What You've Done Today...or yesterday...or what you are doing RIGHT THIS MINUTE!!!

[Sarex]

Happy Easter.

[LadyCrimson]

--Spring. Where it's semi-warm one day and goes back to (wimp Californians) a tad chilly the next. Not complaining, I like it.
--The ducks are back to occasionally flopping into our little swimming pool - they're not very timid re: human approach so hubby ends up chasing them out with the pool net stick. I think it's hilarious but apparently their poo encourages black mold on pool walls etc which is very hard to get rid of once if it takes hold, so hubby is very annoyed. Resulting in my great entertainment.

Other than that, all the usual stuff. Constant fluctuations of boredom and happy contentment. And ofc, the hubster that makes me giggle (not just chasing ducks, ofc, heh). Very important, that.

Edited April 25 by LadyCrimson

[Hurlshort]

My daughter got her license, so that's good. But adding her to my insurance costs $200 a month. 

[BruceVC]

20 hours ago, Gorth said:

I'm still in Denmark and probably will be until the end of the year. The plan is then to return to Queensland (with some new skills, experience and certifications to add to my CV)

 

And?  You allowed to go into details, there are  no forum regulations around this 

Whats it like staying in the old homeland again, is it nice seeing family again? Doing anything interesting and how have things changed now that you living in Denmark again 

 

[Gorth]

5 hours ago, BruceVC said:

And?  You allowed to go into details, there are  no forum regulations around this 

Whats it like staying in the old homeland again, is it nice seeing family again? Doing anything interesting and how have things changed now that you living in Denmark again 

 

Moved the conversation out of the politics thread...  (shameless moderator power trip)

It feels "odd" visiting Denmark. And I call it visiting, because I don't really feel "Danish" anymore. Nor do I feel Australian for that matter. I guess I have a bit of an identity crisis, not really feeling like I'm anything anymore

Visiting my dad and my brothers has been nice though. Spent a bit of time helping one of the replacing the roof on part of his house. It's been a long time since I climbed around like a monkey on top of a building with a battery powered buzz saw, cutting timber

I still don't have a Danish drivers license, but at least I got the equivalent of a social security number (called CPR number in Denmark), got the NemID ("Easy ID") which is a very clever system used to authenticate yourself everywhere. Council website logins, Visa/Mastercard transaction approval, Internet Banking authentication, you name it. Also got my medical insurance sorted out (so I'm covered by public healthcare). Even got an official address and a bank account, which you can't get without an confirmed address in the government database (folkeregisteret). Getting a monthly salary, paying my taxes, freezing my butt off, feeling very miserable at times because of the local climate

When it gets a bit warmer, the plan is to visit some of the places I used to hang out as a young man, like the town where my old highschool is (much of the town center is from 1300-1500 hundreds). Then having some Belgian waffles, ice cream and walk around on ancient cobblestones.

Meanwhile, working for a Danish IT company as a consultant, spent a lot of time in training sessions, learning new stuff and hopefully add some Microsoft Certifications to my portfolio over the summer.

[rjshae]

Working on my next set of 3-D model conversions. Sketchfab is a great site to just explore, in addition to all their downloads.

[BruceVC]

10 hours ago, Gorth said:

Moved the conversation out of the politics thread...  (shameless moderator power trip)

It feels "odd" visiting Denmark. And I call it visiting, because I don't really feel "Danish" anymore. Nor do I feel Australian for that matter. I guess I have a bit of an identity crisis, not really feeling like I'm anything anymore

Visiting my dad and my brothers has been nice though. Spent a bit of time helping one of the replacing the roof on part of his house. It's been a long time since I climbed around like a monkey on top of a building with a battery powered buzz saw, cutting timber

I still don't have a Danish drivers license, but at least I got the equivalent of a social security number (called CPR number in Denmark), got the NemID ("Easy ID") which is a very clever system used to authenticate yourself everywhere. Council website logins, Visa/Mastercard transaction approval, Internet Banking authentication, you name it. Also got my medical insurance sorted out (so I'm covered by public healthcare). Even got an official address and a bank account, which you can't get without an confirmed address in the government database (folkeregisteret). Getting a monthly salary, paying my taxes, freezing my butt off, feeling very miserable at times because of the local climate

When it gets a bit warmer, the plan is to visit some of the places I used to hang out as a young man, like the town where my old highschool is (much of the town center is from 1300-1500 hundreds). Then having some Belgian waffles, ice cream and walk around on ancient cobblestones.

Meanwhile, working for a Danish IT company as a consultant, spent a lot of time in training sessions, learning new stuff and hopefully add some Microsoft Certifications to my portfolio over the summer.

Sound great, is the overall Danish experience better than what you were expecting considering how many other countries you have lived in?

What specific Microsoft training and new certifications are you doing?

I wrote M365 Fundamentals 2 months ago, its an excellent and required foundation exam for cross-skilling or working with  M365 and then you select further exams to specialize. I am going to study Pureview which is the Compliance and Governance service that M365 provides

Im want to get back into Microsoft from a consultancy perspective 

 

 

[LadyCrimson]

Another one of those larger stock-up type household buying days.

I'm not completely convinced anything (for us) is going to be hugely impacted by tarrifs - day/weekly/general I mean, in terms of shortages/empty shelves - but I did buy enough toilet paper, paper towels, and meats (for the freezer) to last a few months or more. Y'know, just in case. I'm not getting caught flat footed, running around desperate to find even a single 4-pack of the cheapest/roughest 1-ply, or having acquaintances gift you with a couple rolls, like Covid times, again, ever.

It's probably more a concern for back to school shopping or for anyone who likes to get a lot of smaller goods, cosmetics/clothes, "impulse" buys, specific needs etc, regularly. Edit: I looked at the package of my fave TP and it said "Made in USA from domestic and imported resources." I can't wait to pay $30 for 9 rolls of TP!

Edited May 3 by LadyCrimson

[Gfted1]

5 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Edit: I looked at the package of my fave TP and it said "Made in USA from domestic and imported resources." I can't wait to pay $30 for 9 rolls of TP!

In this case, wont your favorite TP be exempt from tariffs?

[Lexx]

"Made in USA from domestic and imported resources." lol, what a hogwash. What did they do? Slap some american-made stickers on the chinese-made product?

[BruceVC]

On 4/25/2025 at 9:31 PM, LadyCrimson said:

--Spring. Where it's semi-warm one day and goes back to (wimp Californians) a tad chilly the next. Not complaining, I like it.
--The ducks are back to occasionally flopping into our little swimming pool - they're not very timid re: human approach so hubby ends up chasing them out with the pool net stick. I think it's hilarious but apparently their poo encourages black mold on pool walls etc which is very hard to get rid of once if it takes hold, so hubby is very annoyed. Resulting in my great entertainment.

Other than that, all the usual stuff. Constant fluctuations of boredom and happy contentment. And ofc, the hubster that makes me giggle (not just chasing ducks, ofc, heh). Very important, that.

Nice and you saving money on food 

I love roasted duck, I love all duck dishes. One of my favorites is still Peking Duck

I have cooked duck, it releases lots of fat and I needed to drain the pot but it  ended up a  good meal 

 

[LadyCrimson]

3 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

In this case, wont your favorite TP be exempt from tariffs?

Don't know - I guess it would depend on what they mean by "imported resources."  I'm more concerned with panic buying re: news stories and human nature.

Gonna become a real doomsday prepper at this rate. My bunker will have a dedicated room for a cat, of course. Could get lonely down there.
On the other hand, too much work. Cat will have to be content sleeping on top of a chest freezer instead.

[majestic]

11 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

In this case, wont your favorite TP be exempt from tariffs?

The finished product itself? Yes. However, this does not apply to the unspecified imported resources used to produce the toilet paper, unless they are also exempt from the tariffs. Unless one or more companies in the supply chain accept smaller profit margins (if such a thing is even possible, as large retailers squeeze manufacturers as hard as possible), a rise in prices of imported base materials is still going to affect the price of the toilet paper.

It is a problem that companies like CyberPowerPC are facing. They build their computers in the US, but all the components come China in some way. Take mainboards for instance, even if a company like ASRock would build a manufacturing plant for mainboards in the US, modern mainboards consist of hundreds (if not thousands) of parts, almost none of which are manufactured in the United States. They'd be looking at importing all the components (which are tariffed), while also incurring increased transportation*, energy and labor costs, making the finished product potentially more expensive than just having it still manufactured in China and paying the tariff on the finished product when selling in the US.

Global supply chains have become too complex to be easily directed by blanket tariffs. Now, it might be that Trump really believes this will work and usher in new prosperity for American workers (which is funny, given the US' employment rate of roughly 4% - even if all those manufacturing plants would magically appear over night there'd not be enough free labor in the US to staff them), insofar as Trump seems to live in his own make belief world, even more so than during his last term. It might be that he was really just trying to stuff his and his advisor's pockets full of cash with insider trading. Stephen Miran might have wanted to lower the US' debt burden by causing a surge in US bond prices, reducing effective interest rates in a year when (IIRC) 10 trillion dollars worth of bonds expire. Trump's dismal performance caused enough investors to nope out to the point where interest rates were rising, instead of falling.

Either way, that is generally why you don't want children - or Orange-Utans with the mental capacity of a three year old - playing with the knobs of your country's economy. Well, generally. I'm sure the MAGA crowd is never really going to be tired of all the winning.  

*Transportation is also going to cost more than before and is going to be slower since the goods need to pass customs and need to wait for all the paperwork to be handled and the tariffs to be paid. You can already see this in place if you order something from Temu as the package will be held by whoever they choose as parcel distributor until the paperwork is done and the tariff paid (in this case directly by the receiver). You can opt to not pay the tariff, but that would lead to the parcel either being returned or destroyed (both on the customer's dime, obviously).

Edited May 3 by majestic

[Guard Dog]

Right now I'm drinking a cup of coffee and watching the sun set on a pleasantly cool evening. Life is good. Hope ya'll are doing well!

[Azdeus]

4 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Right now I'm drinking a cup of coffee and watching the sun set on a pleasantly cool evening. Life is good. Hope ya'll are doing well!

Glad to hear it! I'm doing the opposite, well, if it wasn't overcast atleast.  

[melkathi]

Today I wondered whether tentacles would be more envious of eleventacles because they are a higher number or ninetacles because they are before them in numerical order.

[melkathi]

13 hours ago, Azdeus said:

Glad to hear it! I'm doing the opposite, well, if it wasn't overcast atleast.  

That is terrifying.

Azdeus the sundrinker, watching a cool evening while sat in a pleasant cup of coffee.

 

[Malcador]

Found out someone implemented a weekend server restart. But apparently forgot the "start" part of the restart .

Life is good 

[Gorth]

On 5/3/2025 at 7:59 AM, BruceVC said:

Sound great, is the overall Danish experience better than what you were expecting considering how many other countries you have lived in?

What specific Microsoft training and new certifications are you doing?

I wrote M365 Fundamentals 2 months ago, its an excellent and required foundation exam for cross-skilling or working with  M365 and then you select further exams to specialize. I am going to study Pureview which is the Compliance and Governance service that M365 provides

Im want to get back into Microsoft from a consultancy perspective 

 

 

The ones I’m aiming for called mb-800 and mb-820 (yes, a slightly specialised subset). I had the predecessors 20 years ago when mcp was still a thing

[BruceVC]

37 minutes ago, Gorth said:

The ones I’m aiming for called mb-800 and mb-820 (yes, a slightly specialised subset). I had the predecessors 20 years ago when mcp was still a thing

Makes sense, they both part of the whole Dynamics training which is aligned to your work anyway  

[rjshae]

Just enjoying the beautiful weather, strolling, and listening to reggae.

[Amentep]

Went to free comic book day on Saturday and picked up some free and non-free comics. 

Sunday was the 4th so I watched the original Star Wars (well as close to it as i could get, the special edition).

Today I just worked.

 

 

 

[majestic]

9 hours ago, Amentep said:

Sunday was the 4th so I watched the original Star Wars (well as close to it as i could get, the special edition).

Once upon a time when the first Star Wars DVD boxed sets were released, there was one that included a laserdisc transfer of the original, non-special edition, films on DVD. I still have those here. The biggest problem nowadays is that they are simple transfers of the laserdic version. Meaning they're a non-anamorphic 4 by 3 nightmare which was fine enough way back when they came out, but on modern TVs the watching experience is not, well, that good.

If you're not too queasy about stepping into a legally grey area that probably blurs the lines of fair use, there's always Harmy's Despecialized Edition. A fan project that proves Lucas' assertion that the originals cannot be transferred to modern media because the reels no longer exist in good enough condition a lie.

[Amentep]

I actually have those discs with the laserdisc transfer. You can play around with the settings and get it watchable, but it wasn't really worth trying to get them from where they're stored at for a subpar experience.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Once upon a time when the first Star Wars DVD boxed sets were released, there was one that included a laserdisc transfer of the original, non-special edition, films on DVD. I still have those here. The biggest problem nowadays is that they are simple transfers of the laserdic version. Meaning they're a non-anamorphic 4 by 3 nightmare which was fine enough way back when they came out, but on modern TVs the watching experience is not, well, that good.

If you're not too queasy about stepping into a legally grey area that probably blurs the lines of fair use, there's always Harmy's Despecialized Edition. A fan project that proves Lucas' assertion that the originals cannot be transferred to modern media because the reels no longer exist in good enough condition a lie.

Even better are TN1's efforts, which are derived from actual film prints, IMO:

Quote

Although widely praised, some have remarked that Harmy's Despecialized Editions are still technically reconstructions using digital effects and upscaling of low quality sources,^[22] rather than truly unaltered preservations. This led to subsequent efforts to improve on it, such as the Silver Screen Edition^[23] and Skywalker Edition.^[24]

One of these efforts, Project 4K77, is a fan project to scan and restore original 35mm prints of Star Wars from 1977.^[6] The project name refers to the 4K resolution used and the film's release year of 1977.^[6] In 2016, a few 35mm prints were located and donated to a group of fans called "Team Negative 1" (TN1), who scanned these prints at 4K resolution. TN1 released the film online in May 2018, first in the form of a 4K UHD file and then a 1080p downscale. According to the Project 4K77 website, 97% of the restored video came from a single print that was dubbed in Spanish, with the remainder from an alternate print and some frames upscaled from the official Lucasfilm Blu-ray.^[25]

TN1 followed 4K77 with Project 4K83, based on an original 35mm print of Return of the Jedi (released in 1983) that was discovered and scanned in 4K.^[6] According to their website, this print required little cleanup, and the restoration was released in October 2018.^[26] TN1 released a subsequent improved V2.0 of this restoration in 2023, which contains more "theatrically accurate" colors due to a technical error when encoding the original release.

Project 4K80, a restoration of The Empire Strikes Back (1980),^[6] was begun by TN1 in 2020, reporting that although they have multiple prints, some were faded and they required substantially more cleanup, with a projected two-year time frame to complete.^[27] It was released in February 2024.^[28]