What's messing with your Groove?

[Flixy]

Huh, weird... here, we're allowed to pick up packages on other people's behalf, as long as we show both our and their ID.

Normally you can, but the sender can specify that only the recipient can (like registered mail).

A little under an hour ago I took an oath of office. The reason why I did was because of a legal change in my employment status. Nothing changes in practice. But still it feels very very strange to give a legally binding promise to be decent and honest etc.

Sometimes I wish some of my coworkers would have taken that oath Though we do have to sign for a General Business Principles during our onboarding, which includes stating we'll work with integrity, honesty, etc.

[Ominous Gamer]

Hurricane Eta. Things are deteriorating fast. We are getting activated for emergency responses with barely an hour's notice. Multiple tornadoes. But I'll be damned if it doesn't look cool as fuck.

[Loki]

You mean they missed Eta's ETA?

[Hazir]

A rat chewed on the cables that connect to the sensor for the airbags in my car. I didn't trigger anything besides a warning, and it's been taken care of. But I paid €650,- for the pleasure.

[Hazir]

After half a decade of thinking that there was something seriously off with my bloodsugar levels today I got a kind of panicky call from my GP that he wanted to see me to talk about the serious chance that I could be a diabetic. For a rather long time I have known I was in a high risk group (too heavy, it's the favorite affliction in my family) and I kinda know the symptoms. Yet since I have been confronting a succession of GP's with my serious worries about the possibility I basically was told that my symptoms were psychosomatic, and CERTAINLY not related to diabetes, not even looking like something a diabetic could have. This seemed to be confirmed by blood tests. But then today I got this call, which left almost no opening to the possibility that it wasn't diabetes, but also came with an explanation how previous tests could have been as inconclusive as they had been.

Am I relieved or am I angry?

[littlelolligagged]

Am I relieved or am I angry?

You are both.

[Hazir]

After half a decade of thinking that there was something seriously off with my bloodsugar levels today I got a kind of panicky call from my GP that he wanted to see me to talk about the serious chance that I could be a diabetic. For a rather long time I have known I was in a high risk group (too heavy, it's the favorite affliction in my family) and I kinda know the symptoms. Yet since I have been confronting a succession of GP's with my serious worries about the possibility I basically was told that my symptoms were psychosomatic, and CERTAINLY not related to diabetes, not even looking like something a diabetic could have. This seemed to be confirmed by blood tests. But then today I got this call, which left almost no opening to the possibility that it wasn't diabetes, but also came with an explanation how previous tests could have been as inconclusive as they had been.

Am I relieved or am I angry?

I decided to go off the medication. I religiously follow the teaching of Dr Jason Fung (low carbs + intermittent fasting) with a resulting drop of BMI by 6 points and readings of my blood glucose for the last 2 months never exceeding the range of what a healthy person could expect. Next time I see my GP I will inform him of this, don't care much if he agrees or not.

[Hazir]

You bet I am both. Started with medication today. Also had a critical look at things I eat. Seems like there's a lot that I should put on the 'maybe some times and in moderation' list.

On the upside; I should have jumped several millions of places on the vaccination waiting list.

[Aimless]

Twitter Link

Fucking dystopian

[Ominous Gamer]

Oldest daughter got her driving permit today. Pray for me.

[Aimless]

HAHAHAHAHAHA

EDIT: sorry RIP ur auto insurance

[wiggin]

I suspect I'm going to need to buy a car this weekend, my current 16-year old one is on its last legs without another $4k of cash to patch it up. I'm bummed less from the money side of things (it just means we'll have to delay buying a house by another 6-12 months) but more from the sheer hassle of researching and negotiating a car purchase. Possibly the least fun form of shopping possible, especially when you need to schedule around 2 small kids and work schedules.

[Ominous Gamer]

What's the budget? Need at least 5 full seats or will 4 do?

I'm also car shopping, I figured around Christmas I'll give ocean my car and get a faster one for myself.

[wiggin]

If you want to recommend something, I'm all ears.

- No set budget but I don't believe in overpaying for depreciating assets, so no Teslas or other luxury cars. I imagine I'd feel uncomfortable at something really high like $50k.
- For future proofing at least 5 seats, 7 would be nice for flexibility. I expect I'll have this for 10-15 years and there are decent chances our family could grow.
- I need to fit (6' 2")
- preference for lightly used because I don't like instant depreciation, but I'll take new given the time constraints
- Fuel efficient, I'm game for hybrids if not too pricey. Nothing plug in because my parking lot has no charging.
- Reasonable reliability and maintenance costs

That's it really, I just need a way to get people from point A to point B.

[Ominous Gamer]

Off the top of my head the Kia Telluride would be worth looking into. It's very popular so the used market doesn't give much savings there. Downside is the rather common 20/26 mpg. With 7 seats (unless you want that 3rd row to be for briefcases), your only other option for better mpg is a hybrid minivan.

This is perhaps the absolute worst time to buy, the shortages that are screwing over console and pc gamers have hit the car brands just as hard.

[wiggin]

Kia is certainly on the list. My sister has a Sorento I think? She seems to think it's fine. The Telluride seems pretty big/not very fuel efficient to my eyes (I'm used to driving compacts) but that might just be reality for a three row car.

I know that the current car market is tight and going to get tighter, but the reality is that even patch jobs on my current car won't last more than 6-12 months, so I'm not sure waiting is worth it. We'll do some shopping this weekend and decide. Definitely not looking forward to it.

[Ominous Gamer]

If you're not ready for a full 3 rows (think the Mazda 5 was the last of it's size in US to give a collapsible 3rd row) then I have just 2 suggestions because your options are so open that it really comes down to how you fell once you're in the car.

1). Don't ignore the middle backseat. Thanks to Mini the US no longer has a minimum width for what can be considered a middle seat. Not something you think about until a new car seat bumps your middle child into that middle spot and they spend every trip complaining about leg room, no where to put their feet, and always being squished.

2) look up it's moose test. SUVs are weird when it comes to evasive maneuvers.

[Flixy]

I took next week off. This week: up to 20 degrees and sunny. Next week: freezing at night, chance of snow..

[Aimless]

So my brother-in-law, his partner and their two kids (one in kindergarten and the other in school) decided to visit over Easter. They live in another part of Sweden. Only one of them had been vaccinated before the trip. They've all been hanging out for almost a week, at my in-laws' house, along with my wife and my daughter. Now, my daughter, my wife, and her parents have all been isolated or within the same bubble, but my brother-in-law's family have been the opposite of isolated—they've been hanging out with a ton of other families, including several families that they've spent time with and even stayed with after traveling here. So now they've learned that there's at least one confirmed case of covid at their youngest kid's kindergarten, and their youngest kid's best bud has a high fever, and it turns out their youngest has in fact been coughing for the past two days. My wife and my daughter don't have any symptoms yet, and I'm trying to get them back here; household secondary attack rate is low enough that I feel safer having them here than having them stay there another day. But it puts my wife in an uncomfortable position. They've really had a wonderful time, and she's missed her family, and she really doesn't want to make a fuss. I wish her brother and his partner—who's a doctor ffs—hadn't created this situation. My father-in-law has multiple risk factors for severe covid and a poor outcome, but has not yet been vaccinated. It's almost a little tragicomic how the people who are the most likely to be reckless or make poor decisions are also the ones who're the most likely to speak in condescending terms about less educated people's poor decisions.

[Timbuk2]

Oof not good matey.

It's almost a little tragicomic how the people who are the most likely to be reckless or make poor decisions are also the ones who're the most likely to speak in condescending terms about less educated people's poor decisions.

Yes it's not a good irony.

[BalticSailor]

Local events.
So, last Friday night, there were reports of a fire in a city in Latvia. As per initial reports, a small fire in a housing block, two people hurt severely enough to be hospitalized.
Soon, more information emerged - the less severely hurt of the involved individuals claimed that the fire was a result of a deliberate attack. Allegedly, the other person who suffered burns on 85% of his body was targeted due to his sexual orientation. There were additional reports of previous threats of harm if the victim wouldn't leave the city; reportedly the threats stem from a personal work-related conflict with an unnamed person, and homophobic speech was involved (documented, since it was sent in SMS). The local police had investigated the claims of previous threats, and reportedly found no reason to charge anyone. It's a speculation, but it might have been due to the fact that the sexual orientation of the individual was "perceived" as homosexual - there no reports that he had been openly gay, and the only reason homophobic slurs were targeted towards him were reportedly due to the fact that he had co-rented a flat with another guy. No idea how much of that is true, at the moment.

Obviously, this was a great deal for LGBT rights organizations, their spokespersons published their views, some small protests emerged due to perceived inactivity of the police department of the involved city. The initial response from that police department was that "while investigation is ongoing, it is considered possible that no crime was committed", which went over about as well as you might imagine. I mean, a guy is in a hospital with 85% bodily burns, and "maybe no crime"? With no additional information, that just calls for a loud "WTF".

Well, some people started blaming churches, conservative politicians and the homophobic environment that they'd created with their public opinions over the years, which is, while in some particular published cases far-fetched, but not exactly unreasonable, overall. Truth be told, Latvia is generally a rather homophobic country, there's no other way to put it. And the police dep't of that city was blamed for trying to cover up the crime - which is not unreasonable, either, due to their previous reputation; I personally know of a case where excessive force was used against an acquaintance of mine (in essence, response to a noise violation in a house party involved much more physical force and writing slurs on bodies of detained people with a permanent marker that the situation warranted), and the very same policemen apparently were later involved in an armed robbery resulting in at least one casualty, so, while the "a few bad apples" defense was obviously used, the damage was done.

So, the "conservatives/traditionalists" were put on the defense in the public discourse. Obviously, their response was generally "wait till all the facts are in" which was greeted with the expected eye-roll from the "other side", which, again, is about what you'd expect in the given situation.

Well, some additional facts did come in. Namely, it appears that the 85%-burn guy was in the process of being tried for 5 counts of arson. The trial is still ongoing, but reportedly, he had admitted his fault in all episodes; the only question remaining is whether NGRI applies. Which, overall, does kinda flip the whole thing on its head.

It's a shitshow overall, but the worst aspect is that, if this is a case of self-immolation, which does seem rather plausible at the moment, it's quite a setback for the LGBT rights movement in this country. And it's not like it's been particularly easy for them so far.

[gogobongopop]

Tim

[Aimless]

Yeah

[Hazir]

Yes. I'm genuinely shocked.

[Aimless]

[Flixy]

UPS sucks. I am expecting a delivery, but probably won't be home so wanted to change the date or have it delivered to a pickup point. First it says I need to make an account, sure, even if their procedure was a bit annoying to sign up in the first place. Then I can't sign up using a non-US address even though they know my adress in the Netherlands because they are shipping something there. Am now in a chat with their helpdesk for 5+ minutes and they haven't done anything yet.

Edit: FFS the helpdesk can't even do anything for non US shipments apparently. Why is their entire website not functional when they operate around the world? Now they want me to call their US service number, expecting me to pay for intercontinental call because their website is shit.

[Aimless]

UPS sucks. I am expecting a delivery, but probably won't be home so wanted to change the date or have it delivered to a pickup point. First it says I need to make an account, sure, even if their procedure was a bit annoying to sign up in the first place. Then I can't sign up using a non-US address even though they know my adress in the Netherlands because they are shipping something there. Am now in a chat with their helpdesk for 5+ minutes and they haven't done anything yet.

Edit: FFS the helpdesk can't even do anything for non US shipments apparently. Why is their entire website not functional when they operate around the world? Now they want me to call their US service number, expecting me to pay for intercontinental call because their website is shit.

Those mfers caused the death of every single plant we had, one year. I have almost only had trouble when dealing with UPS—even DHL has been better.

[Khendraja'aro]

UPS has some serious problems. Two years ago I purchased a Prusa 3D printer from Czechnia and it was to be delivered by UPS. Their email stated the estimated date of arrival and also told me that I'd have to personally sign for it. With that in mind, I redirected the package to the nearest UPS service station (about 1 km from my home).
The package was marked as delivered, I went to pick it up and noticed right away that, while the packaging was the right size, it was suspiciously light. A Prusa printer weighs 20+ kg and I could lift the package effortlessly above my head. With one arm. Opened the package and found ... clothes. From a clothing store in Poland. Luckily, I also found an invoice inside the package - turned out that this package was meant for my neighbour living above me!
So I went to my neighbour and found her quite confused as she had expected clothes and not a 3D printer.
UPS then tried to tell me that there had been a mixup by the stores - I told them that I do not buy that story because a) it was two different countries, b) two completely different types of stores and c) the tracking number was the same.
They didn't believe me. I sent them a photo of the two packages side by side. They still tried to waffle about how their system did not just fuck up in a major way.

Then there was the time where a package was marked as undeliverable because the redirect to the UPS service station changed the name (i.e. my name) to that of the owner of the service station.

And finally the one where I miraculously was able to recover a package despite it being adressed to "#FIRSTNAME# #LASTNAME#" (also a redirect)

[Hazir]

For work we have a whatsapp channel which is supposed to be used for urgent business only. Inevitably some collegues find it necessary to (thank God only occasionally) to share 'fun'. This morning, after waking up, I heard my phone ping and checked out what was trying to get my attention. Turned out that one of the medical secretaries had shared a 'joke'. The joke was a picture of something resembling a rainbow flag with the text 'At least they played like a bunch of homos' superimposed over it. The implication was obvious; the 'joke' was that by playing abysmally bad, the national football team of The Netherlands had debased themselves to the level of 'homos'.

I didn't think if was funny. I also didn't feel an apology over 'my hurt feelings' was going to solve the matter. I don't think it's just about my hurt feelings. It's about someone thinking that somehow that 'joke' was funny because it somehow was true.

[Aimless]

For work we have a whatsapp channel which is supposed to be used for urgent business only. Inevitably some collegues find it necessary to (thank God only occasionally) to share 'fun'. This morning, after waking up, I heard my phone ping and checked out what was trying to get my attention. Turned out that one of the medical secretaries had shared a 'joke'. The joke was a picture of something resembling a rainbow flag with the text 'At least they played like a bunch of homos' superimposed over it. The implication was obvious; the 'joke' was that by playing abysmally bad, the national football team of The Netherlands had debased themselves to the level of 'homos'.

I didn't think if was funny. I also didn't feel an apology over 'my hurt feelings' was going to solve the matter. I don't think it's just about my hurt feelings. It's about someone thinking that somehow that 'joke' was funny because it somehow was true.

That's gross. I don't know what your workplace is like or what your situation is, but that's the kind of thing that wouldn't be wrong to report. Can't teach a grown human basic decency, but you can teach them to stfu. Sorry either way, what a shite start to the week.