Miles O'Brien

I’ve slowly gotten a couple people around on “collective bargaining”, I’m avoiding using the big scary U word to them

My employer “encourages” everyone to clock in for the day and from lunch up to 7 minutes early.

My employer also likes to take any and every opportunity to punish people for “abusing breaks” which here means “you walked to the break area and took your 15 minute break and walked back to your station” instead of "15minutes starts at your station and ends at your station so you really only get an 8-12 minute break depending on how far you have to walk.

And forget about bathroom breaks outside your 15s and lunch.

My employer also pays the same every single week, regardless of whether you clocked in 7 minutes early every day or exactly on time.

My employer calls our “abuse” of breaks and lack of clocking in early “wage theft”

The first time I got written up for going to the bathroom and he said “wage theft” I went and printed out 100 copies of a wage theft guide with sources and graphs to demonstrate how employers are the #1 driver of wage theft and it’s not even close. Plastered them all over where there are no cameras.

Agreed. She made the right call.

Two crew members with separate skills are better for the overall chances of the ship, and thus her crew, making it home. She did what she had to do.

Surely imperialist countries with interests in an area wouldn’t go and lie about things???

Next you’re gonna tell me the US lied about WMDs in 2001…

Probably “medical examiner” or similar medical doctor that does work for the police to determine things like cause of death and other injuries possibly obtained while dying.

It’s not really heartbreaking when you know the reason the worst person you know is even talking is to try and distract from their own shit.

Doesn’t make it less true, just less heartbreaking.

The Budapest memorandum of 1994 ensured that the US and UK would "Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they “should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used”

That happened. It’s a promise to bring the issue to the UN security council for a vote on action. Not a promise to invade any attacking country.

What also happened is that Russia, a seat on the security council, has the power to veto, and a conflicting interest here that the UN decided couldn’t possibly be a problem in the future.

I’m not saying we have done enough.

I am, however, saying that we have held up our end of the agreement, as written on paper.

As far as I’m concerned, my country is 1/3 of the reason they’re in this mess, so we need to step in and directly protect them at the bare minimum. Ukraine isn’t safe until their borders are restored to pre-2014, their infrastructure is repaired and improved, and they have enough to defend themselves from Russia AND the US. And also the government stooges of Russia get put to death for forcing their population to fight and die against an opponent who never wanted a fight to begin with.

“Vladimir Putin says-”

Lemme stop you right there, pardner.

Don’t care.

I used to sell and fix bikes, now every time I’m out I’m judging people’s choice of bikes.

Not in the “ugh you’re riding a mongoose?” way but the “you need to give that bicycle to a teenager and get a larger one that fits your size, how tall are you? What kind of riding are you expecting to do?” and many other such questions if I strike up a conversation with them.

I want everyone to have a pleasant time while out on their bike. If they don’t have fun, if they are too tired after a ride, or in pain, they won’t want to ride more, and then less people are out not driving cars.

Lpt: (in general) when riding a bicycle, you want the top section of your leg (femur) to be no higher than parallel to the ground at the top of the pedal stroke, and you want your leg to be extended, but not fully straight, when at the bottom of the stroke. You can injure your hips, knees, and leg muscles if you ride an incorrectly sized bike for long periods.

Most adult bicycles should be measured from the spot where the pedals go to the frame to the hole where the seat post goes in. If it’s not measured in inches or centimeters, it might have letter sizing, and if it has bone of those, I wouldn’t trust the quality of the bike. These measurements are more of a guide, when in doubt, use the leg position rule.

The type of bike you have will change your experience quite a bit. If you try to take a road bike (super skinny tires, often has ram horn handlebars) on the mountain trail, you’re gonna have a bad time. Mountain bikes are geared for more power, road bikes are more geared for speed. Hybrids have a good balance and make light off-roading possible. Downhill bikes are like mountain bikes but with a steeper angle on the front fork, to give you better handling while, you guessed it, going down a hill.

I die a little inside every time I see an adult riding a child sized bike.

“well the teenager at Walmart said I needed a 26 inch bike for the hiking trails so I got the 26 inch bike” he said, standing at 6ft3 next to a 15 inch frame bike with 26 inch wheels and tires about an inch wide…

And now when I see aluminum construction, I wonder how it’s been done and try to figure out the various extruded pieces they used.

If I had to guess, it’s because up until now you’ve held the assumption that the people in power know what they’re doing for the most part, and nobody was a dying felon in his last years on earth terrified of going to prison for raping children.

Now you are under no such illusions, and the people in charge ARE dying felons that rape children and have no morals, and the government doesn’t even want to try and check or balance itself.

Don’t forget the secret fourth one, “Transporter malfunctions”

Don’t bother looking for them, they’re in the pattern buffer busy.

Ah, then no forced air through ventilation ducts to move air around.

My current house doesn’t have vents either, but I have fans that move air around the important bits that get occupied the most. With my dogs needing to go out, and work, the doors are open enough, and there’s enough leakage to not worry about co2 levels. Except my wife sometimes trips the sensor in the hallway when she takes a long bath while burning multiple candles…

Lpt: if your residence has central heating/ac and was made within the last 50 years then your house is probably getting sufficient airflow.

I once went to a K-mart at around 2am because I wanted to buy a friend a copy of a video game we were staying up most of the night to play. We had been passing the controller back and forth every time we died or finished a mission, and he decided he wanted to buy the game but it would need to wait until payday. Nah, we gonna get you that copy NOW. Hooked his Xbox up to the spare TV and started the game with fresh characters.

No ragrets

That said, I only chose Kmart because they were the only place that sold video games that was open and under 30 minutes away…

That solar panel looks useful.

Since I have never gone out in nondescript black clothing at night to destroy these things, I can’t say from firsthand knowledge…

But yes, yes they are. They make great trickle chargers for large batteries that only get used intermittently. Or string several together and enjoy an ebike battery charger. I have a similarly sized and shaped panel I found somewhere that I use to charge my 18650 bank.

I feel very bad for whoever considers me a villain in their story.

Like not to belittle them or their struggles, but uh… gestures to self just look at me…

A couple flock cameras near my town keep getting taken out and put back up.

The latest blurry security camera footage to catch the culprit has led to sweet FA since they ride a nondescript dark color mountain bike, wear all black clothing without logos or text, and seem to avoid riding their bike unmasked near businesses with cameras and houses that might have door cameras.

I don’t even think they know gender/skin/hair color. Anything other than “average human height” really.

Anyway, shout out to everyone who destroys one of these things. It’s illegal, but it’s the morally correct thing to do.

The white brick at the bottom is for detecting large objects (cars) and is either controlling a traffic signal, or is being used to count traffic going through that spot.

An intersection near me uses them to switch the lights at an intersection where traffic almost never comes from, so a timed light is unnecessary, but important traffic still comes from that direction.

I work in a place that deals primarily with aluminum extrusion and sheeting.

About a month ago one of the guys at lunch was saying something about how he doesn’t want his ex-wife to get his kids vaccinated because “all the aluminum and mercury is gonna make them r*****d”

I told him to take a closer look at his tuna sandwich because he definitely has shed aluminum dust onto his food unless he takes his jacket off and shakes his hair out, and he should probably wear a mask because that faint glitter in the air isn’t fairy dust. Also look up mercury content in tuna.

The HR guy came out because apparently I “called a coworker a slur for autistic people” when he connected the dots that “if I believe those things make one autistic then they must be calling me autistic since I inhale and ingest aluminum all day at work and mercury is in my food” and felt that I was insulting him by informing him of the things he should already know.

(apologies if this was a little incoherent, I just woke up)

As long as you behave yourselves like good citizens and don’t say true things about the party that make them look bad, of course you can return!