[Aardwolf]

Also, you're a Greenwald fan? I've been reading his 'How Would a Patriot Act?' off and on for a while. One of my friends is a huge fan of his.

All I know is he writes for "The Guardian", he's the guy Snowden leaked to, and now the US and cronies are giving him (and his spouse) a hard time.

[Kopachris]

Working on a new IRC bot for #hard-light since BotenAnne seems to be out sick.  May be a while before I get anything useful out of it, though.

[Nakura]

Extremely upset with my work. They have decided to cut almost everyone in my department's hours. Meanwhile two new guys in our department get ~40 hours a week. Meanwhile everyone else, including people who have been there for years, have been cut to ~10 hours a week. This is ridiculous, my co-workers and I are going to our head manager about this.

I've done nothing but bend over backwards for this company for nearly a year and this is how they repay me? Many of my co-workers have been there for years, and even they had their hours cut. I understand that our department is seriously over-budget, but these hour cuts should be based on seniority and/or productivity. There is absolutely no legitimate reason for them to give two newbies the hours of us veterans.

[That Man]

Also, you're a Greenwald fan? I've been reading his 'How Would a Patriot Act?' off and on for a while. One of my friends is a huge fan of his.

All I know is he writes for "The Guardian", he's the guy Snowden leaked to, and now the US and cronies are giving him (and his spouse) a hard time.

Greenwald's done some great stuff on Israel, but his writing on other subjects is kinda...iffy, at best. Not really sure that I like everything he's said on the subject of Edward Snowden, for instance.

Nakura: Ouch. That's happened to me, too.

[Nakura]

Also, you're a Greenwald fan? I've been reading his 'How Would a Patriot Act?' off and on for a while. One of my friends is a huge fan of his.

All I know is he writes for "The Guardian", he's the guy Snowden leaked to, and now the US and cronies are giving him (and his spouse) a hard time.

Greenwald's done some great stuff on Israel, but his writing on other subjects is kinda...iffy, at best. Not really sure that I like everything he's said on the subject of Edward Snowden, for instance.

Nakura: Ouch. That's happened to me, too.

My friend's only real complaint about Greenwald is that he is apparently very far-left wing.

Did you ever get it sorted out? Why should we take cuts to our hours, just so new hires can steal our hours. They took our jerbs!

[jg18]

Wow, I knew the college textbook racket had gotten worse and worse, but I didn't know it had gotten this bad. Loose leaf books with no value after you're done with them, which is a rather brilliant business model. Soon they'll be selling textbooks printed on paper that automatically self-destructs and then charging you for the astronomically high production costs.

University- and college-level textbooks are an extortionate scheme by publishing companies (and the professors that write the books).

Although I've heard of a case where a textbook keeps costing more and more as the years pass, even though the book doesn't change, but the professor doesn't actually get paid more from it, so who knows.

Got an interview with Microsoft next week for an internship position over the Christmas holidays. I'd be super stoked if I got in, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Just gonna do my best.

Good luck!

Been feeling pretty down lately. This isn't anything new to me though, I used to feel alone and borderline depressed nearly every night in high school. Nowadays I still occasionally feel alone and sad for seemingly no reason, and it's virtually always at night. I don't know what's causing me to feel this way...

Maybe you should get help?

It seems like everyone on HLP is getting a job recently, or getting interviews at least.

There is a correlation between people mentioning SCP work on their resume, and people getting jobs.

You bet. And things like this don't hurt.

Stupi phone at my post. Graragh. So Ian pretty boozyf tonight. Stupid Chinese bosses gave le reason oo be.  I am more than q touch  uspet. On the bright siee, gong out and getting boozy is ws goidas a
ever. Got some numbers.HEY SEXY LADY! Psy is Koran. But dint tell Kathryn or I'll.be in trouble.

Despite your hamnyurgeredness, you remembered to include the "bw" tag. Well done!

EDIT: Although I'll be forever wondering what "Psy is Koran" means. Too bad there's no Rosetta Stone for hamnyurgered.
EDIT 2: It's probably actually "hamnyurgered + smartphone auto-correct".
EDIT 3: Emendation suggests "Psy is the man/the bomb" or similar.
EDIT 4: By "Rosetta Stone" I meant the chunk of rock, not the software, although either one would work.

I just discovered that "Glenn Greenwald's partner" is supposed to be read "Glenn Greenwald's husband". Wtf is this ****? Since when is "partner" acceptable shorthand for "same-sex partner"?  A journalist's partner is another journalist who works closely with him on journalist stuff, not his spouse! Is this common usage and I've just been living under a rock, or what?

(note, this has been a linguistics rant, and not a #ZOMGFREESNOWDEN rant... hence why it belongs in WHIYL and not its own thread)

It is fairly common usage.

Yup.

Mamba's posting behaviour has improved significantly since his debut on HLP.  Not sure what happened on IRC, but there is nothing in his recent posting behaviour that would suggest he should be leaving the community.

Agreed. FlamingMamba, I recommend PMing Zacam and Herra Tohtori and asking about their concerns.

Working on a new IRC bot for #hard-light since BotenAnne seems to be out sick.  May be a while before I get anything useful out of it, though.

BotenAnna is sick? Does she have a virus? chief1983, have you not been keeping her up-to-date on her shots? For shame!

[Scotty]

I managed to get myself locked out of my house through lack of foresight.  Twenty minutes with my set of car keys remedied the situation.

I'm now slightly less confident in my home security, but more confident in my ability to improvise.

[That Man]

Did you ever get it sorted out? Why should we take cuts to our hours, just so new hires can steal our hours. They took our jerbs!

As far as I can recall, a bunch of us approached our manager independently of one another and said some variation of, "Yeah, so [New Employee X] and [New Employee Y] are incompetent ****wits. Why are they receiving more work than we are?" Our manager told us that the new guys needed training and that their shortcomings would be ironed out "with time." Big surprise: It turns you can't train misogyny and laziness out of someone who doesn't want to do that.

When I quit, both of the employees in question were still on the job, and still working more hours than those who had a ton more seniority than they did. I'm honestly still not sure why my bosses thought bringing them on was a good idea. My gut tells me that it was done partly as insurance against some of the more experienced employees leaving.

(Also, re: the Illinois Nazis thing: I just saw The Blues Brothers recently. There are Nazis in it. From Illinois. It's kind of amazing.)

[Lorric]

I managed to get myself locked out of my house through lack of foresight.  Twenty minutes with my set of car keys remedied the situation.

I'm now slightly less confident in my home security, but more confident in my ability to improvise.

You picked your own lock?

I wouldn't even know how to pick a lock.

[Scotty]

Simpler than that: I removed the lock from the door.

There are a number of entrances to our house, and one of them is not secured by deadbolt, but rather by sliding chain lock and the presence of a pair of large dogs.  I was able to fit my car keys to the screws holding the chain to the door frame, and removed it.

[Lorric]

Simpler than that: I removed the lock from the door.

There are a number of entrances to our house, and one of them is not secured by deadbolt, but rather by sliding chain lock and the presence of a pair of large dogs.  I was able to fit my car keys to the screws holding the chain to the door frame, and removed it.

A door without a key-lock? I wouldn't like that at all, dogs or no dogs.

[Scotty]

A key lock isn't going to stop the dedicated thief, and at the same time the dedicated thief is few and far between.  A chain lock and a pair of very large dogs will stop the non-dedicated thief just as effectively.

Really, locking your doors and windows is far more for casual deterrence and a sense of security than it is a real hindrance.

[Lorric]

A key lock isn't going to stop the dedicated thief, and at the same time the dedicated thief is few and far between.  A chain lock and a pair of very large dogs will stop the non-dedicated thief just as effectively.

Really, locking your doors and windows is far more for casual deterrence and a sense of security than it is a real hindrance.

Well yes, there's locks, bars and a burglar alarm on my end, but a determined thief would get through those. The house directly across the road thieves recently broke in and somehow disabled the burglar alarm first. That was genuinely scary.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I don't feel comfortable on the IRC anymore. Maybe Hard-Light Productions as a whole. I'm thinking about leaving, and I'm not sure anyone will miss me. I don't know what's wrong with me, so I can't change.

I've also gone dormant myself. I used to be a lot more active here. I believe this has little to do with the community but more to do with my declining interest with FreeSpace as a whole.

Also, people here come and go all the time. The sensible ones just vanish without making a big fuss about it and tend to come back for brief spells once in a while. Maybe some members will be missed, but for the most part, the community is usually unfazed by departures.

[jg18]

AE, that's true in general, but there's a difference between leaving because you've lost interest and leaving because you feel like you're being forced out.

[An4ximandros]

HAVEN"T SLEPT ALL NIGHT< !SUCK IT MORTALSD! ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzssssssssssssssgbgybqaqeibgza a

[That Man]

HAVEN"T SLEPT ALL NIGHT< !SUCK IT MORTALSD! ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzssssssssssssssgbgybqaqeibgza a

Sleep is indeed for the weak.

Had a dream last night that I was communing with my spirit animal. My spirit animal, for the record, is apparently Robert Downey Junior. He advised me not to date a woman with more than one hair colour.

[Nakura]

Absolutely ridiculous! I swear, society is just moving more and more towards a persistent surveillance state. The nanny state has gone unchallenged for far too long. Not only did my college put up security cameras for the first time in 50 years, but now they're also requiring students to log in (via pen and paper) with their personal IDs any time they enter the computer lab.

This is ridiculous, myself and other students often times only have a few minutes between classes and we just need to print something out quickly. Now they are, quite literally, making us wait 5 minutes to go through a security checkpoint, just to use a computer. Not only that, but now the college (and as thus, the government) knows where I am at all times.

gg freedom, gg.

HAVEN"T SLEPT ALL NIGHT< !SUCK IT MORTALSD! ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzssssssssssssssgbgybqaqeibgza a

My cousin and I both didn't get to bed until 2 AM and woke up at 5:30 AM yesterday, yet we both managed to make it to college at 7 AM, go through all of our classes, do homework (only me) and work 4 hour (me) and 6 hour (my cousin) shifts at our jobs.

tl;dr Sleep when you're dead.

[MP-Ryan]

Nakura, you are aware that even state colleges are technically institutions independent of the government, right?  They are private premises that can do what they please, despite being publicly-funded.

Putting up security cameras on a college campus and requiring sign-in to use computer resources is not nanny-statism, nor signs of a surveillance state.  Put down the Fox News pipe

Incidentally, if you don't like it, there's always Somalia.

[Luis Dias]

I've watched Battleship, finally. HOW the hell did I miss this movie? It's ****ing AWSUM! 10x better than Star Trek. By a long ****ing shot.