MichaelApproved

The point being made is to pick your battles.

The author’s point is that, even if you are correct 100% of the time, fighting every battle is toxic to yourself and everyone around you.

They are saying to look past the fact that you might be right and consider that it’s not worth the effort anyway.

Now, I will attempt to put down my phone and not respond to any replies I get to the contrary.

Sweating intensifies…

Yeah, that's a great program. I used it many years ago when I was creating websites with .NET and SQL Server.

One of the programs I enjoyed writing the most with VB6 was a telephony capable IM program. Over dial up!

The IM portion was simple logic but the real-time voice was a challenge back then because audio compression was in its infancy. The few real-time compression libraries that existed were expensive to license and some even required royalties. Way out of my league.

At the same time, writing a compression algorithm myself was beyond my abilities. There weren't any VHS courses on that topic yet haha.

My solution was to use the recording control that came with VB6. I couldn't set the audio bitrate with that control but, if I had the recorder append the recording to an existing file, it would use the bitrate defined in that existing file.

So I created a teeny tiny wave file with 0 seconds of audio, included it with the program binary, and used a copy of it to seed & set the bitrate of each conversation.

Since they weren't compressed, the file integrity was very forgiving. I was able to pull out a chunk of data from anywhere in the audio file, put it into its own file, and it would play the extracted chunk of audio just fine.

So, that's what I did. I used the VB6 recording control with my low bitrate seed file to record their voice, had my code grab 1 second chunks of audio from that file, "stream" it to the other end of the line, write the data to disk, and use another VB6 control to play it for the recipient.

Surprisingly, the sound wasn't choppy at all. The audio quality was low, since the bitrate was in the low dozens but the conveyer belt of 1 second wave files being played back to back to back was not noticeable at all.

Ended up selling a bunch of copies.

Fun times =D

I was 17 when VB6 came out, working at a local computer store, and getting into programming but couldn't afford $500 to by the pro edition.

One day, I happened to read an article that said they were given a free copy of VB6 to review for the magazine.

My 17yo mind was blown! Hundreds of dollars worth of software given away for free? Just for writing an article?! I could do that!

Having nothing to lose, I called Microsoft's PR department and requested a copy. Told them I published a newsletter about computers and was based in Queens, NY. Their only question? Where should they send the software lol

It was literally that easy. A single phone call with zero verification about me, my newsletter, and my so-called publishing company.

And it was Enterprise edition which retailed for over $1,000. For little 17yo me!

Naturally, I kept calling for more software. Office, Windows 98/NT, Encarta... you name it.

I even started calling other companies and published a single edition of the newsletter, in case anyone asked for a copy but no one ever did. All they wanted to know was where they should send the software.

One of my favorite free items was course on VB which came on 6 VHS cassettes. The lessons I learned from those tapes built the foundation of my programming carrier.

Of course, older me understands the economics of sending people a few bits of plastic & paper in exchange for press coverage but the joy I felt getting that software in the mail still hasn't left my mind.

Good times =D

This sounds like bad advice and would result in blocking google and other major ESPs.

I occasionally get spam from people who took the time to create gmail accounts. Based on this advice, the honey pot email address would get spam from a Gmail account and your script would block Gmail servers.

I used to play A LOT at low and high levels.

At low levels, playing is ABC simple and mostly about following basic strategy for starting hands and pot adds for chasing. Don’t get fancy and keep your temperament steady and you’ll win.

To a slight degree, you can do better with reading players and identifying them in broad ways (wild, conservative, confused, etc.) but don’t let that allow you to get fancy. Stick to the basic fundamental strategy for hands, position, and pot odds to crush lower level games.

I think the nuance is that OP is charging for hardware , software, and service (firmware customization and support).

With regards to the software, it is open source but OP is only providing the code to customers who receive the end product. In part, OP is acting as a distributor of the software and is charging a fee for that distribution.

If anyone else gets their hands on that software, they can choose to become a distributor and make it publicly available. It’s their freedom to do so.

A overly simple way to look at is is that OP is choosing (as a small part of their business) to charge for the distribution of the source code but not the source itself.

In reality, it’s unlikely that OP will have a customer who only wants the source code and is willing to pay a fee for the distribution of it. Their customers are coming to them for the service and support.

I’m curious, what’s an example of a “neo bank” that you say doesn’t offer bill pay? I’m sure they exist, just wondering who they are.

Bill pay sends a bank check which is covered by the immediate withdrawal of funds from the customer’s account. In most cases, the customer would be fine with that or even prefer it, to ensure they don’t accidentally bounce a check.

However, I’m wondering if another customer base can be someone who has bank bill pay but wants to float the funds until the check is cashed. Maybe they don’t have the actual funds yet but want to write a check against funds they expect to have soon (risky but people do it).

Do you restrict writing checks that are for an amount greater than the current account balance?

Lastly, I’m wondering how you handle deliberate check fraud. Victims will try to sue all associated parties. How does your liability work in those cases?

Nitpick on your nitpick: It’s possible for something to be small, relative to something that is already considered small.

Things that are considered small can still have variations in the extent of their smallness.

If that’s true then you’re right but I don’t know if that’s true.

> there's no way to be sure that every second of GPS-tagged video shot by a DJI drone isn't going into a giant server farm owned by the Chinese intelligence service.

-GP

> The point GP is making is that DJI does not indiscriminately upload every video.

-You

That seems to be exactly what GP is claiming could be happening.

They were concerned about “every second of video” which would fit the definition of “indescribably”.

I did. Thanks!