Minor victory thread
- Thread starter Thread Necromancer
- Start date
GasBandit
Staff member
It be more what ye'd call a "guideline" (#GeoffreyRush), but it has ways of working out as being self-enforcing.
You can train her until she is competent help her meet a nice guy half your age with decent prospects, cover her shifts while she plans her wedding and takes her honeymoon all while helping her get a dream job away from creepy ewoks.
GasBandit
Staff member
That sounds more likely.
fade
Staff member
Well since the writing is on the wall, I'm looking at other opportunities. Got a few interviews lined up. Tomorrow I'm interviewing with a large tech company who apparently has an oil and gas division I didn't even know they had. Probably shouldn't mention their name just in case, but it rhymes with schmintel.
Hurricane bonus pay came in today.
So THAT'S what paying a credit card off feels like!
So THAT'S what paying a credit card off feels like!
I think we're witnessing the birth of a climate change denier.
I used a Coinstar machine yesterday for the first time in a decade. Traded in everything I had, smaller than a quarter, and got $47 in amazon.com credit, which apparently they let you do now. Ordered some things, including Swedish chocolate.
Caveat to my statement above: Once my payment to my credit card clears, I will be able to do things like... make donations to Halforumite funds... *chuckles*
fade
Staff member
I don't know about you guys, but I love when there's some irritating, vexing, consuming problem to solve, and you finally get it figured out.
NERD ALERT
Anyway, in the Halloween thread, I mentioned that I designed a Raspberry Pi Zero based motion sensor projector deal. It uses those ghost videos, which have different tracks for various ghosts wandering around, and then short videos of them jumping out and scaring the viewer. This system is supposed to switch immediately to the corresponding scare video whenever the motion sensor is triggered. Theoretically it works. In test cases without the videos it worked. But as soon as I let the videos play, the motion sensor just kept triggering. It just played scare videos. It wasn't anything obvious either. Anyway, after some work and some research, I figured it out. The sensor was being powered from the Pi, but the video player causes a dip in power (a brownout) for a few seconds when the player launches. This screws with the sensor's reference voltage, and it assumes it has been triggered. A few delays in the code and it works beautifully. Still, it was hard to find, because nothing was technically wrong. I spent hours on this, so when I finally figured it out, it was awesome.
NERD ALERT
Anyway, in the Halloween thread, I mentioned that I designed a Raspberry Pi Zero based motion sensor projector deal. It uses those ghost videos, which have different tracks for various ghosts wandering around, and then short videos of them jumping out and scaring the viewer. This system is supposed to switch immediately to the corresponding scare video whenever the motion sensor is triggered. Theoretically it works. In test cases without the videos it worked. But as soon as I let the videos play, the motion sensor just kept triggering. It just played scare videos. It wasn't anything obvious either. Anyway, after some work and some research, I figured it out. The sensor was being powered from the Pi, but the video player causes a dip in power (a brownout) for a few seconds when the player launches. This screws with the sensor's reference voltage, and it assumes it has been triggered. A few delays in the code and it works beautifully. Still, it was hard to find, because nothing was technically wrong. I spent hours on this, so when I finally figured it out, it was awesome.
I'm somewhat terrified to open my work one when I go back after nearly two years.
Government executives are almost always spammers.
Government executives are almost always spammers.
Sounds like you need bigger capacitors.
I've been doing the same thing lately, and I'm down to just 4000-ish (from a high >6k). I'd be done by now if I didn't get ~50/day.
--Patrick
fade
Staff member
I thought about a smoothing capacitor, but the circuit was already built, and a software solution was even easier. I also could've just paralleled the power supply. But it's all good. I probably will add a capacitor before halloween.
I am now the proud owner of a Pikachu shirt that's meant to fit an adult and a Pikachu onesie complete with ears and a tail 
[DOUBLEPOST=1506991257,1506991226][/DOUBLEPOST]I've tried to squeeze into kid t-shirts and it's not pretty.
[DOUBLEPOST=1506991257,1506991226][/DOUBLEPOST]I've tried to squeeze into kid t-shirts and it's not pretty.
A client came to us with some really dumb feedback for one of our translations. Basically, they edited our translation to the point where it no longer makes any sense (I doubt the person who edited it knows the difference between a noun and a verb), and they also added a bunch of stuff that wasn't in the source text. And then they have the audacity to demand a discount because they think their version is better.
Why is this a minor victory, though? Because since the client is refusing to pay the full fee, my supervisor just asked me to go through their edited translation and tear it apart. She's letting me off the leash, basically, and allowing me to spend half a day or a even a full day listing every thing the client did wrong and why our version is better.
It's been too long since I've been able to properly tell a client off. I am literally rubbing my hands together in glee right now.
Why is this a minor victory, though? Because since the client is refusing to pay the full fee, my supervisor just asked me to go through their edited translation and tear it apart. She's letting me off the leash, basically, and allowing me to spend half a day or a even a full day listing every thing the client did wrong and why our version is better.
It's been too long since I've been able to properly tell a client off. I am literally rubbing my hands together in glee right now.
I assume it's like people hiring a professional painter or decorator, then after the works are completed, try to find "fault" saying this or that corner isn't perfectly done, this or that issue wasn't sovled as quickly as possible, etc. That is, they're trying to get a discount because customer is king.
It might sometimes work, it might not.
Yeah, some clients are probably trying to get a discount out of it. There are also some clients, however, that genuinely cannot tell that their version is worse. For example, recently we did a translation case for a university here in Taiwan. The head of their English Department, who I presume is a professor and thus should have very good English, went through our translation and added a bunch of errors to it. They didn't ask for a discount, instead they sent the their version of the translation back to us and asked us to use it as a template or a reference for future translation cases. I was all like, "Um... how do I politely tell them that their head of department has terrible English?"
I should note, though, that we're one of the biggest translation companies in Taiwan, so we get a lot of cases. I generally work on, say, three or four cases a day, all of which may come from a different client. If I get three different clients a day, that's up to fifteen a week, and sixty different clients a month. Even if just one percent of our clients come back with unreasonable feedback, that means I'll be dealing with a moronic client approximately every six weeks on average. So while it might seem like I complain about the same thing all the time here, it's actually relatively rare to get idiot clients.
I should note, though, that we're one of the biggest translation companies in Taiwan, so we get a lot of cases. I generally work on, say, three or four cases a day, all of which may come from a different client. If I get three different clients a day, that's up to fifteen a week, and sixty different clients a month. Even if just one percent of our clients come back with unreasonable feedback, that means I'll be dealing with a moronic client approximately every six weeks on average. So while it might seem like I complain about the same thing all the time here, it's actually relatively rare to get idiot clients.
Lucky you -_-
More good news for me: the job I've been doing since mid-June as a contractor finally has given me an offer letter to become a FTE with them - provided the background check goes through (which should be fine), my start date will be the 23rd and I get to go from being hourly to being salaried at a higher pay than I was making as a contractor! Hooray for getting PTO and paid holidays again.
The insurance doesn't appear to suck - so far the family deductible is just over half of what I'm currently paying ($4k to $2600). Worst part about the current coverage is that they barely cover any prescriptions - they want $500 for a 30 day supply ($1400 for a 90 day) of my wife's pain medication for her diabetic neuropathy - and the Medicare that she got as part of getting SSDI won't cover it as part of her diabetes medications because it can be used to treat other things, so they've loop-holed out of paying for it as well... So we're really hoping that the new covers stuff much better than what we're currently on.
The insurance doesn't appear to suck - so far the family deductible is just over half of what I'm currently paying ($4k to $2600). Worst part about the current coverage is that they barely cover any prescriptions - they want $500 for a 30 day supply ($1400 for a 90 day) of my wife's pain medication for her diabetic neuropathy - and the Medicare that she got as part of getting SSDI won't cover it as part of her diabetes medications because it can be used to treat other things, so they've loop-holed out of paying for it as well... So we're really hoping that the new covers stuff much better than what we're currently on.
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It's better than being on the Krogan penis board, with their quads.
I bought one of those Swiffer things for dusting. I could have made another cat from what came off our ceiling fan. How does their fur get up there?!?