Any oldies want to catch up?

[no one]

Hi, no one's here. God, I'll never get tired of this joke.

Dunno if anyone still recognize me, but I used to be a pretty active DCer round here early 2010ish, with a project or two on Fileplanet. I rediscovered the site while clearing out some old bookmarks, so I decided to pop by, see if there's still any familiar face around, and just shoot the breeze.

So what're you guys up to these days? Doesn't have to be LF-related. Hobbies, life, the "coof," b*tching about work/school, movies, etc. Anything goes (just no politics, coz we all know how fun that is).

As the OP, lemme go first:

I now work as a freelance translator while running a small indie publishing house on the side (though I very much wish for their positions to be reversed ). Surprisingly, all that time spent dicking around dat files was remarkably helpful. Thanks to my DCing experience, I managed to elbow-greased my way through setting up a pretty smooth system with spreadsheets, VBA macros, and AHK scripts. It cut out a bunch of hassles when it comes to terms researching, clearing tabs, gives me an interactive translation memory, an integrated proofread function, and many other quality-of-life improvements to my workflow without me having to shell out money for expensive software.

Ưhat about you guys? How has life been treating you?

[Ramond]

Hi, yeah I definitely remember you. Welcome back, even though LFE has mostly been inactive the past two years.

If you're interested, there's going to be a meetup on the IRC (#lfe) today in about 4 hours, 11am UTC. It pains me to say the occasion is a tragic one, but some more oldies are probably going to show up and talk about stuff and catch up.

[A-Man]

Haha, hey! Yup. You helped me back in the day!

Life's been great! I'm trying to get to doing physics for a living.

@Ramond: Oh no, what happened? Am I old enough to join? :P

[Ramond]

Yeah, it's open for everyone (even though it'd be really helpful if you're at least a member of the community).

[no one]

Hi, yeah I definitely remember you. Welcome back, even though LFE has mostly been inactive the past two years.

If you're interested, there's going to be a meetup on the IRC (#lfe) today in about 4 hours, 11am UTC. It pains me to say the occasion is a tragic one, but some more oldies are probably going to show up and talk about stuff and catch up.

Shoot, I have something to do around that time

Haha, hey! Yup. You helped me back in the day!

Life's been great! I'm trying to get to doing physics for a living.

Hmm, your name kinda escape me :P. Did we work on a project together?

[A-Man]

Ah, missed it =(.

@no one: I don't think so, no. Maybe we didn't have that many interactions is all!

[Silverthorn]

Welcome back! Happy to see older faces coming back here!

...Guess I'll have to share a bit myself now. After having finished my PhD in physics with a focus on (nonlinear) optics, I'm currently working as a system engineer for a relatively renowed microscopy manufacturer where I hunt down and fix issues within their portfolio. I must say that it does bear a bit resemblance to LF2-related programming which, for me at least, consisted mostly of figuring out why X is not working as intended getting it to work with minimal additional changes

[no one]

Welcome back! Happy to see older faces coming back here!

...Guess I'll have to share a bit myself now. After having finished my PhD in physics with a focus on (nonlinear) optics, I'm currently working as a system engineer for a relatively renowed microscopy manufacturer where I hunt down and fix issues within their portfolio. I must say that it does bear a bit resemblance to LF2-related programming which, for me at least, consisted mostly of figuring out why X is not working as intended getting it to work with minimal additional changes

Lol yeah, I know that feel. Funny how most stuff usually just boil down to chasing down the "why," be them getting the darn itr to work right or keeping high-tech microscopes from screwing up.

I imagine your job just can't be pared down to a few zoom calls. Was/is your work situation heavily affected by the whole pandemic thing?

[Silverthorn]

I imagine your job just can't be pared down to a few zoom calls. Was/is your work situation heavily affected by the whole pandemic thing?

It's affected in a way that most meetings are now organized via Teams instead of in person (which I, for the most part, enjoy; saves me the hassle of running from meeting room to meeting room inbetween meetings hoping I don't meet people on the way because they delay my arrival at the next meeting. Meeting meeting meeting).

Oh, also, the company allows us to work from home if the situation allows (so unless I have to tinker with microscopes and whatnot, I could write reports or join calls from home).

I'd say it hasn't hugely affected working conditions, save for the typical "weak a mask while you're not at your spot" and "reduce physical contact to a minimum".

How has it been for you ("you" as in "anybody reading this")?

[no one]

It's affected in a way that most meetings are now organized via Teams instead of in person (which I, for the most part, enjoy; saves me the hassle of running from meeting room to meeting room inbetween meetings hoping I don't meet people on the way because they delay my arrival at the next meeting. Meeting meeting meeting).

Every cloud has a silver thornlightning XD.

How has it been for you ("you" as in "anybody reading this")?

Bloody thing hit me in a weird way. Except for the occasional visits to the post office to send out contracts and whatnot, my work'd never required me to leave home, so I thought nothing would change.

Boy was I wrong.

What I didn't account for was my neighbors. All of them have kids, who had to stay home when schools closed down. The older kids got zoom lessons, so they weren't too bad. But there were a bunch of little ones who kept making a ruckus during work hours, and houses around here don't have the best sound proofing. I can't even relocate to a café because, well, lock down. Needless to say, progress was slowed. Thanks the Lord we opened back up.