orpheline

To state that some relief agencies are - I'd say success-driven rather than profit-driven - is not an attack on the people in direct contact with, and assisting, victims. There is an unavoidable gap between volunteers at the forefront of relief efforts, and the people running the agency.

Like any other organization, relief agencies need funding, they need support from local government, they need positive publicity if they're to continue. The people doing those jobs are focused on those results, not the work those in the field are doing.

You asked for an example. About 20 years ago, my colleagues' three-year-old daughter was kidnapped from in front of her apartment house. She was a sweet, blue-eyed, blonde-haired child, and her search became a huge media frenzy: non-stop reporting as police followed lead after lead.

She started working with a local branch of a national missing children's organization. At her first meeting, the director told her that her daughter' disappearance was "the best thing that has happened to them" because the publicity pulled in so many donations.

He wasn't a bad person, or incident to get daughter; but his role was making the agency successful, and he evaluated things from that standpoint. I don't think that's at all unusual for these agencies.

He's not bringing the whole layout, but the skyscrapers are pretty big; having a dedicated room for the models plus tools (including glue and paint, both of which are fragrant) would make it a lot easier.

Yep! I like that the mouse is always in exactly the same place on my desk (s), so muscle memory always lands on it (especially useful in my home office, because the keyboard tray doesn't have much room to move a traditional mouse.

My mice have thumb trackballs: my fingers stay on the mouse buttons while I use my thumb to scroll, so I don't need to lift them to move the mouse pointer.

Reading the article wasn't disturbing?

FWIW I assumed from the title that he hadn't killed himself; if he had, the title certainly would have stated it.

> Ok, you drilled open a smart lock. Is the drill able to be positioned in such a manner when the lock is installed on a door?

He drilled it from the front; the face is off in the picture where he's opening the latch with the screwdriver to better show where the mechanism is.

I use a MBP at work and an XPS 13 at home and much prefer the latter - Ubuntu with a Plasma desktop makes for a crazy configurable UI.

Interesting. I use a MBP for work, and hate that Finder intermixes directories and files. I much prefer having directories sorted separately: it makes it easier to drill down through a hierarchy of all the directories are grouped together...

Many thanks!

I'm both surprised and skeptical. It makes me wonder whether there's a larger story, now lost... Perhaps the archetypal occurrence was someone famously humorless, and their outburst was forever burned into the minds of those present. Or perhaps the first instance was on the estate of a noble who thought it funny and insisted everyone else find it funny, too...

I know the rest of these, but Buddies is a new one; to whom does it refer?

Tangential question I don't think anyone here can answer: what did the Times mean by 'put her intelligence background to work'?

Does that mean her training suggested a possible thing she should check? Or does it mean she somehow used her position or contacts within the intelligence community to get information which would not otherwise be provided?

I've never asked my bank for this type of information; I've no idea whether or not a bank would provide it (although it seems a reasonable request)... But if she used her official position to get information she would not otherwise be provided, that's a pretty clear ethics violation.

I'm not throwing stones here;I just wish the Times quote was clearer.

Punic refers to the people. Carthage was the name of their city, so they're also referred to as Carthaginians (see also: New Yorkers, Londoners, Dubliners, Parisians, etc.).