I bought a Miele S8 off marketplace about 5 years ago. After I bought it, I did some research and found the same thing you did. The S8 was the most powerful vacuum that Miele ever made, and used a motor made in Germany. After that model they replaced it with the C3 that is almost identical except uses a Chinese motor.

I can’t even imagine the sheer satisfaction that comes from eradicating millions of mosquitoes per day.

I want to point out here, in Australia there is a brand of socks called Darn Tough that is sold at Kmart, Target and BigW, it is NOT THE SAME Darn Tough brand you see raved online. It’s a completely different sock brand thats been around for about 20 years in Australia and just happens to have the same name. They are not great socks, very thick but don’t last long.

The coin flip, chance concept is something I’ve dealt with too. I was fast going down the incel path in my mid 20s. One of my managers at work was given two tickets to a speed-dating event, his mother told him he “needs to find a girlfriend” so she can “be a grandmother”. He didn’t want to go. We were having fun talking to him about how awful a speed dating event would turn out to be.

He said he would go if one of his friends came with him to the event (afterall, he had two tickets). He called so many of his friends, most were already in a relationship, or were busy that day, or just rejected the invitation. Then he started asking workmates at work, similar responses. Eventually he approached me, he knew I was single, knew I didn’t have social life, knew I never spoke to women, he said it would be a good opportunity for me to put myself out there. My first inclination was to say “no way”, “absolutely not”. I’m not attractive and a bit autistic, I don’t make a good first impression to anyone. The thought of awkwardly making small talk for 5 minutes at a time with 12 different women who were judging me based on first impressions, was the absolute opposite of my idea of a good time.

Then I thought about it as a chance to help my colleague, he wasn’t going to go unless I went with him, I wanted him to go, he wanted me to go, plus it was at a new bar that I’d heard good things about. At the very least I’d get to have some drinks with my work friend.

The event was about as awkward and anxiety-inducing as I expected for the most part. Most women were much older than me, and clearly had zero interest in chatting to me. So I took the pressure off myself, I wasn’t there to find a girlfriend, I didn’t buy the ticket, I was there to support my friend. There were two women around my own age, who were not bad looking and I actually managed to hold a conversation with (the beers helped). At the end of the event you could write down the name of anyone you felt a connection with and the organisers would find mutual matches.

Next day I find out I matched with one of the women I’d indicated. I got her contact details, and started talking to her via emails and SMS for a few months, getting to know each other better. Again I didn’t put any pressure on myself, I didn’t know this person, I didn’t ask her to match with me, it was a “easy come, easy go” situation with zero stakes. After two months we eventually went on a real date, and turns out we were a great match. Two years later we were engaged. Today is our 10th wedding anniversary, and we have two kids.

After we started dating I found out that she only went to the speed dating event as a support person to her friend. She didn’t go in looking for a relationship either.

That got me thinking about the odds of this happening. If my colleague didn’t get given tickets from his mother, if any of his other friends weren’t busy and went with him instead, if I didn’t agree to go along with him, if she didn’t go along with her friend for support, if I didn’t write down her name at the end, if she didn’t write down my name. The mind boggles. She told me it was a 50/50 whether she wrote down my name, just like you mentioned.

When people say dating is a “numbers game”, that doesn’t need to be interpreted in a predatory or creepy way. I think this is what it is about, the chances of finding a connection with someone really is a chance, but the one thing you can do is find a way to make that chance non-zero.

But they didn’t invent that. They bought YouTube after it was already popular. The only thing they’ve done to the platform is put in more ads.

I use a whole bunch of Linux distros at work (CentOS, alpine, ubuntu, debian, opensuse) and a bunch on my devices at home (mint, fedora, nobara, and manjaro), and so far the only distro I’ve seen ship decoupled shared electron libs like you described is Manjaro (and presumably Arch).

Trillium is a full featured configurable and programmable self-hosted note-taking app that can be easily configured to suit the use case you’re describing, it does categories, tags, links to other topics etc.

+1 for CBAT

A few people I work with, in the data science and environmental science fields.

That’s a great perspective, thanks for sharing that and it makes me want to reconsider using Gleam, but even more so makes me want to properly learn Erlang. And actually I’m not really a fan of Ruby, so that’s not something I’m attached to in Elixir.

I certainly appreciate the introduction of typing in Gleam, but one criticism I’ve seen of Gleam is the lack of function overloading, that is such a core feature of both Erlang and Elixir.

What’s your thoughts on Gleam vs Elixir?

I just started learning elixir last month then I read about gleam, watched some video introductions, it looks good, but I think Elixir is still the better language to learn right now to choose one.

Personally I only use smartphones with dual XLR output and optical SPDIF.

I do the same, I use kodi on a CoreElec box on my 10 year old dumb TV. It works great, but my issue is it’s going to be extremely difficult to replace my TV when it gets time to upgrade. (Eg, if I want to move to an OLED, or QD panel). Every new TV on the market is a smart TV. It’s getting to the point that you need to buy a very large monitor, rather than a TV, to achieve the same setup.

I for one certainly cannot forget CBAT. It’s nuts, and so good, and so bad.

All the panels used by all Kindle, Nook, Kobo and Boox eReader models are made by Carta.

There might be other companies that make those other kinds of small updatable eink displays used in stores, or the tiny ones on microcontrollers.

Ah yes, H’taln’k from J’briom-4, flying his Zal’t M’lort class Winger to the Mont Bronl’n port with the day’s haul of Sea Crom’t. Oh won’t his mabs’k be pleased with this delivery.

+1 for SG-1 and Atlantis. So good.

Same. This is exactly what I do. I’m on my 5th Android phone since 2009, and I still have all my call logs and SMSs going back until then, because I backup from my old phone and restore to my new phone on every upgrade.

Same. I often experience what OP is describing, and I’m neurologically and psychologically fine.

For me, it usually takes the form of the sudden realisation that I’m a tiny slice of the universe piloting this body on this planet. I could leave any time I like, and the body would continue to function and operate on its own. Everything I’m seeing and experiencing are simply electrical signals from this body’s eyes and other senses passed to me, none of it is “real”.

I don’t let it freak me out. I’ve learned to use it as a source of confidence, to remind myself I’m more in control of my life and my actions, my experiences and outcomes, than I think I am.

When my wife and I moved to our current house, we decided to get a decent bed. We spent good money on a very good mattress. While at the mattress store, my wife decided its a good idea to buy expensive thick memory-foam pillows too. Medium size for her, and large for me.

I found that the way the pillow pushed my head so far up and forward was pretty uncomfortable. My chin was touching my chest all night. I decided that sleeping with my head further back and my shoulders up on the pillow helped a bit, but it was still uncomfortable how much it pushed my shoulders up and forward too.

I put up with that for 4 years, thinking I’d just get used to it eventually. Then I had a revelation that I could just go back to my old pillow. Humans aren’t supposed to sleep with their head, neck and shoulders at a crazy angle, no matter how expensive the pillow is. Thankfully I never got a numb arm or sore hand or any other nerve or vascular issue from it.

I eventually found the perfect pillow for me that is actually pretty similar to the rolled up tshirt idea you mentioned.