WiseassWolfOfYoitsu's recent activity

  1. Comment on US Federal Trade Commission bans new noncompete agreements in ~life

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    States with lax rules have been using them as cudgels to force down pay by limiting mobility. I've heard about it in field such as nursing, for example.

    States with lax rules have been using them as cudgels to force down pay by limiting mobility. I've heard about it in field such as nursing, for example.

    4 votes

  2. Comment on Kroger’s panopticon: Making criminals of grocery shoppers in ~tech

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    Kroger likes trying to corner markets. For example, the city I'm in has 5 Kroger. Used to have a couple of Marsh stores, but Kroger bought them up, and one local store... which Kroger also bought...

    Kroger likes trying to corner markets. For example, the city I'm in has 5 Kroger. Used to have a couple of Marsh stores, but Kroger bought them up, and one local store... which Kroger also bought the property for and has since left it vacant. Other than that, there's just some Whole Foods types, a tiny local organic place, and then discount type stores (WalMart and Aldis). Kroger is essentially the entire middle part of the market where you're not wanting fancy organic food but want better quality than the others offer.

    That said, the number of Kroger in town does make for a bit of an interesting comparison - I've at various times had reason to stop in to all of them, and between different jobs/homes/commutes I've gone to three regularly (and a 4th would have been the most convenient, but...). One is the Fancy Kroger nestled near the upper middle class neighborhoods. It's like an average Kroger but with a bigger wine, organic food, and fancy cheese section, and more up to date furnishings. There are three of what I would describe as "normal middle class Kroger" on the other cardinal points of town - they're of varying age but generally have the same stuff products/amenities/etc. Then, there is downtown Kroger, sometimes referred to by townies as "KroGhetto". Less updated building, less fancier types of foods. It's across the street from one of the largest local homeless camps and is known for people getting stabbed in the parking lot a couple of times.

    These stores have VASTLY different surveillance/security/loss prevention profiles. The only time I've ever seen open security at Fancy Kroger is just before closing on Saturday night, and he looked bored and was mostly chatting with people in the entrance. Only a few things in the health care area were locked up and required an employee to access. The three middle Kroger have surveillance trailers with security cameras in the lot; late evenings they'd often have a cop car parked in the lot with an officer waiting. Similar in store protection. I've never seen them actually check a receipt at any of these, and even when people have set off the beeper on the door out, they usually just get waved through and it gets silenced.

    KroGhetto was definitely different. There would always be at least one uniformed and armed police officer walking the aisles, and 1-2 cars in the lot, in addition to the camera trailer. Outside dotted with security cameras and playing annoying music. Many products beyond basic staples locked up - most medications, health/hair/body care products, all the alcohol.

    Given how highly I rank "I'd rather not be stabbed" in life priorities, I don't go to downtown Kroger if I can help it. I get the impression the times I've been that most of the shoppers are people who walk/bike/bus from nearby lower budget neighborhoods and hence have relatively less choice, since the only other nearby grocery is one of the expensive whole foods types.

    17 votes

  3. Comment on I have now donated a full gallon of blood products! in ~health

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    I can barely handle just a blood draw for a test. Then again, I do have somewhat stubborn anemia, so don't do the best with reduced blood quantities. (Mind, the test blood draw is anxiety due to...

    I can barely handle just a blood draw for a test. Then again, I do have somewhat stubborn anemia, so don't do the best with reduced blood quantities. (Mind, the test blood draw is anxiety due to that rather than actual reduction of blood quantity from having a couple of tubes drawn)

    3 votes

  4. Comment on Hey, monthly mystery commenters, what's up with the hit-and-runs? in ~tildes

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    (edited )
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    I have been a fairly infrequent commenter here. I think part of it is the lower churn rate compared to Reddit combined with some fairly hefty ADHD. I do hit and run commenting because I do hit and...

    I have been a fairly infrequent commenter here. I think part of it is the lower churn rate compared to Reddit combined with some fairly hefty ADHD. I do hit and run commenting because I do hit and run browsing - I pull up the site, read for a few minutes, then... go do something else. Read a book, play with the dog, etc. Come back in a day or two. As opposed to the 3 hours a day of Reddit that made conversations more practical.

    5 votes

  5. Comment on Cargo ship hits major bridge in Baltimore, triggering collapse (gifted link) in ~transport

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    There are objects referred to as Dolphins, but they're not cheap. A bridge in Florida that got hit by a ship in the 80s was rebuilt with them - you can see them on the map at...

    There are objects referred to as Dolphins, but they're not cheap. A bridge in Florida that got hit by a ship in the 80s was rebuilt with them - you can see them on the map at https://www.google.com/maps/search/sunshine+skyway/@27.6180265,-82.6554579,1158m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu. Just those protections cost $90mil in today's dollars, as they're essentially 10-30 meter diameter concrete and rebar cylinders that extend down to the bedrock with piers driven down in to the rock to stabilize them. The big ones near the center piers are 25ish meters across, for example.

    A regular fender would do nothing here. They're good for smaller ships, or ships going slow, but this ship was going an order of magnitude faster than even the toughest ones of those are rated for. You need something that's both fixed and has a significant fraction of the mass of the thing hitting it.

    11 votes

  6. Comment on Folks in those $100k+ jobs, corporate types, office workers... What would you say you actually do? in ~life

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    Knowledge bases are a huge thing, I'll second you on that just having someone who knows the right thing at the right meeting can literally save man-years of wasted effort. Sometimes those are...

    Knowledge bases are a huge thing, I'll second you on that just having someone who knows the right thing at the right meeting can literally save man-years of wasted effort. Sometimes those are technical, but often it can also be knowledge about the organization or detailed knowledge of its products as well, so you get people who are paid surprisingly well just because they have the tenure to have acquired that level of knowledge about the organization.

    4 votes

  7. Comment on Folks in those $100k+ jobs, corporate types, office workers... What would you say you actually do? in ~life

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
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    Military R&D software developer. There's government BS (lots of training, meetings, etc), but between that, I design software subsystems to work as part of broader communication networks, build...

    Military R&D software developer. There's government BS (lots of training, meetings, etc), but between that, I design software subsystems to work as part of broader communication networks, build prototype test hardware, repair and modify COTS/GOTS equipment (including being allowed to stick my grubby fingers into pieces of hardware that cost several times my yearly paycheck), and taking these things out into the field for tests, at test ranges both on land and at sea.

    That said, while I get to do pretty much all of those over the course of any given year, most of the time, it involves sitting at a desk and programming, albeit often with one or two of those silly expensive pieces of hardware sitting on the next desk over while I get the software talking to it; also, it often tends to be programming that requires some fairly specialized skills regarding high performance/security minded code as well as knowledge of how certain military systems and comms protocols work. To be honest, even as someone making over 100k, I could probably double or triple my salary moving in to the private sector given some of my skill areas, but govvie work has some benefits when it comes to things like more regular hours and time off vs private industry and my current paycheck is enough that I don't feel driven to go for more at the expense of quality of life.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on A mistake in a Tesla and a panicked final call: The death of Angela Chao in ~transport

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link
    This kind of thing is why I keep a window breaker in the center glove box of the car. Tiny little thing with a spring loaded striker with a ceramic or tungsten point. Just put it to the window and...

    This kind of thing is why I keep a window breaker in the center glove box of the car. Tiny little thing with a spring loaded striker with a ceramic or tungsten point. Just put it to the window and push, and the tempered glass window will completely shatter.

    Not this exact model, but this kind of thing: https://adventureswithpurpose.com/products/window-breakers

    12 votes

  9. Comment on DoD updates telework policy for the first time since 2012 in ~life

  10. Comment on Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and a MAGA meltdown in ~misc

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    There was a recent survey that showed it to be true of Gen Z. Not of the general public though - only of the youngest demographic group.

    There was a recent survey that showed it to be true of Gen Z. Not of the general public though - only of the youngest demographic group.

    5 votes

  11. Comment on Extreme metal guitar skills linked to intrasexual competition, but not mating success in ~science

  12. Comment on Welcome to Sealand, the world's smallest state in ~humanities.history

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    Possibly related to the newer Canadian law mandating that all services show a minimum percentage Canadian produced content for Canadian viewers?

    Possibly related to the newer Canadian law mandating that all services show a minimum percentage Canadian produced content for Canadian viewers?

    1 vote

  13. Comment on ChatGPT is leaking passwords from private conversations of its users, Ars reader says in ~tech

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    Yep, posted too quickly without reading deeply enough and conflated the two issues. There are problems with ChatGPT consuming data and spitting it out to other users, but that is not what is being...

    Yep, posted too quickly without reading deeply enough and conflated the two issues. There are problems with ChatGPT consuming data and spitting it out to other users, but that is not what is being seen in this case, thank for the correction.

    9 votes

  14. Comment on ChatGPT is leaking passwords from private conversations of its users, Ars reader says in ~tech

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link
    Related to the post a few days ago about criminals crafting ChatGPT searches to get data out of the engine, apparently they've decided to skip and step and just start handing it out without...

    Related to the post a few days ago about criminals crafting ChatGPT searches to get data out of the engine, apparently they've decided to skip and step and just start handing it out without prompting. As part of an unrelated conversation with an unrelated user, ChatGPT divulged credentials and secure links (with even more credentials embedded in the URLs) to a pharmacy management system. It really causes some wonder about how the internals of ChatGPT function with respect to user data - it looks like there are no rails at all, anything that anyone ever enters impacts and is potentially available verbatim to every other user.

    8 votes

  16. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    (edited )
    Link
    Still on a Dyson Sphere Program kick. Completed one game with relatively low difficulty options (double ore abundance, default difficulty Dark Fog) then decided to use what I learned to start a...

    Still on a Dyson Sphere Program kick. Completed one game with relatively low difficulty options (double ore abundance, default difficulty Dark Fog) then decided to use what I learned to start a new game with harder options - 50% resources instead of double, with the Dark Fog starting and growth factors increased. Despite the added difficulty, reached the tech tree completion milestone in a bit over half the time. Now that I've got a fairly robust blueprint library, I'm debating whether to keep going on the current setup, or to do another restart and go for the first speed achievement (plus increase the difficulty rating another tick), which I wasn't too far off this time.

    edit

    New game started! Still 50% resource abundance (the only possible lower setting is Scarce/10%, which seems... not fun), but really cranked the combat difficulty up. My first run had a difficulty rating of about 100 (~100% of base values); the second 400%, and this time 900%, which seemed to be a recommendation from some fan pages for a level that is Hard But Not Insane.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on What happened at the nation’s first nitrogen gas execution: An AP eyewitness account in ~news

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    It is. The body's receptors aren't for lack of oxygen, but overabundance of CO2. There are actually several possible gasses that can be used to do this - it was a common cause of death in mines...

    It is. The body's receptors aren't for lack of oxygen, but overabundance of CO2. There are actually several possible gasses that can be used to do this - it was a common cause of death in mines and tunneling when stumbling on pockets of trapped gas - but nitrogen is common, readily available, and not otherwise potentially dangerous.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on I can't get my head around US President Joe Biden polling poorly and Donald Trump polling well in ~talk

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    The Taliban were locked, loaded, and ready for war at the time of the withdrawal, as evidenced by the speed of their takeover, and there weren't really enough US assets in theater to readily stop...

    The Taliban were locked, loaded, and ready for war at the time of the withdrawal, as evidenced by the speed of their takeover, and there weren't really enough US assets in theater to readily stop it at that point since the withdrawal had been rolling along for weeks already and most of the US resources were already out.

    fwiw, I did think they should have done a better job organizing the extraction of Afghan partners ahead of time. It's just the idea of "Well, we could have just stayed longer with no consequences at all!" that I find laughable.

    6 votes

  19. Comment on I can't get my head around US President Joe Biden polling poorly and Donald Trump polling well in ~talk

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    Because they were waiting for the withdrawal date. It had already been pushed back once. They were most likely going to start terrorist style attacks again if it were pushed back again.

    where we hadn't had any casualties since Trump's deal.

    Because they were waiting for the withdrawal date. It had already been pushed back once. They were most likely going to start terrorist style attacks again if it were pushed back again.

    7 votes

  20. Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
    Link Parent
    I'll have to add that one to the To Read list. The question is, does she have an Arthur equivalent... (squeee!)

    I'll have to add that one to the To Read list. The question is, does she have an Arthur equivalent... (squeee!)