oboes

I thought it was going to be the website whose hosting location is at the highest altitude. I wonder what that one would be now.

Although I know Katherine Johnson was African-American, by looking at pictures of her [1] she actually looks white-skinned to me. Was she considered of black ancestry because of the "one-drop rule" in the USA at the time? Or maybe she was more dark-skinned in her youth and it's only in recent color photographs that she looks white?

Honest question, as here in Europe that woman would be considered "white" if judging from her physical appearance alone. Although I know that there is more than skin color to the American concept of "race".

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Katherin...

In my opinion doctors underestimate the danger of benzos. They also often don't know that there is a black market for benzos (like there is for any other drug). Patients will be able to find benzos if they look for them even if they don't have a prescription.

I had a friend who wanted to stop smoking cannabis and got alprazolam prescribed for that by his doctor (it was in EU). In my opinion it would be better to stick to cannabis than switch to Xanax.

I myself tried talking with my family doctor about my benzo addiction. I was addicted to etizolam, a RC benzo popular at the time. He seemed not to believe me that it was possible to get benzos without a prescription, and told me that I was wrong and couldn't have a benzo addiction.

In many countries (at least in Europe) there are harm reduction associations that can test the product for you at no cost and anonymously. In some cases you can even ask for a GC-MS, which is accurate enough to distinguish even between closely related substances (such as Xanax/alprazolam and other benzodiazepines).

The website of the team excavating the archeological site where this object was found contain more information and fascinating pictures:

http://www.griffinwarrior.org/

Or Ferdinand Cheval's "Palais idéal": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Cheval

Math tutoring to get some money on the side when I was a student. I was mostly doing it for friends and friends of friends, many of them from poor background, so never got much money out of it since I was often ending not asking to be paid or very little.

10 years later some of them still thank me, because my tutoring made the difference between passing or failing some exam, which in turn made the difference between working in a sandwich shop or as a pharmacy assistance (for example).

In that case the objections seem reasonable.

Here in Belgium there is a growing controversy surrounding a chemical plant in Antwerp leaking PFOS [1] in the environment. Due to this, scientists from the University of Antwerp now advise local residents against eating eggs laid within 15km of the plant [2].

Of course there seem to be no plan to hold the responsible company accountable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanesulfonic_acid

[2] https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/173456/3...

Problem is that it might be the case that this culture pass will only be spendable on government-subsidized venues.

In my country there already exists culture pass programs for young/poor people, but you can only use them in big/subsidized concert venues, art galleries, cinemas and museums. You can't use it in more "underground" venues/events which are too small or focused to get government grants, and in my opinion those are very important to culture as well.

Still better than nothing of course.

No, don't know if it was because of this test (I did complain when they asked me for my opinion of the test). I found something else some time later and I think I dodged a bullet.

I think the blame for this test might lie on government mismanagement rather than the would-be actual employer. There is a rule making vetting by a 3rd company mandatory in the hiring process (to avoid nepotism), but they do the same kind of test for completely unrelated kind of government jobs. I have two friends who had to go through something similar when interviewing for a different local government employer (not IT-related for them, but still unrelated to a clerk job).

While going through the interview process for a government-owned agency tasked with developing IT products for my city, I was told that as per regulation I had to pass some kind of test organized by a third-party HR company.

The interviewer explaining that to me was like "we're sorry but you'll have to go through this test even though it's annoying, but that's the rule and we all had to" (big red flag).

So next week I went to that HR company expecting some kind of technical/programming assignment (it was a Python position). Instead had to take part in some weird theater play in which I was playing as a clerk at the municipal office. I was given 30 minutes to study documentation about an imaginary new regulation (related to noise pollution IIRC), and then some actor entered the room and pretended to be a stubborn and angry citizen complaining about that regulation.

After that confusing and embarrassing experience, I tried to explain that I didn't understand the point of this thing since I was applying to a programming job with no customer/citizen-facing component. But they were adamant that it was relevant, because it was a government job, and apparently everybody in government is a city clerk.

The full thing went on for 3 hours (I hadn't been informed it would take so long). As a compensation for my time I was given a tuna sandwich (I wish I was joking).

Location: Belgium

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Not at the moment (maybe after COVID?)

Technologies: C++ (Boost, CGAL), C, Python (numpy, pandas), R (Bioconductor), Linux (Bash, Debian, Arch), some C# for Unity, mathematics (PhD dropout).

Résumé/CV: Upon request.

Email: jobs@oboes.dev

Interestingly, there is also some research suggesting that Vikings might have brought back Native American people to Iceland from their travels to Vinland.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.21419