WarKitty's Feline Frenzy Random Banter #216

[WarKitty]

I know right. Someone found a way to break in the mail panel and just steal someone one mail. I mean seriously, why would anybody steal someone mail?

Identity theft is a common reason - people steal mail so they can see things like what credit card you have. Then they call up and pretend to be you, try to badger the employee into sending a new card to your "new" address.

[Kalmageddon]

*chaos*

Are you all right now?

[LaZodiac]

Yesterday in a (big) nutshell:

• Walking barefeet is faster than with new flats
• ... especially when feet are already bleeding
• Six graduation parties in five hours
• No matter how much you nag about leaving alongside with everyone else, no one moves
• Proud of all of my scout babies
• A 24-year-old is fully capable of carrying out the driest granny speech
• ... six times without changing a word
• Running through a suburb with only your socks is a full panic experience
• ... especially when you realise you would have missed the last bus had you stopped for even a second
• Racists
• Shouting at racists
• Racists say "she probably wants to get raped"
• Panic attack
• Nice police lady helps
• Almost miss my second bus
• Arrive at mum's without a sound
• Fall asleep with make up on

I'm glad you where able to find someone to help you. That sounds absolutely awful. The rest of it seems okay though? Though, take care of your feet! They're important.

[2D8HP]

I don't know, maybe it's different in your country but where I live, only bills and taxes come through the mail, plus the occasional leaflet. If somebody wants to steal that, be my guest. Maybe even pay them, while you are at it...

I'm reminded of a co-worker who said: "I owe so much I hope someone steals my identity!".

What's the stupidest things that people do in your job?

See here (not completely accurate, but the closest to reality that I've seen the press get).

Yesterday in a (big) nutshell...

[Bartmanhomer]

Identity theft is a common reason - people steal mail so they can see things like what credit card you have. Then they call up and pretend to be you, try to badger the employee into sending a new card to your "new" address.

That's one reason. As you see I lice in the projects. In the apartment building. The type of mailbox I have is full of apartment numbers of mine and other people who live in my building.

[Amidus Drexel]

Use the tilde key? Who ever needs to use that for a legitimate purpose?

I've tried doing that. It didn't work.

Yeah, but that means nothing compared to the amount of wrong answers.

Legitimate or otherwise, I do actually use the tilde key from time to time, so that's definitely out. You've gotta have some way of ending your sentences when the period does convey quite the right cadence, you know?

CLEARLY YOU DIDN'T TRY HARD ENOUGH

Well, I'll give you a hint - the show was amazing and I'm pissed I won't be able to see Ghost on Thursday (because I'm not driving to goddamn Norfolk and back on a weeknight - oh well).

Hehehe. That's the reason I decided to never get into Emacs, even though I didn't really have any problems learning it. Emacs and Vim are kind of like the devil of software tools. They are willing to offer you immense power, but only if you give them your soul in return.

I can respect someone who uses Emacs (even though I think Vim is better ), but I will probably never learn it myself - there's just too many key combinations to memorize (and too many keys). Vim is much easier for those of us with only ten fingers.
I mean, I already sold most of my soul for job security by studying engineering, so I might as well keep selling the rest of it for what power I can get~

Not Terrible: Wonder Woman movie. Quite good in fact.

Will be going to see that shortly!

--
ION: Completely at a loss as to what I'm going to do for my birthday (probably stay late at work again ). I did buy myself a bottle of gin, so I might sit around and enjoy some of that.

[DataNinja]

Legitimate or otherwise, I do actually use the tilde key from time to time, so that's definitely out. You've gotta have some way of ending your sentences when the period does convey quite the right cadence, you know?

Oh, I know. I never use it in that way, myself, but I've seen it often enough.

CLEARLY YOU DIDN'T TRY HARD ENOUGH

CLEARLY, I JUST NEED TO ATTEMPT IT IN ALL CAPS!

Well, I'll give you a hint - the show was amazing and I'm pissed I won't be able to see Ghost on Thursday (because I'm not driving to goddamn Norfolk and back on a weeknight - oh well).

Can I have another hint? Well, hopefully you can see it at some point in the future, then.

[Teddy]

Other personal favorites include people missing the things literally right in front of them. "Where are the napkins?" they ask as I tilt my head so I can see them past the napkin dispenser.

I think that happens when people set out to ask you where to find something, rather than look for it. Sorta like how people (especially online) routinely come ask you questions which are trivially easy to google. The first step of their process of finding out is "let's ask someone who knows", and while I'm more of a "let's exhaust my own wits before bugging someone else" person, I've got to give it to them that it's usually a quite effective method, even if it makes you look blind at times.

Yesterday in a (big) nutshell:

• Walking barefeet is faster than with new flats
• ... especially when feet are already bleeding
• Six graduation parties in five hours
• No matter how much you nag about leaving alongside with everyone else, no one moves
• Proud of all of my scout babies
• A 24-year-old is fully capable of carrying out the driest granny speech
• ... six times without changing a word
• Running through a suburb with only your socks is a full panic experience
• ... especially when you realise you would have missed the last bus had you stopped for even a second
• Racists
• Shouting at racists
• Racists say "she probably wants to get raped"
• Panic attack
• Nice police lady helps
• Almost miss my second bus
• Arrive at mum's without a sound
• Fall asleep with make up on

Oh dear, that sounds stressful from start to end.
...
Except the granny speech, they may not be the most original or exciting, but it's hard to offend someone with a granny speech.

Are you okay now? :smallconcerned:

Also...

• No matter how much you nag about leaving alongside with everyone else, no one moves

Does this mean they didn't want to leave at that time, or were they just lazy about it?

Special mention goes to the young, possibility illiterate, African lady who just copies from the already compiled modules she sees beside the one she's filling in. Which, yes, includes copying the name and signature of other visitors to the best of her abilities. Explaining did nothing, so when she's visiting we have to hide everything so at least she'll just ask instead of copying.

Maybe you should have her make a precompiled module with the non-instance-specific fields already filled in for her to copy from, and the other blank.

Legitimate or otherwise, I do actually use the tilde key from time to time, so that's definitely out. You've gotta have some way of ending your sentences when the period does convey quite the right cadence, you know?

Yeah, I do this too. Plus, it's the markup for strikethrough in Markdown, and while I admit I don't use strikethrough very much, I still like the possibility.

In fact, the only key on my keyboard I don't use with any form of regularity (which isn't a function key or an operator around the numpad) is the ^½§ key. I could use it as a mode switch button, if I cared for mode-based hotkeys.

I can respect someone who uses Emacs (even though I think Vim is better ), but I will probably never learn it myself - there's just too many key combinations to memorize (and too many keys). Vim is much easier for those of us with only ten fingers.

I reckon that after a while the key combination just becomes a second name for what you're trying to do...

I mean, I already sold most of my soul for job security by studying engineering, so I might as well keep selling the rest of it for what power I can get~

I also meant this in the sense that once you go full vimacs, you lock yourself into the platform so much you have to use your choice of editor for everything. Which does become quite limiting in a world where people expect you to use a key setup which might not be optimal for your fingers, but at least is consistent across all services.

[Kalmageddon]

Maybe you should have her make a precompiled module with the non-instance-specific fields already filled in for her to copy from, and the other blank.
]

That's not a bad idea, actually. Though I'm leery of altering procedures, even when it's for practical purposes or to help someone, because no matter how trivial the alteration is, if something at all goes wrong then suddenly it's not their fault anymore but mine for having tampered where I shouldn't have.

Anyway after tonight I'd like to rectify my entry for "dumbest thing someone did at your workplace". It's hard to top a drunken couple stumbling around for an hour, looking for a love nest far from prying eyes and finally settling for doing their things right in front of the camera. It wasn't even one of those small, ball-shaped cameras that you might mistake for something else, it was very much a big, proud camera, with night vision and blinking lights.
That was... awkward. Especially having to find an appropriate line to intervene. In the end I settled for "Sorry to disturb you but you are obstructing the view of the camera", because I felt like "you shouldn't be ****ing here" was too crass and the classic security inquiry "can I help you sir/madame?" was prone to unpleasant misunderstandings, given the context.

[Teddy]

That's not a bad idea, actually. Though I'm leery of altering procedures, even when it's for practical purposes or to help someone, because no matter how trivial the alteration is, if something at all goes wrong then suddenly it's not their fault anymore but mine for having tampered where I shouldn't have.

Ahh, makes sense. When personal responsibility is involved, proper proceedure usually beats conveniency in terms of prudence.

Anyway after tonight I'd like to rectify my entry for "dumbest thing someone did at your workplace". It's hard to top a drunken couple stumbling around for an hour, looking for a love nest far from prying eyes and finally settling for doing their things right in front of the camera. It wasn't even one of those small, ball shapes cameras that you might mistake for something else, it was very much a big, proud camera, with night vision and blinking lights.
That was... awkward. Especially having to find an appropriate line to intervene. In the end I settled for "Sorry to disturb you but you are obstructing the view of the camera", because I felt like "you shouldn't be ****ing here" was to crass and the classic security inquiry "can I help you sir/madame?" was prone to unpleasant misunderstandings, given the context.

Heh, gold. Nice line, too.

[Feytalist]

Oh, how was my weekend? Why, thanks for asking. Let's see:

Saturday: at work, then slept
Sunday: at work, then slept.

And how was yours?


Sidenote: looked at my weather app this morning when I woke up. Today's max temp: 20. Min temp: 10. Current temp: 6. Hmmmmmmm.

[Rawhide]

Emacs and Vim are kind of like the devil of software tools. They are willing to offer you immense power, but only if you give them your soul in return.

I can respect someone who uses Emacs (even though I think Vim is better ), but I will probably never learn it myself - there's just too many key combinations to memorize (and too many keys). Vim is much easier for those of us with only ten fingers.

I do all my forum browsing and posting on vim. I opened it once, but have never worked out how to quit it, so I've just become resigned to doing all my tasks through vim.

[DataNinja]

I do all my forum browsing and posting on vim. I opened it once, but have never worked out how to quit it, so I've just become resigned to doing all my tasks through vim.

I can't tell how much you're joking. I would assume all of it, but then I remember you've done forum fixing both via Smartphone and Wii...

[WarKitty]

Rawhide is king geek.

[Teddy]

I do all my forum browsing and posting on vim. I opened it once, but have never worked out how to quit it, so I've just become resigned to doing all my tasks through vim.

This reminds me, among the funny (and some less funny) images and notes stuck on our notice board at work, there is a list of things programmers say and what they really mean. The last line, though, looks more like "C-xC-cexitESCESC" and comes with the translation "Help, I'm an Emacs user but this seems to be Vim!".

[DataNinja]

This reminds me, among the funny (and some less funny) images and notes stuck on our notice board at work, there is a list of things programmers say and what they really mean. The last line, though, looks more like "C-xC-cexitESCESC" and comes with the translation "Help, I'm an Emacs user but this seems to be Vim!".

Pfffft. I love reading things like that. Any more to share?

[Rawhide]

I can't tell how much you're joking. I would assume all of it, but then I remember you've done forum fixing both via Smartphone and Wii...

Check the number of times this article has been viewed...

[DataNinja]

Check the number of times this article has been viewed...

...well, that explains why how to quit was the first thing they taught us for vim, after opening it.

[enderlord99]

Uncle Jack lit some ducks on fire to lure the elephants with painted toenails out of the cherry trees for me, then I "offed" one with my elephant-gun. As for where the giraffe went after being released to make room in the refrigerator... elephino.

[Kalmageddon]

Uncle Jack lit some ducks on fire to lure the elephants with painted toenails out of the cherry trees for me, then I "offed" one with my elephant-gun. As for where the giraffe went after being released to make room in the refrigerator... elephino.

After reading this I feel like I'm missing context, subcontext and a few brain cells I had grown attached to.
Care to explain?

[DataNinja]

After reading this I feel like I'm missing context, subcontext and a few brain cells I had grown attached to.
Care to explain?

Judging by the parts I understand (elephant gun, the giraffe in the refrigerator), it's a squishing together of several extended sets of jokes.

So, unless you recognized any snippets from hearing the original jokes, it's meaningless babble. If you do recognize anything, it's almost-meaningless babble.

[Kalmageddon]

Oh ok, that's far less interesting than my hypothesis. I thought it was some kind of code to set up a shady deal without alerting the authorities.

[enderlord99]

Judging by the parts I understand (elephant gun, the giraffe in the refrigerator), it's a squishing together of several extended sets of jokes.

So, unless you recognized any snippets from hearing the original jokes, it's meaningless babble. If you do recognize anything, it's almost-meaningless babble.

That is exactly what it was, yes. There were a total of 6 classic jokes referenced in it; the 4 you didn't point out are:

• Why do ducks have webbed feet? To stamp out fires. Why do elephants have flat feet? To stamp out burning ducks.
• Why do elepants paint their toenails red? To hide in cherry trees. I've never seen an elephant in a cherry tree... Exactly.
• The thing explained here; and
• If your uncle Jack helped you off an elephant, would you help your uncle Jack off an elephant?

Oh ok, that's far less interesting than my hypothesis. I thought it was some kind of code to set up a shady deal without alerting the authorities.

Well, I did use "off" to mean "kill" so I can understand that interpretation...

[Kalmageddon]

Well, I did use "off" to mean "kill" so I can understand that interpretation...

Yeah, sure, "interpretation".
Uh huh.
...
I'm onto you. <_<

[FinnLassie]

What in the name of Banjo happened to you?

Are you all right now?

I'm glad you where able to find someone to help you. That sounds absolutely awful. The rest of it seems okay though? Though, take care of your feet! They're important.

The day was fine (actually, really damn good) up until the bus ordeal, which is something I don't feel like is necessary to talk about any further. It was an extremely uncomfortable experience but it's over now and I got to talk to the police.

There's a reason I hate night buses and especially graduation night – almost everyone is out to party and getting pish drunk.



ION: Talking about mail, which is now a dead discussion, my new mailbox does not have a lock. It's really bothering. Anyone can just open it and it makes me feel really uncomfortable.

[Teddy]

• The thing explained here; and
• If your uncle Jack helped you off an elephant, would you help your uncle Jack off an elephant?

The answer to that one is clearly "operator overloading".
(I had a lecturer who used the meaningless operation "elephant + American football player" as an argument for strong type systems.)

ION: Talking about mail, which is now a dead discussion, my new mailbox does not have a lock. It's really bothering. Anyone can just open it and it makes me feel really uncomfortable.

Interesting. My entire youth is set on a background of streets where the classical mailboxes (of our kind, not the American kind) got replaced with tall, lockable mailboxes, but no one bothered to lock them anyway, and on some subconscious level, I find the whole concept of locking your mailbox to be kinda foreign. That said, I'm an extremely trusting person, to the point where I'll accept being called naive, so there's that...

ION:
Today is the national day of Sweden, so we have the day off from work. I can finally attend to a gaming club night again!
(My commuting really does interfere with my social life almost as much as it interferes with my sleep. I should move, but moving takes energy, and I'm not even sure the banks will grant me a loan for a house before I actually get properly employed...

[FinnLassie]

Interesting. My entire youth is set on a background of streets where the classical mailboxes (of our kind, not the American kind) got replaced with tall, lockable mailboxes, but no one bothered to lock them anyway, and on some subconscious level, I find the whole concept of locking your mailbox to be kinda foreign. That said, I'm an extremely trusting person, to the point where I'll accept being called naive, so there's that...

ION:
Today is the national day of Sweden, so we have the day off from work. I can finally attend to a gaming club night again!

The area I live in is rather peaceful and actually filled with families (I mean, there's a daycare literally across the street), but... it's something I'm not used to at all after moving away from the countryside. Living in a block of flats it's pretty much automatic that you have your mail coming straight through the door and otherwise you have locked mailboxes. Row of flats has either or. I currently live in student housing and I wonder how much they're saving money by just having layered rows of unlockable mailboxes.

To be fair, I think my fear of having someone go through my mail (not even steal it) is because we used to have a serious case of stalking of which I had to go to court with. I'm still relatively anxious because of it even though I live hundreds of kilometres away from Espoo (next to Helsinki) nowadays.


Have fun!

[LaZodiac]

The area I live in is rather peaceful and actually filled with families (I mean, there's a daycare literally across the street), but... it's something I'm not used to at all after moving away from the countryside. Living in a block of flats it's pretty much automatic that you have your mail coming straight through the door and otherwise you have locked mailboxes. Row of flats has either or. I currently live in student housing and I wonder how much they're saving money by just having layered rows of unlockable mailboxes.

To be fair, I think my fear of having someone go through my mail (not even steal it) is because we used to have a serious case of stalking of which I had to go to court with. I'm still relatively anxious because of it even though I live hundreds of kilometres away from Espoo (next to Helsinki) nowadays.


Have fun!

Aah. Well, hopefully the...suburban(?) life will treat you better!

[Bartmanhomer]

Well I got great news. Today I went to the post office to get my mail and one of the employee told me that the mailbox have been fixed and I could get my mail again. Yay!

[Teddy]

The area I live in is rather peaceful and actually filled with families (I mean, there's a daycare literally across the street), but... it's something I'm not used to at all after moving away from the countryside. Living in a block of flats it's pretty much automatic that you have your mail coming straight through the door and otherwise you have locked mailboxes. Row of flats has either or. I currently live in student housing and I wonder how much they're saving money by just having layered rows of unlockable mailboxes.

I don't know how your postal service does it, but over here it wasn't as much about saving money as being forced to do it. Our postal service has been cutting corners for several decades now, and I think the unions might have been on to it as well for being a poor work environment for the postmen...

To be fair, I think my fear of having someone go through my mail (not even steal it) is because we used to have a serious case of stalking of which I had to go to court with. I'm still relatively anxious because of it even though I live hundreds of kilometres away from Espoo (next to Helsinki) nowadays.

I can imagine. I've never really had anything in my life which seriously breeched my trust, but if something had happened (and especially if the people around me had responded with incredulity or diminishment), then I probably wouldn't have been the same today.

Have fun!

I did! Played One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Star Realms and Ricochet Robots. And got way too little sleep!