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So the University of Georgia won the NCAA Football National Championship.

And you know, it sounds silly but UGA winning the national championship means so much to me. The last time they won before this year was in '80, before I was born.

So I was born in Athens, GA, the city where UGA is. Growing up I was a casual fan of the football team. But my dad has always been a hardcore fan. When I was a teen it turned into a way for me to connect with him, through enjoying sports together. And then it just turned into something more for me personally, too. And I became just as big of a fan.

And then 4 years ago, my dad was given 3 months to live. He was 79. He had caught a rare fatal fungal infection in his brain.

I remember that year I was like, OK, Georgia can make it this year. We can see a championship together. And though Georgia faltered that year... my dad didn't. It was unprecedented, but he just... got better. He lived. He's completely cured from a disease that it was thought impossible to recover from.

But, again, he's in his 80s. Every year the though for me was "will he be here next year?" And every year Georgia got so close, but then we ran into Bama, the team that just always seemed to have our number. And every year it hurt to think that he wouldn't be here to see it with me when we finally broke through.

He's 83 now. He's still alive. I watched the game at his house tonight.

We got to see Georgia win a Championship together.
What an AWESOMe, uplifting story!
 
I got one of the newer models who plays video games and watches cat videos on YouTube instead of housework.
Historically one of the two textual layers in Genesis (priestly source) has a sort of flat Earth cosmology with the Earth as a disk floating in a primordial ocean, but the other doesn't (folkloric source). Most of the Bible however assumes a round Earth.
Seadna, this may be a dumb question, what do you mean “textual layers” in Genesis? I don’t remember anything in there alluding to Earth as a disk but that probably means I skipped right over if.
 
Seadna, this may be a dumb question, what do you mean “textual layers” in Genesis? I don’t remember anything in there alluding to Earth as a disk but that probably means I skipped right over if.
It's not a dumb question, I didn't explain very well. Basically Genesis draws on two bodies of literature, two sources out of which it was woven. These are folklore material dating to around 800BC and a long theological document of the Priests of the Jerusalem temple circa 550BC. Both of them were combined with each other to make Genesis around 450BC.

The flat Earth cosmology is in the latter one (Priestly source) although it's not obvious from most English translations since many words aren't conveyed correctly. Like Tehom, the Primordial Ocean all people in the Middle East and Egypt used to believe in, is just translated with a vague phrase like "Deep" or "Water".
It's not just a flat Earth though as it has things like Ancient pillars going deep beneath the Earth into the ancient ocean and a crystal/metal vault behind which the Sun retreats at night and from which rain waters are released. The Noahic Flood was caused by the waters above the vault being released.

If you want to know more I'd be happy to say more in another thread :thumbsup:

Early_Hebrew_Conception_of_the_Universe.svg.png
 
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From anecdotal evidence, the booster doesn't stop you from gettting it, but those that have had the booster seem to have less severe symptoms.
The data thus far says that no vax it’s bad. J&J only it’s bad but should keep you out of the hospital. Two shots gets you into not so bad, and boosted is mild symptoms and potentially none. I’m boosted, kid is not (not authorized yet) but is vaxxed and he has a fever.

interesting anecdata - several kids here have expressed their first symptom as a headache. That was an odd one.
 
It's not a dumb question, I didn't explain very well. Basically Genesis draws on two bodies of literature, two sources out of which it was woven. These are folklore material dating to around 800BC and a long theological document of the Priests of the Jerusalem temple circa 550BC. Both of them were combined with each other to make Genesis around 450BC.

The flat Earth cosmology is in the latter one (Priestly source) although it's not obvious from most English translations since words like Tehom, the Primordial Ocean all people in the Middle East and Egypt used to believe in, is just translated with a vague phrase like "Deep" or "Water".
It's not just a flat Earth though as it has things like Ancient pillars going deep beneath the Earth into the ancient ocean and a crystal/metal vault behind which the Sun retreats at night and from which rain waters are released. The Noahic Flood was caused by the waters above the vault being released.

If you want to know more I'd be happy to say more in another thread :thumbsup:

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Thank you, that was quite helpful!
 
So... I told them that having resources for production in development was a bad idea. We were told that we could get exceptions and these resources would not be automatically disabled if not treated as development resources, so I was overruled. We had a production incident because- these resources were disabled. Someone from corporate chimed in that we'd had an incident because we'd not followed their policy. I showed a trail of what had happened, what I suggested and was ignored, and what we were doing to mitigate it going forward.

Feedback from manager was that (a) it's better if you just accept responsibility, and (b) it was our responsibility and we did screw up as we'd not prepared the team before we went on vacation for this happening.

...

I sighed and typed "true". As (a) seemed to indicate I should just type that for (b).

blergh
 
Picked up a new mentee this week, which is great. Essentially, I have a habit of going and finding people and walking them into a cybersecurity career. Currently, I have 3 of these.

“The boys” and I have been playing gloomhaven online like crazy. We enjoy it quite a bit.

Do you have any recommendations for somebody young looking at this kind of work? My Son really wants to get into video game development but since Covid started with the local community college on lockdown, their online classes went even more basic than before. As a result I had him select a bunch of online training classes more towards his interests. One was a "white hat" hacking class (counter hacking) which he seemed to enjoy. His high school computer teacher thought he had a great deal of aptitude in general and that kind of work in particular "if he applied himself more". Yes my son was a slacker in high school, takes after me so not much I can say about it. :ooh:

In a particularly memorable parent teacher conference his computer teacher made the comment "he has the potential to be another Edward Snowden, he could be that good". The reaction in the meeting was funny most of the teachers were horrified, they took that as a warning and were like, no no he is a good kid, just needs to focus. My wife and I are pretty computer aware and understood it was intended as a complement to his potential.

Anyway if you had some pointers or resources you could suggest, I'd appreciate it. Computer careers are way outside my scope of knowledge, and the people I do know who worked in computers are ancient and today if still working specialize by being able to work in "dead languages" and are completely out of the loop on current career options.


well my kid tested positive tonight. I didn't. He's pretty broken up because we were going to a concert (Tool, in Tacoma) tomorrow. Just can't now.

We got it right after Christmas. Went to visit my wife's family in Arizona, and two days after getting home she tested positive. I didn't get tested but had a fever and massive headache for a few days so assume I had it as well. She had it much worse, like a super bad cold with a fever and severe body aches. We've both been vaccinated with Pfizer, but not had a booster yet. Looks like her family escaped so we must have picked it up towards the end of the trip or travelling home (car so that seems unlikely, but who knows). Water slides the day after Christmas, gotta love Phoenix. :hehe:

But, again, he's in his 80s. Every year the though for me was "will he be here next year?" And every year Georgia got so close, but then we ran into Bama, the team that just always seemed to have our number. And every year it hurt to think that he wouldn't be here to see it with me when we finally broke through.

He's 83 now. He's still alive. I watched the game at his house tonight.

We got to see Georgia win a Championship together.

I get that, my Dad is 84, very healthy and I have a hard time believing he isn't 60, except that would mean he is only 6 years older than me... Still I am well aware as people get up there in age it takes less to push them over edge. Covid hasn't helped, I've only seen him in person a couple of times the past 2 years as he and his girlfriend have really backed off having gatherings.

I got one of the newer models who plays video games and watches cat videos on YouTube instead of housework.

That sound like the model I got. I am an admitted slob, and I'm the neat freak in the house.


She is a white girl with the J Lo butt option. I'm seriously thinking about taking her to a Sir Mix A Lot concert in March, with that crowd her ego will be placed into orbit, I might need to open the sunroof to get her into the car for the drive home. :hehe:
 
So... I told them that having resources for production in development was a bad idea. We were told that we could get exceptions and these resources would not be automatically disabled if not treated as development resources, so I was overruled. We had a production incident because- these resources were disabled. Someone from corporate chimed in that we'd had an incident because we'd not followed their policy. I showed a trail of what had happened, what I suggested and was ignored, and what we were doing to mitigate it going forward.

Feedback from manager was that (a) it's better if you just accept responsibility, and (b) it was our responsibility and we did screw up as we'd not prepared the team before we went on vacation for this happening.

...

I sighed and typed "true". As (a) seemed to indicate I should just type that for (b).

blergh
Oh this is a case where I sort of look forward to the for lack of a better term millennial/gen z response. I'm suspecting they'll say it's not their fault and if you don't take responsibility for your own bullshit I'm outta here. And then they'll actually leave because they can
 
Do you have any recommendations for somebody young looking at this kind of work? My Son really wants to get into video game development but since Covid started with the local community college on lockdown, their online classes went even more basic than before. As a result I had him select a bunch of online training classes more towards his interests. One was a "white hat" hacking class (counter hacking) which he seemed to enjoy. His high school computer teacher thought he had a great deal of aptitude in general and that kind of work in particular "if he applied himself more". Yes my son was a slacker in high school, takes after me so not much I can say about it. :ooh:

In a particularly memorable parent teacher conference his computer teacher made the comment "he has the potential to be another Edward Snowden, he could be that good". The reaction in the meeting was funny most of the teachers were horrified, they took that as a warning and were like, no no he is a good kid, just needs to focus. My wife and I are pretty computer aware and understood it was intended as a complement to his potential.

Anyway if you had some pointers or resources you could suggest, I'd appreciate it. Computer careers are way outside my scope of knowledge, and the people I do know who worked in computers are ancient and today if still working specialize by being able to work in "dead languages" and are completely out of the loop on current career options.
Heh, I think Edward Snowden isn't the example I would have used, but I understand as well

Short of it, get around people who do the work. Do puzzles like Wordle, Crytoquote or whatever it is in the paper. Get a raspberry pi and install a server on it. set a goal of something you want to do (for me it was encode mp3s) and then do it on the system.

there are many classes. they are mostly alright, at least at the start.

have him apply for internships https://www.pnnl.gov/internships we pay them.

hit me up with more specific stuff via DM if you like.
 
Oh this is a case where I sort of look forward to the for lack of a better term millennial/gen z response. I'm suspecting they'll say it's not their fault and if you don't take responsibility for your own bullshit I'm outta here. And then they'll actually leave because they can
So now, he responded to his boss' boss for approval of an emergency release to fix this. And in that email, he basically says what I said- that the resource was disabled because of corporate policy and we thought it had an exception.

I don't even know what to think at this point. And it wouldn't matter much, but we're at our year end performance reviews, and now I'm nervous. I've been screwed over on those and not received the bonus I should have before. And I never was worried about this manager doing that. But now...
 
Do you have any recommendations for somebody young looking at this kind of work? My Son really wants to get into video game development but since Covid started with the local community college on lockdown, their online classes went even more basic than before. As a result I had him select a bunch of online training classes more towards his interests. One was a "white hat" hacking class (counter hacking) which he seemed to enjoy. His high school computer teacher thought he had a great deal of aptitude in general and that kind of work in particular "if he applied himself more". Yes my son was a slacker in high school, takes after me so not much I can say about it. :ooh:

My first reaction would be to say turn tail and run. Video game developers are like idols. Everybody wants to be one so the companies treat them like shit and if they complain they get replaced. Long hours, constant death march projects, crap pay and shitty management leading to burnout. The chances of getting to work on an AAA title are infinitesimally low; the majority of prospective employers are peddling shitty mobile games designed to hook whales on pay-to-win or gacha and your job satisfaction will be close to zero. Most potential employers in the industry are crooks.

If he really still wants to do it, take a look at one of the engines and figure out how to build some games on it. Then do a comp sci course or degree and make sure he does a linear algebra paper, maybe discrete mathematics and stats as well so he understands the maths. Graphics is one of the closest fields in programming to actual applied mathematics and you will need to have a strong grasp of linear algebra at least. He'll be ready when he can explain the mathematical properties of quarternions (essentially 4 dimensional complex numbers) and why they're efficient for doing 3D transformations. He should also get a handle on GPU programming if he wants any chance of getting out of the entry level of mobile games.

If he has any real mathematical aptitude he should then consider doing a 90 degree left turn and go into analytics or data science as he will earn 2-3x the salary for a vastly less stressful job - 10x if his maths is up to working as a quantitative analyst. If he still wants to do game programming then he really has to find a way to demonstrate talent and get the attention of a games company somewhere above the bottom-feeder level.
 
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My first reaction would be to turn tail and run. Video game developers are like idols. Everybody wants to be one so the companies treat them like shit and if they complain they get replaced. Long hours, constant death march projects, crap pay and shitty management leading to burnout. The chances getting to work on an AAA title are infinitesimally low; the majority of prospective employers are peddling shitty mobile games designed to hook whales on pay-to-win or gacha and your job satisfaction will be close to zero. Most potential employers in the industry are crooks.
As someone who worked in the industry

 
That sound like the model I got. I am an admitted slob, and I'm the neat freak in the house.

She is a white girl with the J Lo butt option.
Huh. Mine is Asian with the same body type. Perhaps there is a relationship between having a shapely rear end and a disinterest in housework.
 
the majority of prospective employers are peddling shitty mobile games designed to hook whales on pay-to-win
I've a friend who designs and monitors the systems that manipulate the whales and he earns as you said 3x what game devs get. This is for South East Asian mobile games.
 
I've a friend who designs and monitors the systems that manipulate the whales and he earns as you said 3x what game devs get. This is for South East Asian mobile games.
When I worked in software my number one goal was always be working where to user was turned into cash. That and figure out who the company values(sales, developers, managers, whatever) go work for a company that views that profession as a priority.
 
Huh. Mine is Asian with the same body type. Perhaps there is a relationship between having a shapely rear end and a disinterest in housework.
Mines white with the same body but an intense cleaning streak.
 
Mines white with the same body but an intense cleaning streak.
I was being silly about the shapely bottom thing but being serious for a moment, I don't think a cleaning streak is weird or undesirable. I have known many people who gain some fulfillment and purpose in maintaining a clean and orderly home. For people like my mother, brother, and a couple girlfriends is it also part of their love language.
 
I also ended up with one of the ample bottom, bad housekeeping models (I mean, I'm also bad at it, so we struggle together).

But hey, she is an awesome cook! (I'm not half bad myself, but she is definitely better than me).
 
Sorrowful day, gamer I knew online through a discord channel is gone. (Took his own life.) Just so you people know--I'm not the most stable, but I've fought my depression for years. I can't change the past, but I can say if you feel like that's ever an option reach out. Me, hotlines, whatever. Love you miscreants.
 
I strongly shared this sentiment for the majority of my life, but something in my brain switched a few years ago and now I enjoy running.

I was a decent sprinter as a kid but never cared for long distance running.

Swimming is an activity I find far more enjoyable, especially compared to the repetitive activities in a gym. I also love diving but it seems most public pools are removing their boards or are too shallow to dive in.
 
As a Christian who adores science, I'm literally laughing at some people's absurd take on ahem reality. We went to space! We LOOKED! Sheesh.

The whole 'people used to think the earth was flat in medieval times' is actually a big exaggeration. Christian scholars were quite aware the earth wasn't flat.

Making those who do believe it today some next level ignorant. How they would have graduated public school is beyond me.
 
Oh boy, I wish I had real training in 1/100th of the stuff I handle for work.

10 years of self-training on doing about everything leaves weird holes in your knowledge.

I often find workplaces asking me to do things like event planning, graphic layout, social media and communications work that I just happen to have a background in but I wonder about the people before me who had to muddle their way through tasks they'd be completely ill-suited for.
 
The whole 'people used to think the earth was flat in medieval times' is actually a big exaggeration. Christian scholars were quite aware the earth wasn't flat.
So were Arab scholars, and Indian scholars, and Chinese scholars. And, basically, everyone. The ancient Greeks about 400 BC ascribed the discovery that the Earth is a globe to Pythagoras, a semi-legendary mathematician whom basically all discoveries of their immemorial past were attributed to, because they didn't have any record of any time in which any educated person had [still] thought it was flat. (Although, admittedly, Herodotus seems not to have understood it as well as he could: in his account of the Phoenician's voyage around Africa for Necho he reports some observations that they would of course have made as though it were evidence that their account was bogus.)

The modern belief that mediaeval scholars believed that the Earth is flat is the fault of the novelist Washington Irving. In 1828 he wrote an historical novel about Christopher Columbus, which for want of any actual biography in English in the 19th Century was used as a biography in American education. When Irving came to the bit in which Columbus debated the astronomers before the King and Queen of Spain, where in fact the debate was over the diameter of the Earth and the distance East to China, Irving didn't want to make his hero obviously and ridiculously wrong. So he made up fake history that the astronomers argued that the Earth was flat and therefore that a voyage west to China was impossible. So generations of American school children were taught that Columbus proved the world is round by trying to sail around it and failing.
 
So were Arab scholars, and Indian scholars, and Chinese scholars. And, basically, everyone. The ancient Greeks about 400 BC ascribed the discovery that the Earth is a globe to Pythagoras, a semi-legendary mathematician whom basically all discoveries of their immemorial past were attributed to, because they didn't have any record of any time in which any educated person had [still] thought it was flat. (Although, admittedly, Herodotus seems not to have understood it as well as he could: in his account of the Phoenician's voyage around Africa for Necho he reports some observations that they would of course have made as though it were evidence that their account was bogus.)

The modern belief that mediaeval scholars believed that the Earth is flat is the fault of the novelist Washington Irving. In 1828 he wrote an historical novel about Christopher Columbus, which for want of any actual biography in English in the 19th Century was used as a biography in American education. When Irving came to the bit in which Columbus debated the astronomers before the King and Queen of Spain, where in fact the debate was over the diameter of the Earth and the distance East to China, Irving didn't want to make his hero obviously and ridiculously wrong. So he made up fake history that the astronomers argued that the Earth was flat and therefore that a voyage west to China was impossible. So generations of American school children were taught that Columbus proved the world is round by trying to sail around it and failing.
Pretty much anyone who sails realizes youre on a curved surface.
 
I'm still mystified by flat earthers. I'm not sure how much of it is an internet hoax and just how many genuinely believe it. Ten thousand people can look like a lot on the internet but is a rounding error at the population level.

Yea, there are people pushing various anti-science things for various agendas, but I'm not aware of any of them pushing this. Is there a recent origin point?
 
Covid update - son is DEFINITELY positive. second antigen test returned quite clear.

I went in for a PCR, I'll find out tomorrow.

Son is playing world of warships with my friend's kids, who he knows somewhat, and they are on voice chat. They are younger, but more experienced with this game, and honestly, he sounds like he's having a great time.
 
Covid update - son is DEFINITELY positive. second antigen test returned quite clear.

I went in for a PCR, I'll find out tomorrow.

Son is playing world of warships with my friend's kids, who he knows somewhat, and they are on voice chat. They are younger, but more experienced with this game, and honestly, he sounds like he's having a great time.
WoW is a fun little game. I've only played a couple hours of it but I love old ships.
 
I'm still mystified by flat earthers
I still have a hard time believing that there are actually people in the modern age that believe the earth is flat. It just doesn't seem real. Almost like there's a conspiracy theory...
New conspiracy theory, Flat Earthers arn't real and are really bots created by an Artificial Intellegence to make humans more ignorant, easing its rise to power.
 
I'm still mystified by flat earthers. I'm not sure how much of it is an internet hoax and just how many genuinely believe it. Ten thousand people can look like a lot on the internet but is a rounding error at the population level.

Yea, there are people pushing various anti-science things for various agendas, but I'm not aware of any of them pushing this. Is there a recent origin point?
I only know of one fellow who genuinely believes it, and to the best of my knowledge he’s been a believer since the 70s.. He’s also a dude who has had a successful enough career in publishing you’d recognize his name if I said it. Combined with another successful fellow I know in publishing who is convinced he’s psychic, it’s kind of interesting to see people who are able to function in society and have high levels of success while having such beliefs that most would expect them to be incapable of the prosperity they’ve had.

Unrelated personal life bits:
I posted a while back about how I missed out on a job while my one family member was in the hospital. Said position was relisted yesterday, and reading the (very) expanded description I think I dodged a bullet. As it’s now written, being bilingual means you’re expected to do all the work of someone who knows English, on top of foreign language assignments, for the same pay.



Work has been so insane I haven’t been able to sit down and write down the insanity, it’s been coming so fast. I had an outburst at work years ago that caused one coworker who witnessed it to cry, and another later tell me “You were exceedingly angry, yet amazingly polite” as I raged. The person I raged at was also ket go by the company a few days later, for unrelated reasons. We may finally have another such incident tomorrow.



For a while now I’ve known Facebook had been erasing text from my old posts, while leaving the post itself up. Yesterday I found out they’ve also erased pictures of mine on posts, but not text. My discovery of this has led me to wonder what was so offensive about pictures of my cat they needed taken down.
 
He’s also a dude who has had a successful enough career in publishing you’d recognize his name if I said it. Combined with another successful fellow I know in publishing who is convinced he’s psychic, it’s kind of interesting to see people who are able to function in society and have high levels of success while having such beliefs that most would expect them to be incapable of the prosperity they’ve had.
A friend of ours is a Harvard educated physicist, working on some pretty high profile stuff. He's great to talk to... as long as you don't drift onto certain topics where he is an absolute crackpot. In recent times his cracks have spread... to where it's now pretty hard to avoid them.
It seems like conspiracy buffs eventually have to either come to their senses, or start taking on all the other conspiracies that butt up against their original obsessions. A spider's web that grows outward.
 
A friend of ours is a Harvard educated physicist, working on some pretty high profile stuff. He's great to talk to... as long as you don't drift onto certain topics where he is an absolute crackpot. In recent times his cracks have spread... to where it's now pretty hard to avoid them.
It seems like conspiracy buffs eventually have to either come to their senses, or start taking on all the other conspiracies that butt up against their original obsessions. A spider's web that grows outward.
That’s an interesting part about the two guys I know. They have absolutely compartmentalized their respective beliefs, and they’re amazing at keeping it under the radar. I understand one of them wrote a comic which had their beliefs a major plot point of the comic, and the comic both bombed fiercely and got a lot of mockery.. You’d expect them to fly off the handle at something they believe so strongly in, but they never once had a public (or private, to my knowledge) outburst about it. They just shrugged their shoulders and went on their way.
 
A friend of ours is a Harvard educated physicist, working on some pretty high profile stuff. He's great to talk to... as long as you don't drift onto certain topics where he is an absolute crackpot. In recent times his cracks have spread... to where it's now pretty hard to avoid them.
It seems like conspiracy buffs eventually have to either come to their senses, or start taking on all the other conspiracies that butt up against their original obsessions. A spider's web that grows outward.
I worked with some brilliant guys who loved their conspiracies. It was fun for a while an I could have gotten into conspiracies but then I ended up at an amazingly successful company of brilliant people (not mostly conspiracy peoe) and saw how incompetent that group could be. I have very limited believe that a high functioning conspiracy can work for too long.
That said as long as you work within existing world view you can do some shady shit and blame it on whoever is currently at the bottom of the social ladder.
 
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