The little Inn by the wayside

[eMTe]

A female bot got in love with my beautiful mind. This is the private message that I received today, on another forum.

"Hello,

My desire pleasure to write you after going through your profile i decided to ask friendship, By name is Suzan looking very beautful and having social idea and romantic love. i will like you to add online or write to me email yahoo Will look forward to hear from you. Thanks, Suzan"

My writing doesn't go for nothing!

[Railwaymodeler]

Sad part is, there's plenty out there that would fall for it.

[Chroelle]

So it seems my internet is now established, and spare time is beginning to pop up on a close to weekly basis. I am gonna sit down and do some work and in the meantime I will try to read through the MANY unread posts.
Hoping that everyone is ok, and that Scythe didn't melt on yesterdays recordbreaking warm day. Hottest in 11 years, and winds were nowhere to be found. I sweated my skin off, so I can only imagine what it did to him...

[eMTe]

winds were nowhere to be found.

Computer vent?

Great to see you back.

I am ok, however something happened to my left knee during one of the evening runs, so I had to take a short break from running and quit some hiking plans. It's ok now, however it's third summer in the row when this knee starts to ache, and it's also the same knee which I had inflamed a couple of years ago. So if it repeats next year again Im going to see the doctor.

On a happy note, during last days I completely ceased using sugar and butter, similarly to how I quit smoking. Instead of making big decisions I just found that my supplies run out and said to myself: ok, so maybe now? Anyway, kudos partially comes to gf which is another woman in my life who complains about my belly. Bleh.

[Scythe]

Hoping that everyone is ok, and that Scythe didn't melt on yesterdays recordbreaking warm day. Hottest in 11 years, and winds were nowhere to be found. I sweated my skin off, so I can only imagine what it did to him...

I was at work, and it sucked. Air conditioning saved my life.

[Railwaymodeler]

Twenty eight million dollars. That was the amount Maria and I were awarded between us back in February. Twenty eight million dollars, much of it coming from Illinois taxpayers, at a time when neither Pace nor the state could afford it. All that, and Pace still can't stop screwing up the most basic of tasks, or go a day without abusing or victimizing someone.

Good friend of mine that is a driver there got attacked by a passenger back in May. Pace gave him the sack today. The driver is in his 70s, and got viciously attacked by a passenger. He was heading to the crew car, after another driver relieved him for lunch break. Some random nutjob ran up behind my friend, dragged him to the ground, and beat the stuffing out of him, and tried to steal his wallet.

Pace management had my friend see a company doctor that day, who said he was fine, just a little scuffed up. He went to his own doctor the next day, who confirmed he had a severe concussion, and damage to the eyes, as well as some minor internal bleeding that was already not a major concern anymore. Just the concussion could have killed him!

He was finally cleared this past Friday by his doctor to go back to work. Came into the garage today and was handed a pink slip (Termination letter), and told that the company doctor had cleared him when it all happened, that he disobeyed company orders, and was fired. Lost his retirement pension and everything!

He's made it clear that he, now, is suing the company. One would think, that the clowns running that company, would have already figured out, that with the money that they paid Maria and I, as well as others who won a suit against Pace, they've already shelled out so much money, that equipping every garage with all new buses would have cost less. Now they are being sued again! Amazing the sheer idiots that work there and make these decisions. Even more amazing that when they were conceived, that the sperm cell that became these clowns, beat out a million others!

Maria and I have been talking to our fellow "Pace millionaires club" members, about a new member on his way, and that maybe we should all buy an island somewhere, call it "Nopaceistan" and all live there.

[eMTe]

I'd call it "Raillo's Island of Freeware" and turn it into a huge amusement park.

On another note:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!

[Tormuse]

Happy Birthday, Chroelle!

[Pater Alf]

Happy birthday, Chroelle!!!

And of course: Happy birthday, registrator-test!!!

[Railwaymodeler]

A very happy birthday to you, Chroelle!

Had a busy day, and almost forgot to wish a happy birthday!

[Chroelle]

Thanks guys.

I had a great one with the family. I woke up at 7.35 but since Tanja was making breakfast with kids and wanted to surprise meI had to wait until they finished everything up and came up and "woke me up" with a birthday song. Only problem - I woke up having to pee, and they didn't come up to wake me up until two hours later...
Tanja said that she wanted me to be able to sleep in.

I got some money as a giftcertificate to a home-improvement store, and a wall clock from Tanja,that I really liked.

I am glad to see that PAce are still jerks, so everyone can have a nice retirement-lawsuit from them. Sometimes makes me wish I worked for Pace.

[Zyx]

I looked at the friend network clusters as interpreted by Worlfram|Alpha from my Facebook data. It really got me quite teary eyed.

the antisocial graph

clusters.jpg (18.43 KiB) Viewed 12134 times

Starting from the islands from below, the left-most is from my exchange I did in university. The next one is this forum. The next from that, from my previous job. The last is from my job previous to that. On the top-right, a post-graduate course I did. Below that my current job. The red things in the middle are my ex-gf and her friends. The green-est group in the middle on the left is family and friends through my brother. Below, people I went to school with (from elementary school). These two are overlapping because my brother and I went to the same school and this is also the neighborhood where I grew up. Above, in yellow, are people who were in the same school but just from high school onwards and their friends (so that's why they're not linked to the people below).

Islands.

[eMTe]

I'm not familiar with this kind of graphs. What do they say and about what? Do these "islands" mean that you have many, but very separated, groups of friends who don't know about themselves?

[Zyx]

I'm not familiar with this kind of graphs. What do they say and about what? Do these "islands" mean that you have many, but very separated, groups of friends who don't know about themselves?

Clustering is a process where you take data points (here people) and group them by some property (here by minimizing the distance between people who know each other). The size of the dot represents, I guess, the amount of common friends. So, yes, this graph nice illustration of those separated groups of friends. It's actually quite neat, because it's just based on simpe math but the visualization makes a lot of sense. For example, the four bright green dots just outside of the otherwise tight group are my cousins. And the yellow-green outliers below were already outliers in the school =)

[eMTe]

Thx for explanation.

But I don't understand why did you call it "antisocial" graph. Probably graphs of majority of people in the world would look alike - everybody has family, co-workers, school friends, party/drinking friends, past boyfriends/girlfriends and all these people usually don't know each other. However, graphs would probably look different for some people, for example movie celebrities or Amazon tribe members. Would be very interesting to make millions of such graphs for people living in different cultures and draw conclusions.

[Zyx]

But I don't understand why did you call it "antisocial" graph.

As a joke, because Facebook calls those things "social graphs".

[Tormuse]

Hi all, I hope everyone's doing well!

Just wanted to post to say that I'm still alive, just busy. I'm back in college again this year, this time for practical nursing. Massage Therapy just didn't work out for me so well as a career, but I think this will be a lot more reliable and I'm excited to have the opportunity to make a fresh start.

Unfortunately, it's also a very busy course! I've got so much reading to do for school that I'm thinking I should give up visiting forums for a bit... I mean I haven't been that active anyway, but I'm saying I should probably even give up lurking too. I'll still be around, though, and PMs should still reach me.

I remember doing the same thing back in 2005 when I started the massage therapy program and I was a moderator on OG; (remember those days?) looking back, I'm amazed I stayed on the crew as long as I did with all the school work I had to do!

[Chroelle]

I remember. I guess we all get these slots of time in our lives where we cannot find the time to visit the forums. Mine is lurking all over my sparetime at the moment. I am finding it hard to get any online time, as there are so many things both at work, and at home that I need to tend to. But Tormuse you will be missed in your absence but dont be a stranger!

Just tried doing a grah myself - and found out that I a total 50-50 ratio regarding friends genders.

[JKSM]

Wow, interesting pattern formed by the graph - looks like a butterfly.

Tormuse, wish you all the best in your new course.

For me, everyday seem to be a rush to maximise time. Travelling to work each day takes about 1.5 hours each way. Leave home early morning. After coming home at night, finish dinner & shower, it's only left with a little time to go on facebook, read emails or watch TV, then it's already time for bed in order to wake up early the next day. Unfortunately at work, more than a year ago, sites like facebook, forums & video viewing sites were all ban. The only way to surf these restricted sites during office hours is through handphone However, the screen would be too small, difficult to surf.

[Tormuse]

Sounds like you need a new phone.

Thanks for the well wishes, and nice to see you again, JKSM!

EDIT: So, apparently, I suck at this "not lurking" thing. Nevertheless, I had to drop by to say Happy Birthday, eMTe!