elyobo

I read the Assassin's Apprentice series through, but it didn't really satisfy, and I haven't read anything else by the author. I like the Malazan ones, and ASoIF, a lot more - partly the grimdark, but more so the overall complexity of the plot. While Hobb's work was pleasant it just didn't really engage me.

Websockets are fine on flex, but yeah, Cloud Run is getting the love these days.

Or, annoyingly, websockets.

Melbourne, Australia, has Google Pay support for the transit system but not Apple Pay. I recently switched to iOS and the lack of phone transit support is the biggest pain so far (and I don't really even use public transport, living and working in the CBD/city/downtown, just walk through one of the stations quite often on the way to and from the office).

I pay it off in full when it's due, and have done almost without fail for years. In two cases I stuffed up (paid the previous month's bill instead on one, can't recall the other), in both cases I hit them up and they ended up refunding my interest anyway.

The points for regular spend, the sign up bonuses, and the interest savings (the average balance on my card ends up saving me interest on my mortgage) put me well ahead.

Credit cards are a solid because many (most?) people use them poorly, but it's certainly possible to use them wisely.

No, it's safer to lend to someone who has handled credit well (i.e. by paying it back) than someone who has no track record.

There's a catch-22 if rules are so strict so that you can't get credit because you haven't had credit before, but in general "positive" credit reporting seems pretty beneficial.

As far as I know, no. I suspect that it wasn't just them.

Thanks, not one I'd encountered.

> This is not available to you

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Happened with Australia's real time payment system too.

https://www.itnews.com.au/news/monitoring-fail-allowed-westp...

I'm not the person 16' from their 43" TV ;)

Interesting, but doesn't tell me much - I live in an apartment, well under 111sqm, and have a 55" TV around 12' from the couch - so still too small / too far away, according to recommendations. People with even smaller living space (at ~80sqm, my apartment is reasonably large for a two bedroom unit where I live) may simply get smaller TVs to compensate, still being "too small".

These are anecdotes. I'm curious about what people actually do, I don't know, and (contrary to your assertions about what most people do) it doesn't sound like you do either.

I'm interested in sources that establish "how the majority of the public uses TVs". I've personally never seen anyone use TVs in line with the recommendations from TV manufacturers screen size and viewing distance. Maybe this is a USA cultural thing (or, contrary, maybe my own observed viewing habits are a cultural AU/NZ thing).

Yes, good point - my subjective feeling of effort is often at odds with my measured performance with Strava.

And agreed on your second point too, I bike because I enjoy biking and it makes me feel better both physically and mentally. That I get good exercise out of it is a secondary benefit.

I cycle a moderate amount (~100km/week spread over 2-3 rides, typically in the 30-80km range), but drastically prefer starting early (generally pre-food, unless it's going to be a longer ~70km+ ride - in that case I know that I'll have to eat or I'll crash part way through). Feels far better.

Thanks for the explanation. Interesting to compare to Australia, which has a public health system, but where I still pay ~AUD2960/year, after government rebates (at current rates ~USD2255/year) for moderately crap health insurance for my family even with no medical usage.

In general, we wouldn't even use it to access private health care, because we would then face substantial fees to use it (I don't know exactly; it varies significantly by procedure, has a $500 deductible, substantial copay, and has maximum caps), however we're taxed heavily for not having a private policy.

Our family income has recently pushed over some thresholds in the rebate system, pushing up prices even more, might have to shop around to find an even more useless but cheaper policy.

Australia's public health system is pretty decent, but the half baked private system bolted on the side is a mess. Lots of people paying thousands for unusable insurance which is just sent directly to private companies.

I'd take no exception to either, but would object to "socialised medicine is perfect" if applied to any system that I'm aware of.

My partner is also a limiting factor on the budget on which our child can be raised :-/

Agreed, and I didn't meant to suggest that it's purely a fiscal decision, just that there _are_ fiscal elements that one should be aware of.

Being aware that they're expensive (although my child is much less expensive than my spouse) doesn't necessarily mean not having them, it just means having them with your eyes open.

Wow, those are some crazy laws. Child support is mandatory around here, and follows well defined rules, but spousal support ("alimony") is much less well defined and (in my limited understanding) less common and shorter lived.

Edit: "around here" being Australia and New Zealand

Partner choice and choice whether to have children are other critical considerations in cost control.

Concern about the licensing was eventually sufficient that they resolved it a few years back.

I see nuclear as insurance.

Solar and wind are much cheaper, but cannot be scaled in proportion to demand. Given sufficient advances in storage and transmission they may be able to eventually, but maybe not.

Building nuclear that we may not end up needing if the required advances happen means that our worst case is a vastly cleaner energy system, a much better worse case than a continuing dependence on coal and gas.

Is that a bad habit? I remapped my capslock key to escape years ago and never looked back.

I use an HoC to wrap components in an error boundary around key points to avoid total crashes.

That video's oddly edited; is there some context which makes him seem less... nuts?

I had screen resolution issues with xorg at one point which Wayland resolved, but they no longer appear to be an issue and the lack of screen sharing has recently became an issue (change of responsibilities has led to more meetings requiring desktop screen sharing), so after a couple of years on Wayland I've recently jumped back to xorg.

I can share some specific windows, but not the whole desktop, which ends up involving a very tedious unshare and reshare to swap back and forth between windows instead.

Recently gave up on Wayland (for the moment) due to the inability to screen share most applications on Google Meet. I realise this isn't really Wayland's fault, but that doesn't really solve my problem.

Sorry, I read that far too literally! Yeah, that's fair enough. I certainly needed large blocks of staying still, but didn't feel the need to stay anywhere as long as three months - month long blocks were more common for me.