personlurking

There's going to be a lot of competition around CBDC/FedCoin wallet apps in 2021. With this update, Google Pay might be positioning themselves.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-brainard-idUSKBN1...

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/357...

I've heard the term 'flexitarian', which I understand to be mostly vegetarian but sometimes eats meat.

In Brazil, Estante Virtual ("Virtual Bookshelf"), which unites secondhand bookstores, has been running since 2005. Albeit, it was bought out by a bigger concern last year.

https://www.estantevirtual.com.br

There's a Youtube channel (Historical Italian Cooking) that deals in ancient Italian cooking and, while it seems really interesting, I unfortunately can't clearly understand the host due to his accent and intonation. I speak Italian so it's somehow doubly frustrating but, regardless, I plan to power through some videos and try some out soon.

Here's an example, of Medieval pizza:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hFVvDOlznE

First things first - I plan to buy the book La Cucina from the Italian Academy of Cuisine and start learning some slightly more "modern" recipes (however, keep in mind that it is not a typical recipe book, which reviewers attest to): https://i.imgur.com/bCYWuSz.png

And as always, on these types of calls, one should never take a "no" from someone who doesn't have the authority to say "yes". Of course, this has to be balanced with how much the question/problem at hand matters to you.

I stand corrected. There was a time when I watched several shows like Morse (ie, Lewis, Frost, Foyle, Gently, Lynley, Marple, Midsomer) and I suppose it became a bit of a blur. It was a lot of long episodes, but not a lot of episodes (per season).

>In the UK a series is usually only 6 episodes and few shows last more than two or three series

Inspector Morse (et al) come to mind as one that lasts longer. So many great British detective shows that go on for decades, with around 20 movie-length episodes per season (aka series).

As an aside, here's a breakdown of who speaks Catalan vs Spanish, in Catalonia, as of 2018:

https://www.idescat.cat/novetats/?id=3446&lang=en

The quick version, in a single image, with the lightest area being the region of Barcelona:

https://i.imgur.com/tPiOuiz.png

>In the end the only thing which worked was to book an identical itinerary, same day of the week and times, just one week early

My own booking problem and later "hack" is as follows: I think one mistake I made was to book my connecting flight (wiht another airline) within a few hours of my arrival time. In this kind of scenario, if airline A or B changes the flight time or cancels, then it messes up my flight with the other airline. Which means, in Covid times, it seems best to stay a day or two in the layover city rather than try to make everything line up before any flights have taken place.

>implying that the only "real" flight out only runs once a week

To try to figure out real flight likelihood, I had to piece together ever-changing gov't regulations about who can fly where, in regards to quarantines, with how the airlines might be responding to that news in their flight scheduling. And on top of that, pretend to book flights to figure out how full they are, then continuing to do this every other day even after my flight is booked, to get a gauge on how likely cancellation is.

I've been going through this these past two weeks in Europe. I just need to do two short flights, one of them between two major cities. So far, it has cost me hundreds of dollars - ie, I've lost that much - and two dozen hours of lost time in phone calls, emails, and non-functioning websites and apps (of major airlines and subsidiaries). I currently have several hundred dollars in many cancelled flights apparently being refunded to me.

Almost every flight time gets either changed or the flight gets cancelled, and Airbnbs get cancelled left and right as well. All of this post-confirmation. Secondary effects of these cancellations are having to rearrange schedules of connecting flights or accomodations, and thereby losing money. It's been a (first-world problem) nightmare.

As of now, my first flight looks like it might actually happen, and I've given up on pre-purchasing my second flight, choosing instead to attempt to buy the connecting flight from the airport.

as well as this law:

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

Training and socialization are top priorities. It seems obvious but, as I've met unruly dogs, it must not be that obvious to all. Short of those two things, look for videos, forums and communities in general that are specifically for your dog type. Learn about the breed-specific temperment.

And something else to think about: consider getting two of [insert pet]. Sure, you can bring your only dog to the dog park, take it on a walk in the morning and play with it at night, but what about the rest of the time, sitting alone either in the yard or in the house? Dogs get separation anxiety and need a lot of engagement. A normal house is essentially a dog-sized cage, akin to that of a bird. Providing a companion can be life-changing for your pet.

Or kids dressed in cookie costumes follow her when she leaves

Lots of geographical locations in my time zone (AST), including Puerto Rico and USVI, don't observe DST [1]. It's nice to not have to care about it for a change, as opposed to when I was living stateside.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Time_Zone#Areas_cover...

I use Ublock on Safari as my only extension and it always worked great but, as of about a month ago, most of the time now I have to hit Disable Extensions, then reload the page, in order to watch a video. If I don't, I just get a black screen soon as the page loads (not the entire screen, just where the video should be). Every several videos, with Ublock enabled, it lets me watch it like normal while blocking ads.

I recently checked Airdna stats for my (capital) city and it said Airbnb occupancy was down 80% since March, with an uptick since mid-May, leading it to be down 60% currently (meaning it improved by 20% from its -80% level).

How’s MBpay? I loved using Multibanco when living in Portugal but I never got around to using MBpay, which I think is the equivalent to what’s being discussed for the US, essentially.

Scribd has an English translation of Rosa's Grande Sertão: Veredas, titled The Devil to Pay in the Backlands. I'm fluent in Portuguese (though not a native speaker) but couldn't get through the beginning of the original.

Even though back in March, Apple said there were no Authorized Repair people in PR, I had found one through my own search. It's called Metro Technologies in Hato Rey, not too far from Plaza Las Americas. I can't vouch for them since I have yet to take my AirPods Pro there, and I don't know why Apple didn't show them on their own search page for finding authorized repair, but I decided to search on Apple.com again, just now, and found there are 5 places now, including the one mentioned. It seems even Best Buy here does repairs now, too.

https://i.imgur.com/SLIRWD4.png

Wow. I've had this same problem for months. I spent over an hour on the phone with Support just trying to describe the problem, until they came to the conclusion that there was absolutely no way to send me new ones or to have me send them my broken ones...because I live in Puerto Rico. The week prior, Apple had sent me a new cable for my phone in 2 days flat, yet when I had a problem, there was nothing they could do about it.

>according their prospectus Sampa is the second most active city

Sampa is a nickname for the city of São Paulo, in case anyone was slightly confused.

My mistake! Thanks for catching the error

Spain's "baile de cifras" (numbers dance) made me lift an eyebrow over this past week. Lots of recalculations and zero deaths.

According to Worldometers data [1], Brazil is currently trending, on a global level, 1st in new cases, 1st in new deaths, 2nd in overall deaths and, within a few days from now, 2nd in total deaths. Real estimates are said to be up to 6x official numbers.

I really wish the Youtube videos [2] by Atila Iamarino, a PhD in Virology, were available in English. I couldn't recommend him enough. He's done 21 talks on the situation in Brazil and elsewhere, and often mentions how the official data lies.

1 - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

2 - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSTlOTcyUmzvhQi6F8lFi5w/vid...

In my last apt, once in a while I'd start hearing a far-off hum, and it would always make my wifi go out. I eventually tracked it down to a huge backup generator for a commercial plaza a few blocks away, but telling my ISP that a distant hum cuts out the internet every once in a while wasn't going to get me anywhere.

Not sure if this counts:

The Puerto Rican tody - a small, colorful bird - has the scientific name of todus mexicanus, even though it's endemic to Puerto Rico (where it's known simply as San Pedrito). Meanwhile, the todus portoricensis is actually a Cuban bird.

René Lesson, a French ornithologist, described the birds in 1838, based on information he received from his brother, who had collected some of the species and erroneously noted their provenance. AFAIK, there have been attempts to correct these entrenched errors, but there has been no success in doing so. To further confuse things, there are Puerto Ricans who will refer to the island bird as the todus portoricensis - perhaps as a way of correcting for the error, or just due to the confusion surrounding it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_tody

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Lesson

When I look at the Archives on Project Euler, the same general idea is there but the site I miss wasn't programming focused. I seem to recall a giant red, blue or green background and the puzzles weren't just text-based, but visual.

There was one site that had something like 100(?) brain teaser exercises - I suppose you could also call them puzzles - which became successively more difficult as you moved on (ie, hours to figure out just one of them). Each was distinct and challenged you in a different way. I only used the site once, around the early 2000s, but I forgot its name and never found it again.

After how Airbnb dealt with my reservation in regards to their Coronavirus policy, I have the feeling they're not only bleeding cash but that they'll be losing tons of customers.

I had to wait two weeks to speak to someone, yet had been immediately notified on the site, twice, that I qualified for a full refund (which I took screenshots of). The wording in their policy also qualifies me. However, they're reneging.

I tried a single lesson of the trial version of Frantastique, and enjoyed it, however their monthly subscription is too expensive ($20-50 range). Can't say much else since I didn't finish the trial.

https://www.gymglish.com/en/frantastique