reay

reay, 10 months ago to random

So our old car has been on the market for a month. Even way reduced from what we’ve been told it’s worth, and saying in the copy we’re willing to negotiate below that, no takers.

Which is a stark reminder that there’s what something is worth, and then there’s what someone is willing to pay for it.

reay, 9 months ago to random

“You know how those bleeding heart lefties said that the best president we’ve ever had and still legit sitting president, Donald J. Trump, was guilty of inciting a riot and attempting a coup just because he incited a riot and attempted a coup? And they impeached him over just THAT?
Well ladies and gentlemen and whatever you other types call yourselves, Hunter Biden uses cocaine and has sex with multiple women, which makes Joe Biden EXACTLY as impeachable!”

• House GOP leadership, basically

reay, 10 months ago to writing

Hey, fiction writers: Do you have trouble starting a new project without having at least a working title for it in mind to start with?

I do, and I’m not quite sure what to do about it. It just feels like having a title in place before I start writing would… could… does?… help set the tone for the project. Like mislabeling it will be an inauspicious start, or something.

Any suggestions beyond just trying to ignore that urge to get writing and double back to the title later if needed?

#writing

reay, 5 months ago to random

Thinking back to that article I re-tooted recently about how Spotify may be imploding. The gist was that, even at scale — and even without paying almost all artists anywhere near what they should be getting paid ahem — it’s not sustainable to have every song ever available on demand for $10 a month.

And it’s probably an unpopular opinion, but while I love having so much music so readily available, I’d rather go back to a model that made music more valuable, proverbially and literally.

1/?

reay, 2 months ago to web

Please boost for a wider cast.

Looking like I’m going to have to bail on my current web hosting service because they renew at too steep a price than I can afford for a little blog site and two domains.

I keep seeing HostGator, inmotion and DreamHost show up as well-rated sites with really affordable (introduction) packages.

Does anyone have any experience with any of those services? Good/bad/ugly?

#web
#hosting

reay, 9 months ago to writing

Trying to remember if it was someone here who had a suggestion for how to take copy from an email and paste it into Scrivener but without copying over any formatting (i.e. dropping in the raw text and letting the Scrivener project formatting apply to the pasted material instead).

Does that sound familiar to anyone? Could you remind me what that suggested approach was to strip out the native formatting along with the copy?

#writing
#scrivener

reay, 1 year ago to random

Email I got.
Subject line: My full name.
Here’s what it said:

reay, 1 year ago to random

Every election I've voted on over the decades, you're handed a one-page form with the candidates listed and you go behind a screen and make your choice (usually with an X in a box or circle) for who your pick is, then that form is blindly processed by a machine that tabulates it.

Last I heard, the upcoming Toronto mayoral by-election still had over 100 candidates.

Does this mean we're going to be handed a multi-page form to go through and make our pick on?

#toronto

reay, 11 months ago to random

PLEASE BOOST.

Has anyone set up a business name for their #voiceover work? Like, named themselves a studio, or whatever, to work under?

I can see potential pros and cons but wanted to figure that out before I actually started promoting myself on websites.

Good/bad/ugly feedback?

reay, 10 months ago to random

I mentally noted an object in the rain as I walked by the car to load in groceries and doubled back to discover it was a 1-1/2” screw I would’ve driven over. Not the first time I’ve done that.

I could tell our small backyard shed door was just barely not pulled fully closed because the shadow falling from the door frame didn’t look right from the house.

What the hell IS that?
A weird attention to detail other miss?
Hypervigilance?
Being on the spectrum?

It’s borderline unsettling.

reay, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to random

Having some good ol’ Canadian products today.

reay, 1 year ago to random

Among reasons I'm not a fan of Wikipedia: Editors can change things and it won't get changed back until another editor catches it.

Wikipedia currently, as of this writing and evidently on my laptop browser but not my mobile browser, have Ron DeSantis listed as the 47th president of the U.S. and present for two terms:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States

Not sure if I can flag this kind of bullshittery, but yeah, always, ALWAYS take info on Wikipedia with a big grain of salt.

reay, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to tech

It’s 2023 but autocomplete on one of the most popular mobile platforms on the planet is still not good half the time.

In my previous post, it guessed that my mangling of spelling “despite” meant that I wanted the word “seabird” inserted.

‘… my old car didn’t sell seabird a deeply discounted price’? Is that what you think I was shooting for? Because wow.

Then of its own accord, it added ‘s to the corrected word.

Yes… “despite’s”… which isn’t even a thing.

GAH.

#tech
#iOS

reay, 11 months ago to random

One of the basics of selling a car privately online is the platforms advise you to, as much as possible, not take interactions with potential buyers off the platform (to direct email, etc.) That way they have a copy of the bulk of the discussion in case of fraud in either direction.

I’ve had a few people express interest in the car, but so far none have gone beyond asking me if it’s still available, and close to half have asked me to switch to direct communication, which I said no to.

Huh.

reay, 11 months ago to random

There was a contest to win some great tickets to see Hamilton and I didn’t win, because it was rigged against me.
I have zero proof, but it just was. I won.

If this sounds ridiculous, you’re absolutely right. Kindly point that out to anyone who thinks a Republican won anything they demonstrably didn’t.

reay, 1 year ago to random

There are times when the Toronto Transit Commission’s Trip Planner feature works well.

And then there are times when its first result is suggesting you can walk 790 metres (half a mile) in 10 minutes. 🤔

reay, 3 months ago to iPhone

Hey, #iPhone types:

My wife and kid and I all have iPhones. Been talking in blue bubbles for years.

We just spent a week visiting friends in Florida, and got temporary SIM cards with T-Mobile for the week. For that stretch we had green bubbles with each other.

Why?

Also, we’re back in Toronto now and swapped back to our native SIM cards and… still green bubbles with each other.

I don’t care aesthetically or blah, strictly wondering what tech thing has caused this.

Any insight?

reay, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago) to random

My wife is a teacher in Toronto and today had to do very intense lessons and real-time training (complete with her class of grade three and four kids) for what to do if there’s an active shooter in the school.

She’s been teaching for almost thirty years. When she started, lockdown training didn’t exist. Because it didn’t have to.

If you think what’s happening as a result of school shootings in the States is confined to the States, think again.

It happening here, and it’s fucking horrifying.

reay, 11 months ago to random

PLEASE BOOST

Any suggestions for cheap places to register a URL? (And what do you consider cheap?)

And then how does one bring that third party-registered URL under the umbrella of an existing host? I've only ever registered URLs through hosts I'm using for websites, which I've since learned isn't a terribly cheap way to do it. 😬

reay, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to random

Weird situation at the liquor store yesterday. I walked in for my shift right after police showed up.

Turns out the intense young security guy we’d had from the security company for one previous day had caught a thief, but in doing so, a) tackled him, then b) had him cuffed back in the warehouse but the guy apparently tried to grab or attack the guard (with cuffs on?). So the guard threw him to the floor and was going for his baton when some of my coworkers stepped in and stopped him.

1/4

reay, 1 year ago to random

Testing. Having trouble posting through the website.

reay, 10 months ago to random

Doing some sweeping of bigger stuff before vacuuming the main floor of the house.

Picked up a few dimes my daughter hadn’t picked up despite a few requests.

Saw two more dimes under a chair that at this point I didn’t want to bother picking up. Like… is it worth my time?

Moved another chair out of the way to sweep under it, tilting it back as I pulled it away, and probably 30 dimes slid off and rained down onto the floor and stairs.

Guess who’s picking up A BUNCH of dimes now.

reay, 22 days ago to random

What are the oldest sounding names of old people you've ever known?

In my childhood house, my parents and I lived beside Bud and Ethel.

GO.

reay, 1 month ago to random

Last night I took the kiddo to see I Don’t Know How But They Found Me.

VERY impressive band. Hugely talented and very comfortable on stage.

See them if you get the chance.

reay, 26 days ago to random

Tossing this out again in case it just got buried amid your timeline: I’m considering jumping to another instance.

Is there any way to take follows and posts (and general history) with me? Or is it basically starting from scratch?