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alnilam
Nov 10, 2009

Seriously gently caress whoever decided to make waiting music a thing instead of like, an occasional, unobtrusive beep, to let you know it's still connected.

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TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
These days the waiting music is 7 seconds of bland jazz, followed by an announcement that all of the operators are busy but your call is important to us did you know that you can gently caress off and go to the website to do most things? It's specifically designed to get you to hang up and leave them alone. The call lines where they actually care about hearing from you (billing, typically) are the ones where wait times are shorter, and they'll offer to call you back when an operator is free, instead of making you stay on the line.

butt dickus
Jul 7, 2007

top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

alnilam posted:

Seriously gently caress whoever decided to make waiting music a thing instead of like, an occasional, unobtrusive beep, to let you know it's still connected.
if you think that's bad, i've got something you can think about next time you're on hold. i used to work at a place that did phone systems, wiring and the like for yum brands. phone systems pretty much lovely computers, and one of the ones we sold to pizza hut needed to be configured using a serial connection. they also didn't do music on hold unless you had another separate expensive module.

our cheap solution was to build a tiny pc that went with it that we could vnc into and use the serial connection to configure and also the audio out for music on hold. that also made it easy to change the on hold marketing message; just upload the new mp3 to the right directory and winamp would play it.

some of you might see where this is going, but one of the guys hosed up before sending out a system to a new pizza hut and forgot to put the marketing message file on there. the result on opening day was customers calling in for pizza and immediately hearing "winamp, it really whips the llama's rear end!" on repeat until someone answered

Powered Descent
Jul 13, 2008

We haven't had that spirit here since 1969.

Platystemon posted:

Sometimes same‐carrier calls can get higher quality, or you can sidestep the issue with VOIP like Facetime Audio or whichever service Google has not yet discontinued.

I always suggest Signal for that. The paranoid encryption is its main feature, but (if both parties have a decent internet connection) the audio quality is hugely better than a normal phone call.

Boba Pearl
Dec 27, 2019

by Athanatos
Is there a program that will allow me to control two programs simultaneously? Basically, I want to be able to overlap two windows, and when I scroll my mouse, or hold space and click the screen, it effects both windows simultaneously.

regulargonzalez
Aug 18, 2006
UNGH LET ME LICK THOSE BOOTS DADDY HULU ;-* ;-* ;-* YES YES GIVE ME ALL THE CORPORATE CUMMIES :shepspends: :shepspends: :shepspends: ADBLOCK USERS DESERVE THE DEATH PENALTY, DON'T THEY DADDY?
WHEN THE RICH GET RICHER I GET HORNIER :a2m::a2m::a2m::a2m:

Boba Pearl posted:

Is there a program that will allow me to control two programs simultaneously? Basically, I want to be able to overlap two windows, and when I scroll my mouse, or hold space and click the screen, it effects both windows simultaneously.

I assume you don't want the background RDP window to grab focus from the foreground Fortnite window while you do this?

Boba Pearl
Dec 27, 2019

by Athanatos
Nah that'd be fine, I want to be able to run two instances of a program so I can use my 3D art modeller in a 2nd art program, so the way it would work is that I'd have the first window ontop running, with the interface and everything, and then the other program underneath, they'd be set to pan and zoom with the same keys, and it would be so I could zoom around and use the Modelling function of Clip STudio Paint, with another program like procreate.

Clip STudio Paint doesn't let you move their models out of their folder, and somtimes I want to adjust a model mid session.

E: That would mean any multiboxing solution would work, I just don't know what's a good easy to use one.

E2: Also some of the references I use are allowed to be modified / drawn over but can't be re-distributed, like streaming them over the internet, so being able to multibox, and have the 2nd window under my art workspace, but pannable, zoomable when I move the canvas would rule.

Boba Pearl fucked around with this message at 03:17 on May 8, 2021

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

Why have airlines stopped buying jumbo jets like the 747 and A380?

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

Badger of Basra posted:

Why have airlines stopped buying jumbo jets like the 747 and A380?

They haven't stopped, but it because they hate us and the regional hub system is cheaper for them. gently caress you, you get to change planes unless you're going hub-to-hub.

Platystemon
Feb 13, 2012

as a person who never leaves my house i've done pretty well for myself.

Badger of Basra posted:

Why have airlines stopped buying jumbo jets like the 747 and A380?

People hate layovers.

Airlines now offer have more direct flights at more hours of the day. The demand for each of these flights is less, so smaller planes are needed.

The other major factor is that it’s legal and practical to fly smaller, twin-engine planes over oceans now, which was not the case circa 1980. The regulatory policy in this is “ETOPS”.

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

Platystemon posted:

People hate layovers.

Airlines now offer have more direct flights at more hours of the day. The demand for each of these flights is less, so smaller planes are needed.

I think this is heavily dependent on which airline you're flying. Only needing smaller planes cuts both ways on this issue. There are more frequent hub-to-hub flights (smaller planes) but it's still a lot of hub to hub at least in my experience before all of this bullshit happened. And I used to travel a minimum of monthly for work.

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

Motronic posted:

They haven't stopped, but it because they hate us and the regional hub system is cheaper for them. gently caress you, you get to change planes unless you're going hub-to-hub.

Platystemon posted:

People hate layovers.

Airlines now offer have more direct flights at more hours of the day. The demand for each of these flights is less, so smaller planes are needed.

The other major factor is that it’s legal and practical to fly smaller, twin-engine planes over oceans now, which was not the case circa 1980. The regulatory policy in this is “ETOPS”.

I feel like these answers are contradictory

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

Badger of Basra posted:

I feel like these answers are contradictory

So read the post above yours for an explanation. Because, yes....they are contradictory. For good reason.

Memento
Aug 25, 2009


Bleak Gremlin
Air travel is the most stark example of modern capitalism. We took the concept of getting into a technological marvel that can travel nearly at the speed of sound and blasting across an entire continent in a handful of hours and we made it loving suck poo poo the entire time so a few people could make a bit more money.

Methanar
Sep 26, 2013

by the sex ghost

Memento posted:

Air travel is the most stark example of modern capitalism. We took the concept of getting into a technological marvel that can travel nearly at the speed of sound and blasting across an entire continent in a handful of hours and we made it loving suck poo poo the entire time so a few people could make a bit more money.

Airtravel margins are like, grocery store levels of low. The costcutting is what has made it accessible to normal people.

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

Also if you had fewer people per plane it would be even worse for the environment, checkmate

Memento
Aug 25, 2009


Bleak Gremlin

Methanar posted:

Airtravel margins are like, grocery store levels of low. The costcutting is what has made it accessible to normal people.

funny about that, I thought their margins were that low because they all spend literally 90% of their spare cash buying back shares to artificially inflate their share prices

Platystemon
Feb 13, 2012

as a person who never leaves my house i've done pretty well for myself.
I love how every few months some bean counter writes a column about how air travel is too safe and perhaps it would be economically optimal if we opened the bloodgates a little.

Halloween Liker
Oct 31, 2020

by Fluffdaddy
Is space or other planets nature?

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

Halloween Liker posted:

Is space or other planets nature?

This is a question of definitions. My understanding of the words is that you can divide the entire universe into "artificial" (created by humans, or their creations, or perhaps by other sentient beings), and "natural" (everything else). By that rule, almost everything in the universe is nature.

Of course, then you get into the question of whether the universe is itself artificial, i.e. created by some sentient being or beings (whether god or a simulation, it hardly matters). But if the entire universe is artificial, then nothing is natural, so the division loses meaning. We might as well limit "artificial" to meaning "created by sentients contained within the universe". It is of course possible that someone created our solar system relatively recently, but we have no evidence of that so it doesn't really seem worth worrying about.

dupersaurus
Aug 1, 2012

Futurism was an art movement where dudes were all 'CARS ARE COOL AND THE PAST IS FOR CHUMPS. LET'S DRAW SOME CARS.'

Badger of Basra posted:

Why have airlines stopped buying jumbo jets like the 747 and A380?

Fuel cost

While there was a time where 747s were flown domestically here in the US, as Platystemon said, in the last couple of decades the big quads have been eaten away by cheaper and more efficient twinjets as they’ve become more and more capable. Domestic is owned by twins, and now you can very easily cross both oceans in them. Hub and spoke was necessary when regional jets were new and hobbled, but these days they’re very capable and hell you can take a 737 NG from LAX to Hawaii (formerly a prime 747 route).

So while a twin can’t carry as many people as a quad, you can get around that to sending more twins to more places, and it can be economical because they’re soooo much cheaper to run. My home airport is a fairly dinky one, but pre-covid American was running 777s out of it direct to Heathrow… couldn’t do that with a quad.

You’ll note that the big users of the A380 — Emirates, Qatari, Singapore, etc — don’t originate in destination spots because they’re pretty much just hubs for international travel; getting lots of people to the other side of the globe is their whole purpose, and it made a lot of sense for that. But times change, and gas got a lot more expensive, so even they’re starting to see value in the twin life: Singapore runs an A350 nonstop between Singapore and NYC, and iirc Emirates is looking that way, too.

AreWeDrunkYet
Jul 8, 2006

Methanar posted:

Airtravel margins are like, grocery store levels of low. The costcutting is what has made it accessible to normal people.

What's the easiest way to make a million dollars? Put a billion dollars into an airline.

Air travel has never been consistently profitable and requires regular injections of cash from governments to be sustainable. The whole business probably should have been nationalized a long time ago.

Hyperlynx
Sep 13, 2015

Halloween Liker posted:

Is space or other planets nature?

Other planets.

Rabbit Hill
Mar 11, 2009

God knows what lives in me in place of me.
Grimey Drawer

FreshFeesh posted:

When my grandfather died about 20 years ago he left me two Maasai spears and a shield, acquired by unknown means during his African safaris in the 1960s and 70s. I have zero interest in keeping the artifacts, and unfortunately I didn't get a response back from the Maasai Cultural Heritage Center asking if they would be interested in their repatriation.

Are there other groups or organizations specializing in African heritage I could reach out to? My cursory searches didn't pull up anything promising.

This might be a longshot, but there's a Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and they accept donations (their guidelines) -- what you have aren't strictly art pieces, so they may not be interested, but maybe someone there could point you to another organization which would accept them?

Scarodactyl
Oct 22, 2015


Just a guess, but there have been items like this "made for the trade" for centuries (I have a neat Chinese 'sword' which was made for Brotosh tourists back in the 1800s). It's probably much more likely these were items made for tourists than that he acquired some meaningful artifacts.

Hyperlynx
Sep 13, 2015

The thought also occurs that they're, well, tools. I mean, if they're not used for ceremonial purposes and are actually used for fighting or hunting (and I honestly don't know) then maybe they're not such a big deal?...


Also, silly question, but have you tried just phoning them? That way you get an answer on the spot.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

Memento posted:

Air travel is the most stark example of modern capitalism. We took the concept of getting into a technological marvel that can travel nearly at the speed of sound and blasting across an entire continent in a handful of hours and we made it loving suck poo poo the entire time so a few people could make a bit more money.

i love the style of uk airport design where you have to walk through an entire mall before you can get to any screen displaying flight info and any place to sit down

these same airports deliberately do not tell you what gate your flight will be at until the last minute, so that you stay and patronize airport businesses longer - and the seating is very limited, the majority of it specifically reserved for customers of coffee and fast food chains so that again, if you just want to sit down with your poo poo you are obligated to spend money

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Why do we need multiple vaccine shots/boosters? I understand it's because the immunization response after multiple shots is stronger, but what is the mechanism behind that? What's happening physiologically in the second or third dose that isn't in the first?

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


Mak0rz posted:

Why do we need multiple vaccine shots/boosters? I understand it's because the immunization response after multiple shots is stronger, but what is the mechanism behind that? What's happening physiologically in the second or third dose that isn't in the first?

The immune system is incredibly complex. There's a pretty good high-level explanation here, but since it was written over a year ago it doesn't talk much about the vaccines. It's still good background info to have, and I think that it has enough to guess at how the process works.

dupersaurus
Aug 1, 2012

Futurism was an art movement where dudes were all 'CARS ARE COOL AND THE PAST IS FOR CHUMPS. LET'S DRAW SOME CARS.'

Mak0rz posted:

Why do we need multiple vaccine shots/boosters? I understand it's because the immunization response after multiple shots is stronger, but what is the mechanism behind that? What's happening physiologically in the second or third dose that isn't in the first?

It’s a complicated question but the rough tl;dr is that RNA vaccines are good for a lot of reasons, but they don’t get converted into immune response quite as efficiently as traditional vaccines (that more-or-less directly inject into you the thing to respond to). So there’s really nothing different happening on the second shot, your immune system just needs the second expose to solidify its response.

Edit: That’s for the COVID shots at least, it’s different for others. Like you have to re-up the flu because the flu is different every year, and tetanus immunity doesn’t stick around so you have to refresh every decade.

Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Earwicker posted:

i love the style of uk airport design where you have to walk through an entire mall before you can get to any screen displaying flight info and any place to sit down

these same airports deliberately do not tell you what gate your flight will be at until the last minute, so that you stay and patronize airport businesses longer - and the seating is very limited, the majority of it specifically reserved for customers of coffee and fast food chains so that again, if you just want to sit down with your poo poo you are obligated to spend money

I don't think there are any differences between UK airports and anywhere else I've been. Flight info is available on screens literally at the entrance before baggage check-in as well? But yes, airports love to cram all their seating far towards the gates so you're more likely to go sit down at a cafe or whatever. Although honestly that feels less of a problem in a lot of modern airports I've been to. New schtick seems to be making big central seating hubs in the middle of the 'mall' areas so you're surrounded by shops and restaurants on all sides, and thus more likely to get up and wander in.

Some people somewhere have probably put a mind-bogglingly large amount of thought into that sort of thing, a la how supermarkets design their layouts and shelving to push you through the whole thing.

alnilam
Nov 10, 2009

dupersaurus posted:

It’s a complicated question but the rough tl;dr is that RNA vaccines are good for a lot of reasons, but they don’t get converted into immune response quite as efficiently as traditional vaccines (that more-or-less directly inject into you the thing to respond to). So there’s really nothing different happening on the second shot, your immune system just needs the second expose to solidify its response.

Edit: That’s for the COVID shots at least, it’s different for others. Like you have to re-up the flu because the flu is different every year, and tetanus immunity doesn’t stick around so you have to refresh every decade.

There are a lot of traditional vaccines that come in a series though, like you get several MMRs before you're immune 4 lyfe, hep A (i think? one of the heps) is this way too iirc. I've always been curious about the mechanism too.

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

alnilam posted:

There are a lot of traditional vaccines that come in a series though, like you get several MMRs before you're immune 4 lyfe, hep A (i think? one of the heps) is this way too iirc. I've always been curious about the mechanism too.

Hep B is definitely a series.

E:so is Hep A, but that’s not the hep vaccine most people talk about. Schools and jobs are way more likely to mandate Hep B.

Inceltown
Aug 6, 2019

dupersaurus posted:

It’s a complicated question but the rough tl;dr is that RNA vaccines are good for a lot of reasons, but they don’t get converted into immune response quite as efficiently as traditional vaccines (that more-or-less directly inject into you the thing to respond to). So there’s really nothing different happening on the second shot, your immune system just needs the second expose to solidify its response.

Edit: That’s for the COVID shots at least, it’s different for others. Like you have to re-up the flu because the flu is different every year, and tetanus immunity doesn’t stick around so you have to refresh every decade.

So it's kind of like hello.jpg

The first time you are exposed it's a shock to the system but as you get more exposure the shock lessens until your body becomes familiar enough that seeing it is just like a visit from an old friend.

AreWeDrunkYet
Jul 8, 2006

Inceltown posted:

So it's kind of like hello.jpg

The first time you are exposed it's a shock to the system but as you get more exposure the shock lessens until your body becomes familiar enough that seeing it is just like a visit from an old friend.

Aren't the side effects usually worse from the second dose?

Nighthand
Nov 4, 2009

what horror the gas

Think of the first dose as telling your immune system to make a plan to deal with this invader, and the second dose as a live fire exercise putting it into practice.

GB Luxury Hamper
Nov 27, 2002

Jeza posted:

I don't think there are any differences between UK airports and anywhere else I've been. Flight info is available on screens literally at the entrance before baggage check-in as well? But yes, airports love to cram all their seating far towards the gates so you're more likely to go sit down at a cafe or whatever. Although honestly that feels less of a problem in a lot of modern airports I've been to. New schtick seems to be making big central seating hubs in the middle of the 'mall' areas so you're surrounded by shops and restaurants on all sides, and thus more likely to get up and wander in.

Some people somewhere have probably put a mind-bogglingly large amount of thought into that sort of thing, a la how supermarkets design their layouts and shelving to push you through the whole thing.

There absolutely is a difference between UK airports and other European airports. At UK airports, gate info is available very late. Many times at Heathrow I've stood near the big screens just waiting for the gate number after all I've done all the shopping and eating, so that I can get out of the crowded shopping/restaurant area. At most other European airports, the gate info is available reasonably early and sometimes I can even choose a restaurant close to my gate, and there's more seating outside the main shopping areas. Some airports aren't bad for spending a few hours, UK airports are all miserable.

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug

Nighthand posted:

Think of the first dose as telling your immune system to make a plan to deal with this invader, and the second dose as a live fire exercise putting it into practice.

Which is also why if you’ve had it before the first shot absolutely kicks the poo poo out of you, your body is like “ah, this guy again”.

smackfu
Jun 7, 2004

Yeah, there’s actually a minor “movement” to not have people who had confirmed COVID get the second shot because it’s allegedly all side effects with minimal benefits. I think this mattered more when there was a vaccine shortage.

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dupersaurus
Aug 1, 2012

Futurism was an art movement where dudes were all 'CARS ARE COOL AND THE PAST IS FOR CHUMPS. LET'S DRAW SOME CARS.'

alnilam posted:

There are a lot of traditional vaccines that come in a series though, like you get several MMRs before you're immune 4 lyfe, hep A (i think? one of the heps) is this way too iirc. I've always been curious about the mechanism too.

This is Dunning-Kruger territory for me so I won't say too much (hopefully someone that knows more will swoop in), but the general gist is that different vaccines trigger different immune responses, and depending on the specifics of that jab it might take a few runs for your immune system to really solidify the response. The vaccine isn't exactly what it's protecting you against (it could be neutered virus, it could be pieces of proteins on the pathogen surface, or in the case of mRNA vaccines it could be pieces of genes that get turned into virus proteins inside of you), so it's not triggering the exact same response that the real pathogen would. And really, one exposure of a real infection is often not enough to develop true immunity in the first place... so like, you can get away with a single flu shot every year because it's riding the coattails of all of the other flu exposures you've had over your life.

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