For some reason, I updated the „randomizer“ script I wrote for that trip to Winterhill (see 05-VII-2004.) to now remove all the digits from the beginning of a filename. Dunno why, perhaps I lost some files and had them only on one such CD?
Hana reports that she needs some time to prepare „a special peace offering to the Taxman (aka Mr. Canada Revenue Agency) tonight. I'll have to start testing a bit later.“
me: btw, if you can find the checkbox for gestational carrier in 5.3, I'd like to know where it is :) ...and Piece to the taxman... want a pipe? I still know how to roll my own, even though I don't light them anymore.
Hana: Oh no thanks! He'll tax me on that too |-(
me: that'd be the great American invention, "free gift" (to differ from the gifts one has to pay)
In a larger Firriver chat,
David: I'm going to make a snag it of the 'Treatment Plan' tab...where the tick boxes Treatment completed and cycle completed are located...It really is that easy (isn't it).... Donna's paranoid that I'm missing something--- Im sure Suez at least mentioned this. our I should say " Donnas got me paranoid...." ... There's no magical trigger for those tickboxes (cycle completeed...or Treatment completed) eh. Purely manual process.
me: Software can't know when the cycle is finished. Nature comes first, software needs only register the event. May check for 11th month pregnancies from time to time, eh?
Norman: Which cycle needs to be deleted?
Laura: I don't know, Donna had a cycle the other day that ended up being a bit of a mess so I just suggested that she start over. I wanted to see if there was a bug that caused something to insert incorrectly. So we tried to delete the cycle and this popped up. And then I noticed it on one of my own cycles too as I was deleting it. Maybe I'll contact her to see if this is the same cycle. I had told her to send an email with the patient name and cycle ID and we would do it for her. Maybe it's the same one. ... That was another problem. The tool tip for day 1 (LMP) said Day 1 Stimulation. She said doesn't that mean day 1 of FSH. She's changed it now to say Bleed or something like that
Oliver: For some programmes...especially the US and Canadian programmes...Australias has been a little eccentric about what they call day 1.....often FSH is administered on day 3 of the stimulation phase.
Laura: Cycle start date is typically confusing. I just talked to Deirdre about that today as well. Donna now is changing her stim modules to start FSH day 3. Now the other question that came up was what is the estimated start date. I told her this was start date of stimulation phase not downreg phase. hope I was right.
Oliver: Bleed is not the best term either...as some patients won't bleed...can't see why she doesn't just call it day one of the follicular phase (hopefully I'm not being overly pedantic) :^)
On sezam, with Efendija:
How do you manage ten open tabs? It's an organizational problem to me just like multiple open programs. I have an impression that I'm wasting more time trying to find my way through them than I'd lose by closing and opening them.
I rarely open more than seven-eight, but our children coolly open twenty on their boxes and manage just fine - that's why you have them icon on tab captions (in FF, and last three years, not the Lame Gugao*), to manage easier. And if they're really in my way, I drag them left and right to group them into some handier order, or even close some (luck gave birth to session manager, so I can reopen them easily, because Murphy says you won't need it until you closed it).
That is, to this day I prefer to have four windows open, max. one of which is the TotalCmd, always open.
Let's see - TCmd, FF, skype platoon chat, Vault (source control, better than workers' control), thunderbird for mail, another chat with Hana (she's testing what I do), and Duh**. Usually at least one instance of fox, with its set of at least four windows... maybe twelve, depends :). In the background... eMule, Trillian, GoToMeeting, Task Killer, Launchy.
I finally ask, after almost ten years of wonder. It's not any ideological question or flaming, it's that I really ask myself how is my mind different from those of other computer users.You're probably, by Myers-Briggs' classification, less of a scatterbrain than most, i.e. you like to do just a handful of things at a time and kick the rest out of sight.
I'm maybe job-trained to mind one window, perhaps two, and to switch contexts on whim while giving not a bit of a fuck for anything that's out of sight. And my space makes it easier - two monitors, I think I posted a picture recently (Lena's friends say, not only because of this vertical right monitor, that we are „now officially weird family“), and then keep these windows in a mostly fixed layout. Skype, for one, main window down on the right, the platoon chat bottom left of the right monitor, FF top right (mostly in background), Foobar top right corner, keeping its buttons above FF and don't care about its menu, Vault on the right, lower middle; on the left is email and what I'm working on, with work spread so that the editor windows go left, and command window, debugger and other tools go right.
And yes, the eMule, if not in tray, uses the 2nd ikonostas. The third and fourth ikonostas I rarely use, though I could - bbLean handles them just fine, doesn't get confused at all.
And on UA, with Harry, about reintroducing the word „datum“ as the singular of „data“ - he said „ very few know it, and even fewer use it. But just going ahead and simply using the word may beat a path. Not impossible.“
We know how this ended.
First change of fields in Byo was on thirteenth, which means the point of departure from zod. I established this in june of 2024 when I tried to get the oldest editing datetimes per article.
Now that I mentioned soundbites... On 12th, I just surpassed myself on the blogue.
...smoking now greatly...
Surgeon General Has Decided That Quitting Smoking Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health."
I've bolded the now as I saw it printed in the newspaper, last time I saw a cigarette ad. I know this can sound like reporters' trashing of a sentence by trying to put in as much as possible into as few sentences as possible, so they insert words wherever possible, just to pack the information.
All the words may be equal, the buzzwords are more equal. Eye catchers like "new", "soon", "now", "free", "more", "plus" and other four-letter-words are the bread and butter of any advertiser. Surgeon General is not a real surgeon - he may not necessarily ever perform a surgery, and is generally not a general, but an admiral, so, having two false designations, has no clear job description. Lacking higher goals, he may go on an agitprop mission once in a while, with all the advertisarial skill one can muster.
In this case, it made more damage than good. Here's my offhand list of questions which cross a mind when reading the above statement:
See how far can one clumsily composed sentence take you, Admiral General Surgeon?
- Now it reduces it, eh? Where were you a year ago when I stopped smoking? (1)
- Too late now, this newspaper is two months old. "Now" is as good as "now or never".
- Will it be too late tomorrow? If I quit smoking next month, will I still be eligible?
- Why now? Why not last week? What has changed? What's the additional factor you are hiding from us?
- Now greatly reduces, but tomorrow it will reduce only mildly, and yesterday it reduce immensely? How is this related to the calendar?
- What would have happened if Surgeon General was out of the office that day and did not make the decision?
- Does the decision apply retroactively or is there a grandfather clause, i.e. if you stopped smoking before the decision, too bad, your chances are unaffected?
- Does the decision apply to military personnel only, or to civilians as well?
- Does the decision apply to other countries, and does the International Court in the Hague recognize the jurisdiction of one country's Admiral Surgeon General?
- If the answer to the previous question is "some", which countries?
I am deciding that it rained two days ago. Dropping an apple now greatly increases its chances to fall on the floor.
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(1) - Oct 2009:) - I guess he was undecided at the time, or the decision wasn't published yet. Though, OTOH, I vaguely remember seeing the same sentence thirty years ago... which, in retrospect, makes it even more confusing: when exactly is that "now"? Every time you read the sentence? And if/when you don't read it, it's any other time but not right now?
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* pun on Chrome, which (the metal) is pronounced 'hrom' in serbian, and really means 'lame'.
** 'duh' means spirit, ghost, but is actually the name of current sezam offline reader, written in lua.
6-VII-2022 - 5-VII-2026