty horrible news today. I got pulled over for speeding and now I face significant (for someone in my precarious position anyway) legal and financial trouble. The cop claimed I was driving 80 MPH (~130 KPH) in a 45 MPH (~70 KPH) zone which makes this a serious misdemeanor. Not only will this criminal conviction get me in jail and open me up to greater danger from the law down the line, it will push my already extreme car insurance bill to levels I can no longer afford.

I took your advice not to commit suicide and look where it got me: facing probable jail time and massive fines, a permanent blemish on my legal record, and massive strain on my already tight budget. I am already living in poverty with barely any luxuries and soon I will have to part with those just to have any chance of survival.

You're not going to prison. Heck, there's cases in America of people driving cars killing other people (accidentally) and not even going to prison! (I'm not saying this is good policy, but just showing how lenient vehicle offenses are sometimes handled in America.)

(1) If you contest the ticket, the cop might not even bother show up to court, which means you automatically win.
(2) Even if you have to pay a fine, you should be able to pay in increments according to a payment plan, rather than a lump sum all at once.
(3) If don't ever go more than 5 MPH above the speed limit, then the cops won't ever bother pulling you over for speeding to begin with, at least where I live.

jcb wrote: ↑Sat Mar 15, 2025 1:00 am You're not going to prison. Heck, there's cases in America of people driving cars killing other people (accidentally) and not even going to prison! (I'm not saying this is good policy, but just showing how lenient vehicle offenses are sometimes handled in America.)

(1) If you contest the ticket, the cop might not even bother show up to court, which means you automatically win.
(2) Even if you have to pay a fine, you should be able to pay in increments according to a payment plan, rather than a lump sum all at once.
(3) If don't ever go more than 5 MPH above the speed limit, then the cops won't ever bother pulling you over for speeding to begin with, at least where I live.

Indeed, punishable does not mean will be punished with. It's highly unusual to actually get jail time for a first-time misdemeanor offense save in some unusual cases, and if it's a first-time offense, often prosecutors may be willing to negotiate a plea to a lesser offense with less dire consequences. This happens a lot in North Carolina (my "home state"): more than 15 mph above (or a speed faster than 80 mph) is a misdemeanor that usually carries a mandatory 30-day license suspension, but many times prosecutors are willing to allow a plea to below the threshold for the mandatory suspension/misdemeanor (it then becomes an infraction). And lawyers can also sometimes find holes in, for example, the calibration certificates used to measure speed, officer testimony, etc. There are many times ways around things, especially in the US legal system.

Minor vent: I came back from Brussels yesterday after a fun (and exhausting) science outreach event, but the train was full of this very badly behaved scouting group for about two-thirds of the 3-hour train journey. They were loud, they fought, they kept screaming...

doctor shark wrote: ↑Sat Mar 15, 2025 8:53 am Minor vent: I came back from Brussels yesterday after a fun (and exhausting) science outreach event, but the train was full of this very badly behaved scouting group for about two-thirds of the 3-hour train journey. They were loud, they fought, they kept screaming...

Ugh. Sounds even worse than that time I got the RER B in Paris with two rowdy kids in the seat facing me (which, if you’re at all familiar with the RER B, you’ll know is another way of saying ‘jammed literally into my knees’).

This is a very small First World vent, but today a user found that I had made a stupid mistake in the implementation of a user-facing API and swapped the order of two arguments of a routine, so I am faced with the choice of making a breaking change and correcting the argument order or simply accepting the incorrect order as the correct one and changing the docs and comments to match. I want to correct the argument order in my next release but there are those who would say that you should avoid making breaking changes whenever possible, even if it is to fix bugs.

Related, and just as minor. I wish my colleagues would learn to use a parser for command-line applications, instead of relying only on argument order. Every time I have to use one of their programs, the command has to be something like So, if I want to change the output address, I have to check what's the default for each other option, and whether it uses true/false or 1/0. The worst part? Whenever I offer to change a program to actually parse the inputs (which I could do in 20 minutes), they tell me it's impossible, because it's already used by other scripts. Apparently, taking 20 minutes to design a program correctly is more difficult than losing hours to struggle with it.

Ryusenshi wrote: ↑Sat Mar 15, 2025 10:55 am Related, and just as minor. I wish my colleagues would learn to use a parser for command-line applications, instead of relying only on argument order. Every time I have to use one of their programs, the command has to be something like

Code: Select all

./whatever source.txt 1 0 true config_file.txt false 1 output.bin

So, if I want to change the output address, I have to check what's the default for each other option, and whether it uses true/false or 1/0. The worst part? Whenever I offer to change a program to actually parse the inputs (which I could do in 20 minutes), they tell me it's impossible, because it's already used by other scripts. Apparently, taking 20 minutes to design a program correctly is more difficult than losing hours to struggle with it.

If they won't change their program, write a program that wraps their program which uses a proper command line argument parser.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Mar 15, 2025 9:57 am

doctor shark wrote: ↑Sat Mar 15, 2025 8:53 am Minor vent: I came back from Brussels yesterday after a fun (and exhausting) science outreach event, but the train was full of this very badly behaved scouting group for about two-thirds of the 3-hour train journey. They were loud, they fought, they kept screaming...

Ugh. Sounds even worse than that time I got the RER B in Paris with two rowdy kids in the seat facing me (which, if you’re at all familiar with the RER B, you’ll know is another way of saying ‘jammed literally into my knees’).

I haven't taken the RER B in more than a few years, probably because of the lasting trauma of things like that. (And especially with luggage, which is the last time I took the RER B... it's quite a challenge!)

doctor shark wrote: ↑Sun Mar 16, 2025 3:18 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Mar 15, 2025 9:57 am

doctor shark wrote: ↑Sat Mar 15, 2025 8:53 am Minor vent: I came back from Brussels yesterday after a fun (and exhausting) science outreach event, but the train was full of this very badly behaved scouting group for about two-thirds of the 3-hour train journey. They were loud, they fought, they kept screaming...

Ugh. Sounds even worse than that time I got the RER B in Paris with two rowdy kids in the seat facing me (which, if you’re at all familiar with the RER B, you’ll know is another way of saying ‘jammed literally into my knees’).

I haven't taken the RER B in more than a few years, probably because of the lasting trauma of things like that. (And especially with luggage, which is the last time I took the RER B... it's quite a challenge!)

Well, it was the line right outside my apartment there, so there was no avoiding it. Out in the suburbs where I was, it actually wasn’t too bad most of the time. But this happened going into the city, on a crowded weekend…

Wait, you got seats?

I used to work near one of the last stops on the RER B; it was okay but I can't say I miss it.
The real annoyance is having to take it to get to the airport. But getting to Charles de Gaulle airport is an unnecessarily painful experience, no matter how you get there.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue Mar 18, 2025 5:48 am Wait, you got seats?

Out in Massy, yes. (Usually…)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue Mar 18, 2025 5:48 am Wait, you got seats? :D

I used to work near one of the last stops on the RER B; it was okay but I can't say I miss it.
The real annoyance is having to take it to get to the airport. But getting to Charles de Gaulle airport is an unnecessarily painful experience, no matter how you get there.

I find anything related to CDG Airport is usually an unnecessarily painful experience.