ALFbrot posted:

I needed to talk to my bank about my mortgage, figured it would be easier to do in person. Walked in and only saw two or three people standing around, waiting. After 45 seconds or so, one teller came around the corner from the back. Through 5 layers of plexiglass, I told her I needed to talk to someone about my mortgage. She informed me that they only had one banker, and two people were already waiting to talk to him. She then advised that I could call the number on the letter I was sent. Sensing my hesitation, she informed me that, were I to wait for the banker to talk to me, he would just bring me into his office and dial the customer service number with me.

Love that every single place of business and point of contact for essential service is reduced to the barest skeleton crew of useless poo poo at all times.

ALFbrot posted:

I needed to talk to my bank about my mortgage, figured it would be easier to do in person. Walked in and only saw two or three people standing around, waiting. After 45 seconds or so, one teller came around the corner from the back. Through 5 layers of plexiglass, I told her I needed to talk to someone about my mortgage. She informed me that they only had one banker, and two people were already waiting to talk to him. She then advised that I could call the number on the letter I was sent. Sensing my hesitation, she informed me that, were I to wait for the banker to talk to me, he would just bring me into his office and dial the customer service number with me.

Love that every single place of business and point of contact for essential service is reduced to the barest skeleton crew of useless poo poo at all times.

Literally A Person posted:

This thread reminds me of a scene from the show I have running right now. It's a autobiographical one man show in which I dive deep into my emotions using the characters from my life to explore this silly little thing called Literally A Person. It has so much heart but also it has humour too. Three showstopping hours of pure entertainment.

Cerekk posted:

Apparently the sun is entering end-of-life.

en.m.wikipedia.org posted:

A Sun outage, Sun transit, or Sun fade is an interruption in or distortion of geostationary satellite signals caused by interference (background noise) of the Sun when it falls directly behind a satellite which an Earth station is trying to receive data from or transmit data to. It usually occurs briefly to such satellites twice per year and such Earth stations install temporary or permanent guards to their receiving systems to prevent equipment damage.

Sun outages occur before the March equinox (in February and March) and after the September equinox (in September and October) for the Northern Hemisphere, and occur after the March equinox and before the September equinox for the Southern Hemisphere. At these times, the apparent path of the Sun across the sky takes it directly behind the line of sight between an Earth station and a satellite. The Sun radiates strongly across the entire spectrum, including the microwave frequencies used to communicate with satellites (C band, Ku band, and Ka band), so the Sun swamps the signal from the satellite. The effects of a Sun outage range from partial degradation (increase in the error rate) to the total destruction of the signal. The effect sweeps from north to south from approximately 20 February to 20 April, and from south to north from approximately 20 August to 20 October, affecting any specific location for less than 12 minutes a day for a few consecutive days.

## Effect on Indian stock exchanges

In India, the BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) and NSE (National Stock Exchange) use VSATs (Very Small Aperture Terminals) for members (e.g. stockbrokers) to connect to their trading systems. VSATs depend upon satellites for connectivity between the terminals/systems. Hence, these exchanges are, with considerable predictability, affected by the annual Sun outages. Both typically close from 11:45 to 12:30 during "Sun outages" — times vary depending on the Earth's orbit and satellites' exact locations. The interference to satellites' signals has been shown to disturb smooth transmission of data of online transactions so, for fairness, these share markets are closed for these short times each year. Trading is normally extended the same day to compensate for the lost time.

## Other locations

Saint Helena suffers from island-wide loss of Internet and telecommunications connections during Sun outages because all telecommunications traffic to and from the island is carried on a single satellite link. Sun outage times are published in local newspapers.

As the majority of rural Alaska is served by satellite, population centers like Utqiaġvik, Kotzebue, and Nome suffer from this as well. Nome is the terminus of the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, and due to its timing, announcements of the finishers are often delayed during these Sun outages.

## See also

• Satellite warfare
  
  
• Solar transit
  

ALFbrot posted:

I needed to talk to my bank about my mortgage, figured it would be easier to do in person. Walked in and only saw two or three people standing around, waiting. After 45 seconds or so, one teller came around the corner from the back. Through 5 layers of plexiglass, I told her I needed to talk to someone about my mortgage. She informed me that they only had one banker, and two people were already waiting to talk to him. She then advised that I could call the number on the letter I was sent. Sensing my hesitation, she informed me that, were I to wait for the banker to talk to me, he would just bring me into his office and dial the customer service number with me.

Love that every single place of business and point of contact for essential service is reduced to the barest skeleton crew of useless poo poo at all times.

mawarannahr posted:

Sun outage

quote:

A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally.[1] It usually takes the form of a story, often with dialogue, and ends in a punch line, whereby the humorous element of the story is revealed; this can be done using a pun or other type of word play, irony or sarcasm, logical incompatibility, hyperbole, or other means.[2] Linguist Robert Hetzron offers the definition:

A joke is a short humorous piece of oral literature in which the funniness culminates in the final sentence, called the punchline… In fact, the main condition is that the tension should reach its highest level at the very end. No continuation relieving the tension should be added. As for its being "oral," it is true that jokes may appear printed, but when further transferred, there is no obligation to reproduce the text verbatim, as in the case of poetry.[3]

quote:

House Bill (HB) 500, which may receive a vote in the full House soon, would take away Kentucky workers’ rights to lunch and rest breaks at work and would eliminate pay protections, including for time spent traveling to and from a job site during work hours. It is an assault on longstanding basic rights and dignities on the job that will harm practically all Kentucky workers. Specifically, HB 500:

Repeals the requirement that employers provide a lunch break. Since a state law passed in 1974, businesses must provide a lunch break every three to five hours, but that right would be eliminated under HB 500. Instead, HB 500 says only that a worker required to keep working without a lunch break can’t be denied pay if they juggle eating something while on the job. However, if the employer does provide a lunch break and they discover a worker eating at another time while on the clock, they will not be required to pay them for that time — even a worker who needs a snack for medical reasons.

Repeals the requirement that employers provide a rest break. Currently, employers must provide at least a 10-minute rest break for each four hours of work in addition to a scheduled lunch period. HB 500 takes away that right, which was established in 1958.

Repeals the requirement that employees who work seven days in a row receive time-and-a-half overtime pay. Current law, which has been in place since 1942, incentivizes employers to give workers a rest day to allow the opportunity for them to recover and spend time with their families, but that incentive would go away.

Eliminates employer liability for failure to provide proper pay for work time spent traveling between jobs and for time spent on certain activities associated with starting and wrapping up a job. Employers could not be punished for failing to provide minimum wages or overtime pay for travel to and from a work site and for activities that are in preparation for, or part of the wind-down from, a work activity — such as donning and doffing personal protective equipment in a hazardous work environment.

Modal Auxiliary posted:

Descendents? In this economy?

bossy lady posted:

Sounds like Kentucky might get a whole lot shittier for no good reason:

https://kypolicy.org/house-bill-500-takes-away-kentucky-workers-lunch-and-rest-breaks-and-cuts-their-pay/

Pennywise the Frown posted:

gently caress the south.

bossy lady posted:

Sounds like Kentucky might get a whole lot shittier for no good reason:

https://kypolicy.org/house-bill-500-takes-away-kentucky-workers-lunch-and-rest-breaks-and-cuts-their-pay/

DontMockMySmock posted:

y'all remember when encyclopedias came on a CD-ROM? those were the days

redshirt posted:

Encarta's all you need!

Outrail posted:

ALFbrot posted:

I needed to talk to my bank about my mortgage, figured it would be easier to do in person. Walked in and only saw two or three people standing around, waiting. After 45 seconds or so, one teller came around the corner from the back. Through 5 layers of plexiglass, I told her I needed to talk to someone about my mortgage. She informed me that they only had one banker, and two people were already waiting to talk to him. She then advised that I could call the number on the letter I was sent. Sensing my hesitation, she informed me that, were I to wait for the banker to talk to me, he would just bring me into his office and dial the customer service number with me.

Love that every single place of business and point of contact for essential service is reduced to the barest skeleton crew of useless poo poo at all times.

Animal-Mother posted:

We're rapidly tumbling toward a world where if you need any kind of customer service at all, any kind of assistance from a human being who might understand the problem, you will instead be directed to "Talk to the AI," which of course won't really know poo poo. Everyone who already got in under the wire and has a nice, cushy, do-nothing-really administrative job will be sitting pretty for a while as the rest of us shamble toward the DS9 Sanctuary Districts.

Desert Bus posted:

Slap some cheese and lunch meat between the pages of an old encyclopedia and you got yourself a cheap and filling meal.

Animal-Mother posted:

We're rapidly tumbling toward a world where if you need any kind of customer service at all, any kind of assistance from a human being who might understand the problem, you will instead be directed to "Talk to the AI," which of course won't really know poo poo. Everyone who already got in under the wire and has a nice, cushy, do-nothing-really administrative job will be sitting pretty for a while as the rest of us shamble toward the DS9 Sanctuary Districts.

Armacham posted:

Would you like some EXTRA BIG rear end FRIES?

wash bucket posted:

Trying to remember the last time Microsoft changed something and I was like, "Oh this is much better. Thank you."

Salt Fish posted:

Default clipping tool bound to printscrn.

wash bucket posted:

Trying to remember the last time Microsoft changed something and I was like, "Oh this is much better. Thank you."

Salt Fish posted:

Default clipping tool bound to printscrn.

TotalLossBrain posted:

Windows 95 let you capture the entire screen with prtscrn.

MrQwerty posted:

Yeah but screens are 6x the resolution now

Time_pants posted:

My boss is a true AI believer. He keeps trying to get me to get a ChatGPT subscription (which I wouldn't be reimbursed for) to do my job for me. He demonstrated the incredible capabilities of ChatGPT 4 by calling me into his office to show me how great it was at writing code. And, yeah, after letting the codebot have a few mulligans and some edits and debugging, it worked.

So, yeah, I'm not getting a subscription to ChatGPT.