masto

And I'm back. Whew, that was a rough upgrade. I had to do some manual PostgreSQL surgery to get it past 0.19.3 - there were two versions of the hot_rank function so the migration script was failing.

Then I noticed the logs were full of pictrs spitting out "Read corrupted data..." and crash looping, and I spent a couple of hours trying to get it to do anything. I finally had to give up and nuke it, so I guess the few images I've posted over the years are 404s now.

I started to get discouraged and I was going to just decommission the server, but I'll try to learn my lesson and keep a closer eye on it so I can catch future problems before it's too late.

Thanks very much!

I didn't realize it was outdated; I get emails from Elestio regularly (including just this week) that it was automatically updated to the latest version. Apparently I forgot (it's slowly coming back to me now) that at some point something broke on an upgrade and I must have pinned the version back in early 2024.

I just tried to move it forward and unfortunately, anything after that version breaks with a failing schema migration (maybe the same problem I had back then). I restored a backup for now and I'll figure out how to fix it over the weekend.

I appreciate the assistance and info.

Exactly the same here.

Plus, some people are really sensitive to tastes and textures. When we’re not them, we call them picky eaters. When I was a child, I couldn’t stand the taste of water, and there were other foods I found repulsive. Even a different brand of ingredient from the one I was used to made me gag.

Somehow, I completely grew out of that and I’m now very adventurous when it comes to food. But it did leave me with empathy when I encounter someone who has a limited palate, which is pretty common among my nerd-spectrum peer group.

When you think about it, eating the wrong thing is a quick path to sickness or death, so it makes sense that food can trigger extreme reactions of disgust. If you ever ate something and got sick afterward, even if the two were unrelated, it’s very hard to un-make that connection.

Sorry I took forever to answer this.

None of my previous jobs (including Google) checked references at all. They may have done a criminal background check, I don’t remember.

This latest one outsources their background check to a company that I’m sure charges them tons of money to do very little. I was disappointed to see from their web site that they are selling their use of AI to screen people. So that’s great.

But anyway, yes, what happened was that I had to fill out a form on the third party web site and give them a bunch of information - driver’s license, SSN, but also education, previous employers, job titles, manager’s names, etc. Then a few days later I got an email from the HR person at my new job telling me the third party company was unable to verify any of the information, so could I please send them a copy of my diploma, a letter from my former employer, etc. Basically I had to do all the legwork that they paid for, apart from checking a few databases to confirm I’m not a felon.

I just started a new job and I had to dig up a copy of my high school diploma as part of the background check. Ridiculous? Yes. But also, they just outsource to a third party company to verify everything. And that company doesn’t seem to actually do what they’re paid for and they just kicked back all of the work to me.

In any case, I agree with the comments that you shouldn’t need a degree. I’ve been a manager in tech for a long time, including 10 years at Google, and have a lot of experience hiring. I don’t have a college degree. And once someone had work experience, I never paid any attention to their education. Lying about it is only going to risk getting caught.

Hot damn do I love gloves. I bought a 5000-count case five years ago and I’m just about out of them. Turns out making it easier to touch icky things like the sink strainer was well worth the $50.

The part of my brain that needs to be interested in something to do it is actually very stupid and easily tricked. Sometimes when I’m stuck all I have to do is literally pretend I find the work engaging.

This is a skill I do not have, and apparently I may be one of two people in the world who can’t do it.

“Exploiting” means what, exactly? And what evidence do you have for it?

The content of your email is not used for targeting or profiling, it’s not being sold. Clear enough? The qualifier is because some “well ackshually” will point out that they have to scan it for spam filtering, virus detecting, adding calendar events, etc. These are features of the product, and I think labeling them exploitation would be a bit rich.

Google does not use the content of Gmail messages for ad targeting. Lots of misinformation here.

I don’t believe the producers had the whole story arc planned regardless of what they say. I think you can tell when there’s a mystery box situation. But now that they moved the island and it has settled down into an allegory for Scientology, I’m hoping they’ll stop introducing polar bears and keep focusing on the story.

Spoiler here:

I think there is a huge corner they’re backed into when it comes to neatly wrapping things up. If severance is stopped, the innies have to die. Even reintegration means giving up their identities and personalities and becoming just a memory. So it’ll be pretty messy to try to write their way out of that.