Zompist Bboard Again

So it looks like TIAA-CREF, the institution which administers my retirement benefits, closed their local office. It was convenient being able to walk in and chat with my adviser, but no worries, we did a lot by phone and email anyway. I phoned the office but I didn't have his personal extension so all I could do was leave a message. I also sent a followup email. Two days without a reply, so I called and left another message. I also tried the live chat on their website but the representative was like, "I can't answer any of your questions, but here's a number you can call." All of this for what should be a pretty routine and simple question. Annoying as hell.

Had an adverse reaction to my meds today. Now we have to figure out a new plan going forward.

Man in Space wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 10:39 am Had an adverse reaction to my meds today. Now we have to figure out a new plan going forward.

Good luck.

In trivial vents, wasp season has definitely started here. It is, of course, perfectly understandable that just when the weather gets pleasant enough that you might want to spend more time outside, the insects get the same idea, but it's still a bit annoying.

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 10:35 am In trivial vents, wasp season has definitely started here. It is, of course, perfectly understandable that just when the weather gets pleasant enough that you might want to spend more time outside, the insects get the same idea, but it's still a bit annoying.

"Wasps: The skinheads of the animal kingdom." - Gerry Sadowitz

Why, in the YOOL 2022, are people still falling for woke ads? Dynocorp doesn't care about your struggles! They made a commercial about sexism to buy your good will and retweets, so they can keep selling you slave blood or whatever. Most of these ads are as feeble as those old soap ads that only had to say "buy it" to convince the Greatest Generation, dazzled as they were by the authority of a blinking wooden box in their living room. And yet it still works.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 8:31 pm Why, in the YOOL 2022, are people still falling for woke ads? Dynocorp doesn't care about your struggles! They made a commercial about sexism to buy your good will and retweets, so they can keep selling you slave blood or whatever. Most of these ads are as feeble as those old soap ads that only had to say "buy it" to convince the Greatest Generation, dazzled as they were by the authority of a blinking wooden box in their living room. And yet it still works.

People who think that companies actually care about wokeness deserve to be exploited by them, just like the people who think they will get thousands from a Nigerian prince in return for a few thousand in Amazon gift card numbers as a "facilitation payment" to enable said Nigerian prince to unlock their frozen assets.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 10:31 pm People who think that companies actually care about wokeness deserve to be exploited by them, just like the people who think they will get thousands from a Nigerian prince in return for a few thousand in Amazon gift card numbers as a "facilitation payment" to enable said Nigerian prince to unlock their frozen assets.

I wouldn't go that far. In both cases, the people in question might have mental issues that effectively come down to a complete lack of what is commonly called "street smartness". And as someone who is not particularly street smart myself, I can sort of sympathize.

I think we're all a lot more vulnerable to obvious marketing tricks than we realize.

alynnidalar wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 2:50 pm

Tis true, but I tend to roll my eyes whenever a company tries to market themselves as "socially aware" regardless (obviously they need better propaganda).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 6:01 pmTis true, but I tend to roll my eyes whenever a company tries to market themselves as "socially aware" regardless (obviously they need better propaganda).

Same here. Experience tells me that corporate for profit organizations tend to focus more on self-image.

I had to deem a slew of routines as "not interrupt service routine (ISR)-safe" after having deemed them safe for such after taking another look at them and finding no way to make them safe for ISR's in the general case. This really leaves me with NOTIFY, NOTIFY-SET, and NOTIFY-UPDATE as the only "ISR-safe" routines for waking up specific tasks from within ISR's, which is really frustrating. Even plain old semaphores can't be used within ISR's!

I’m on vacation, which is a good thing. Except I got an e-mail today from a company that said they’d get back to me within a week. It’s been two months. And it was another rejection.

Why can’t I get hired?! Why does this have to be so soul-sucking and depressing?! I want to relax and enjoy myself for once in my life and then…this.

That sucks. Sorry to hear that.

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:56 pm That sucks. Sorry to hear that.

Same thought here.

Same. Sorry to hear that!

Just feeling incredibly hopeless with everything political happening recently plus the midterm elections this fall which will give the worst people a clear shot to take untrammeled power outright. This year seems on track to match 2016 and 2019 (when my mom passed away) in terms of catastrophe. I hate what the world has become, overrun by reactionaries, threatened with ecological collapse by global warming. I have never felt more pessimistic about the future.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue May 03, 2022 10:00 pm Just feeling incredibly hopeless with everything political happening recently plus the midterm elections this fall which will give the worst people a clear shot to take untrammeled power outright. This year seems on track to match 2016 and 2019 (when my mom passed away) in terms of catastrophe. I hate what the world has become, overrun by reactionaries, threatened with ecological collapse by global warming. I have never felt more pessimistic about the future.

I'm across the other side of the Atlantic, and I can 100% sympathise with you.

Were on the verge of WW3, society full of reactionaries of all type an ever more failing education system and a government that's halved an education budget that's already so low that schools are legit becoming worse then the stereotype of inner city schools.
The Danger of inadequate budgets, they might making the students work in the salt mines,
or worse get corporate sponsorship for incredibly unhealthy unethically sourced extremely addictive substances that have extremely negative side effects.
reaching from food products to prescription drugs not to mention situation where schools that are technically owned by the community or the state are dependent on school vouchers in order to have a sufficient budget to cover certain extremely basic expenses.