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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • In October the Gaza Health Ministry claimed 471 people were killed by an Israeli missile strike on a hospital. Widespread credible (independent) evidence proves a small Hamas rocket missfired and hit a carpark near the hospital, causing relatively minor damage (there was a large fireball, but it was mostly rocket fuel - which is far less damaging than an explosive payload intended to kill).

    None of the credible evidence was able to put a number to the deaths in that accident but it’s highly improbable that 471 people were in the carpark. And it definitely wasn’t an Israeli rocket.

    In other words - Gaza’s health ministry is not a reliable source. Some of the things they report are probably accurate but they have been proven to be unreliable. Don’t trust anything they say unless it’s been backed by someone more reliable (in which case, you might as well refer to the other source instead).

    At best, the ministry failed verify facts (e.g. was a large missile even fired at all?) before reporting what happened. But I think that’s being too charitable. For example where did they get the 471 number from? I think they made it up. I don’t have proof but it’s the only believable explanation.

    Worse though - they haven’t retracted the claim. Mistakes are understandable… but failing to admit someone in your organisation made a mistake is unacceptable.



  • Yes there’s software for this, but I think you can keep it simpler than that.

    Just tell them to create a new spreadsheet every day (possibly by creating a copy of yesterday’s spreadsheet). Obviously name the files by date. With a new directory for each month.

    Also, it sounds like they don’t have good backups. Help them with that.



  • My advice is avoid tablets entirely. Even the best ones are not even remotely as good as paper.

    Lots of people recommending the Supernote A5 X… I haven’t tried it, but a quick search says it has “15-20ms” of latency. I have an iPad (which I don’t consider usable for notes*) and it has 7ms latency which is too high in my opinion.

    If you really must have your notes in digital form… try Whitelines paper notebooks. Their main feature is light grey paper with white lines, but more importantly they have subtle locator code on the four corners of the page, and Whitelines has a free phone app that uses those locator codes to perfectly sort out the perspective when you take a photo of the page to digitise it. That system works a lot better than regular edge detection other apps use, and also the white lines work better than grey or blue lines.

    Officeworks has Whitelines notebooks. They’re available in various sizes and the same price as any other premium notebook (not as cheap as the Officeworks house brand… but it’s also better paper than that brand).

    (* my iPad Mini is used as a portable web browser for situations where my phone is too small and my laptop is too big- which is a situation I find myself in regularly as part of my job… I have tired using it for notes and definitely don’t recommend it for that - a phone is definitely better than an iPad for note taking)



  • Those batteries in your photo are NiMH batteries… which discharge on their own at a fairly rapid rate even if you’re not using them at all. They’re also pretty big and heavy for the amount of power they provide (which, due to the self-discharge issue, is effectively a lot lower than the official number on the battery).

    I strongly recommend investing in devices that use 18650 batteries. They’re about the same size/weight as a AA, and they last much longer (both in terms of from full to flat and also the number of years (decades?) of use you’ll get from the battery.

    A lot of “proprietary” batteries are in fact a bunch of 18650 cells wired together.

    It’s worth investing in good ones - the quality varies significantly from brand to the next. With a good 18650 cell, you won’t be replacing it when the battery expires, you’ll be transferring it to a new gadget when the gadget is broken or so old that you decided to buy a new/better model.