Lendal

You neglect to mention the inmate has to pay for each scanned card or letter, which most inmates can't afford. And you can't write on it, because it's on a screen, so if you're sending crosswords, the inmate can't do the crossword now, which is very demoralizing so they'll just ask you to stop sending them. There is another service where they can pay an exorbitant fee for a printout though. It's also very difficult to read scanned handwritten letters even if you pay for the printout. Inmates will ask you to stop sending Christmas cards because it's not worth it for you, and it's not worth it for them. It costs them more than what the card & postage cost you. Also the screens are pretty shitty so when they break down, it takes months to get a replacement.

The worst thing is the lies about why they're doing this. They think we're stupid. They don't really care about prisoners getting sick from possible drugs on the letters. If they really cared about this issue they would screen the letters for drugs, which would be easier & cheaper than scanning and reprinting them, or they would provide healthcare in prisons (they don't), or they could even stop corrections employees from bringing in the drugs in the first place.

I don't find it funny at all. Bureaucracies use that type of excuse all the time to justify piling on additional cruelties.

In Florida, inmates may no longer receive mail. No love letters. No Christmas cards. Nothing. FDOC claim it's because some prisoner's mail might have had "drugs" in it. That's the excuse anyway. As of last year, no prisoners in Florida may receive mail from loved ones anymore. Insanity is what I call it. Nothing justifies it. Having been convicted of a crime doesn't justify it, because we also find legal ways to be cruel to people who haven't been accused of any crime. I don't know what people get out of it. Something is wrong with us.

More theorizing. Why don't they just ask the homeless, on an individual level, why they're homeless? They know better than we do. It's not like they're animals, such that we can't ask them a simple set of questions.

My personal theory? The reason there's more homeless in LA and NYC is because LA and NYC are huge. There's more of everything in those cities. Why shouldn't there be more homelessness as well?

Yes, and this is the problem. The shape of the wheel is literally the only thing about it that's fine. At least you got something in return. The shape is "cool". There's nothing "cool" about these f'king buttons and touchscreen forward/reverse.

Any time you change something in UX, there is always a backlash. You have to give something back. You have to make the change worthwhile. Add some kind of benefit to the user in return for their having to swallow the crap. The shape of the wheel being "cool" is the benefit here. Changing it back to round without removing all the other surrounding bad UX changes is worse, because you're taking away the benefit while keeping in place most of the crap.

It wasn't the shape of the wheel that was the problem. It was the unasked-for capacitive-touch turn signal buttons located on the left side of the wheel, instead of a turn-signal lever. The round wheel keeps those useless buttons, so is not a solution to the problem. You still have to use your left thumb to pick between these two buttons. They don't push in, have no feedback and they are often unresponsive, especially when you attempt to push one while turning the wheel at the same time with your left thumb at an odd angle. It just doesn't work. Bring back the turn signal lever.

So, approximately 1% of its workforce.

Love these one-line synopses. Much appreciation for saving me the time. Thank you.

I think we need to look at this from the perspective of a society and ask ourselves what else we could have done. Obviously there are a whole lot of people in society completely lacking in common sense and critical thinking skills, while at the same time mass rudeness seems normalized too. Is this a failure of education, or parenting? Or has it always been this way, and the only difference is the way we communicate with each other now naturally results in mass failures of common sense? It's a complex topic, but these rude people are also victims so we need to analyze it and at least learn something from it.

It's almost as if someone invented an amazing new technology that really works, then some VC came along, bought it out, (er, I mean invested!) ran the original inventors out of town and bolted on some unasked-for snake oil. Now, you can still buy the still-awesome product (mostly made in America too) but you have to take all the VC crap along with it. Welcome to America!

Okay, but are you referring to the criminals, or law enforcement? Both are involved in deception.

Really? News to me. If NSA has had this secret ability, and if it is indeed a secret, how is it that some random person knows all about it and now feels perfectly safe revealing it on a public web site? Changing data in real time on private databases goes way beyond traffic monitoring & intelligence-gathering.

If someone did want to assassinate lil X as he flew on a plane, they would simply buy a radio and listen in to his pilot, who is constantly "doxxing" Musk in real time, every minute of every day, as he talks to air traffic control. Why would you rely on some kid posting to social media very inaccurate and second-hand information, when you could just listen in to his coordinates broadcasting live on the radio, or at least install an app such as Flightly?

What's really worrying to me is that he can change those DMs to say whatever suits his fancy, coupled with the fact nobody remaining at Twitter is in any position to blow the whistle on such conduct. It would likely remain secret indefinitely.

My house is standardized on Z-wave because I can afford a bit extra $ for each device in exchange for reliability. I can also add Zigbee if I need to, since my hub can do both. I just haven't needed to yet. Everything is available in both Zigbee and Z-wave versions, so I choose to pay the extra for added reliability.

I haven't had much luck with Bluetooth and Wifi IoT devices. They tend to last a couple of years and then die. They also are more hassle to set up, and use more power. I don't need more hassle in my life. Z-wave and Zigbee are both more reliable, with Z-wave taking the slight edge over Zigbee.

What's happening now is Thread (Matter) is coming. Thread is basically Zigbee Mark II. Thread is on par with Z-wave, but it supposed will retain its edge in cost benefit. I may start buying Thread stuff as it becomes available, but the problem is my mesh is solidly Z-wave. It doesn't seem worthwhile to start replacing stuff that works perfectly fine.

The new Thread protocol (part of Matter) is basically Zigbee on steroids which gets it up to parity with Z-wave. The reason to choose Z-wave over Thread is that Z-wave works now and has many devices available to buy, while Thread works in theory and the devices are very few in number. Thread devices are due out in force next year. So this actually is perfect timing for Z-wave to make this move now, right as the first wave of Thread devices are approaching.

No need. He's already up on Mastodon. Check out the number of follows it already has -> https://mastodon.social/@elonjet

Yes, because it's not something you just try out on a whim. I personally paid $10,000 for the option, and it's nonrefundable. You also have a human desire to help out, be part of something bigger, do your part in the advancement of science & engineering. So yes, you overcome adversity, you keep on trying, and you teach those values to your kids.

Unfortunately, it increasing looks like the experiment has failed. But not because of us. We're pissed because Musk isn't doing his part in the deal. He's not pulling his weight. At this point, he's becoming more and more an anchor around the neck of technological progress. That didn't need to happen. It didn't need to be this way. So yeah, we're pissed off, not just because of the money we paid, but also because we feel like we were defrauded by his failure to pull his own weight in the deal.

I wouldn't be surprised to see him make his escape to the Bahamas before this decade is up.

In the early days of aviation, when flight information was not public, hundreds of people would routinely die in airplane crashes. Those days are over because flight plans are now public information. When you're in the sky, you are under surveillance, no matter who you are. If you deviate from your flight plan, that is also known. It must be this way, for the safety of everyone else in the sky around you.

Any country with a track record that makes it prudent to keep a watchful eye on whatever it is they're up to, and to defend your population and strategic interests against it. The CCP is openly an opponent of liberal democracy both at home and abroad. You could take their word for it, or you can judge by their actions. Either way, you arrive at the same conclusion. You treat them the way they ask to be treated.

Yep, and if it wasn't for the Iraq war, there are plenty of other wrongs throughout human history we could point to in order to justify the continuation of any particular evil & injustice.

You say entitlement like it's a bad thing. When I do work, I am entitled to compensation. So yeah, entitlement is the perfect feeling one should have in this situation. Not at all like a kid in a photograph, but more like the photographer and album cover designer. A smaller part of a much greater work of art.

Me too. This article is missing one obvious detail. If you rub a Qtip back and forth against your skin, you will find that cotton fibers rub off. It doesn't take much to imagine this same phenomenon is also happening inside your ear canal when you rub the Qtip in there. When it does, those fibers stay inside there, collecting oil and dirt, leading to more earwax build-up, leading to more Qtips, leading to even more cotton fibers, etc. It's just a really bad solution to the problem. You don't need a study for something you can just observe first-hand yourself.

They do make plastic earwax cleaners that don't leave any debris inside your ears when used. Roughly shaped like a Qtip but without the cotton. Pretty cheap and also reusable, unlike Qtips. Available at any local pharmacy.

There's no passengers involved as PSR refers exclusively to freight rail. It's still in the public interest to not have sick rail workers die on the job because they are not given time off to access health care or recuperate from illnesses. This is what the dispute is about.

I enjoyed Twitter for these same reasons. I have to be honest though that it took time & effort to cultivate it to do what I wanted, as it didn't do that straight away without effort. I'm disappointed that all that work will come to nothing and I'll have to start over at square one with a new service, whatever it turns out to be.

In the meantime, Twitter is still running and will continue to soar triumphantly in a straight line on autopilot, until its fuel runs dry and its wreckage comes to a gentle landing at the bottom of a deep dark abyss.

On iPhone, Notes is excellent. In a browser on icloud.com it's terrible. I need it to work in a web browser because I do software development on Windows. Notes is not an option until the browser version works just as well as the mobile version. For now, I can use Notes for personal but not for work.

First, there are ballot measures, judicial elections, city council, school board, and many more offices that have nothing to do with party politics that are on the ballot in almost every election. You'll never know what they are if you don't participate. "Should dog racing be banned?" and "Who should hold the office of Soil & Water Conservation District 9?" have nothing to do with party politics or mental health.

Second, for party elections the vote total still matters. It's a message that says how strongly the electorate feels about particular candidate or issue. There's a big difference between a 49.9/50.1 result and a 70/30 result.

When you don't cast a vote, you are still sending a message.

There's a huge difference between expressing a minority opinion and saying, "I don't care just do whatever you want. It's all a sham anyway."

If you have iPhone, get News+. After I got it set up, (subscribe to what I want, then turn OFF notifications) I spend about 5-10 minutes in the morning reading the headlines and then picking out an article to read. That's it.

It doesn't need to take much time. If it keeps you awake at night, then you must have had a very posh life where you made no mistakes. Make a family, and they will keep you up at night instead!

This works well for those who live in an authoritarian state where you're not called upon to make any decisions (vote). When you live in a democracy, it breaks down because now you have no information upon which to make your decisions. The direction your life takes will be decided by your neighbors.

I use DDG as my search engine on 16.1.1, and live in Florida (the English speaking part), but I couldn't reproduce it.

Must be something else more complicated.

If you have money, Argentina will do anything for you. Gotta have money though. They're not gonna help you out just for the lolz, like Russia.