• @[email protected]
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    10 months ago

    Software doesn’t age, it doesn’t make sense for your computer to become slower as it becomes older. (some) Software just becomes more shitty and bloated with every release, which is what you’re experiencing.

      • @[email protected]
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        110 months ago

        Doesn’t help with the bloated web and local webapps, though. Also, you’ll need to choose from a set of desktop environments that were made with lower resource usage in mind. Also don’t forget that while linux is often faster, a slow drive is still a slow drive and it can help only so much if you keep your OS and heavyweight software on a HDD.

    • Captain Aggravated
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      910 months ago

      I think there’s room for an exception here: operating systems or other software that handles a large number of files could bog down with use as the number and size of files grow with time.

      • Todd Bonzalez
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        810 months ago

        If the operating system slows down because you have a lot of files, you’re running some weird operating system I’ve never heard of.

  • @[email protected]
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    4210 months ago

    At most corporate pizza places only a fraction of the delivery charge goes to the driver. My job, for example, charges $4.99 for delivery and gives the drivers $0.60.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      To play devil’s advocate, it’s not just the delivery that’s included in those costs. It’s also the development and maintenance of the ordering platform, vehicle maintenance, etc.

      Edit: thanks for the downvotes even though I specified I was playing devil’s advocate. Also, in the Netherlands, pizza companies provide their own vehicles which seems normal to me.

      • @[email protected]
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        2710 months ago

        Vehicles are generally owned and maintained by the driver. Also, these charges long predate the digital age. They pass them off as paying for maintaining a shitty app for ordering, but it is just a convenience fee, extra money they can make off those of us who are too busy, tired, stuck, or lazy to go pick it up. Always has been, always will be. Proof: if I go the old school way and call in to order it directly they still charge it.

        • @[email protected]
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          610 months ago

          Exactly one pizza place I’ve worked at (pre online ordering) had an adjustable delivery charge based on mileage that went entirely to the driver. However that was a Mom and Pop shop so it doesn’t count for this conversation about corporate pizza.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      I once interviewed to be a delivery driver for Domino’s and my Dad was adamant it was a bad idea and I should find different work and then insisted that I ask them about insurance if I was going to do it.

      It felt super awkward because I was pretty young and people just don’t ask those kinds of questions for minimum wage. He wanted me to ask them if they provided insurance to their drivers when they’re driving cars for them on the clock and explained to me that if there’s an accident while using the car for work then my insurance wouldn’t cover it which I checked and indeed they wouldn’t.

      The interviewer said they didn’t provide insurance but asked if I was insured and if I was, wouldn’t I be fine anyway? I said the insurance was not going to cover me while using the car for the job and the guy had this answer in a different tone like a kind of I’ve got this super clever scam that no one’s ever thought of but I’ll let you in on it vibe and leant forward and said “oh yeh, we know what to do here in that situation, what you do is you just say you weren’t working at the time”. I was incredulous but still a nervous teen and kind of meekly protested “but like what about the several pizzas in a bag and the uniform?” And he’s like “oh you just tell them you were on your way home from work and that’s your dinner”. That, along with many other fucked up things that occurred in the brief space of time this interview occupied convinced me to nope out of there.

      Yeh dude, I’m going to try and commit insurance fraud… very poorly… for Dominos… who can’t simply provide the necessary protection to allow people to do the job they’re asking them to do. If I have to get my own insurance, if it has to be a special kind of more expensive insurance that’s going to cover me driving for work, then I’m a contractor, not an employee and I’m going to set my own rates and they’re going to be a lot higher then what they were offering considering I also have to maintain my own vehicle and pay for fuel and insurance, to a certain extent I even arguably have to use the skill of knowing how and also being licensed to drive in the first place which makes it not exactly “unskilled” labour in this first place.

      • @[email protected]
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        10 months ago

        Former pizza driver here: Yeah it really does work like that, the cops never ask nor do they report it unless you say “Well there I was, delivering a pizza…” and your insurance company doesn’t send reps to accidents. We had people get in accidents, including me twice, every one was covered by the person’s insurance without question. Nobody cares but the insurance company and everyone from the store to the cops seems to agree “fuck them.” Sure it’s kind of insurance fraud but they deserve it and I never saw anyone get caught in the 10+yr I worked for multiple stores/companies.

        Now, your rates going up? That’s a different story. That’ll happen just like any other accident, and for that reason it’s better if the store pays, but that just isn’t how it works at any store nor for Uber/Ubereats, etc.

        • @[email protected]
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          310 months ago

          Yes I figured that that was how it worked when Dad insisted I asked because, although, of course, logically what he was saying made sense, I knew intuitively that that isn’t the world I live in, and that unlike a white collar career, the minimum wage world does not care about making conditions or contracts that would attract or retain employees because they have 100% of the bargaining power and will find a different wage slave if you ask weird and inconvenient questions. That was why it was so awkward and I was reluctant to ask in the first place.

          The thing is, while I’m all for a “fuck them” attitude towards insurance companies, if I’m going to commit insurance fraud, even if I think the risks are exceedingly low, I’m not doing it for Dominos, and doing it for them is indeed what’s happening there because in a just world this should obviously be the cost of offering a delivery service and by taking on this legal risk myself (and the burden of the increased premiums in the case of an accident) I’m gifting Dominos, the multinational megacorp, the opportunity to shirk what should definitely be their responsibility.

          The insurance issue and terrible amateur legal advice alone wasn’t actually what made me pass on that job, despite really needing it at the time. The rest of the interview was a train wreck in terms of me evaluating them as employers and though they seemed keen to hire me anyway on the basis of me apparently having a pulse, I was fortunate enough not to actually be destitute at the time and so wasn’t obliged to accept the offer.

    • @[email protected]
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      310 months ago

      I’ve begun to think of LLMs as compression algorithms for patterns. It can take an existing pattern and apply it on unusual subjects. Like take the pattern of a limerick and apply it to the patterns of Danny Devito, that’s the upper limit of their creativity. So rather than storing information, it stores these patterns making it seem more dynamic.

      The way I see it, human creativity is the combination of patterns but in a chaotic non-analytic way. We make leaps of logic that without precise knowledge of our brains can’t be exactly replicated. Meanwhile LLM’s just do the basic combination of patterns that result in the most generic realization of any idea.

      However the well dries up as soon as we stop training them. They’ll store the basics of any field but fail to replicate new developments or conclusions until trained.

      • Citizen
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        310 months ago

        However the well dries up as soon as we stop training them. They’ll store the basics of any field but fail to replicate new developments or conclusions until trained.

        Exactly this is the reason we should prevent any further data collection by these bastards…

        Don’t feed the beast!

    • @[email protected]
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      2910 months ago

      It might turn into dumb skynet though. Like a version of skynet that does malicious things, but not because it’s trying to hurt people, just because it’s really stupid and we put it in charge of things.

      • @[email protected]
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        10 months ago

        We can’t even get them to not be racist under light adversarial conditions. Billions of dollars have probably been spent on that problem to no avail.

        LLMs like ChatGPT have kind of just turned the problem of getting knowledge into a computer, into the problem of getting it back out in a controlled way. It’s still hard and failure-prone but now nobody knows how it works inside.

        • @[email protected]
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          310 months ago

          Boards are certainly looking at this. They certainty won’t align with the workers, consumers, or publics interest.

  • @[email protected]
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    10 months ago

    I’m a welder, and the general public doesn’t seem to understand why we charge so much for our services. Like, 80% of my work is fit-up, alignment, math, measurements, and work area prep.

    All the public sees is “durr, me hot glue metal! All done!” That’s exactly what you get with Jim Bob who owns a welder yet has never trained for it. He’s cheap, his welds are ugly, and they’re likely to fail in the near future.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      Also do trades. People seem to have no perception that quality varies. They assume it’s busy work, it’s either done or not done, works or don’t work. All as if you flip a couple magical switches and everything’s finished.

      Always frustrating to explain how the electrician that’s 15$ an hour is gonna get you killed, and that wiring isn’t just snaking cords through a conduit.

    • @[email protected]
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      410 months ago

      Yeah I don’t hire tradesfolk thinking I’m getting something cheap. I hire tradesfolk thinking I’m getting something that’s gonna fucking work when I need it to for as long as it can be expected to. That weld ain’t the cheapest part of the bridge by any means but it cannot unexpected fail without catastrophe, so if trained and reputable welders are expensive then welds on that bridge is expensive.

      I can run my own wires when the wife lets me. But I won’t because that expensive electrician will do it safely and in a way that doesn’t cause even more expensive problems in the future

      Good labor isn’t cheap and cheap labor is rarely good.

    • @[email protected]
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      810 months ago

      A huge, HUGE amount of a welder’s value - nay, almost any skilled worker’s value - is in the years you’ve spent gettin’ good.

    • @[email protected]
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      1010 months ago

      Just show them some of my work as an amateur just sticking metal together and surely they’ll pay for your work.

      Like I try to at least measure, do some math, clean it up, and be steady but anybody looking at can know its my day job lol

  • @[email protected]
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    910 months ago

    A thicker, wider bicycle seat is going to be more uncomfortable on longer rides than a thinner, narrower bicycle seat.

    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago

      I think seat type depends on riding posture. Wide seat is suitable for a city bike, where you seat upright.

      • @[email protected]
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        110 months ago

        There’s a limit to how wide your seat should be. Too wide and the seat is unable to support your sit bones and will interfere with your pedaling

    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago

      What if it doesn’t have the bit that goes between your legs?

      I bought a seat like that because I understand that the normal bike seats put pressure on that area in a way that can lead to impotence. I haven’t tried the seat yet because I’m lazy, so I don’t know how comfortable it is. Though even if it isn’t comfortable, it’s a trade-off.

      • @[email protected]
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        210 months ago

        It’s a very small percentage of the population that is affected by bike seats without center channels. It may help you, it probably won’t harm you.

        A slight warning there is some concern that the cut out collapses as the saddle ages, causing the padding to pinch your anatomy rather than support it. The less pressing on your saddle the less of a concern this is.

        The best place to have padding while riding your bike is against your anatomy. Wear a chamois if you’re planning on riding longer distances. You can get them as either the classic spandex or as a pair of padded briefs you wear under some shorts.

        The most important part to bike saddle fitting is thus:

        1. A saddle designed to support the width of your sit bones

        2. A saddle designed for the posture you ride your bike with (a euro style city bike needs a much different saddle than a keirin race bike)

  • @[email protected]
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    12110 months ago

    Electronic voting is a terrible idea. Lil’ bits of paper with representatives watching the vote counters is a pretty solid system. There’s no problem there that needs to be fixed.

    I say this as a Canadian who has volunteered as an observer in federal elections. I know Americans have their thing going on, but seriously. Paper ballots all the way.

    • @[email protected]
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      I’ve been there too. It’s works pretty good. Voting machines don’t always for whatever reason, even though it’s a simple problem.

      I don’t really buy the conspiracy theories, but it should be waaay down the list of things that need automation, since elections are only occasional.

      • @[email protected]
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        410 months ago

        This is naive me, but having a robust, online voting system would make it a lot easier for direct democracy.

        But we would also have to pressure politicians into using that system.

        • @[email protected]
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          I actually question if direct democracy would be good, after the amount of exposure to typical voters I’ve had, lol. Representatives can be questionable, but at least they know what they’re deciding on.

          Autocracy is just completely awful and depressing, though. No doubt about that.

    • @[email protected]
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      1210 months ago

      I have never volunteered to count or observe elections. However I am a professional programmer, and I absolutely agree, electronic voting opens up tons of new attacks, whereas paper voting “security” is basically a solved problem at this point

    • @[email protected]
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      610 months ago

      Brazilian elections continue to be fine for decades, this fear mongering is precisely what the right does whenever they lose.

      If code was impossible to make safe banks would still be doing manual labour and ATMs would’ve been phased out.

      • @[email protected]
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        710 months ago

        If code was impossible to make safe banks would still be doing manual labour and ATMs would’ve been phased out.

        Financial transactions are logged and the logs maintained for a certain number of years. You can definitely use a similar system for voting when the stakes are low - local elections, for example. But an electronic voting system cannot be both secret and verifiable. In practice you make finding out how someone voted as hard as possible, and hope that a future government will not put in the effort to crack your system. All of which is completely unnecessary when paper ballots exist, and can be both secret and verifiable.

        • @[email protected]
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          110 months ago

          Local elections are not low stakes. Most of the services you receive are from the municipality you live in.

          Just because they’re less polarizing doesn’t mean the stakes are lower.

          • @[email protected]
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            310 months ago

            ‘Low stakes’ as in ‘the new mayor isn’t sending everyone who didn’t vote for their party to jail’.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      As a software development expert, I take issue with

      “our entire field is bad at what we do, and if you rely on us, everyone will die.”

      That’s way off base.

      She under-stated the hell out of that.

      Our average practitioner is bad at both their own job, and at the jobs of those whose lives their shoddy work complicates.

      Anyone trusting us with their lives or livelihood should be very very alarmed.

      We’re also now producing artificial intelligence tools that allow us to do equally shoddy work, but now in dramatically greater quantity.

      Edit: Let’s say this is 60/40 sarcasm and sincere, and I’m not sure which is the 60%…

      I work with some of the best, and I’ve worked with plenty of the worst. I’ve also been both, on different days.

  • @[email protected]
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    15610 months ago

    I can’t and wouldn’t teach your kid to be gay. I can’t get him to write his fucking name at the top of the page.

    • @[email protected]
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      6510 months ago

      That’s generally not what they’re really concerned about. “I don’t want teachers teaching my children to be gay” is just code for, “I don’t want teachers teaching my children that it’s ok to be gay.”

      • @[email protected]
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        1210 months ago

        Or just tolerating them in front of their kid. In fact, they’d probably prefer the teacher teach Timmy to hate like mom and dad do.

    • @[email protected]
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      1910 months ago

      I hate that more people don’t understand this. It leads to a bunch of discussion and anxiety about nothing at all.

    • well5H1T3
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      710 months ago

      Rough day, huh?

      Parents can be overprotective, (I.e. become shitty parents) and you can’t really do anything about that, except hoping that the universe educate them.

    • @[email protected]
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      310 months ago

      I remember my university orientation so vividly, because I was sat next to several people that were taking the “Game Development” degree. They spent the entire orientation talking about what consoles they brought with them.

      Two weeks later, they were all gone. The course was arguably harder than my CS course, based on some of the required classes they had to take. I think the dropout rate over the full degree was ~90%. CS was high, sure, but barely anyone actually graduated with the Game Development degree.

      Game dev is hard, and I’m yet to meet a game dev that didn’t bemoan how utterly ruthless it was.

  • AbsentBird
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    510 months ago

    There are different screen sizes. Your monitor isn’t the standard universal size of every other monitor, some are larger and some are smaller. Your phone isn’t the same width and height as every other phone. The website will look different on different devices.

  • @[email protected]
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    4310 months ago

    Everyone gets older. Everyones body breaks down eventually. The amount of elderly who have said “I never thought something like this would happen to me”. Look around Edna! What made you think you were going to avoid what happens to everyone else!?

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      “Everything that happens happens to someone else”

      Also the reason people don’t buy even the most basic insurance, or take even the most basic disaster preparedness steps.

    • @[email protected]
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      3610 months ago

      “Can you hack my ex-girlfriends Instagram?”

      Or, “I have an amazing idea for an app…”

      • @[email protected]
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        410 months ago

        I can’t hack insta. But I can probably hack your ex. Spearfishing is largely just a matter of time.

      • @[email protected]
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        1710 months ago

        “My app idea is that you can see where your girlfriend is at all times.”

        “So you’re telling me you want me to build an illegal stalking system? Have you really thought this through?”

        (Based on an actual conversation.)

      • tiredofsametab
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        1110 months ago

        Clearly, if my years on the internet taught me anything, the killer app ID is an app that hack’s ex’s socials with bonus functionality for changing their school grades

        • @[email protected]
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          610 months ago

          My app idea was location based reminders instead of time based.

          The next time you’re at the store you’ll get a notification with your notes.

          I think it’s a neat idea but i never have location on so 🤷‍♂️

          • tiredofsametab
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            I think you can use existing software to do that. If your store has wifi (even if you can’t access it, I think), you can geofence an area and have some action (such as popping up a reminder app) trigger. I’ve not used software like this myself, but I remember people describing behavior like this at least on Android. If it might be useful to you, you should give it a search.

            I have an app that’s meant to schedule things, but I just use it as a checklist and preface each action with the location. So long as I check it (second home screen on my phone, so not a huge barrier), I’m usually good.

            Example

            • costco: chicken
            • costco: paper towels
            • Cainz: sunscreen
            • grocery: milk
            • grocery: eggs
        • @[email protected]
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          710 months ago

          I had a guy recently ask why his printer wasn’t working after he got a new router, and it turns out it is because the printer only went up to 802.11g. I’m pretty amazed that printer outlived the wireless standard it was using.

          • @[email protected]
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            110 months ago

            I mean… 802.11g is still able to be used. Even b is supported under the radios I’m familiar with.

            • @[email protected]
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              210 months ago

              The router he got did have support for 802.11g, but for some reason I don’t remember we couldn’t turn it on. It was some integrated 5G router. The solution was just to use the printer’s built in AP to print. He has to disconnect from the internet to print things, but it still works.

        • mesa
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          10 months ago

          Did you know they still sell dot matrix printers? Wild.

          Everything since then has been a mistake.

      • Mr Fish
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        2710 months ago

        “I’m a software engineer, not a printer whisperer”

      • @[email protected]
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        1210 months ago

        ^ This. So much this. I’m a software engineer, and people will ask me IT questions about software I have no clue how to use.

    • @[email protected]
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      1110 months ago

      I mean, 90% chance it’s because: still using a hard drive, old ass CPU/heat issues+throttling, OS and software bloat.

    • @[email protected]
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      310 months ago

      I mean if their hardride isn’t full, and their task manager isn’t showing a bunch of bloat, then it’s 95% of the time a hardware issue.

    • @[email protected]
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      1510 months ago

      Eh, you probably do, you just don’t want to spend three hours wading through mountains of malware for free.

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    5710 months ago

    It’s at least mostly going away nowadays, but…pulling a fire alarm will not make your school fire sprinklers go off. Getting one sprinkler to go off is just that. One sprinkler. None of the rest will go off.

    Also, fires in a building are never a spot here, a spot there, over there a spot, and just randomly burning patches all over the place. It just grows out and up from its origin point, for the most part. It doesn’t magically plant little patches all over the place. It’s also often times so smoky and so thick with smoke that you quite literally couldn’t see a big portion of fire if it were ten feet in front of you. You feel the heat and maybe see a faint bit of orange glow. Sometimes you don’t even get to see that.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      Does this affect any fire evacuation procedures? For example, would it be likely that the nearest exit stairwell happens to be the source of the fire? If so, how would that change the plan?

      • @[email protected]
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        110 months ago

        Not OP, but that’s why fire codes specify multiple escape routes - for example, a window on a bedroom.