Author Archives: David K.

Anthem Sucks, Health Insurance Will Get Socialized, Water is Wet

Once again, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield has denied me a prescription. It’s like the 4th time in the past couple of years. I spend $10,000/year on all the insurance I can get, while my company pays the other $20K of … Continue reading

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Wonka review: Willy was never meant to be the hero – Polygon

As a prequel to the ’71 movie — and specifically not an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book, for rights reasons — Wonka uses a healthy serving of musical numbers to tell the tale of how and why its quirky chocolatier … Continue reading

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Should Retired Ministers Get a Pension from the Church?

Twenty three years ago, I had a pension with Arvin. They got “bought” by Meritor. After a couple years, they sent out an email that basically said that the pension fund was “theirs” now, and they were under no obligation … Continue reading

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SA Retro Keycaps, Ordered

After literally about 10 years of lusting after these, I finally pulled the trigger. I don’t know when they’ll get made and arrive, but I feel that they will have been worth the wait. But… ouch.

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Secretive White House Surveillance Program Gives Cops Access to Trillions of US Phone Records | WIRED

According to the letter, a surveillance program now known as Data Analytical Services (DAS) has for more than a decade allowed federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to mine the details of Americans’ calls, analyzing the phone records of … Continue reading

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Why do people use VBA?

Why do people use VBA? In order to answer this question, we must first look at another question – who actually uses VBA in the first place? In 2021 I ran a poll on /r/vba where I asked redditors why … Continue reading

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The Joy of Coding

I’m writing a program to read a large JSON file to insert tens of thousands of rows of data into a graph DB using PySpark, but the development loop still evokes the same joy and magic as when I was … Continue reading

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Concerns over Cryptocurrency Mining and the Environment

When BitCoin prices were spiking a year ago, people concerned with such things started pointing out that the energy required to perform all the mining could power a small country, and lamented the implied acceleration of the destruction of the … Continue reading

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Stealing Dolmens in Cyrodill

I’ve completely ignored achievements in Elder Scrolls Online up till now. There are so many, it’s overwhelming. But coming back to the game after over a year, I notice that I “already” have about half the “points” in the game, … Continue reading

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Tired Of Being Ripped Off By Monopolies, Cleveland Launches Ambitious Plan To Provide Citywide Dirt Cheap Broadband | Techdirt

On the other hand, they’ve convinced a company named SiFi Networks to build a $500 million open access fiber network at no cost to taxpayers. SiFi Networks will benefit from a tight relationship with the city, while making its money … Continue reading

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