[Rant] Minor Rant III: For a Few Hollers More

Sounds like a losing battle with the nature of the platform, tbh. No setting on facebook will stop someone from just downloading your image and reuploading on their own page where you'll never get any kind of notification that they shared it. Have you considered watermarking your images? At the very least, a photo thief would be also sharing exactly where they sourced it from.
I do watermark them, but I guess I need to make a really big, ugly watermark across the middle.

My hairdresser told me that image theft is a huge problem in that industry as well and one of her favourite stylists has had to start watermarking his images right around the hair style in each image so that if it's cropped out, the whole picture looks odd. She also told me about a wedding photographer who watermarks right across the chests of the bride and groom and doesn't care if it looks bad because of how many times he had clients try and steal his proofs.
 
Man, I took a 3 day vacation and upon my return to work, I find that half my work hasn't been done and the other half badly.
For someone who harps on me on a near-daily basis that my reports need to be out before 10 AM, it sure is strange those reports were only sent at 2 PM for every day my boss had to do it.
For someone who makes me stay late on occasion just to get a welcome mail out, it sure is weird to hear "oh, and that new client from Monday hasn't gotten a welcome yet, send that too, would you?".
I mean, I know, he has his own job (well....), I don't expect him to do everything I do, but at least maybe ask someone else to do something? How is this supposed to work when I'm gone for 2 weeks in September? Will clients just not get an answer to urgent questions at all? -_-
 
Most bosses like that are total hypocrites.

The super-bitch that I worked for last year would expect me to work around the clock to meet her crazy deadlines and she would threaten my job and even the existence of our office if I didn't do it. When she had to do some extra hours when I was off on extended sick leave? Who "announced" they were leaving on a Thursday, effective the following Monday.

PS - I'm sure that she was fired for a whole rainbow of her inadequacies - her refusal to stay past 4:30 was just one.
 

fade

Staff member
Well, we went from a tropical storm landfall, to a category 1 landfall, to now possibly a category 4 landfall. The news channels are saying Harvey is "strengthening rapidly in an unexpected way". I got your expectation right here:
1uo3ha.jpg
 
Way back a thousand years ago, I had a boyfriend who was in the Coast Guard. He always had to go fish idiots out of the surge during hurricanes.

Be safe, y'all. Don't go surfing.
 

fade

Staff member
Last year, during the Tax Day floods, there was a cop on the news bawling his eyes out. It was really sad. He was barricading a flooded underpass with his car, and some lady decided to drive around him and try anyway. He said he could see her trying to get out of her sinking car, but there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help her. Needless to say, she didn't make it.
 

Dave

Staff member
So today can be labeled Dave's Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Day. I mean, it could be worse or it wouldn't be in the minor rant thread, right?

  • I left the house for work today. Within 3 minutes a dude in a truck backed in to me. He cracked my bumper in a few places, but nothing much else. And since my car is a piece of shit I told him not to worry about it. It probably did $50 worth of improvements.
  • On the way to work my muffler fell off. And by fell off I don't mean completely. I mean it was hanging on one side dragging under the car making a hellish racket and shooting sparks into the morning commute like a deranged sparkler. After work I pulled it up onto the curb so I could crawl under it and use some wire to tie it up so I can get it to the mechanic. I only had one wire. iPhone charging cord, I'm gonna miss you. But it did the trick and now the car is being fixed. I'm car-less for a couple days.
  • I'm hiding in my cubical trying not to piss off whatever gods I had already offended, when my daughter calls. The main drain line in the basement started leaking. Turns out there's a blockage somewhere down the line and everything is backing up. So there's water everywhere. Not like Houston, but bad enough. The plumber comes and does his thing...and he can't get it. So there's two ways he can make this work. He can either come back tomorrow, dig up the yard, and put in something called a "cleanout"...or they can go right in through where the washer drains, but then they'd have to cap it, which would mean we'd lose ANY ability to have a washing machine. Luckily the landlord went with the former. I will be working from home tomorrow so they can dig up our yard.
And that's it. A lot of shit happening, but nothing major. At least, nothing major until I get the bill from the mechanic. Oy. I'm not looking forward to that one. I just came in to a couple hundred dollars and was going to use it for something completely different. A pessimistic person would say, "Figures. Just when I get some cash this shit always happens." An optimistic person would say, "Wow! Good thing I got that money when I did!"

I just sigh and fork it over.
 
So my translation company has an online test system, where prospective translators can take the test and submit trial translations. These translations are graded by me. Three months ago, I noticed a familiar name on one of the trial translations. It was an old friend of mine, a girl I knew back in the US when I lived there. Despite recognizing her name, though, I graded the translation as impartially as I could, and gave her a failing grade.

Now, here's where it goes wrong. I contacted her on Facebook, and told her that I was actually the head editor at the translation company she did a trial translation for, and that she didn't pass the test. She was quite surprised, because she used to live in the US and thus has a good grasp of English, and plus she's already worked as a translator for a few years. I told her sorry, we have to have exacting standards because that's what our clients demand of us, but she can retake the test after three months (the system only allows an applicant to retake the test after three months).

A few days ago, she retook the test, and I failed her again. The quality was a bit better than last time, but still not good enough. This time she was very unhappy, and demanded that another editor take a look at her translations, because she simply couldn't believe the quality was that bad.

Now, here's where it goes even more wrong. I explained the situation to my supervisor, and asked if I could get another one of our editors to look at the test translations. I explained that I knew this applicant, and thus it's possible I wasn't being objective enough. My supervisor said ok. I asked one of the other editors in my department to look at the test translations. The other editor gave them a failing grade too. She then wrote an email to my old friend, with an explanation of what she did wrong on the tests. My old friend wrote a long email back, demanding an explanation for pretty much every edit made, and why she disagreed with them. She's pretty much wrong on all counts.

At this point I think I'm just going to have to put my foot down and said, "Look, you failed the test, twice, and we don't have time to deal with your shit."

Now I know why we have a standing policy of not responding to each applicant individually.
 

fade

Staff member
So today can be labeled Dave's Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Day. I mean, it could be worse or it wouldn't be in the minor rant thread, right?

  • I left the house for work today. Within 3 minutes a dude in a truck backed in to me. He cracked my bumper in a few places, but nothing much else. And since my car is a piece of shit I told him not to worry about it. It probably did $50 worth of improvements.
  • On the way to work my muffler fell off. And by fell off I don't mean completely. I mean it was hanging on one side dragging under the car making a hellish racket and shooting sparks into the morning commute like a deranged sparkler. After work I pulled it up onto the curb so I could crawl under it and use some wire to tie it up so I can get it to the mechanic. I only had one wire. iPhone charging cord, I'm gonna miss you. But it did the trick and now the car is being fixed. I'm car-less for a couple days.
  • I'm hiding in my cubical trying not to piss off whatever gods I had already offended, when my daughter calls. The main drain line in the basement started leaking. Turns out there's a blockage somewhere down the line and everything is backing up. So there's water everywhere. Not like Houston, but bad enough. The plumber comes and does his thing...and he can't get it. So there's two ways he can make this work. He can either come back tomorrow, dig up the yard, and put in something called a "cleanout"...or they can go right in through where the washer drains, but then they'd have to cap it, which would mean we'd lose ANY ability to have a washing machine. Luckily the landlord went with the former. I will be working from home tomorrow so they can dig up our yard.
And that's it. A lot of shit happening, but nothing major. At least, nothing major until I get the bill from the mechanic. Oy. I'm not looking forward to that one. I just came in to a couple hundred dollars and was going to use it for something completely different. A pessimistic person would say, "Figures. Just when I get some cash this shit always happens." An optimistic person would say, "Wow! Good thing I got that money when I did!"

I just sigh and fork it over.
Are you sure that they don't mean cap the cleanout? That's pretty typical. They leave it there and capped in case they or you need to use it again. It's just an access pipe, usually left with a screw in cap on the access end, that sticks just above ground.
 
Are you sure that they don't mean cap the cleanout? That's pretty typical. They leave it there and capped in case they or you need to use it again. It's just an access pipe, usually left with a screw in cap on the access end, that sticks just above ground.
The cleanout would have to be capped, and since they're digging down they may as well install one.

It is confusing why they would have to cap the washing machine drain, though, after using it for cleaning out the drain line. That doesn't make sense.

My guess is that this is a slab foundation house, and the plumber is expecting that if he went in through the washing machine drain the drain would be damaged. While it would be cheaper and faster, it would only be a quick fix because it would disable use of the washing machine until a later date when the concrete would have to be cut and sub slab pipe repair would have to be done, and this would ultimately cost more than digging up the outside.

So the options given were probably variants of cheap, fast, good:

Cheap, fast - go through washing machine drain, ultimately disabling washing machine
Fast, good - dig up outside yard, install drain cleanout

Even then, though, I can't imagine a situation where the washing machine drain would have to be disabled. Maybe that drain is already at the point in its life where it'll fail if tools are put down it, or perhaps the drain line blockage is significant enough that the required heavy duty drain line tool would damage it.

But then why not choose a toilet drain, which is larger and usually closer to the main drain line?

Regardless, putting in an outside cleanout is the best solution anyway. But the washing machine drain thing makes me wonder.
 

Dave

Staff member
The main line had a drain thing put in by the washing machine as an afterthought once they dug out the basement, which the house originally didn't have. So the washing machine drain directly into the main line through a plastic attachment that is obviously just cobbled together. He'd have to cap the main if he broke the plastic out to snake.

But they came and dug up the yard and installed a cleanout. We still don't know what was clogging everything up, he thinks it was tree roots again.
 
Ah, so the washing machine drain line is not up to code. In order to use it he'd have to modify it, but he couldn't put it back the way it was, and would have had to cap it to remain code compliant.

As long as they don't touch it, they can leave it alone in its code noncompliant state.
 
Not writing this out for sympathy, just wanting to write because it's a weird feeling. My grandpa passed away in the early AM today. I was the last person in the family to talk to him (on Saturday) and the next day that I went he was asleep so we didn't stay. That's not the weird part (for me). But he was transfered out of my dads house to the hospital because of the flooding, then the hospital transfered him to a nursing home, but in order to do the transfer they needed an updated DNR because the hospital didn't have one on file. I was the only one that wasn't flooded in so I was the one that signed his DNR (which was needed he didn't have the best quality of life, was bed ridden, etc. but could still talk, but wasn't always sure where he was, in the nursing home we were telling him about the flooding at my dads house and he still thought that's where he was and was asking about and looking at the ground asking where the water was). It's just weird that my signature is the reason that they didn't try to bring him back, which, like I said I'm glad they didn't because he didn't have a great quality of life and was already on hospice care. Just... weird..
 

figmentPez

Staff member
One of my, formerly, closest friends hasn't spoken to me since March. For a while I assumed she was busy with school, she'd gone quiet for weeks at a time before. Then I thought it might be ongoing anxiety issues, and that she'd talk when she was feeling better. Today I learned that she's blocked me on Facebook, and her boyfriend has unfriended me. I don't know why, but I assume that her boyfriend is no longer comfortable with our friendship, and she's chosen him over me. I didn't think either of them were the type to do that, since I have no romantic interest in her, and she'd mentioned that I wasn't her type (in passing).

I miss her a lot. We'd text for hours about all sorts of nerdy shit. Fan theories for Once Upon a Time, a Hamilton AU where they're running for student government and all the political parties are various extracurricular groups, etc. For a while I talked with her almost as much as I do @LittleKagsin, and I don't know what I did wrong to lose that. :(
 
(Me, doing finances last night): "Things are getting low, but payday is tomorrow so that should be fine."
(Me, getting up this morning): "Huh? Oh, looks like payday isn't until next week. Well, then."

--Patrick
 
Saw this article on Slashdot: Meet the CamperForce, Amazon's Nomadic Retiree Army

Was kinda OK, until I read this section:
Chuck still remembers the call from Wells Fargo that brought the 2008 financial crisis crashing down on his head. He had invested his $250,000 nest egg in a fund that supposedly guaranteed him $4,000 a month to live on. “You have no more money,” he recalls his banker saying flatly. “What do you want us to do?” Unable to think of a better answer, Chuck told him, “Well, shove your foot up your ass.” Then he hung up.

Barb had lost her savings too, some $200,000 in investments.
OK, I have no idea about the 2nd amount, but $4,000/m IN PERPETUITY would be $48,000/year and a 19.2% rate of return. 19.2%!!! Even if it was a "you will have no money after 30 years" type of thing (if you can link a calculator for that, please help, I don't remember the right way to do that from first principals, and I'm clearly searching google for the wrong keywords), it's STILL insanely high.

Basically, this guy invested in something that was CLEARLY a scam. You don't get a 20% rate of return that's stable. Whatever this guy did with his "first life" and how good he was at it, his investment advisor sucked donkey balls, and/or was just a criminal. His "final advice" that I quoted above is what "Chuck" should have done BEFORE investing. Also, what the hell else did he do with his life to only have that much savings given his career? He was a franchise owner at a McD's (license to print money in most places) and an executive before that... and he only saved $250,000? I'm thinking even BEFORE he invested he was a financial moron given his probable income levels.[DOUBLEPOST=1505757298,1505757184][/DOUBLEPOST]
I think I should be allowed to murder short men. Or at their very least bury them alive.
Is Cornpop planning to do something drastic to himself?
 
Saw this article on Slashdot: Meet the CamperForce, Amazon's Nomadic Retiree Army
Was kinda OK, until I read this section:?
I read the article, too, and the idea that your reward for a lifetime of work is to have to sign up to work more until your body wears out was actually kinda disappointing.
this guy invested in something that was CLEARLY a scam. You don't get a 20% rate of return that's stable. Whatever this guy did with his "first life" and how good he was at it, his investment advisor sucked donkey balls, and/or was just a criminal.
Pretty sure we've already discussed CDOs and how much they screwed the market elsewhere on this board. A lot of people lost everything (including the will to live), there was the whole "Too Big To Fail" bailout thing, and a lot of people got away with money who should probably be behind bars. His advisor was probably not criminally liable, though there might be question as to whether he violated his fiduciary duty. I don't know what the unfortunate guy did in his first life, but the reason you pay an investment advisor is because you don't know what you're doing and want someone else to handle the stuff you don't know. At the time, CDOs really did have that kind of return, the trouble was that it turned out to be unsustainable (surprise, surprise).

--Patrick
 
Saw this article on Slashdot: Meet the CamperForce, Amazon's Nomadic Retiree Army

Was kinda OK, until I read this section:

OK, I have no idea about the 2nd amount, but $4,000/m IN PERPETUITY would be $48,000/year and a 19.2% rate of return. 19.2%!!! Even if it was a "you will have no money after 30 years" type of thing (if you can link a calculator for that, please help, I don't remember the right way to do that from first principals, and I'm clearly searching google for the wrong keywords), it's STILL insanely high.

Basically, this guy invested in something that was CLEARLY a scam. You don't get a 20% rate of return that's stable. Whatever this guy did with his "first life" and how good he was at it, his investment advisor sucked donkey balls, and/or was just a criminal. His "final advice" that I quoted above is what "Chuck" should have done BEFORE investing. Also, what the hell else did he do with his life to only have that much savings given his career? He was a franchise owner at a McD's (license to print money in most places) and an executive before that... and he only saved $250,000? I'm thinking even BEFORE he invested he was a financial moron given his probable income levels.[DOUBLEPOST=1505757298,1505757184][/DOUBLEPOST]
Is Cornpop planning to do something drastic to himself?

Thanks for that link. A fascinating read.
 
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