Went down the rabbit hole on this guy a bit. He went on to participate in the CyberNinjas audit of Arizona’s ballots after the 2020 election. He claimed to have technology that could detect whether ballots had been folded in the mail, and claimed to detect bamboo in “fraudulent Chinese ballots”.

He was such a kook, the other kooks rejected him.

Now the politicians want tips?!

Come to Georgia. It’s close. We’re a swing state now. We could use your vote.

I think I know what you’re getting at. This lady has been radicalized against Palestinians specifically - likely because of the war coverage she’s getting on NewsMax and Fox recently. Blacks and Hispanics are also communities though. The timing is relevant, but hating a whole community of people because of the acts of a few is still what’s happening here.

I’m jealous. How did you afford that?

He’s marking them off as he goes.

So the kids need a gun AND dust?

Y’all shut the fuck up and just vote for Biden damn it.

He’s not Trump. Do your civic duty and keep the wannabe fascist dictator out of office. He’s not Trump. That’s all that matters.

Fake reason: Reduce Chinese influence in the Philippines

Real reason: Ensure U.S. pharmaceutical companies get their payday

The incident allegedly occurred after the coach – who also served as a hall monitor – ordered Michael to do pushups because he was horsing around in the hallway, but the teen declined because he had hurt his hand

Cop mentality. Escalate until someone’s unconscious.

On a similar note for parents: At some point, you did/will pick your child up and then put them down for the last time.

Not the happy ending I was hoping for. Here’s how you should have ended it:

"Turns out, the guy she was cheating on my with gets fired from the college for inappropriate relations with students. Afterwards, he gets a job at my dad’s company as a corporate trainer - reporting to my dad! My dad knows who he is, but keeps it a secret for the next 8 years. All the while, he continuously passes the guy up for promotions, gives him the shitiest work to do, bad performance reviews every year, and generally makes his work life hell. It’s a small town though, so there is literally no where else for him to go.

Meanwhile, at home, my ex and the cheater are having trouble conceiving. Since they can’t afford the premium insurance at work, the fertility treatments they need are too expensive. They decide to keep trying instead of adopting, and eventuality the clock runs out. She’s 40 and it’s too dangerous to try and have kids at that point. They give up.

My dad finally decides to retire and the cheater thinks it’s his big chance to finally get promoted. Instead, my dad recommends hiring me as his replacement. They follow his recommendation. Day one, cheater confronts me about how angry he is and I fire him on the spot for insubordination.

He’s now out of work with no option. They can’t afford to relocate. So, my ex has to get a job. She has no skills or experience so she decides to work the local gentlemens club. However, at 40+, she’s not pulling in the tips, so she starts turning tricks for more money. To steer clear of the police, she starts bringing the Johns home for work. Cheater has to sit in the next room while he listens to her get plowed over and over by random dudes ever night. Every once in a while, he’ll hear through the wall one of the Johns ask “How’d you end up doing this?”. To which she replies, “My man just couldn’t keep his fucking mouth shut at work.”. It’s not too long after, on a night where she’s satisfying two dudes at once - one a local mechanic the cheater knew growing up, and the other the local youth pastor - that he decides to eat a bullet.

It’s been 3 years since then. My ex is still working, though with her age, she’s had to leave the local club locations and frequent the truck stops more. Every once in a while, I’ll stop for gas and meet eyes with her as she exits a truck on the other side of the parking lot. She never waves. She just stares. Then, she gets into the next truck."

Edit: Epilogue: Those cops died of dick cancer.

That glitch that discounts stock prices by a percentage?! What? Does that block of the code normally only discount a stock by a percentage under different circumstances?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-on-clinton-lock-her-up-is-right/2016/10/10/fd56d59e-8f51-11e6-bc00-1a9756d4111b_video.html

A more recent one I love is Selena Gomez - Good for You: “I’m on a farting carrot. I’m farting carrot.”

https://youtu.be/1TsVjvEkc4s

(First 2 lines of song)

I’ve frequented Cracker Barrel’s since I was very little. And it’s a family tradition to always stop at one to eat on long road trips.

It’s gone downhill, and it started happening well ahead of COVID.

• Every server used to be an old southern person. They cared about their job, and proudly wore “stars” on their apron to represent their seniority. They were engaging, sweet, and often interesting to talk to. These days, I usual just see teenagers, or people who act like they are working there as a condition of their probation. I assume this reflects poor / eroded pay.

• A long standing “benefit” at Cracker Barrel has been the unlimited biscuits and cornbread that come with every meal. They used to bring out a huge basket of them - enough for everyone to have 3-4 - often as soon as you sat down. So good. These days, I usually have to ask for them. They usually seem to stall and only bring them with the food. And there is usually only 1 (maybe 2) per person.

• Similar to above, the portion size of just about every meal has shrunk over time.

• I know people that used to work there. All the food was either cooked to order or hand prepped and cooked that morning. There was pride in making the food fresh, and not letting it get old, cold, and stale. I’m not sure what they are doing now, but it seems like the quality is way down. It more often seems old, cold, and stale. I’m guessing the cooks aren’t paid very well anymore either.

So, I think this CEO has it all wrong. My guess is she’s going to turn it into another Applebee’s that gets some attention for a while for being new and interesting. Then, in a few years, it goes out of business.

I’m no expert in this subject either, but a theoretical limit could be beyond 200x - depending on the data.

For example, a basic compression approach is to use a lookup table that allows you to map large values to smaller lookup ids. So, if the possible data only contains 2 values: One consisting of 10,000 letter 'a’s. The other is 10,000 letter 'b’s. We can map the first to number 1 and the second to number 2. With this lookup in place, a compressed value of “12211” would uncompress to 50,000 characters. A 10,000x compression ratio. Extrapolate that example out and there is no theoretical maximum to the compression ratio.

But that’s when the data set is known and small. As the complexity grows, it does seem logical that a maximum limit would be introduced.

So, it might be possible to achieve 200x compression, but only if the complexity of the data set is below some threshold I’m not smart enough to calculate.

I didn’t say “All kitchen staff are trashy people”. I said the industry attracts more than the average amount.

I have a few friends in the industry. If you are talking about cooking, my opinion of it is mostly negative. Sure, there are many good chefs, but unfortunately, the job is a magnet for people that really wanted to do something else with their life and failed. Those same people are often drug addicts, alcoholics, or just not great people. So, you work with alot of problematic and troubled people. Coworkers being out for prison sentences is common. The pay is not great because there are soooo many people doing it.

Sure, you could find a job at the nicest restaurant in town and avoid some of that, but think about how many of those restaurants there are in your town - compared to how many people in the world think they can cook. It’s like winning the lottery to get that job.

I guess it’s crass to hand someone a bill mid-crisis, but I’m having trouble feeling too sorry for him. The costs don’t seem outrageous. And, he obviously skipped the traveler’s insurance.