Notices by 🇳🇴 Thor — backup account (thorthenorseman@octodon.social), page 92

@extropic His mother calls him THEODORE, not TED.

@extropic After some speculation, I have concluded that TED is the middle-aged British person who sometimes randomly turns up to interview the speakers after their talks.

One of the more neato things I ordered from eBay yesterday was this digital caliper. I've been wanting one for a little while, but I needed an excuse first. I've already got a laser (actually infrared) thermometer, a dB SPL meter and a lux meter, together with a 4 channel digital scope. I'm still very happy about finally owning a decent oscilloscope. It's an essential tool for debugging circuits.

There usually isn't much point in trying to track extremely cheap eBay packages from China, but I like to give it my best try...

I've had so many failures when it comes to promoting my stuff that I find it hard to even bother trying. I have this device that I think I could sell if the right people knew about it, but I'm not convinced that I can pull it off. I've never had much luck with pushing my creations before. It's really hard on your self-esteem when you're left with the feeling that nothing you create has any worth to people.

@Ricardus Please do. This is a design for a sort of "first customer". My roommate has agreed to pay for the device I'm building, so I want it to behave in an exemplary manner.

@copiedcopies @vilbi You know, a contract is only as good as your ability to enforce it. Enforcing it requires lawyers and comes at great expense.

@Glectonzo @bamfic An accidental one that I let pass.

@Ricardus If I was in a position to help, I'd be giving work to you and to @SuperFloppies and to every other talented person I know that has hit a rough spot at the moment. I have several contacts who are in such a position, but they aren't exactly lending a helping hand. They just give lip service and wish me good luck...

@Glectonzo @bamfic If this is rotten luck, I must be Donald Duck. Every single lucky break I've had is followed by a situation like this. What's good luck? I've never heard of it.

@vilbi Good advice for a person who can afford to say no...

@Ricardus It's not uncommon for an IT contractor to make 1000-1500 NOK. Of course, he pays his Polish electrician something like 250 per hour. That has to be black money. You can't live on that after taxes and VAT and what not, unless you live in a hole in the ground... which seems to be kind of what a lot of these workers from Eastern Europe are doing. They rent small dingy apartments.

@bamfic @Ricardus He might pay his bill if I can work him. I knows he pays other people.

@bamfic @Glectonzo I'll go bankrupt soon if I don't make money. I need like 40.000-60.000 NOK before the end of this month. One half of it to pay for tax for 2017, the other half to pay my monthly expenses and put food on the table. I'm have "fishing lines" out in several places but nothing's been biting.

@Ricardus Ah, but see, the problem is that I'm fucking desperate for work at this point.

@Ricardus So it just kind of stayed there and there's been occasional talk of reaching an agreement. He wants to know what my fee is for configuring a system for 2 buildings and 3 floors in each building. The equipment will run him about 13.000 NOK. The invoice he balked at was for ~8.000 NOK of work, hours I'd spent on the project so far. He objected to the hour fee which was 5-600 NOK. IMHO that's a low rate for a person who installs shit for you.

@Ricardus Computer network for his buildings. The tenants are complaining of slow Internet and bad WiFi. Fixing it has been underway for some time now, and he even got a quote for equipment, but the whole process kind of halted when I sent him an invoice for the work I had done so far and he refused to pay it. We hadn't agreed on a price in advance for some reason. He wants a price for the whole thing. I don't know how to estimate it...

@vilbi I should've quoted him a higher rate, frankly. One of the things he didn't like the last time was being invoiced for hours (still unpaid because we never resolved the dispute) instead of the whole package. The issue with a package price for me is that I don't know what he might pile on, and I probably won't put up much of a fight if he does add unrelated things to it underway. He's a sneaky one.

@Glectonzo I think he knows perfectly well why I charge what I charge. It's just that he plays stupid in order to get a lower price, and it's so fucking annoying and I want to slap him.