Fail.

It’s a Borzoi. Narrow dog with a white coat and a hose nose.

I am a woodworker, my phone also needs to survive being completely submerged in sanding dust.

I don’t really look for “this one’s rated to 20 meters but this one only 10” I just want to see a water resistance rating of some kind. Which, it is my understanding the Galaxy Folds don’t have.

My phone will be in my pocket during five years of sudden rain storms, sweat, washing cars, fixing sinks etc. It needs to be able to survive getting dunked in a bucket of water. I’m not taking it diving, but also my chauffeur isn’t going to hold an umbrella while I climb into the limousine.

I got an MX Ergo. It’s godfuckingawful. The M570 looks back at you so your thumb rests forward of the centerline of the ball. The Ergo looks to the side like a lobotomized beluga so your thumb rests on the centerline of the ball reducing the comfortable range of vertical travel. It also developed a nasty case of leprosy, the skin started to blister and peel, so rubber wrapped devices from Logitech are dead to me forever. I just…I’ve been soldering new click switches into my little herd of 570s because Logitech is really bad at electronics and they used inappropriate switches that wear out prematurely so I’ve been fixing it instead of buying anything else from them because I am a severely petty man but they’re starting to fail in ways I don’t know how to fix.

I actually bought a little Pentium tablet so I could have something in the shop running FreeCAD instead of printing my drawings on paper because HORSE FUCK ALL OF THE PRINTERS.

Printers should not need drivers anymore. There should have been a standard protocol for them by now.

The shooter did demonstrate excellent control of that gun. Put a bullet through a carotid artery from beyond “saw it coming” distance.

Nickelback had a VERY distinctive style, to the point you could mix their songs together “This is how you remind me to wish you’d unclench your fists” style and people wouldn’t notice. They’re relative lack of range caused them to wear out their welcome a LOT faster than average.

They deserve every last dollop of shit they got for No Fixed Address though.

Finger picking came fairly naturally to me, and I got to the point where a pick feels wrong. I can do more interesting things without.

I’ve still got a GTX-1080 in service on my “HTPC.” Which…is starting to be a problem, honestly. It’s getting to where that card is too old to support things, like Bazzite’s HTPC system apparently involves things the GTX-1080 can’t do. It’s a kickass graphics card but it’s also a decade old and software has moved on. And I hate that shit, computer hardware outlives itself too damn often. I’ve got a literal pile of perfectly working ten year old computers.

Bought some frozen burgers, the TGI Fridays sliders. They’re alright. Problem with them is I can eat the entire box of four in a sitting.

I’ve been using trackballs for 25 years. What do you think of the M575? I’ve got a fleet of old and tired M570s that will need replacement soon.

There was an early episode of House where a clinic segment had a white chick in hemp clothing bring her baby in for a runny nose, proudly proclaimed that they “weren’t vaccinating.” House goes on about baby coffins. I did not see that issue slop so hard to the right.

Over my lifetime I’ve learned to play like 8 or 9 musical instruments, from “can squeak out Mary Had A Little Lamb” on a harmonica to reasonable on the piano. I took band class in middle and high school and was a reasonable trumpet player, though it’s been awhile.

I’m mainly a guitar player. I’ve tended toward 6 string acoustic, finger style. I tend to like the guitar because it can hold up on its own, it can be a solo instrument in a way that a trumpet can’t. Show up to a social gathering with a trumpet, see if you’re allowed to play it, compared to showing up with a guitar.

My favorite piece to play on guitar is probably a solo guitar arrangement of Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On A Prayer. This is what I aim for with it, and I’ve got…most of it, not quite that clean.

A template or jig, yeah. If I’ve got more than one part to make, especially if they need to match in some substantial way, I set up a stop of some kind.

At some point I may attempt to build a project to a scored storey stick rather than to measurements, but on the other hand I may not.

My family got a brand new Pentium 3 computer that came with Windows ME. Part of the install/setup/onboarding process of this OS was connecting to the internet via its dialup modem. My father’s work was our ISP, it was a local number. We left the area code field blank, put in the 7 digit phone number, and the software wouldn’t accept that. The software required the area code field to be filled in. We filled it in, and it pumped the modem noises through to the speakers, where we heard “doo Daa DEEE It is not necessary to dial the area code for a local call. Please hang up and dial the phone number without the area code.”

ENGINEERING!

In the United States, absolutely none of them do.

The US did not create new area codes for cell phones. I kinda wonder if it would have ever worked. There are only like 800 of them available to the whole nation. 000-199 are not usable; neither an area code or an exchange can start with a leading 0 or 1. And certain round numbers and easy to remember area codes like 200, 211, 300, 311 etc. are reserved. 411 for example is the infromation service, 911 is the emergency number. Fun fact: cell phones are required to be able to dial 911 even if they don’t have a plan or number associated to them. If you dial 911 from a disconnected cell phone, the system will randomly assign that phone a number with a 911 area code.

Even though you can carry a phone elsewhere with you, they are still “area codes.” If you get a new cell phone, it will be assigned an area code for the area you purchased it in. People have moved around and kept their familiar numbers, which is what this XKCD comic is referring to.

The next three digits are the “exchange,” which once upon a time was also routable. Everyone in the same town or neighborhood might have the same exchange, so at one point you really only had to remember 4 digits for a particular phone number, because you knew what exchange and area they were in. Especially with cell phones it’s pretty much 10 random digits.

The fun one is a nautical mile. Which is 6076.12 feet. How’d we get there? A nautical mile is equal to a minute of latitude, which happens to be just a bit bigger but on the order of magnitude of most “miles” to include the US statute mile.