iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

iiinova is part of the Atmosphere — an open, public network where you own your identity.

Carl C

@raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy

54 followers 0 following 1.5K posts

50-something potter, knitter, maker, programmer, tabletop gamer, video gamer, dad. Jack-of-all-trades. South New Jersey, US he/him [bridged from fedi.raventhemaker.com/@raven on the fediverse by fed.brid.gy ]

Posts Replies Media

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 45m

I have a Honeywell air filter system on my HVAC (came with the house) that takes _huge_ filters... 16x25x5, MERV 11 filter rating. They only have to be changed every 6 months, which is good, because even third-party ones are about $30 each. Five-inch thick filters. Damn. It's really surprising […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 53m

Welp, it got down to 60 in the house last night... time for my bi-annual filter change and turning on the heat.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 23h

[ph, cold, gross] There is nothing quite like having a cold and being in that "productive cough" stage, having a coughing fit and bringing up a huge bunch of phlegm... and that giant feeling of "oh, that feels so much better."

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

Wondering if this bag of Jolly Ranchers just has an usual number of Blue Raspberry, or if someone keeps throwing them back in the top of the bag. I do that with Watermelon, but other people in the house like Watermelon. Nobody likes the Blue, though I'll eat them. So here I am with a Blue, when […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

@kyonshi An album worthy of a listen now and then. Rumours was really their peak, when they were dealing with all the strained relationships... there's so much emotion in that album. The next suffered from trying to be too avant garde. Then we get into drug abuse affecting things. They still […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

[ph+/- cold recovery] Slept poorly night before because my wife's cough kept her awake and kept waking me up when I'd doze off. Put in ear plugs last night, slept 9.5 hours only waking up once (I think) to turn over. I wish I felt better than I do, but not being short on sleep is a start […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

I love how the gas company raises prices beyond what the market can bear, that a new governor runs in part on lowering outrageous utility bills, signing some kind of utility cost order on the podium immediately after swearing in... And the gas company months later lowers prices by 5% and sells […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

@silver.phoenyx.net I always get a wheeze in my throat when I have a cold.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026

@silver.phoenyx.net You're creating art!

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026

Employee has three laptops in a row develop charging issues: "It keeps sending me used, broken laptops." My brother in tech, have you considered that your remote town in India might have power stability problems and the charging problem is _in the house_? Being in remote India, it takes like a […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

My ex- co-manager, laid off Dec of 2024, has been unemployed this whole time, and despite saying he wouldn't come back, is interviewing for another a department. I would have a hell of a time justifying not hiring a guy who was unfairly laid off, knowing he was unemployed for nearly 2 years.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

People turning their heat on today, we're turning the AC back on. :( Got up to 85 in my office yesterday and I regret we didn't turn it on earlier in the day.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

@RxBrad I got a Bambu A1-mini 3d printer and discovered that its built-in webcam can could see my monitor. It no longer faces my monitor.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

I use very high saline (5% sodium chloride) drops in the morning for a corneal condition.... and my eyelashes are almost non-existent. Stupid salt dries in them and breaks them off.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

@RxBrad Think about what your dog _does_ do.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

With tracking saying my handpan left a FedEx facility up near New York this morning and nothing else, I totally did not expect it when it arrived today. Alas, I have no energy or desire to play it. This cold is kicking my butt.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

Oh, yes... handpan flight from China landed yesterday, it's cleared customs and it headed to USPS this morning. 🎉 Looking forward to watching lesson videos with an actual instrument in my lap.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

[ph-, nuisance] I have a cold. I am not happy. At least it's not covid.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

Plane ride! It's happening! > CHINA, Flight has taken off

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

[AI gripe] It's getting to that point where if I stopped using every tool I've depended on for the last decade because they added some AI feature, I would have no tools left to use. :(

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

> SHENZHEN, Departed Facility in China My handpan is going on a boat ride!

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

I still stand that ceramic tile on a kitchen floor is just dumb. Kitchen floors should be a soft, bouncy material, that large glass measuring cups don't shatter on. This message brought to you by 20 minutes of combing the floor with a flashlight, looking for tiny bits... finding shards 3 feet […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

Sending email to our corporate Microsoft email platform from Thunderbird is criminally slow. Like, "go post to fedi while I wait for the mail to send" slow.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

@RxBrad It's so weird that we've normalized the flu vax, but for some reason COVID's just supposed to go away and we don't need to worry about that one anymore.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

Picking a gutter cleaner by seeing someone cleaning the neighbor's gutters putting his ladder into his truck and asking him if he can clean my gutters. Picked my lawn guy the same way.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

It occurs to me that my new Indian boss may have never had non-Indian reports before. And I'm not sure he's ever managed manages before either. That may be why he keeps doing it wrong.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

@kyonshi We do about three, in addition to dinner and conversation. I don't have much more than that. But really, how much it takes out of me as GM depends a lot on how invested they are... the more distracted or uninterested they are, the more work it is for me.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

I can't believe my Polish employees have to have mandatory periodic physicals, otherwise they get put on unpaid medical leave as "unfit for work" until they have the physical done. _Office workers_. It's so weird.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

I love the naivete of employees, thinking that signing US$12B in contracts is going to translate to larger raises. My brother in tech, hell no... it means hiring more people, keeping our operating margin under 30%, and putting more bonuses in executive pockets. These contracts just means more […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

@kyonshi I've been frustrated by running a Wednesday night game. I'm just mentally worn out at the end of the work day. But one of the players works on the weekend, so I'm accommodating their schedule.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

I got a tracking number!!! The package hasn't been received by the carrier yet, and it's coming from China (I expected that), so it'll still be a week or so. But this means they've done the final tuning, inspection and boxing. Now I can quit reloading the page multiple times a day to see if it […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

I find this annoying in part because my last two directors rescheduled almost _every_ 1:1. It'd be on the calendar for 9am every Wednesday, and I could almost count on it _not_ happening at that time.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

Me to new director: I don't like it when my boss reschedules our 1:1s all the time to make room for other meetings. I find it disrespectful and it sends the signal that I am not that important. New director: I understand that. First event in the series of newly scheduled 1:1s: director […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

I find it weirdly... discriminatory? that HR knows my start date based on when I started working for Linode, before Akamai acquired us. But all ex-Linode employees start date displayed to others in the directory is the acquisition date. So to others I look like I started in 2022, when I started […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

@tj Recruit a new UI/UX person, they feel like they aren't doing their job if they don't change something. 🙄

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

Ugh. Someone talking about how long they've been at the company, and I realized I've spent 20% of my life working here. Now I'm thinking about how much of our lives are spent working and it's just depressing.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

Lovely, new firefox has put round borders the active tab, taking up even more tab realestate, so I get a _single letter_ showing me the name of the active tab now. (Yes, I have too many tabs open at all times, despite using tab groups.) I do like how it's more visible. But I just wish apps […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

(This brought to you by the changes in service agreement, where they moved meetup under a different division, but billing comes from a separate division. That's always good.)

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

meetup.com was really awesome until they went all corporate. Now they're owned by... "Bending Spoons S.p.A. is an Italian technology conglomerate founded in 2013. Based in Milan, the company acquires products (such as Airtable, AOL, Eventbrite, and Vimeo) with existing product‑market fit and […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

I kept complaining about the $30 copay for every session of my wife's physical therapy after knee surgeries. I didn't think we were supposed to have a copay. Got a refund check for $720 today.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

I should finish Baldur's Gate 3, but how many other games am I going to have to uninstall to make room?

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

@kyonshi When am interviewee asks how to improve their Linux skills, I often recommend LFS. Builds a good understanding of how it's put together at a low level.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

@kyonshi I remember compiling new Perl versions on my workstation at work in the mid-90s. Start the compile and go for a walk, because that single-core machine wasn't good for anything else for the next 20+ minutes.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

Did Jenny and that singer hook up, or did she change her number? #DeepThoughtsASongOrLimerick #HashTagGames

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

@silver.phoenyx.net I kind of melted.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Why does a person have to tell the computer the exact drink order even in their private suite? Why "coffee, Jamaican blend, double strong, double sweet" and not "my coffee"?

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Star Trek. Why do they have to tell the computer what the stardate is when they record a log? Doesn't the computer know? Why do they always give precise navigation headings, off the top of their heads apparently, instead of desired destination? They had to have gotten the heading from the […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

[dentist] When you really start looking into root canal treatment, and how there can be a variable number of roots, a variable number of _canals_ in a root, and that the canals can curve a lot, the whole idea of root canal treatment is kind of whack! The endodontist is trying to negotiate a […]

fedi.raventhemaker.com

Original post on fedi.raventhemaker.com

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Lyft has updated their New Jersey policy about suing them in the event that a Lyft driver was uninsured. They keep putting "accident" in quotes, like they don't want to acknowledge that an accident might even be real.

Carl C @raven.fedi.raventhemaker.com.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

@silver.phoenyx.net You don't think the co-founder of Megadeth is interested in what you have to say?