Oops, wrong thread, h/t snoons.

Does it go to 11?

fptp

First Past The Post, as opposed to e.g. proportional representation or whatever. It’s how US elections work. Other countries have other systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

Oh I see what you mean. Point only was the therapy notes aren’t guaranteed to be private. Right now there are pretty good legal protections. But as another matter, laws or their enforcement can change.

I recognize the chrome and nordvpn logos, and a couple of the others look familiar, but overall idk. No idea what the greyed chrome logo is supposed to signify. Ok I identified librewolf. But, the joke is on them. No modern browser can possibly be private. Want privacy, use lynx.

I’m pessimistic, so I constantly get pleasant surprises when things turn out better than I expect. It’s nice.

There’s a story about Isaac Asimov’s mother Anna Asimov. It’s in one of Isaac’s many autobiographies. Anna and her husband Judah Asimov immigrated to the US from Russia around 1920 and worked very hard operating a candy store in New York while raising Isaac and his siblings. Isaac eventually became a famous author. After Isaac’s parents were finally able to retire, Anna (still with her Russian accent and not-so-great English after all those years) decided to take a creative writing class at the local college. The stories she handed in had grammar and spelling errors like you’d expect, but they had inventive plots, interesting characters, and so on.

At the end of the semester, the instructor complimented her on her work, and asked her if she was related to Isaac Asimov, who by then was quite well known. “Yes, he is my dear son”, she replied. “Oh! No wonder you’re such a good writer”, the instructor said. “Ha!”, responded Anna. “You mean, no wonder he’s such a good writer.”

Anyway, it’s never too late. I’ll see myself out.

Can they rename the browser to Fireslop?

Nothing is automatically getting sent to like a government database, if that’s what you’re concerned about (at least, not in the USA - but I assume/hope it’s similar in most places?).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vastaamo_data_breach :(

Added, pre-computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Fielding_break-in

Watch a few fast.ai videos and boom, you’re an AI researcher making millions.

Don’t bother with any of those in-your-head translations. Just erase the English from your brain and speak Polish directly. If you forget a word, look it up if you have to, then use it. After you’ve used it a few times, it will stick. Polish is pretty hard though, from what I can tell. Even Hungarian is easier.

Fediverse, no idea, maybe you’ll get some responses from this thread since lots of such people are looking for work. I would probably try Hacker News freelancer/available threads (first business day of each month) or even post on Craigslist if you’re in the right area.

December HN thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46108940

Unpopular opinion: it’s hard to beat youtube.

The G Play 2024 didn’t have 5g and people say that’s significant. I got the G Stylus 2023 which was $250 at the time, so I’d consider it midrange. It’s fine, I don’t need a fancier phone. NTN (non terrestrial network i.e. satellite) text comms is the next interesting feature. Currently only in flagships so I can wait for it to reach budget phones.

If none of the online and similar stuff works, it might be time for the family to file a missing person report. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Agre about a guy who disappeared like that. He was eventually confirmed to be ok, but had apparently decided to go off the map for personal reasons.

There was also a medical researcher whose name I’ve forgotten, who also went dark iike that. Her family eventually found her and she said oh, she hadn’t been up to much, and just didn’t realize that anyone was looking for her. She did some well known work connecting allergies with cancer but I haven’t been able to identify her through a few web searches. Anyone remember?

Added: aha, found. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margie_Profet

See also: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201205/the-mysterious-case-the-vanishing-genius

Added 2: Oh my, I didn’t know the whole story. Profet apparently had physical and mental health issues, possibly schizophrenia, and she gradually pulled away from people who knew her, rather than suddenly vanishing. After she had been missing for years, the article above found its way to her and she contacted her family. IDK what if anything she has been doing since then, but she appears to still be around. She reminds me a bit of John Forbes Nash, mathematician who was the subject of the book and movie “A Beautiful Mind”. https://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/05/missing-biologist-surfaces-reunites-with-family.html

Person rebuilds an N900 to use a battery eliminator and replace the micro usb port with USB-C, and then sets it up as a media player. Ok but why bother?

It’s still useless as a phone, at least in the US, because the 3G network is dead. Sigh. Its UI was also hopelessly slow, as was the later N9’s.

I’ve bought most of mine on craiglist but either way you sort of have to know what you’re doing. I’d say just sort by price and scroll through the results in the range you want to pay. You might also filter on “within 25 miles” or whatever, and get a unit that you can pick up in person. Or at least, try to talk to the person on the phone to get a sense that they know what it is that they are selling.

Thinkpads forum is still around and has a forsale section. It has slowed down but is still active:

https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewforum.php?f=11

I’ve bought stuff from there in the distant past.

My sister has a 13 inch ipad and it’s a nice size, 14" should be fine. I have some doubts about the big Lenovo though. My main interest is reading full page PDFs so anything less than 14" will be annoying. Ok I’ll give it more thought. Laptop prices are going to go up because of the dram shortage too. Sigh.

Good luck with that. Maybe also incorporate Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics.

Thanks, it is kind of intriguing though I keep telling myself to just use normal Linux stuff instead of Android. I’d want the 14 inch one which is around $300. Is there any trouble installing F-droid and apps from there?

Alternatives I’m thinking of include Lenovo Yoga laptop (16 inch) and a Raspberry Pi thing with an HDMI monitor (that would be plug-in only but I mostly read at home).