* Don't have high fat/sugar snacks in the house - but do have an alternative you'll eat
* Move - low intensity exercise uses your body's stored energy (i.e fat) rather than using carbs
* Find other people to help get you through the tough patches - for me, making a commitment to someone else makes me more motivated.
The author doesn't state what RDMS he's used, but I think Microsoft's SQL Server Platform covers a lot of these, and third party tools, such as Redgate's amazing suite of DB tools, fill in a lot of the gaps.
My Firefox was a minor update earlier than the one on the sibling comment (72.0.1). It has updated now, and the site claims that my connection is down on my machine too.
Now that I have seen the message... It's a funny thing for a web page to claim.
If it's the UK, then you can book a seat on most services... if you're travelling distance during peak time, and you know in advance, then I'd recommend it - and being prepared to politely but assertively ask people to move if they are sat in your seat.
One thing that comprehensively confuses people using UK railway train reservations: The 'A' suffix on your seat number doesn't matter. When you have a reservation for 44A that doesn't actually mean there is a seat 44A distinct from seat 44, it's because somebody thought it's important to bake in metadata about how seats are arranged in trains, the A apparently stands for "airline" style for some reason.
If you hate reservations or are too disorganised to book one for a busy train, but also dislike being disturbed by someone who does have a reservation and wants you to move, most train operators have some rule about which parts of their trains aren't reserved, you can find that out and then travel in the unreservable part of the train. Finding a seat there won't be any easier, but you won't be asked to move later.
It is interesting how trains are offering better services even as planes suck more over time. Ten years ago knowing where to find power sockets in the Standard class 444 series (next to the cab at the far end from First class) made the difference between charging devices and going without, now almost every train has power sockets and/or USB, free WiFi (not _good_ WiFi, you won't be streaming video - but it'll let you check email and read Hacker News) and air conditioning.
> Finding a seat there won't be any easier, but you won't be asked to move later.
It used to be really easy. Reserved seats had a paper ticket stuck in the back. Virgin trains switched to a small LED display on the edge of the luggage rack. Rather than have a single word like "Vacant" it has a scrolling message. As do reserved seats. So you have to peer at every single display as the text slowly scrolls past to figure out where you can sit. I don't know if this is gross incompetence or part of their ongoing efforts to discourage unbooked travel.
The longer scrolling message is telling you, as you'd know if you read it, that this seat can be reserved even though it currently isn't. As I indicated, some seats can't be reserved, and in this case the message is far shorter and doesn't scroll. "Unreserved" is usually the word used.
Paper tickets can't be updated and so in some cases they reflect no longer accurate information. This is especially misleading for long distance services where many reservations may happen after the service departs from its origin.
The unreserved message definitely used to scroll without any mention of future reservations. Perhaps they've updated them or perhaps it varies by region.
Nope. Both aisle and window seats will be suffixed A. I almost invariably book window seats, they have an A suffix anyway.
There are other suffixes, but they relate to the layout of seating in a carriage and apparently almost all trains have "airline" style according to the nomenclature of whoever decides these things.
I bought Cormac McCarrthy's Border Trilogy on a whim (had seen and loved the film of No Country for Old Men before). I'm based in the UK, but it honestly takes you places you can never go. Read the whole three books four or five times nows.
I agree with this - his works may have a logic of their own, or they may not, or the logic may not be a logic that can be understood by any human. For me, it helps to think of them as dreams - there's some normal looking stuff, but then there's that bit where you're cycling up a lane that looks like one you used to ride almost weekly, with the head of the sister of a teenage girlfriend looming large somewhere you can't quite place. It doesn't have to mean anything.
So, here's what I did when I dumped a (well paid) full-time job in order to start my own company/freelance full-time:
* Took advice from people already doing it
* Looked really hard at my living costs, savings, etc, and figured out that, probably, I could survive for 6 months or more without an income
* Made sure I had some work (a bit of repeat work, and some other projects) lined up.
* Spoke to as many other people as I could (I'm lucky, I have a solicitor and accounts in the family, as well as someone who started a company which now employee >5 people)
Talking to my wife about finances and stuff was a big deal, as she had just decided to go part-time in order to study. But we did the sums, and realised it would have to go really badly, and really we had enough of a cusion that I could find a paid position if it didn't work out.
Here I am, 18 months later, still paying the bills, still with enough money to live comfortably, and still working freelance. There are times when I'm scared stiff about money (I don't think this will go away) and other times when I'm working 10+hours 7 days a week, for a month or two at a time. I had a death in the family this month, which knocked me off schedule, and had more of an impact that I'd like to admit on my productivity, but I communicated with clients that, unfortunately, their projects were going to be pushed back, and it's been ok. Even when my second project was 2 months late, nobody complained. The client was paying a fixed-cost, so they essentially got two months free.
If you're going to do work fixed cost, do not be afraid to hold your ground when you quote for it. I sometimes even quote a little high because I know I'm really rubbish at doing estimates, and it hasn't got better in time. You know other people are going to be late with key information and decisions, and there will be somethings that you miss when you first quote, but keep communicating with your clients and alert them early when things don't go to plan, and most people will be fine - and the rest you probably don't want to work with anyway.
