Discussion Thread: Monday, 10 March 2025

Shit sleep last night. Can't think of anything to do for our wedding anniversary next week. I've had two shits already which is unheard of. It's fucking hot. I will survive.

I had a long second sleep, musta been tired.

I just signed up to Proton Mail & am changing over my email, calendar, setting up the VPN and migrating all my stuff to their cloud server. I've only just started the process and I'm exhausted already. I haven't even looked at the password manager yet to decide if I want to change to that or not. But storing my digital life in Switzerland instead of USA seems like a very good idea at the moment.

I have one I'm afraid to contaminate with data leaks so I literally use it for nothing. No, I don't follow the logic either.
Google seems to be becoming a worse company, migrating away looks like a good idea.
- Yeah, I've been contemplating it for a while, it's just taken the recent issues in US to give me enough push to actually act.
I've got proton mail and I love the security of it. Haven't looked at the other parts of it yet tho, just the mail.
I'm in the process of the same thing.
proton and mastodon.
might move my gmail , not that i use it much
I'm still using tor a lot and had my exit node set to usa ( I pasted in some code ) but I might start using proton vpn and try for yerp
Lemmy is nice but hardly secure .
- I have multiple emails I use. Being able to use alias emails will be useful, and I'll also be able to set up email using my own domain name through Proton - which means I can move them ito another company in the future if I decide Proton's not the best option anymore. It also means I can set up lots of emails along the lines of companyname@myname.website, and have a seperate address for each of the major companies I deal with (like banks and insurance companies) to create another difference so that data matching won't expose as much information. I'd looked at doing this using the company that hosts my website, but their interface did not work well for emails and it's not very secure.

I'm surprised cookie monster is there. Surely Vicpol with their extremely sound judgement chucked him in the drunk tank, then refused to do a blood test, fail to communicate the charge, then didn't offer him 2 phone calls and just chucked him out on the street at 4am on a monday with no way home except for an 8km walk. (It was a while ago but I'm still bitter).
- He doesn't know where he is. He's high as hoeing down cookies. He wouldn't remember his age let alone a phone number.
I'm sure Oscar got good reason
- He lives on the street, he knows what's up.

It appears Gibson won't go to bed tonight unless I go to bed. There go my big plans for video games...

Goodnight all ❤️

Happy Labour Day!

Working the public holiday is bad enough, but whyyy did our central engineering team have to throw a spanner in the works and break stuff to 'keep things interesting' and make today extra-not-cruisy?!? 🤬

So hot outside. Could be worse, could be humid. 12 more new records to go... then I just need to redo 16 more completely and I'm almost done. The rest only need remeasuring with a tape measure... which is more about driving around to do the bastard things real quick. I could do some while I'm out here and traffic is chill. Leave about 70 to update with more precision on some cooler weather day. The end is in sight for this side of town!

One discombobulated Boyo is back home after discovering halfway into work that they've given everyone the day off.

Coming back from beechworth, we all had a great time. The boys got to pat lizards and feed frogs. There were animals grazing around the grounds and they got to watch a crocodile be fed.

To top it all off, they use a product work sells that lines up perfectly with an upcoming product launch. I asked if I could use them as a case study and they said yes, so I could retroactively spin this as a work trip

Definitely a work trip, and the boys were the quality testing team

Address changing underway, along with resetting passwords for a zillion customer portals I've not logged into since last move and have inevitably forgotten. Blargh.

Yuck. Who broke the weather?

So many days of hot weather! 😭😭 This is SHIT!
Remind me to bring my sunscreen today lol
- Only three days to go until the cool change! Kill me now
smh gods these days…
it's not really that hot, just mildly hot, hot is mid 40s, but the number of days at this temp is not nice

a cockroach thought im food

Happy Second Sunday!

Not pictured: human in same position

the little strawberry yoghurt ice pops were delicious, I chose very very red small straws for a strong flavour

I don't feel guilty eating these either 🙂

Fun fact - the old English word for strawberry is streawberige, etymology is light on this but it could have the same etymology as straw, as in, it is strewn (literally "that which is scattered or strewn"), based on how strawberry plants grow across the ground. Related to Proto-Indo European *stere meaning "to spread".
Literally "strewn-upon-the-ground berry".
- when I lived in Europe sometimes species wild strawberries would appear in my garden beds, such tiny little berries, very little taste but they edible, they are very pretty and the robins love them
  I read somewhere the strawberries we cultivate and eat are native to America

i can’t quite decide what to do with the next twelve (12) hours

Go to print something in black and white and it refuses because the colour is low. Fuck HP printers.

Check out reject shop daiso etc. for christmas wrapping paper. Maybe even colesworth. Some kinds have squared grids on the back in 1 cm intervals for ease of wrapping presents. I bought a couple of rolls and use that for pattern drafting. At a couple of bux per roll its MUCH cheaper than formal drafting paper and just as good. And if I screw up a pattern it's no big deal to do it again on a new bit of paper. Buying paper patterns is expensive and they usually need to be adjusted (for me anyway) before they fit.
- Thanks, that’s smart! I have Xmas wrapping paper but sadly no grid on the back.
  Sorry for the ninja edit removing the part about making patterns, I had figured my weird activities weren’t actually that interesting

Just came back from shopping, lots of people about. The fruit and veg shop was busy as, which is good to see. Got a busy day in the factory tomorrow, so it's gonna be a very hot one for me.

oh holy shit I just realised my PT-E550WVP does very good QR codes. And I run my own webserver. As in literally, in my house, apache build that I can control access to.

Guess whose specialty tools are gonna get all their guides and manuals digitised with link stickers on every last one? Mwahahahaha

Edit: double holy shit this is a gamechanger for His Lordship's adhd.

Electric toothbrush or manual toothbrush?

Manual. Gotta get that exercise in somehow.
Manual, do it in the shower and you get an extra few minutes for free
manual
Electric, better clean
- With less effort
Electric all the way.
Manual!
Manual. Quieter. No vibrating brain. No need for batteries/charging or replacement heads. Or company no longer makes heads the type you need.
There’s electric now?
- Yeah. They're new.

more packing , will spend some time cutting up bubble wrap for the delicate stuff

Holy sweaty shirtballs. I am COOKED, was out from 11 to 6 jumping in and out of the car but I got the time sensitive stuff done, and I pushed on through to correct ALL the other measurements in one day to make the most of cruisey traffic... and I'M DONE WITH MY DATA COLLECTION!!1!1! (for that side of town, anyway. Got one more area that I might have to let go of if the weather doesn't play nice this weekend/next week)

I'll be glad to not drive over the effing Westgate for another year now, thank you very much.

Bonus is I managed to get some cheap Asian veggies while stopping for refreshments (kang kung, choy sum, winter gourd and very cheap small round eggplants). Plus a full tank of cheap petrol. Ordered pizza for dinner as a very well-deserved treat... just waiting for the clothes to wash and I'll pick it up while I do the laundromat run. Whew, what a day.

Yay. 👍☺️

Long day! Remembered sunscreen and I remain pale and unburnt.

Now sitting outside the laundromat, washing mein liebes pants for his interview tomorrow. He has used all his spoons, so I sent him back upstairs to rest lol

washing mein liebes pants for his interview
May your washing of pant land him the prospect of more pant.
- 💜💜

inspired by Low's recommendation I bought a lot of cosmetics today ☺️ lots of eyebrow and eyelash stuff, new liquid eye liners too

Oooh, tell me more. I'm a cosmetics fiend and wish to know all of the details!! Brands! Colours! Finishes!

After about six hours of gaming, and maybe two hours of phone scrolling and napping; now that the sun has set, I finally feel like getting Things™ done.

but first i'll dash to qvc and grab a small frozen yoghurt and some other stuff 😋

I feel a bit like I didn't get much done today, but I have made significant progress in de-Goggling my life.

I've also removed Reddit. Again. Apparently it's like cancer. I obviously didn't get rid of it all when I moved over here and it regrew. Now it's been cut out again.

Hopefully with a new influx to Lemmy there will be a bit more engagement here. Although we are all terrible people who "incite violence" so maybe we should just riot instead?

You could say you luigi'd your reddit.
- Hey hey hey - you can't use that word or um, the Americans will ban you!
  An nobody upvote him either or they'll get ya!
- I could say that, but only here. Try to say that on Reddit and they luigi you 🤣
i feel like I aged ten years just figuring out how to use mastodon
it's like lemmy but they don't actually tell you what server you signed up on or what server you're on, so that's fun. Also, you don't actually sign in with your mastodon ID, which is so intuitive 😵‍💫
now to move my gmail to proton
I use duckduckgo anyway, but even that algorithm is getting more and more shitty, getting really hard to actually find anything
reddit, I am so blocked on most of my accounts I couldn't delete them even if I wanted
maybe if i tried the computers at the library it would work 🤷‍♀️
I never downloaded the reddit app
- I haven't actually looked at mastodon. Lemmy took a whe to figure out initially too, it's probably similar and it just takes a bit of time.
  I managed to avoid an actual ban on reddit (probably because i didn't use it much) and only had comments banned with a warning.
  In many ways I miss the old 90s newsgroups.
what happened to reddit THIS time?
- They are going overboard with censorship, which seems to be aimed primarily at anyone expressing anti-Trump sentiments. Not just banning people for making comments but also people who upvoted them. They have very wide criteria they classify as "inciting violence" - including using the name Luigi or the phrase "eat the rich", but they are not transparent about what their criteria are. They have also been banning people for reporting too many comments, regardless of whether or not those reports are valid or not.

I just made some strawberry yoghurt ice pops. Yoghurt, milk, strawberries a little sugar in the blender then into popsicle molds

should turn out nice 😋

They sound delicious 🤩
- made with real wholesome ingredients 🙂 they are also lactose free

It's so damn hot

"Gibson why are you eating cobwebs?"

The next couple of weeks at work are going to be a glorious trainwreck.

Maybe the person I'm handing over to will call me and ask me to dictate an email to them again lol

refuse. and escalate concerns to your manager. "Bringing this to your attention now so it cant be pinned on me after my departure. I'm greatly concerned about how X will handle the workload".
There is 0 reasons to be "Nice" any more.
- Good move. Fuck it, I've got nothing to really lose.

I'm too sexy for my shirt it hurts

Garlic bread or garlic focaccia (which is really a garlic pizza)?

I just saw the word pizza and now dinner plans are confirmed. I don't need to make 300 decisions, just 1 good one.
- 😂
  I knew someone would fall for the trap.
Yes
garlic bread
Yes. But also garlic bread. Garlic pizza if I'm sick
Garlic bread, ideally with cheese
Yes.

Audio books or physical books?

Let’s get physical, physical
Physical, because I mainly like them on display.
physical
i love physical but when I'm tired audio is good
Physical. One thing I don't need a charged device for.

Just a slice more weekend. As a treat.

Tasty cheese or Vintage tasty cheese?

I kept waking up throughout the night -_-

Records or cds?

Sandwiches or rolls?

What’s in it?
- Whatever you want.
Sandos.
But I do love a wrap.
- Second the wrap.
Crusty white roll please
Sandwiches, especially with toasted bread.
Breakfast Roll, Lunch Sandwich
rolls with sesame seeds please

Washing powder or liquid detergent?

Powder
Powder
Sure
Powder. Liquid degrades faster (especially enzymes) so I can buy a larger container and not have to think about shopping for more for a much longer interval.
liquid
Powder. No idea why, just habit.
Liquid. Just cause of the machine.
Powder. I thought liquid was just diluted powder anyway, but my information may be old.

Goodnight everyone 👋🏼

Goodnight :)

getting used to mastodon, nearly had a breakdown

AAAAARGH

😭

I think I have it sorted now

rewatching DS9 and it's really just reminding me of why I fucking despise pretty much all Kurtzmann era Trek with the exception of SNW.

DS9: "Military junta BAD! Section 31 BAD! Don't let fucking paranoia drive you to stupidity! Look at the precipice and say "NO MORE". Good people may do bad things, but they feel fucking bad about it, no matter how noble the end goal! Bad people do good things, take your perspectives into consideration and fucking look at something bigger than yourself!

Kurtzmann, nodding along, taking notes "I see, I see, now, which end of the mincing machine do the puppies go into again?"

Him cherry picking ISB's work is like that woman who made monkey jesus.

Call from locksmith for mystery reason? What is happening?

Locksmith called you? That is mysterious.
FYI it looks like you posted this on yesterday's daily thread instead of today's.

Tram or bus?

Bottle or can drink?

Bottle. I want to be able to close it.
bottle
Bottle for resealability
Whatever is in reach. Bottle taste better
Can when it's hot. Bottle when it's normal.
Can. Freezing cold on a hot day
Bottle. Resealable and glass for tastiness.
Ooh. Bottle of wine!

Here I am, resetting words:
Must contain:
12 characters, at least one number, one uppercase, one lowercase, one symbol, no consecutive numbers, no repeated characters, no repeated groups of characters

I have a script that generates passwords for the help desk kids to give to people. The passwords come out super easy to remember and easy to relay over the phone.
They're all like "Blue 3 Waters" and "Climb 18 Trees". The formula is "[verb/adjective] [random number] [Noun]". Surprisingly easy to remember and passes the policy as space counts as a symbol.
- Ohh I didn’t know space is a character!
and then the pages that don't allow to view the pw as it's being typed 😵‍💫
those long weird pws are hell to get right
- Why is everyone ditching google? I haven't been reading the news lately.
- What you do is type a sentence.
  "Bill and Ted are fighting again" is technically a great password

Icecream or icy poles?

My mind says icecream but my stomach pooch says no.
- 😂
Icecream, I have to exercise the utmost restraint because the tub doesn't last long around here, too many icecream piggies in this house.
Ice cream.
I scream
on a hot day icy poles

Taxi or uber?

Hardly a difference in 2025. At least taxis weren't an investor pump and dump.
taxi
Taxi. I know a couple of taxi drivers that do private work, very reliable.
I’m inclined to Uber
Uber. Or didi. Or grab. Though they're all going to hell.

After Dinner Mint or Mint slice biscuits?

No thanks.
Neither, I like my chocolate without the toothpaste notes.
both in one bite
Dinner mint. When I was a kid they were vienetta level of luxury, only brought out when we had guests :(
aero

Freddo Frog or Bertie Beetle?

Caramello Koala
I don’t really care about chocolates. You may have mine.
- Correct answer.
i have been told to eat the frog
strawberry fredo
Any port in a storm.

Beep Beep 🚚
🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🫓🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙 🍗🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋

Snowmen to hold off this weather.
- ☃️
Rare and curious cheeses with crackers pleases
- 💎🧀🤔🧀🧀🍪🍪
A tasting platter of gelato please.
- 🍨🍧🍦🍨🍧

Metal straws or paper straws?

Fuck the turtles (I love you turtles)
i refused paper straw today because texture is shit, rather use my mouth
I never had a problem with paper, drank day old maccas drinks hungover the next day and the straw was still fine.
Paper works fine for me, don't tend to leave drinks long enough for them to get soggy.
i have a big plastic one
Children’s things
Metal or silicone

Best Melbourne summer in years.

The weather has been amazing, wish it could stay like this forever.

Time for another dip at the beach.

Fish & chips or parma & chips?

Fish and chips. Can't beat 2 pieces of flake and minimum chips.
Parma & chips
fish and chips
Fish, I can pretend I'm being healthy.
Fish and chips, absolutely. But note that getting a couple of fish bites both satisfies my need for deep fried fish and is also WAY cheaper than a piece of "flake'
Parma will be preserved with my mummified body so I may take it to the afterlife

I had three bits of work to do today. I've done half of one. So now I have two and a half bits of work to do from today tomorrow, and two more bits tomorrow. This shall be fun.

Cherry tomatoes or truss tomatoes?

i logged into hotmail for the first time in maybe ten years and THE FIRST TWO "NEW EMAILS" are ADS?!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shall we play a little game of What do you prefer?

The rules are you may only choose ONE.

Bath towels or bath sheets?

Bath sheets. I like my towels to dry me, not spread the wetness around. Solo living, plenty of room on the towel rail, just fold it in half and hang it over, no issue.
sheets
The oldest crappiest towel you've got. I leave the nice ones for the children.
- You deserve a nice towel too. 😔
Just a clean towel thanks
Towels. Bath sheets are too big and unweildy and don't fit on the towel rail properly. Or do people who have bath sheets have some sort of plus sized sheet rail instead?
- They are so heavy when they're wet.
- ^^ agree