smeg @smeg@assortedflotsam.com

I probably need to get a new webcam if I'm going to continue doing virtual interviews. This ancient Logitech 720p webcam is definitely showing its age. Quality is grainy, movement is so blurry.

In the old CNet review for my camera, it mentions "AOL, Windows Messenger, and Yahoo" all of which are dead.

At the nearby ninja course, I did the angled balance beams that you have to jump between. Except I got too much speed, missed a step, and landed on the ground hard. Nothing broken, but so much pain and aching. I know I'm going to wake up stiff as a tin man tomorrow. Left shoulder blade doesn't want to move in some directions. Definitely no saluting for a while.

As a voter whose top policy priority is climate and the environment, what do I get for voting Democratic for Congress if the party can't even work together to keep this planet liveable?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/15/politics/clean-electricity-program-cut-budget-bill-climate/index.html

Booted my PC to Windows instead of Linux for the first time in many months. Within a couple minutes, it spontaneously reboots to install updates. I can't say that was unexpected.

Puppy (~1yr) just chewed a hole in our living room carpet. Earlier this week, he shredded his bed to pieces. He has bones and other chew toys everywhere. I am livid.

Southlake school leader tells teachers to balance Holocaust books with 'opposing' views

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/southlake-texas-holocaust-books-schools-rcna2965

On my quarterly review, I was described as a unicorn 🦄. For my "unique" ability to self-teach myself any technology thrown my way and bend it to fit business needs. But that also means I tend to leave the rest of the team behind, because they can't keep up, that documentation isn't enough and I need to regularly spend time training others.

Troubleshooting is a mindset, not a set of steps. My teammates lack basic concepts. I explicitly did not choose a teaching profession. But here I am.

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

-Frank Wilhoit

I've never had a job search take less than 6 months, which means your contract 6mo employees are already job searching the day they start working for you. Do employees with a foot already out the door give your their full effort?

Recruiters and Hiring Managers of the world: if you advertise a job as Full Time, then try to switch it to Contract to Hire, you've wasted my time and yours. I will be rude to you, and you will deserve it.

The number of professionals who cannot compose an email that coherently provides the following information is depressingly high:

-Who
-What
-Where
-When
-Why (or How)

I waste most of my day teasing these answers out of people. Isn't this covered in junior high?

We struggle to find Halloween/spooky movies that are appropriate for a first grader while still entertaining to adults. Tonight we had a hit with some episodes of the Twilight Zone.

I was dreaming that I was sleeping. In the dream, I checked the clock to see how much longer I had to sleep. 50 minutes, yay! Then my real alarm goes off. Boo.

My kid was playing with the manuals for my new watering timer. He managed to lose the English manual, but we still have Spanish and French.

Last time around, I learned the hard way that Mastodon's migration documentation is utter crap.

Debian Stretch reaches end of support in January 2022 and I'm really not looking forward to migrating this Mastodon instance to a new host.