My GF is a ghost writer. The publisher has her write into files that are uploaded to a shared platform where editors and other creatives and execs tweak and move each chapter through several named states (represented by different folders), until it reaches "Final."

She gets paid per X words. Come the day before the deadline for payroll, they (sometimes, often its late) open up the payroll system, and she has to re-upload the Final chapter to a folder in that tracking system. Tonight (when they opened the system for her), she has to enter 130 chapters by 10am tomorrow.

It's not just moving a file. She has to download the Final chapter, select the text, copy/paste into the payroll tracking system, and then fix formatting that their silly system creates, like extra spaces, double quotes, etc. Each chapter can take minutes. These pasted chapters are then the final product. She has to stay up all night until its done, or she won't get paid on time.

I feel like she's being taken advantage of, doing admin work for free. This feels like someone else's job. Is this even compliant with labor laws? Is it legal to have her do 12hrs of gruelling repetitive labor to move her completed text like this? Her being paid is conditional on her entering this data.

I know hourly employees must be paid for hours worked, whether it was tracked or not, and tracking is an employer responsibility.

Edit: added more words

> Georgia State Police officers stopped Amir Meshal, a professional truck driver, for a minor traffic infraction. During the stop, the officers received notice that Meshal was on the FBI’s No Fly List. Despite clear language on the notice instructing the officers not to detain Meshal based on his presence on the list, they handcuffed him and placed him in the back of a patrol car while they sought and waited for guidance from the FBI. While they waited, the officers searched the inside of Meshal’s truck and questioned him about his religion and his international travel. After determining that his truck was free of contraband and receiving the all-clear from the FBI, the officers released Meshal with a warning citation for the original infraction. He was detained for 91 minutes in total.

> When [Officer] Janufka returned to the patrol car to tell Meshal that “narcotics- and explosives detecting canine teams were on their way,” Meshal asked “if he was being detained because he is on a watchlist.” Janufka responded, “Exactly. So, you know what’s going on?” Meshal then “explained that he had been detained in 2007 in Somalia by Kenyan authorities working with federal law enforcement agencies, and that he ended up on the No Fly List after refusing the FBI’s requests to work as an informant.” Janufka responded, “This is over my head. I’m getting instructions on what to do.”

> The MRI machine’s magnetic force then allegedly sucked his rifle across the room, pinning it against the machine…An officer then allegedly pulled a sealed emergency release button that shut the MRI machine down, deactivating it, evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process. The officer then grabbed his rifle and left the room, leaving behind a magazine filled with bullets on the office floor, according to the lawsuit.

> Despite the TARGET PREMISES’ legitimate business certification, OFFICER FRANCO, as a natural next step, contacted LAPD’s Gang and Narcotics Division Cannabis Support Unit. OFFICER FRANCO learned that the TARGET PREMISES, a medical diagnostic center, does not have a license to cultivate cannabis, a finding he promptly labeled a “violation of the California Health and Safety Code.”

> Based on his 15 years as an LAPD officer and twelve hours of narcotics training, and based upon the presence of security cameras (typical of any reasonable commercial business), tinted windows (a reasonable practice for any medical facility concerned with patient privacy), high power usage (as any diagnostic facility), the alleged odor of cannabis plants (in a busy shopping plaza with no prior reports), the absence of a cultivation permit (which no diagnostic healthcare facility would possess), and the presence of two men wearing identical company branded shirts (unexpected of individuals involved in illegal cultivation), OFFICER FRANCO found probable cause for cannabis cultivation at the TARGET PREMISES.

The video makes it disturbingly clear that the kitchen floor, onto which Killian was ordering Ramirez and Gonzales to lie down, was covered by this point in their dogs’ blood.

> If a dearth of officers results in higher crime rates, Phoenix residents need to remember cops walked away from the job because they didn’t want to do if it required respecting constitutional rights. And if the city has trouble attracting replacements, that says far more about the people attracted to law enforcement careers than the specifics of the job itself.

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/21412303

> Water shed map of the Great Lakes

Edit: to be clear, I mean the original post. Thx for anyone checking

The Fortnite v30.20 patch has arrived, introducing a brand new mode called Reload. With a smaller map featuring classic locations and weapons, Reload is merging new and old to give players a fresh experience.

Below, you'll find everything you need to know about Fortnite's v30.20 update, including details of Reload mode and the unvaulted weapons returning to the loot pool.

Try a New Map in Fortnite Reload Mode

Starting with the v30.20 patch, a new experience called Fortnite Reload will be added to the game. This Squad-based mode features 40 players per match, with classic locations like Tilted Towers, and Retail Row returning on a new, smaller map.

Unlike regular Battle Royale matches, you'll automatically reboot when eliminated in Reload, as long as one of your teammates remains alive. Reboot timers start at 30 seconds, but this can be reduced if your remaining teammates eliminate other players.

There will also be a selection of classic weapons including the Revolver, the OG Heavy Shotgun, the Infantry Rifle, and the Rocket Launcher to add to your loadout in this new mode.

Fortnite Reload goes live on Saturday, June 22, 2024, at 2 PM ET.

Earn Free Rewards With Fortnite Reload Quests

To celebrate the arrival of Fortnite Reload, a new set of challenges has arrived. These introductory quests are designed to get you stuck into Reload mode, with each one offering 20,000 XP when finished.

There are also free rewards to unlock, including the Digital Dogfight Contrail for completing three quests, the Pool Cubes Wrap for completing six quests, and the Nana Bath Back Bling for completing nine quests. Score a Victory Royale in Fortnite Reloaded, and you'll get the Rezzbrella Glider.

More Weapons Have Been Unvaulted

Over in regular Battle Royale mode, Remote Explosives and the Heavy Impact Sniper Rifle have been added back to the loot pool.

You can purchase Remote Explosives from the NPCs Bravo Leader, Brite Raider, Drakon Steel Rider, and Vengeance Jones for 300 Gold Bars. You can purchase a Heavy Impact Sniper Rifle from the NPCs Artemis and Hope for 300 Gold Bars.

Jack Sparrow Arrives in Pirates of the Caribbean Crossover

The latest crossover to arrive in Fortnite as part of the v30.20 patch is Disney's popular movie franchise Pirates of the Caribbean. The **Cursed Sails Pass is available to purchase for 1,000 V-Bucks **and features a Captain Jack Sparrow skin as well as matching cosmetics.

Shortly after the Fortnite v30.20 patch went live, the Cursed Sails Pass was removed from the Item Shop. It's currently unclear when it will return.

I haven't run windows since 2019. However I need to boot my old drive to grab some data. I really need to make sure this system doesn't update any windows components, but I'll need it to have internet access for a portion of the time.

On a different system, I used to have two reg keys that I would run to disable or enable updates when I found that disabling the services only worked until the watchdog would re enable them. Those resulted in updates saying something was wrong, which is perfect by me.

Now that web searches for stuff like this are all AI-gen'd SEO BS, can anyone tell me or point me to a reliable resource for truly disabling updates on Win 10?

PS - Bonus points if Anyone can link me to the page I used a few years back that had all sorts of privacy enhancing and telemetry disabling option on the left side and would create a reg file for applying those changes on the right. It might have been a purple theme, I forget.

Edit: it may also have been a "services" command that fully disabled services from CLI where the GUI says access denied. I forget.

Edit 2: I got the updates services disabled via registry. Thanks to those who refreshed my old Windows admin memory. I dumped Windows on my personal systems years ago, and haven't had to think about this for a while. It's a shame when the operating system changes to this model of SaaS where they call all the shots. I want security updates, but not bleeding edge drivers, candy crush, "feature enhancements", random unexpected reboots, etc. I miss when the update feature didn't assume nobody in the world could handle manual updates. You know, like sudo apt-get update.

> "Pursuant to Ohio law, Plaintiffs drafted their amendment and summary, collected their one thousand qualified supporting signatures, and filed it with the Ohio Attorney General, David Yost. On at least six occasions, Yost declined to certify Plaintiffs’ summary."

> Tellingly, the AG’s office invoked sovereign immunity as another option to escape this lawsuit and the proposed injunction. Sovereign immunity is one of several immunities the ballot measure hopes to eradicate. If the AG detected any irony when raising this immunity, it certainly didn’t stop him from invoking it.

> Jong, currently a customer/technical training instructor on Apple's global developer relations/app review team, said that she only became aware of a stark pay disparity by chance.

> "One day, I saw a W-2 left on the office printer," Jong said. "It belonged to my male colleague, who has the same job position. I noticed that he was being paid almost $10,000 more than me, even though we performed substantially similar work. This revelation made me feel terrible."

[...]

> According to the complaint, several of Apple's policies favoring men have further entrenched the alleged pay gap. That includes Apple's performance evaluation system, which women suing alleged rewarded men in categories such as teamwork and leadership but "penalized" women for excelling in those areas.

> Apple also seemingly has "a policy or practice of selecting individuals who have 'talent' and compensating those persons more highly than other employees." But neither Jong nor Salgado—although both have held various leadership roles—were ever designated as "talent" deserving of a pay increase, the lawsuit said. They've alleged that this Apple policy is biased against women, more often rewarding male "talent" while female talent goes unacknowledged.

> "More men are identified as having talent," the complaint said.

> Separately, Jong has also alleged that Apple subjected her to a hostile work environment after a senior member of her team, Blaine Weilert, sexually harassed her. After she complained, Apple investigated and Weilert reportedly admitted to touching her "in a sexually suggestive manner without her consent," the complaint said. Apple then disciplined Weilert but ultimately would not allow Jong to escape the hostile work environment, requiring that she work with Weilert on different projects. Apple later promoted Weilert.

> As a result of Weilert's promotion, the complaint said that Apple placed Weilert in a desk "sitting adjacent" to Jong's in Apple’s offices. Following a request to move her desk, a manager allegedly "questioned" Jong's "willingness to perform her job and collaborate" with Weilert, advising that she be “professional, respectful, and collaborative,” rather than honoring her request for a non-hostile workplace.

> As a result of Weilert's promotion, the complaint said that Apple placed Weilert in a desk "sitting adjacent" to Jong's in Apple’s offices. Following a request to move her desk, a manager allegedly "questioned" Jong's "willingness to perform her job and collaborate" with Weilert, advising that she be “professional, respectful, and collaborative,” rather than honoring her request for a non-hostile workplace.

Wasn't doing that a few days ago as far as I noticed...

> The bankrupt casual restaurant chain didn’t fail because of Endless Shrimp. Its problems date back to monopolist seafood conglomerates and a private equity play.

> The company abruptly shuttered roughly 50 of its locations across the country last week without informing employees, who showed up to work only to find signs announcing the closures, which may be a potential labor law violation. According to staff complaints, they only later received notice that they’d be laid off or transferred to the remaining stores, in some cases many miles away.

A good read for anyone who wants the truth about the fail upward brunch lords who play with the lives of their workers for high fives and walk away with billions while the companies they put on their resumes get stacked with debt and crumble under the weight.

> According to court records, detectives told Perez that his father was dead, that they had recovered his body and it now “wore a toe tag at the morgue.” They said they had evidence that Perez killed his father and that he should just admit it, records show.

> Perez insisted he didn’t remember killing anyone, but detectives allegedly told him that the human mind often tries to suppress troubling memories.

> At one point during the interrogation, the investigators even threatened to have his pet Labrador Retriever, Margosha, euthanized as a stray, and brought the dog into the room so he could say goodbye. “OK? Your dog’s now gone, forget about it,” said an investigator.

Court Decision (PDF)

When I use yt-dlp -x to grab audio only, the resulting opus files are often troublesome to play back in strawberry, stopping unexpectedly. They also sometimes don't index at all, and metadata including embedded cover art don't seem to stick.

So, since most of my library is already vorbis in OGG files, I have been converting the files, but my inexperience with audio codecs and YouTube audio formats in general is shining through. I use 320kbps, but the resulting files are typically about twice the size afterward. I'm thinking I'm probably wasting space for no reason.

What is a comparable bitrate for the OGG files for a given bitrate opus source file?

EDIT: Here is my conversion script find ./ -iname "*.opus" | parallel --load 0.9 ffmpeg -i {} -c:a libvorbis -b:a 320k "{.}.ogg"

EDIT2: Here is the updated version with a suggestion from @[email protected] find ./ -iname "*.opus" | parallel --load 0.9 ffmpeg -i {} -c:a libvorbis -q:a 6 "{.}.ogg" which results in only slightly larger files (5.4MB > 7.2MB).

Received notice of a change to the service in my inbox today. Seems icky to me.

> Devices in the network use Bluetooth to scan for nearby items. If other devices detect your items, they’ll securely send the locations where the items were detected to Find My Device. Your Android devices will do the same to help others find their offline items when detected nearby

> Your devices’ locations will be encrypted using the PIN, pattern, or password for your Android devices. They can only be seen by you and those you share your devices with in Find My Device. They will not be visible to Google or used for other purposes.

ETA: here's the link to opt out: opt out of the network

Stats Age - ~10yrs Weight - 10lbs Claws - present and trimmed twice monthly Disposition - Alpha male, but gets scared of his 7lbs sister when predator mode is activated Favorite food - spicy chip crumbs Intelligence on 1 to 10 - 6 (kind of derpy but knows about twenty words and does tricks for food)

History Charlie was a wild feral trapped in 2017 by a shelter in Maine as part of a spay/neuter program (hence the missing ear tip). When they prepared to release him to the wild again, he had come down with a respiratory infection, and had to be treated for over a month. During that time, he became docile toward some people, so they decided to try to adopt him. They named him Banana. Prospective parents didn't like him because he was indifferent at best or hissing and growling at worst. He also didn't get along with other cats. We're suckers for cats with hard stories, so we scooped him up and brought him home as our only cat (for a time), where he quickly became my buddy. He was 13 pounds when we brought him home, but he's a much more lithe weight now. He lives with a 7 year old female tabby who is tiny and forever kitten. She and Charlie play a lot, and no matter how much he bullies her, she always gets right back in his face and doesn't back down. When he can't find her, he cries; not from loneliness, but fear of where her tiny sharp teeth will come out of hiding from.

I'll be sharing fun pictures of Charlie and his sister from time to time. Enjoy your weekend, Lemmy!

When using qBitTorrent to download Linux ISOs, I am seeing that the total size of the download is one thing, then the total downloaded when complete exceeds (sometimes by almost double) that size.

For example: Size Downloaded 900MB 1.56GB 1.6GB 1.91GB Why is that thing?