Welcome to the Lounge

Mark_Wallace24-Mar-20 7:07

Mark_Wallace

24-Mar-20 7:07

Reported to amazon for coronavirus profiteering.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/this-is-why-everyone-is-hoarding-toilet-paper/

Dan Neely24-Mar-20 4:23

Dan Neely

24-Mar-20 4:23

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius

Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt

kalberts24-Mar-20 7:36

kalberts

24-Mar-20 7:36

Norwegian authorities regularly publish a list of things you should keep in stock in case of a crisis (they do include "paper towels / toilet paper", unspecified recommended quantity, as #18 of 22). The list is years old, it is not Corona specific.

Quite a few of the list points require you to buy/do something you do not usually do. E.g. in case the heating fails, you should have alternate heating, like a portable propane heater or a wood stove, and a fair supply of burning material. Few people go out to buy a propane heater if they never will use it except in a bad crisis, even fewer will have a wood stove installed. A fair share of older houses do have a wooden stove not used for decennies; piling up birchwood(*) just because of something flu-like isn't the first thing you will do.

Toilet paper is a very low-hanging fruit on this list. Just pick it from the shelf in the grocery store. It is cheap; you don't need to empty your savings account as you might if you decide to install a wood stove. You are guaranteed to consume it, e.g. extra batteries for your flashlight will loose their charge with time and will most likely be wasted money. It won't require any change of habit; preparing dried food is a different thing if you never eat that kind of stuff, and you are a little reluctant to fill your basement with food that you will probably never eat.

Toilet paper is the very easiest point on the list to convince yourself that you have done "something" to be prepared.

I noticed that Wikipedia states that the average consumption of toilet paper in the US - I guess the entire Western world is in the same range - is about 2 rolls per person per month. If you buy 144 rolls to be on the safe side, it should last for about 6 years, if you are an average person, or 3 years of you are an average couple. If this is your last chance to buy toilet paper for 3 years, then the crisis will affect you significantly more in other ways than TP!

(*) Side track: I was going to write "piling up a 'favn' of birchwood" - but what is is 'favn' in English? Historically, it is the distance between your fingertips with your arms stretched out, "fathom", used to measure ropes and depth of water. When buying firewood, a pile of two feet deep, one fathom high and one fathom wide, is a 'favn', and is the standard unit for wood. Today, it has been normalized to 2 meter by 2 meter by 60 cm, or 2.4 cubic meters.

I unsuccessfully googled for information about the standard measure for buying wood in English speaking (and firewood-burning) countries. When you stock up wood for the winter, how do you measure it? Is there an English term for 2.4 cubic meter, or do you use another measure?

RDM Jr25-Mar-20 1:43

RDM Jr

25-Mar-20 1:43

In the US and Canada, it's typically a face cord, defined as 16 inches wide, 4 feet high and 8 feet long (0.4 meter x 1.2 meters x 2.4 meters, so 1.15 cubic meters), or a full cord made up of 3 face cords.

kalberts25-Mar-20 14:28

kalberts

25-Mar-20 14:28

Thanks a lot for that information!

It is interesting to see that you assume 16" (0.4 m) length, which would fit into most modern Norwegian wood stoves. We still go by 24" (60 cm), which was the old standard with huge wood stoves, but much too large for modern ones. The 60 cm logs must be halved to fit in. If firewood wrere marketed in 40 cm size, we would avoid a lot of cutting!

MSDN examples

Nelek24-Mar-20 2:53

24-Mar-20 2:53

using bit.ly?
C'mon Microsoft... 90% of their links are not working anymore or pointing to other places

M.D.V.

If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.

Dan Neely24-Mar-20 3:22

Dan Neely

24-Mar-20 3:22

that's 10% higher than if they were linking directly to their own content from more than 6 months ago. Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

Nelek24-Mar-20 9:13

24-Mar-20 9:13

I pretty get almost all the "internal" links to work, many manual editions but still possible to make them work (some 404 though)
But there are a few series ".Net Essentials", "Modern Apps" and a couple more, mostly in "newer" issues (I would say from 2014 upwards) that rely a lot in bit.ly, iltic.com and other url shorteners... and those are failing in a huge % of the cases.

And I can't really find a logical reason, why the hell should be url-shorteners in such a publication. The length of the links is unrelevant, just change the "caption" and that is.

But hey... we speak about Microsoft. (Although being fair, here would be possible to name a lot of big companies)

M.D.V.

BillWoodruff24-Mar-20 5:23

BillWoodruff

24-Mar-20 5:23

you have discovered MSDN is an unsalvageable train wreck, you have joined a multitude: i am sorry/

«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali

Kent Sharkey24-Mar-20 10:29

Kent Sharkey

24-Mar-20 10:29

Sorry about that - when they archived the MSDN Magazine, they lcased all the bit.ly links, breaking many. I had reported it (and they told me they fixed it). Which pages are you still seeing them on?

TTFN - Kent

Nelek24-Mar-20 10:44

24-Mar-20 10:44

I can't say for sure right now, I would say around 12 non-working links in the 2017 issues (almost all the extern links). I can confirm tomorrow when I am back at work.

I can give you a list if you want. I have made a list for my own to avoid wondering why I don't have an example and searching again for it in the future.

Being a bit imaginative and looking at the system used to do the links I have been able to correct many of the problems with the internally archivated zip-files. I.e. missing the "vb" in "vbcode_XXXXX", having the wrong month (maybe same code valid for two monthly articles? I am not sure)...
I didn't make any notice about these solvable errors, but I would estimate there is a minimum 5% aprox. of wrong intern links.

M.D.V.

Kent Sharkey24-Mar-20 10:58

Kent Sharkey

24-Mar-20 10:58

If you have the time, a list would be good. I'll hopefully be able to get those cleaned up.

Internal links also? Dang. Those should all be 301ing to their new home on Docs. ugh.

TTFN - Kent

Nelek24-Mar-20 22:08

24-Mar-20 22:08

Kent Sharkey wrote:
If you have the time, a list would be good. I'll hopefully be able to get those cleaned up.

Send me a private email to this message, so I get an address to write you back

Kent Sharkey wrote:
Internal links also? Dang.

Yeah, but I have no list for that.

I have been downloading everything, so at least we can know what is still there. But the internal links that needed to be modify... I could go through again and and do a list, but that will need more time (priority for the 2nd round not that high).

M.D.V.

Nelek24-Mar-20 22:24