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TIL about Roko's Basilisk, a thought experiment considered by some to be an "information hazard" - a concept or idea that can cause you harm by you simply knowing/understanding it
  • This is fascinating. I'm reminded of a Mormon guy I (barely) knew that was murdered. If he didn't have the chance to complete his ordinances, well, I guess no kingdom for him - through no fault of his own. Does he get a pass or is he screwed into lousy second heaven for all eternity?

    The story: He was murdered by another Mormon guy over a woman. Murderer thought the woman was his last chance to find love and decided he was serious about it. It's likely he murdered another guy the woman was dating a year or two before, but that case was ruled a suicide and closed - by the time the known murder occurred, all evidence had been destroyed.

  • is this employee in the room with us right now?
  • Update: They kicked me out of the meeting. The employee's first-line supervisor was still in it, and it was really short - they basically asked if the employee could do the job remotely or not. It sounded like they were going to approve the request. This whole meeting setup is very strange; it's never happened before on any accommodation request I've been involved with (maybe half a dozen over the years). Maybe they review a few at random or something.

  • Anon gets calls from scammers
  • Unlike reddit, there’s no “default subs” on Lemmy. It’s either “all” or “subscribed”. All literally means all communities, so yes, objectionable stuff will show up in your feed. The solution is to block them, then they won’t show in All any more.

  • Anon gets calls from scammers
  • Unlike reddit, there's no "default subs" on Lemmy. It's either "all" or "subscribed". All literally means all communities, so yes, objectionable stuff will show up in your feed. The solution is to block them, then they won't show in All any more.

  • is this employee in the room with us right now?
  • Thanks. Part of me wants to find an employer similar to yours, the other part of me is like, hey, I'm planning to retire in like 7 years.

    There's a LOT of concern over what this return-to-office plan will do to staff - we think quite a few people will find other jobs. A few have said so out loud; who knows how many more are planning the same quietly (of course, some people also talk a big game, but when push comes to shove...will they really?). We're also running into more issues hiring; another manager I know had a candidate decline because the position wasn't remote and they didn't want to move here. When I talk to candidates, it's now the first thing I check, even before I schedule the interview - no point in wasting time for either of us if it's a non-starter.

    It's kind of weird - we only have to go in once a week, which actually isn't that bad at all - for those of us who already live in the area. But it's harder to convince people to move across the country to a high cost of living location so they can sit in their apartment 4 of 5 days each week. But we have to support the local Popeye's fast food joint, I guess.

  • What everyone gets wrong about the 2015 Ashley Madison scandal
  • Back when I was in online dating (I got married in 2010, so it has been a very long time), this is how it seemed to work in the hetero arena:

    • Women (by which I mean, legitimate accounts from women who were actually looking for dates): Get 1,000,000 messages, approximately 999,900 of which are dick pics.
    • Men: See 1,000,000 ads, of which about 3 are legitimate people looking for dates.

    So, both could be true in relation to the image.

    I remember a guy once telling me that basically you have to respond to EVERY AD and hope something sticks. I never did that, and I felt bad for what the women must have had to deal with when I heard that. I had very limited success - dates with, at most, two or three women, and none of those really went anywhere. I ended up marrying someone from work instead.

  • is this employee in the room with us right now?
  • I have a meeting later today for an employee who requested a reasonable accommodation to work from home for medical reasons, and it was declined (by the people who review the RA requests, not by me). The employee, like the rest of us, have been doing the job for over four years from home; how can anyone possibly make the case at this point that they need to come into the office?

    The meeting description has a sentence in it that clearly states the medical documentation was sufficient to support working from home. So why are we having this meeting?

    I, of course, completely support her request and will argue for it, if necessary. I wish I could come up with a similar justification for myself, honestly, but I cannot, and I'm not going to game the system and possibly affect people who really do need it.

    (Our employer's whole return-to-office thing is driven by outside forces that have little to do with our work. I suspect our leadership would continue work from home if they could. Unfortunately their supervisors do not agree.)

  • Like the morning dew
  • Yep, we had a cat that would always go for the sink. Eventually I tried putting the water fountain away from the food, and she mostly stopped getting water in the sink.

    Before I learned this, I had another cat while I still had a fish tank...I'd get home and find him on top of the fish tank, drinking the water coming out of the filter. The lid on that tank was not very solid, and I was SURE he'd fall in at some point, with disastrous results, so I got him a fountain water dish, and that stopped his fish tank escapades.

  • Using HA to start my work laptop

    No major question here, just thought you might find this interesting. It's an example of the kind of (off-the-wall) things you can do with HA that aren't immediately obvious. When I was starting out with HA, I enjoyed reading these examples, because it gave me ideas for my own setup. And, I wrote many automations that should really be scripts, so hopefully this will help someone avoid that and recognize the power of scripts early.

    At home, my laptop from work sits (closed) on a stand under the monitors. I have a docking station for it, but the docking station doesn't have a power button to start the laptop (the official Dell docking stations have a power button, but other brand of docking stations don't). So, since I got that stand a few weeks ago, I've been pulling the laptop out and opening juuuuuuust enough that I could reach the power button, then closing it and sliding it back into the stand. There had to be a better way that didn't involve buying an expensive Dell docking station.

    The docking station power is on a Sonoff S31 outlet (flashed with Tasmota, not that that's important here) that is remotely controllable. Long ago, I set up HA automations that turned on the S31 when the laptop was detected on the network, and shut off the S31 after the laptop dropped off the network at the end of the day (leaving in a time delay so it didn't shut off if there was a momentary network glitch). So, I'd boot the laptop, and a moment later the docking station would kick on and connect the mouse and monitors to it. And the end of the day, I shut down the laptop, and a few minutes later the docking station shuts off automatically.

    I recently discovered the Wake on LAN integration. So, after setting that up, I wrote a script that turns on the S31, waits a while*, then triggers the Wake-on-LAN for the laptop...and it boots up! With HA, I can start the boot process while I'm still relaxing in the living room before starting work; in theory I'll go into the office and it'll be ready for me to log in.

    Heck, if HA knew for certain it was a workday, it could boot the laptop for me.....hmmm. Maybe something to think about for the future.

    *How long? Well, 30 seconds seems to be too short; the laptop doesn't respond to the WoL command after just 30 seconds with power applied. It did work this morning when I waited several minutes to try it again. I just changed the delay to 1 minute and will see how that works tomorrow.

    I also added a repeat loop (starting after that 1 minute timer) with three components:

    • A condition that looks for the laptop being "Away" on the network. (If it is "Home" on the network, the condition will end the script.)
    • If it is, then it tries the WoL command again.
    • Then waits 30 seconds and repeat.

    The repeat loop counter is set to 3, for a total of 4 attempts to start the laptop. I'll check the traces and see when it starts working, and set the initial delay accordingly, so that in general it shouldn't need the repeat loop.

    If people want, I can post (sanitized) YAML. But I do like explaining the process rather than just posting code.

    18
    Home Improvement @lemmy.world limelight79 @lemm.ee
    Latest rant...wiring by the PO

    This is not the first time I've ranted about the previous owner's wiring jobs, though I think they were on the other site (and I had a different username there).

    His greatest hits include:

    • Above a drop ceiling in the basement, a wire that went into a metal box without a strain relief, so it eventually wore through (for whatever reason) and started shorting out. Since it was above the drop ceiling I had no idea why that breaker would occasionally trip, then reset without complaint. Also, there are other things on that circuit, but the offending wire was only live when the light switch in the room was on, so it was harder to diagnose. It wasn't until we demolished the room that we found the problem...black marks on the box and wires and all.

    • A duct fan to route heat from the pellet stove into the master bedroom...with the wiring completely enclosed in the ceiling, with no access to the box. Said duct fan has started making noise, so I'm going to have to cut that ceiling open and replace it, and I'll probably install one of those spring-loaded covers so there is access in the future.

    • A fascinating wiring job in the shed that is unnecessarily complicated and certainly a violation of the code on how many conductors can be in a box. I'm going to fix that some time this spring. This is actually a REALLY great one, so maybe I'll post it as a comment.

    On to today's hilarity. A few weeks ago I noticed the UPS for my computer in the basement had a red light on the back warning of a wiring fault. I never noticed it before, or I did and forgot, and it's not very bright, so you almost have to be looking for it to see it. Well, I got out one of those testers that you plug in, with three lights that diagnose the issue, and it showed no ground. Odd.

    I checked the other two outlets on the same wall, the one closer to the panel tested fine, but the one on the other side of the outlet in question also showed an open ground.

    Today I dug in to find out what was up. It turns out the ground was cut on both wires in the outlet the computer was using (supply from the previous outlet and the wire to the next outlet). It was not connected to the metal box or the outlet.

    WHY WHY WHY? Why did he do this? I can't fathom why you'd do this.

    I replaced all three outlets on that wall with new ones and made sure the grounds were connected. Nothing really wrong with the original outlets and covers, but they were old and beige, and I like white.

    Years ago I found an outlet in our closet that only had two prongs, no ground. The house was built in 1987, well after three prongs were standard. With some trepidation - what am I going to find here? - I opened it up and found that...there was a good ground there (to my relief) but he apparently just decided to use a two prong outlet. WHY? He had to have gone to special effort to find a two prong outlet to install. (Actually it is theoretically possible that was done by the builders, but everything else in the house is three prongs, and I can't believe it would have passed inspection.)

    12
    Updating notifications

    Hi, all. My wife and I recently got new phones, and it got me thinking again about how notifications work.

    Currently I have several automations (maybe 10) that send notifications to my phone, her phone, both, and possibly other devices.

    But when we get a new phone, or replace a tablet, etc., I have to update every single one of those automations. And I inevitably forget some or introduce errors.

    Is there a better way to do this? For example, it'd be nice if I could abstract the concept of "my phone" out in those automations, then I'd only have to change the device "my phone" in one place, rather than a bunch of places.

    Any thoughts on this? Maybe I'm missing a way to do it. Thanks.

    14
    Gritty takes blame for stolen Jagr bobbleheads
    www.nhl.com Gritty takes blame for stolen Jagr bobbleheads | NHL.com

    Flyers mascot jokes after shipment of Penguins promotional item goes missing

    Gritty takes blame for stolen Jagr bobbleheads | NHL.com

    Of course he does.

    0
    Shelly and their terrible customer service

    This is a long one, but I'm done with Shelly. Too bad, I like that they support HA, but the treatment on this last order is outrageous. The good news is I'm only out $24.

    On November 25, I placed an order for a H&T and a Plus 1 Mini as part of their sale, and I received a confirmation for the order.

    On December 8, I received an email stating they were overwhelmed with orders and it would be some time before filling them. Okay, that's annoying, but I didn't need them right away - but the H&T I did want fairly quickly because I was hoping to replace an unreliable Zigbee sensor.

    Then I heard nothing for several weeks, and the order never arrived. Finally, on January 4, I created a ticket in their support system about it.

    They completely ignored that, too. I started seeing ads on Facebook for the Plus 1 Minis, one of the things I ordered, which irritated me.

    After about two weeks, I made a comment on one of the ads that my order and the ticket were both being ignored. A few days later, on January 24, I got an email from them saying:

    > Excuse us for the delayed reply. We are extremely overloaded.

    > For unknown reason, the order is not visible in the US admin system. That's why it is not dispatched yet. Maybe there is a bug in the system about this order.

    > However, we informed the US team that the order must be dispatched asap. They will dispatch it soon and you will receive an email with your tracking code.

    > ​Please be patient.

    > We want to apologize for the delay and for the inconvenience caused.

    I've heard nothing more, almost a week later. I just logged into the ticketing system to discover that they CLOSED THE TICKET. So they can't see the order, and they closed the ticket that refers to it. The problem is NOT resolved - there's no tracking number, no estimated ship date, and no products at my door. I'll be surprised if I ever get the stuff at this point. (I checked my spam folder, and it's not in there.)

    Terrible service. I will never order from them again.

    I can still file a Paypal dispute, apparently until May. I'll give it a few more days, and if I haven't heard anything, I'll do that.

    So, let this be a warning to you about ordering from Shelly...it went okay the first time a few years back, but this time has been a disaster.

    9
    This post is crashing Boost for me

    https://lemmy.world/post/10554910

    Running on a Lenovo Yoga Tab 13, Android 13, version 1.0.4 of Boost.

    9
    My new gravel tourer is on the road

    Hello! I don't have pictures yet, but I finally finished my mixed road/gravel bike and took it for a short ride (in wet conditions) over the weekend, and I wanted to celebrate a bit. Sorry for the long post!

    I bought the frame on sale a few months back from Velo Orange, it's their Pass Hunter model. I had been kind of eyeing them up for years, as they're based near me, for this kind of bike. My eventual goal is to tour the GAP and C&O canal trails with it - my road bike, a CAAD12, would not be up to such a tour. I'll also take it with us when we go camping - we were out west for a few weeks last year, and there were a lot more gravel roads than this east coaster is used to.

    The groupset is a GRX Di2 2x11 with hydraulic discs. I know some will disagree with the electronic shifting for a touring rig, but I've read all of the arguments on both sides, and it's what I wanted. In hindsight, I wish I'd realized that the VO Pass Hunter frame isn't really Di2 compatible, because there are limited options for fishing the wires through the frame - a restriction that never even occurred to me until after I had everything. But I can live with it.

    This is my first build, my first experience (ever) with electronic shifting, and my first experience with disc brakes (aside from a very short test ride years ago), and my first experience with hydraulic brakes. Lots of learning!

    The wheels are from Bikesdirect.com - did you know they have decent deals on wheels, too? DT Swiss rims, Shimano hubs, Shimano rotors, 38c tires mounted, rim and tires tubeless ready, but set up with tubes. I got 700s, but I probably should have gone with 650b for the clearance on the rear wheel. Longer term, I'll pick up a set of 650bs with mixed road/gravel tires, and put pure road tires on my 700c wheels.

    I had a bike fit on my road bike (a CAAD12) done a few years ago, so I used the results from that as a guideline for this build. In particular, the top tube on the VO is longer than the Cannondale, so I got a shorter stem to compensate.

    I did end up getting wider handlebars (46 instead of 44), but the gravel handlebars feel a LOT wider than the road handlebars. Which, for an all day ride, probably isn't a bad thing - more positions.

    I want to test it more, but I'm thinking I'll set the handlebars a little higher than my CAAD12's are, relative to the seat height - because, one, they're wider, so my arms are out farther when I'm on the hoods, meaning I'd be leaning down a bit farther, and two, comfy, all-day touring bicycle.

    The bike is all black. I'm not very imaginative. It's like, how much more black could it be? None. None more back. I don't usually name my bicycles, but suddenly I want to call this one "Smell the Glove". (The VO paint is actually black with flakes and a chrome logo, it looks pretty cool.)

    It's definitely a slow bike with the weight and tires on it now, but that's okay - the point was to build a comfortable, ride-all-day tourer, not a speed demon. It weighs 24 lbs without water bottle cages, bike bags, etc.

    After my test ride, I'm even happier with my decision to go Di2. And that's with repeatedly hitting the wrong buttons to shift on the ride (I have no idea why I was doing that, it's essentially the same as the 105 5800 on my CAAD12, but I kept doing it).

    Bar tape: I am terrible at wrapping bars. I have no fear of the mechanical or electronic portions of building a bike, but bar tape...I dunno. It's very stressful for me, I think because it's so visible, and I feel like everyone is looking at it and going, LOOK WHAT THAT AMATEUR DID! But, I think I actually did a credible job on this one, for once. Tip for anyone else that suffers the same phobia: Look for extra long tape, it's one less stressor!

    Suppliers: Frame came from VO, obviously. I got the Di2 setup off eBay - oddly enough, that seems to be the easiest way to buy a groupset, if you need the whole thing. Bikesdirect.com for the wheels. I went to Biketiresdirect.com for a lot of the parts, and when I couldn't find what I wanted or needed there, I went to Amazon. I ordered a few random parts from other places, too - I think the handlebars came from another bike parts supplier.

    Costs: I expected this to cost more than a pre-built bike would, but if I wanted that VO frame, building one was my only option. But now that I think about it, I might have actually saved a little money this way. This bike, the first result on google for "Di2 gravel bike", is $3495 with 2x, and I'm pretty sure I have less than that into my build. And I included pedals and a good saddle that fits me in the cost, neither of which comes with most pre-built bikes.

    Plus, I probably put a few better components on than would be stock, like softer bar tape, and Easton stem and seat posts, and so on. And, I got the parts I needed - such as the correct stem length for me - so I'm not replacing parts that came with a pre-built bike, either.

    So, while it doesn't feel like it, I probably did actually save some money over a pre-built bike. Of course, I spent hours working on it, and I bought several new tools at the same time - strangely, I never had a bike stand before, so I bought one as part of this build. (I don't count the tools as part of the build costs, as I'll very likely use them again.)

    To do yet:

    • Ride it and adjust the handlebar height as desired, then eventually cut the steerer tube, again. I did an initial cut to get it in the right ballpark, but there's likely another inch or so that could come off.

    • Check the rear brake - it engages a lot lower than the front brake, so it might need to be bled. I adjusted the engagement point, but it's still quite different compared to the front. It doesn't feel spongy, and I can lock up the wheel, it just travels a lot farther back. I'd rather it be more consistent with the front brake.

    • Adjust the clipless pedal tension. I'm used to SPD-SL cleats, and I've used SPD before, but I was having a miserable time with these at first, so I loosened the tension. I'll want to crank that back up.

    • RIDE IT!

    Mistakes I made:

    • My biggest was the Di2 wiring thing. The frame was really intended to have cables, so I have bosses for shifters or cable mounts that I'm not using (they're covered with caps that are the same color as the frame, at least). I wonder how hard it is to remove that thing - I had to repair similar downtube bosses on my old aluminum bike, and that just had a metric threaded rod running between the two sides. Maybe cut a rubber plug for the holes...hmmmmmmmmm.

    • I bought a second band clamp because I thought the first one was interfering with one of the water bottle cage bolts...but while I was waiting for the new clamp to arrive, I figured it out with the original clamp. Not sure what I was going wrong at first.

    • There are a few spots I could switch to shorter Di2 cables, but the necessary length is extremely hard to predict, I've learned, and those cables are not cheap. One that's too long is the one for the rear derailleur, and that one would be very easy to change and could be done whenever I feel like it. The other is the cable from the junction near the bottom bracket to the shifter - I have a 1200 mm cable, but a few cm shorter wouldn't have hurt. But neither one is so long that it's a major problem, either.

    3
    Police report reveals details surrounding Milan Lucic's arrest, domestic abuse allegations
    sports.yahoo.com Police report reveals details surrounding Milan Lucic's arrest, domestic abuse allegations

    Boston Bruins forward Milan Lucic is set to be arraigned Tuesday on a charge of assault and battery against a family member.

    Police report reveals details surrounding Milan Lucic's arrest, domestic abuse allegations

    Wow.

    He's taking an indefinite leave of absence, though it looks like he was already on the IR due to ankle issues.

    0
    Backups, people...backups

    I use Samba backup and it runs nightly, fortunately.

    I tried to update to the latest HA core the other day, and it failed. Reboot and weird things stop working all over the place. The log showed the recorder and a bunch of other things failed to start. When I looked at the command line, I found that files had apparently been corrupted. My configuration.yaml, all 791 lines of it, was gone, in favor of the stock configuration.yaml file.

    I restored from the most recent backup before the trouble began, which was taken Saturday morning (I assume the corruption is why it didn't run after that). No dice. Friday's backup got me up and running again, fortunately. I had to re-do a few things I'd changed Friday, but what a relief.

    I made the changes again and made a new full backup. I also increased the number of backups to keep from 7 to 10.

    Do regular backups, people. Save yourself a lot of headache. I use the Samba option, but there are options to upload to things like cloud storage as well.

    10
    Gritty puck from the Hockey Hall of Fame

    My wife picked up this puck at the Hockey Hall of Fame last week. I think there's something odd about Gritty...she disagrees. Not saying what it is so as not to bias you. I'd like to get a ruling from the internet on this, please!

    5
    Airstream @lemm.ee limelight79 @lemm.ee
    66th Annual Airstream Rally makes big waves with remarkable community contributions
    0
    Airstream @lemm.ee limelight79 @lemm.ee
    International Rally in Rock Springs, Wyoming starts tomorrow 6/24/23

    I know no one has subbed to this Airstream community, but I'm posting this anyway. We're currently in Fort Collins, Colorado, and heading to Rock Springs tomorrow!

    0
    Airstream @lemm.ee limelight79 @lemm.ee
    Welcome to the Airstream community

    In light of the issues going on the other site, I thought it would be a good idea to create an Airstream group here.

    0
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)LI
    limelight79 @lemm.ee
    Posts 14
    Comments 761