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Off Key - General Discussion

A place to talk about whatever you want

2.5k Topics 18.0k Posts
  • Contingency planning

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    wtgW
    @Piano-Dad Yes, I know how to reach you. We do have some folks who signed up and who have either never posted or haven't posted in a long time. I don't want to pester them with updates unless they want to be pestered. You can choose the option to hide your email address from casual observers, but people with superpowers can see that info. Mostly I just wanted to know who wants to be notified if we have a major outage. Additionally, a few folks who signed up early might not have had to provide an email address to create a user ID because registration was open and didn't require authorization by an admin or mod. Eventually we locked the door and deleted all the spammers who had signed up while this was the backup site. I just wanted people to check their profile and see if they have an email addy where they can be reached.
  • Pinned threads

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    S
    Great!
  • Reich's take on Democrat's centrist positions

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    If you read the NYT piece he’s ending for next years kindergartners as a way to end the program while grandfathering the existing enrollees. Same as deBlasio. Re the third grade entry point he seems to be on both sides of that issue. DeBlasio also wanted to end the specialized high school system but so far Mamdani hasn’t touched that.
  • Remarkable

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  • Recycling Australian Pianos

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    ShiroKuroS
    @Steve-Miller said in Recycling Australian Pianos: Maybe their salt and pepper shakers are really big?
  • I lost track of...

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    D
    Thank you, jon.
  • Hegseth's meeting

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    C
    @Rontuner Our enemies wish no harm to Trump.
  • What Qatar got in exchange for the free plane

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    ShiroKuroS
    @Steve-Miller TANSTAAFP ok I had to google, but yes. Exactly this.
  • Sending troops to Portland

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    [image: 1759392274129-img_8117.jpeg]
  • RIP Jane Goodall

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  • Covid, again.

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    @Rontuner said in Covid, again.: There seems to be a misconception about what the vaccine/boosters accomplish. They don't seem to keep you from catching Covid - but what they are really good at is keeping you from spiraling down into needing to go to the hospital. The jury still seem to be out as to whether additional boosters are needed to keep an infection from needing hospital care. "They don't seem to keep you from catching Covid...' I know that! Me and my wacky internet conspiracies. Lol.
  • Is anyone else waiting to awaken from the nightmare?

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    I am wishing to, but I am not waiting... The next NO KINGS march is October 18th. I'm joining our local resistance group to find out what I can do.
  • Work on the house

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    not sure how i ended up quoting myself. can't seem to delete.
  • James Talarico

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    wtgW
    Interesting. Here's the Rogan video mentioned in the article. I haven't watched it yet. Link to video
  • Socks

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    wtgW
    @Steve-Miller said in Socks: $19 for one pair of socks? Yikes! What makes them worth that? Apparently nothing. Reddit discussion, which pans Bombas quality and includes several enthusiastic votes for Darn Tough.... https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/comments/1eci2zf/everyone_keeps_recommending_bombas_socks_why_are/
  • My new car

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    AxtremusA
    @Bernard, congratulations on getting the new car! One little (really quite minor) disappointment is I can't hook up my iPod (I'm so old fashioned) with the usb cable like I could in my older car. It looks like bluetooth is the only option for connecting auxiliary devices. Yeah I noticed that with newer cars these days. USB is now "charging-only" in newer cars. Data functions have to go over Bluetooth.
  • Laughter is the best medicine

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    [image: 1759313265337-20251001_110708.jpg]
  • Greetings from Michigan!

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    @wtg Got home today! One more trip before I winterize the trailer and store it for the winter.
  • She looks pretty damned good for 116

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    A
    This lady may not have (yet) reached the other's age, but I LOVE her way of staying young and limber through YOGA. I used to do all those stretches with ease (and more), but never again since my spine was encased in a titanium armature. I suspect I have Ehler's Dehlers hypermobility Syndrome (the kind where you're extra stretchy). I thought it was enviable from Jr High on up, but not now. I think it was the result of that hereditary disorder - not my daily exercises. In those days they didn't check school-children for scoliosis and the like. Have a look. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/well/move/102-year-old-yogi-charlotte-chopin.html
  • Why I gave the world wide web away for free

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    AxtremusA
    I have a lot of respect for the author, Tim Berners-Lee. It’s not that long ago I gave a talk on the HTTP, the underlying invention of his that made the WWW possible; and many in high-tech won’t have the careers they have absent Berners-Lee’ invention. Tim Berners-Lee came from a time when low cost impactful innovation was possible in the field. As he said himself, he wrote the code for WWW on a single computer in a small room by himself. Much of the technologies that underpin today’s IT infrastructure were invented by very small teams with shoestring budgets. But this is much harder to do now. The low hanging fruits have mostly been plucked. Now the AI arms race requires multiple $billions for credible admission. I don’t see quantum computing being cheaper than AI. It’s easy for a small team to give away the fruits of a few person-years of (part-time) work, but a lot harder for a multi-$billion corporation to give away the fruits of a multi-$billion investment. Meta did the AI world a lot of good open sourcing LLaMA, but that’s an exception rather than the norm. I don’t see many other companies open sourcing their AI models. Even Zuckerberg indicated that Meta will be more selective about what parts/features of future AI models to open source. The future for this vision about freely sharing IT innovations with the world does not look that bright at the moment.