I bought a Miele S8 off marketplace about 5 years ago. After I bought it, I did some research and found the same thing you did. The S8 was the most powerful vacuum that Miele ever made, and used a motor made in Germany. After that model they replaced it with the C3 that is almost identical except uses a Chinese motor.

I can’t even imagine the sheer satisfaction that comes from eradicating millions of mosquitoes per day.

I want to point out here, in Australia there is a brand of socks called Darn Tough that is sold at Kmart, Target and BigW, it is NOT THE SAME Darn Tough brand you see raved online. It’s a completely different sock brand thats been around for about 20 years in Australia and just happens to have the same name. They are not great socks, very thick but don’t last long.

The coin flip, chance concept is something I’ve dealt with too. I was fast going down the incel path in my mid 20s. One of my managers at work was given two tickets to a speed-dating event, his mother told him he “needs to find a girlfriend” so she can “be a grandmother”. He didn’t want to go. We were having fun talking to him about how awful a speed dating event would turn out to be.

He said he would go if one of his friends came with him to the event (afterall, he had two tickets). He called so many of his friends, most were already in a relationship, or were busy that day, or just rejected the invitation. Then he started asking workmates at work, similar responses. Eventually he approached me, he knew I was single, knew I didn’t have social life, knew I never spoke to women, he said it would be a good opportunity for me to put myself out there. My first inclination was to say “no way”, “absolutely not”. I’m not attractive and a bit autistic, I don’t make a good first impression to anyone. The thought of awkwardly making small talk for 5 minutes at a time with 12 different women who were judging me based on first impressions, was the absolute opposite of my idea of a good time.

Then I thought about it as a chance to help my colleague, he wasn’t going to go unless I went with him, I wanted him to go, he wanted me to go, plus it was at a new bar that I’d heard good things about. At the very least I’d get to have some drinks with my work friend.

The event was about as awkward and anxiety-inducing as I expected for the most part. Most women were much older than me, and clearly had zero interest in chatting to me. So I took the pressure off myself, I wasn’t there to find a girlfriend, I didn’t buy the ticket, I was there to support my friend. There were two women around my own age, who were not bad looking and I actually managed to hold a conversation with (the beers helped). At the end of the event you could write down the name of anyone you felt a connection with and the organisers would find mutual matches.

Next day I find out I matched with one of the women I’d indicated. I got her contact details, and started talking to her via emails and SMS for a few months, getting to know each other better. Again I didn’t put any pressure on myself, I didn’t know this person, I didn’t ask her to match with me, it was a “easy come, easy go” situation with zero stakes. After two months we eventually went on a real date, and turns out we were a great match. Two years later we were engaged. Today is our 10th wedding anniversary, and we have two kids.

After we started dating I found out that she only went to the speed dating event as a support person to her friend. She didn’t go in looking for a relationship either.

That got me thinking about the odds of this happening. If my colleague didn’t get given tickets from his mother, if any of his other friends weren’t busy and went with him instead, if I didn’t agree to go along with him, if she didn’t go along with her friend for support, if I didn’t write down her name at the end, if she didn’t write down my name. The mind boggles. She told me it was a 50/50 whether she wrote down my name, just like you mentioned.

When people say dating is a “numbers game”, that doesn’t need to be interpreted in a predatory or creepy way. I think this is what it is about, the chances of finding a connection with someone really is a chance, but the one thing you can do is find a way to make that chance non-zero.

Long live LineageOS. I’m a big fan, I’ve been using it for years, while it was still called CyanogenMod. I used it on my HTC Magic in 2009, and my Galaxy S in 2011.

When I was growing up, the definitions kept changing.

I was born in 1986, and while in primary school I was told that makes me GenX. So I grew up thinking I was GenX. Then in high school, my teachers said actually anyone born after 1985 is GenY, so we’re definitely GenY.

Then when year 2000 came around people started talking about a new generation of people who would “never remember the 20th century”, or “never know a world without the internet”, basically people born after 1997 so they grow up completely in the 2000s. They called them Millennials.

From then on the usage of “millennial” kept growing, starting to see it everywhere. Mostly by boomers complaining about millennials.

Around 2012 I stated seeing some youtubers around my age referring to themselves as millennials, I thought it was a joke, or a bad understanding. Then people started referring to me as a millennial. Someone who’s whole childhood was in the 90s, how could I be a millennial, it defied the definition.

So I imagine my shock when I find now they’ve removed all trace of the usage of GenY, and retroactively applied “millennial” to mean anyone born after 1985. So maybe I am a millennial? I remember staying up late to celebrate with my parents and make sure our computer didn’t crash at midnight on new years eve in 1999. I remember wondering why dragonballz wasn’t on TV when the news was showing footage of American skyscrapers in 2001. Are those the things that make me a millennial? If so then what about the original definition? Those born 1997 or later won’t remember those things, so now they’re Zoomers? All this business makes me so confused.

Are you saying we need to start mining the rivers and oceans for nutrients? Or poop directly on the crops?

I’m a Linux software engineer and my in-laws always want me to fix their emails, troubleshoot their Windows driver problems, or work out why their printer is no longer working. Often all three on the same day. Its so difficult to explain to them I’m not “that kind” of computer guy.

What I’m saying is… can you come to my in-laws house and do expectation management for me? I’m bad at that.

You’re thinking of carnivore. Keto is a different thing that focuses on restricting carbs to less than 5g per day and getting most of your calories from good fats, in order to switch your body’s primary energy source from carbs to fats, that keeps you fuller and satisfied for longer, encourages the body to burn body fat, stabilises energy spikes and dips throughout the day, stabilises healthy insulin production.

You’ve been autist-baited!

Trillium is a full featured configurable and programmable self-hosted note-taking app that can be easily configured to suit the use case you’re describing, it does categories, tags, links to other topics etc.

+1 for CBAT

A few people I work with, in the data science and environmental science fields.

Do you really think somebody would pay $300k+ for an NSX and convert it to EV?

That’s a great perspective, thanks for sharing that and it makes me want to reconsider using Gleam, but even more so makes me want to properly learn Erlang. And actually I’m not really a fan of Ruby, so that’s not something I’m attached to in Elixir.

I certainly appreciate the introduction of typing in Gleam, but one criticism I’ve seen of Gleam is the lack of function overloading, that is such a core feature of both Erlang and Elixir.

What’s your thoughts on Gleam vs Elixir?

I just started learning elixir last month then I read about gleam, watched some video introductions, it looks good, but I think Elixir is still the better language to learn right now to choose one.

When I was around 14, my parents got my sister and I a 2nd hand Xbox (the OG big square Xbox), but we were too poor to buy any games for it. I used to rent the games from blockbuster for three days at a time.

I was fascinated with electronics, I’d build little radio kits and LED chasers, I was okay with a soldering iron. I was researching mod chips online, to play burned games. The guides on installation emphasised how small all the solder points are, and how fine the wires are, that it’s not a job for a beginner. But I thought it would be fine.

I tried to order a modchip online, but the site didn’t deliver to Australia. I remember seeing people advertising in the news paper classifieds section modchipping services, so they must be available somehow. I called one of the guys, but he said he only sold them as part of installation, couldn’t sell me just the modchip. I called a couple others, but none wanted to talk to a 14yo kid.

My parents caught wind of what I was trying to do, and they offered to pay to send it to the guy to get it done. So we just went with that. I was disappointed I didn’t get to do the installation myself.

The next week, we got our Xbox back, turned it on, and played a couple of burned games, it worked great. But I was curious. Did the guy do a good installation job? What gauge wires did he use? Which brand and model modchip did he use? I was full of questions. So while my parents were out I opened the Xbox up, disassembled it right down to the motherboard. I found the modchip, I was fascinated by how small it was, how fine the wires were, and how tiny the solder points were. It all looked so fragile. It looked like the guy had done a pretty good job.

I put the Xbox back together, went to play it, but it wouldn’t read any discs, not even genuine discs. Weird, did I forget to plug something back in on reassembly? I opened it up and found the disc drive cable was slightly unplugged. Plugged it in, reassembled, and tried it again. This time it read genuine discs, but it wouldn’t play any burned discs. I tried for a while, and it was like the modchip wasn’t working. That was when my parents got home. I was so angry and frustrated with myself, my mum asked what the matter was, and I started sobbing and crying furiously, I said “why can’t I leave things alone?” and “Why do I always have to take things apart?” and “Why didn’t I just enjoy the games?”.

A couple days later I had calmed down enough, I opened the Xbox up again, and had another look. I saw the problem immediately. One of the tiny hair-like wires on the modchip had popped off. Maybe because of my previous poking around in there, or maybe it just came off by itself, idk. Luckily it was on the modchip side, not on the motherboard side, so there was a relatively large pad to solder it back onto. Still smaller than anything I’d soldered before, but I gave it a go. It took about an hour, with my oversized non-temperature-controlled soldering iron, but I got it soldered back in place. While was there I resoldered a couple wires alongside it, so they were more secure too. I was shaking with anticipation when I put it all back together yet again, and fired it up. It worked! Played burned games again! I was so happy I was crying. The awful low from days before transformed into an amazing high of achievement, and gratification.

My parents told me the lesson was to never take things apart, leave well enough alone. But they were wrong.the lesson was far greater. It gave me the self confidence to know I can fix things. Yes I can and will break things, but I can fix them. I somehow absorbed that into my identity. From then on I was always trying to fix things. Phone line died, I repaired it. Computer got a virus, I formatted and reinstalled the OS. Lawn mower wouldn’t start, I cleaned and rebuilt the carburettor, didn’t know what I was doing, but I just did it, because I had the confidence. Then at age 24 I got a job as an electronics repair technician, so it worked out for me.

Was it long enough ago that he could simply take it back to the store and have them reassemble it for him? Or did he reassemble it himself? Or did you try to reassemble it? You’ve left me hanging on the edge of my seat!

I for one certainly cannot forget CBAT. It’s nuts, and so good, and so bad.

I hit reply to write something similar myself, but I forgot what it was. I wish there was a way to retrieve the things that fall out of my brain.