Me calling T-Mobile to trying to explain to customer service that their DNS
server is returning a wrong NXDOMAIN for evanchen.cc.
Their reply: for my security, they can't file a ticket unless I have the primary
account holder with me.
; <<>> DiG 9.20.18 <<>> evanchen.cc @1.1.1.1
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 24770
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;evanchen.cc. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
evanchen.cc. 300 IN A 104.21.4.50
evanchen.cc. 300 IN A 172.67.131.172
;; Query time: 96 msec
;; SERVER: 1.1.1.1#53(1.1.1.1) (UDP)
;; WHEN: Sat Jan 31 08:44:39 EST 2026
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 72Today's off-topic browsing:
Target pregnancy prediction scores for target advertising.
(From troyhunt.com.)
Excerpts:
As Pole’s computers crawled through the data, he was able to identify about 25 products that, when analyzed together, allowed him to assign each shopper a “pregnancy prediction” score. More important, he could also estimate her due date to within a small window, so Target could send coupons timed to very specific stages of her pregnancy.
About a year after Pole created his pregnancy-prediction model, a man walked into a Target outside Minneapolis and demanded to see the manager. He was clutching coupons that had been sent to his daughter, and he was angry, according to an employee who participated in the conversation.
“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”
[Later] on the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”
what do you do when the DNS doesn't work? just, like, pray?
It seems like today is one of those "my airpod fell out of my ear into a storm drain" kind of days. Fortunately my Uber driver lent me a spare windshield wiper that I was able to use to retrieve it.
I feel like when a business website throws HTTP 500, you should get the right to skip to the front of the customer support queue.
First time I encountered the "counter too large" error. I had been numbering subsections in my diary with letters, like 1A, 1B, 1C, ..., and I had a diary entry so long it was 29 subsections.
how did I live without mango before I'm so glad I don't have to deal with other people's unwrapped lines ever again
"If you look inside good software, you find that parts no one is ever supposed to see are beautiful too."
Actually it still spooks me that growing up, I never noticed the English expression "long time no see" does not follow English grammar at all.
Maybe teaching an intro class is actually just being like a tour guide.
Wow. I scheduled a meeting four days ago and straight up completely forgot about it today (having also apparently forgotten to put it in my Calendar). I don't remember the last time I just missed a meeting like that.
Mystery Hunt over, back to real life 🥲
Setting homework and exams reminds me a lot of game design, actually. I wonder if other teachers would agree?
Two hours of surfing r/Teachers later I think I might want to seriously
consider moving out of the United States if the quality of education is as bad
as people on Reddit are making it sound.
I somehow stumbled upon r/Teachers and it ruined my day.
Man am I glad I get to teach a specialized group of students.
Whoa, Python 3.14 argparse has colors in help by default. That's nice!
You can tell how much I'm enjoying any given month by how many diary entries I have for that month.
Things always feel unnatural to me once there is enough money involved.
Oh I just saw the updated Christmas Clawd too, with asterisks for snowflakes. That's cute.
I think it's really cute how in Claude Code, the Clawd mascot makes > < eyes
and runs away from the mouse cursor. Like petting a cat or something.