gwern

Comment Threads

• Moz commented on WTF
  But only if the site has less than 2/3rd cat pics....
• Martin commented on WTF
  That sounds(?)(!) like good news. Yup, I'm once again a member of the Defence-Industrial Complex (OGH probably knows where). I was working for a fintech firm, but they end-of-lifed our point of sale product; and we were pretty much the only C++ dev team in a multinational firm, so it was a choice between "retrain as a Java zek" or leaving for pastures old. I must have souped up my CV quite well, because I was beating inquiries off with a stick - it's rather surreal to do an initial phone screening from a cafe in the shadow of the...
• Nojay commented on WTF
  Do not torture the statistics for it makes them soggy and hard to light. One chain-of-logic I can envision for the reported excess deaths increase is that the average age of the UK population has spiked upwards due to Brexit, with a lot of younger Europeans going back to where they came from and leaving us old crusties still in place and dying off at the normal (or thereabouts) rate without the tranche of young foreigners to bend the needle in the other direction....
• Nojay commented on WTF
  Yup, I'm once again a member of the Defence-Industrial Complex (OGH probably knows where). If it's the company I'm thinking of, they were desperate enough to recruit engineers that they had job adverts on the side of the Edinburgh trams for a while recently. It did confuse me for a while since they share their name with a hotel chain....
• shanec80 commented on WTF
  You know, somewhere out there, there is a market for 'parts'. Imagine being an unintentional buyer from a very intentional seller. You think you're buying a very realistic Halloween decoration and the seller is 'down sizing his collection' (at least enough to avoid being able to compare dental records). A Curiosities Shop I follow on Facebook that deals in macabre. Mostly old surgical implements (lobotomy and blood letting sets, bone saws, embalming kits). A customer wanted a refund because the purchase -- a vial of crushed uranium -- came with a a couple freebies. Namely dental x-rays and a used...