I found this 🦊 on the far shore, claiming to be the heir of the first 🦊, and could not understand its meaning. Perhaps you will have better luck.
I have finally, after 20 years, figured out the correct thing is to upload the first new year file on -01-15. This is not going to break the RSS feed or hide the late -12 content.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtaR0lZhSyAPLuoSbMA29s3Ry8ZUvKff3 The Secret Life of Machines by the creator with additional commentary. #tv
1999: It's been good. There's no horrific grind or RNG, there's loads of news stuff, but not a required meta. The learning curve is just memorizing where all the keys spawn, and what they sound like. I've nearly completed the arcanes and will get a second cyte for infusing, which is not something I've been able to do for the last few. I can date the Hex, but haven't. I haven't RPd that much personality for the Operator, let alone the Drifter, so I don't know who she'd want. Also it doesn't seem that interesting, for now. They just stand there in the back room. #warframe
I can't get images off my 3s ipod/phone any more. Image Capture says it is locked. I tried everything except `sudo rm -r /private/var/db/lockdown/*`, which may not be possible even for sudo, because I can't `ls` the contents. I'm nervous about removing that because the dock that runs the monitor and mouse is presumably also authorized somewhere similar to the phones. In other news, Haiku now has a real Firefox browser, via IceWeasel. The mouse cursor display is messed up, and there's a lot of hardware stuff that wouldn't work, but it is a full Firefox. #mac #haiku
"We now have a gender-flipped version starring Kathy Bates, but it's not a remake. Rather, Bates plays a wealthy retired lawyer named Madeleine Kingston who goes undercover as a legal assistant at a large law firm, taking on the alias surname of Matlock because the show was one of her deceased daughter's favorites." It's not a remake or reboot. It's its own show, that still needs to be attached to existing IP to be sold, but a big step forward. I like that it can exist in a universe where other TV shows exist. (Didn't see it, just amazed it wasn't a reboot.) #tv
https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/23/electric-aircraft-startup-lilium-ceases-operations-1000-workers-laid-off/ Lilium died. (If only there was some sort of dirge-like song that could be played for such an occasion.) It's the only eVTOL of that era that looked like an actual aircraft and not a resized drone. The very stable genius who said it would never get off the ground is technically correct, now. {update: also Volocopter} #ev
1999: Never did get another part to drop, but could just buy them all. I still need to grind arcanes and maybe get another Cyte to goop for infusions, but it is nice that it didn't take 2 years to get the parts. (Looking at you, Damaged Necromech Weapon Receiver.) I even had the argon crystals. Several of the Hail Hex want to date me now. I don't know if my Drifter is deserving of love, given how much I hate Drifter Melee. I forma-ed the Lex again. It is even more ridiculous. The tank just melts. The only downside is I don't know as some of these dudes even have heads. I really need Helix and that mod to make my own weak points. The Phenmore is OK getting to the tank, but the Protea cannons are also more than adequate, and don't make me get aimed head shots. #warframe
1999, again: so the you in the past/alternate time line is not you from the present, but a copy vomited up by the helminth created in that time by Entrati, that you can control. So it has it's own life now, in the past? Does it do things when not being puppeted? Does it remember your memories? Do the Hex notice? Also maybe the Infested have their own void connection? Could I feed Quincy into the helminth for an infusion? I think about these things. And I did the 2 public modes to get SP mode enabled. While conceptually nice, probably won't do them again, after the minute wait and not really understanding the ui. I did the most damage, and I think I helped, but couldn't even say if we won. And if it was clear we lost, I'd not like it for being too sweaty PVP. #warframe
1999, Hail Hex quest. That went by really fast. I don't have any of the gear, still working on the rep grind. There's supposed to be yet more relationship-building as well. It's good, clear themes, and perhaps to my point, mostly shows up Entrati's choices, not The Man or the Indifference, who I still think are not bad, just creepy. I really need a high base damage weapon for the tank, and those lemon shaped ones with the insane armor. Really need to try something heavy hitting and the new weak point mods. (Helix! I don't have that mod, though.) The Trumna status build is clearing rooms, but can't hit the tank hard enough. Tried Phenmor. It works, but the slow fire rate annoys me for everything not the tank. Lex Incarnon blew away the last 1/3rd of the tank's final form with one shot, was not expecting that. Spent 20 min in there the first time. Totally forgot about the shield grenades for Protea. #warframe
At the same time Senator Ron Wyden is saying multiple foreign countries are inside the USA's phone network, Google requires that I add a phone to my admin account. It makes my account substantially less secure. SIM swaps have been a thing for years and years! #hacktheplanet
https://youtu.be/NqIYwesKIvk?si=8oDpiJfn5b2ln83U Another by the guy from the Apple TV house show. Solar panels, and clearly much more expensive, but I think the same space could be done on a budget without the wood A-frame. #shacklife
https://www.youtube.com/@liveinagreenhouse She says it's the first American GH-H. I don't know of one, so probably! Includes a lap pool, but I don't know as that ever got finished. Lessons: controlled, screened air flow, thermal mass, more flooring. I think the greenhouse needs to be bigger, with a rooftop living space, although she blocked off a lot of the light, so that might only work in Norway. Perhaps using solar panels to block a lot of the light? #shacklife
I was attacked by a dog while out on walk on yet another freakishly warm day. It bit me several times but just got my loose pant leg and didn't get through the sock. (Or it was just trying to take my pants off.) It was a white terrier, possibly a westie. As I'm pretty sure it doesn't have any papers, nor the owner, if I complained about it, it would probably get destroyed right at a little girl's Christmas. I'm more annoyed that I let it tree me up a pickup truck. What a dumb fox. Could have just picked it up by the tail. #complaining
Anime Fall 2024 Review: #anime
SpaceWarframe 1999 initial impression: It's good. I'm not sure what the relationship to the larger universe is, but I think the answer to that is "somebody thought it was a good idea." The new mission type is a little more complex. The chat thing is weird, and a little AI. If you don't like it, skip it, the bounties will eventually do the same thing. That it includes notes is a blessing for me, because I can't remember anything. The calendar thing suggests a Groundhog's Day like "perfect run", but I don't think it requires that. Name Starts With X (I said I couldn't remember things.)(later: Xaku!) absolutely shreds here, and the Cyclotron with the eximus arcane makes me pretty much immortal. Complaints: Kalymos doesn't interact with my Vulpaphyla. Again, Entrati seems much more problematic than The Man, who we are still supposed to not like. Related: just got the Latron Prime. Only the Akvasto Prime remains for primes. There's the Shedu and a bunch of other things I could just buy (more duviri, not a sigle cinta drop, again), then that's it. And also the SP, which I never bothered to finish because I find the solo defense missions boring. #warframe
The End of Plenty: The Race to Feed a Crowded World by Joel K. Bourne Jr I guess the good news of "Better Catastrophe" is negated in that we've blighted the farmlands that will remain viable. The plus side might be that if we currently waste half the food we produce, we could lose half the farmland for the same population. Neatly lays out the 'conspiracy theory' linking Archer Daniels Midland's Dwayne Andreas to the 2008 revolutions via lobbyists for corn as fuel additive and Wall Street speculators. There's somebody else to kill with a time machine, or the communist jewish bankers that control the economy are actually a guy named Dwayne.
The Green Revolution vs. Malthus, Fight!: "At Borlaug’s death [2009], about 13 percent of the world’s people still suffered from chronic hunger or malnutrition—far less than the 23 percent in 1970, when Borlaug won the Nobel Prize. But the sheer number of people had doubled thanks to population growth." .13*2 > .23 Flawless Victory! Finish him! "The number of hungry people on the planet today is roughly the same as the entire world population of 1798, when Malthus first penned his thoughts on the relationship between the two." Borlaug was also a Malthusian and would not have been surprised by the Arab Spring or even Trump voters' listing 'inflation' as the reason for their choice. (Hint for democrats: they aren't complaining about the price of pickup trucks)(Hint for republicans: 8% inflation for a few weeks does not explain a 50-1600% increase in some food prices)(for every one else: white people blame the president if things change) #book
I guess it's a good thing I've waffled so much about getting an e-bike, because the condo board flat out banned them. Still not nearly enough parking, or any outside e-anything infrastructure, but no e-bikes. (Glances over at the electric gloves charging on the floor.) #wtf
I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor by Andrew Boyd "When you hear that the Great Barrier Reef is 30% bleached to death, take note that there's a whole 70% death-bleachedly worse it could be. But it isn't. Shocked and dismayed that a climate denier was elected President of the world's largest economy? Just think: He could have been reelected. But he wasn't. There's so many, many ways things could be worse. But they're not. Yet." Yet! Surprise! Somehow, Palpatine returned. Ivanova: Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. The book's least hopeful thing is the optimistic talk about the Green New Deal, which didn't even happen. The Inflation Reduction Act, which did happen after, has proven so flawed as to be useless. The book's hopeful thing for me is even though 7 billion people will die shortly (geologically speaking), the remaining 2 billion is still more people that existed prior to the 20th century. At least some of them might have the culture/technology to live a solarpunk life. I was more under the impression that by 2300 or so, most of the planet would not be able to support large mammals at all, so it's hopeful that some doomers think people in general might live through it. Related complaint: the book, like the IPCC et al, stops at 2100. If growth curves are not negative sooner or later, doom is guaranteed in the end. The last time the world was at 400 ppm CO2, there were no glaciers and the sea level was 70 feet higher. It would be great if Chinese solar panels can allow us to achieve 0 CO2, 0 CH4 growth by 2050, but the climate will still be catching up to 400 ppm, a milestone we passed years ago. Carbon removal in the gigaton range remains magic and without that, a glacier free world is inevitable. #book
lets make a generic car out of AI slop or, lets use all that computing horsepower to produce the same thing over and over again, much like the US auto industry. #aptera
Reuters: "The Biden administration this year raised the alarm over China's massive investment in factory capacity for clean energy goods. Biden's landmark climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act, includes incentives for companies that produce clean energy equipment in the United States - a subsidy that has prompted a flurry of plans for new solar factories." If China invests in green energy, it "raises the alarm". If they don't, they alone are causing global warming. If the US does landmark "incentives" and sells abroad, that's just trade. If China sells less than 1% of domestic production abroad, it's dumping. #green
https://walzr.com/IMG_0001 saw somebody streaking in a hurricane news report. All those Korean kids are adults now. #weird
The Diplomat s2: Possibly a little too much middle school relationship drama, but big twists #tv
Mothers, Tell Your Daughters by Bonnie Jo Campbell: modern American alienation, plus Trump voters amazed that the gommint took their ACA and SS away. #book
Upright Beasts by Lincoln Michel: good stuff, short, punchy #book
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/11/21/economist-go-with-slow-level-1-charging/ Only note: other countries routinely deliver Level 2 power to home appliances via wall sockets. It hasn't broken the bank nor crashed their grid. #ev
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241119-long-fatigue-the-exhaustion-that-lingers-after-an-infection Not the mitochondria! They're the powerhouse of the cell. Try Coenzyme Q10/ubiquinone? Antioxidants might also help with the stomach acids. #medical #2024-11-21
My heart rate has been increased again, over 100 for days, while the O2 has been 97% at most. I feel The Tired again. I was out getting exercise in the warmth, but I didn't think it was that excessive. #medical #2024-11-19
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi: Very dense. Being dense myself, I'm sure I wasn't getting a lot of it. I did like the fox bit. #book
The Relive Box, T. C. Boyle: Another of the micturating authors I'd forgotten about. This is also a lot of SF the author refused to call SF to avoid being associated with the nerds. #book
"MBARI researchers discover remarkable new swimming sea slug in the deep sea" Wait, what? Are they going to make a new ship out of it? Turns out it's the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, not the aliens. #b5
Machine Learning by Hugh Howey: Good, though does contains spoilers (presumably but not necessarily) for Silo which has a season 2 starting soon. It did give me more hope that the show would eventually have some sort of coherent backstory and point, not just endless mysteries. #book
Night Fall s1: Good stuff, though my usual complaint, could have been shorter. #tv
Maybe somebody needs to turn the Democratic party off and on again. Maybe being a wholly owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs wasn't a great idea after all. Maybe a billion dollars spent on swing states was never going to produce results when one candidate was already a convicted felon. Whatever sign undecided voters were waiting on clearly wasn't going to be another questionably sourced text message begging for money. And even if it comes out tomorrow that the election was stolen and all the votes were fake, it's still too late, because that just feeds into the pre-laid conspiracy. (Thank you very much, news media, who were once again completely supporting Trump.) {Bonus: "DOJ moving to wind down Trump criminal cases before he takes office"} #complaining
I was poking at my music collection, and just wanted to say that even though "Einstein Savage" or "Rue Melange" does not seem to exist online any more, it's still cool. I created 3 Aptera playlists (driving, speeding, and charging. They are on Apple Music, should be searchable.) but because of The Apple, I can't get my mp3s on to the phone any more, so I was looking for the streaming equivalent. #music
I voted in shorts and a t-shirt, in case anybody wondered what's at stake here. There was a line of about 10 minutes, but my mother waited an hour. It seems somebody heard my complaint about standing around in the room with your ballot dangling in plain view, so now there's an additional step of handing you a folder after you have exited the polling place, so that only 3 or 4 poll workers and the voter next to you can see your XL ballot instead of the whole room. The ballot reader was working this time. The ballot display took 5 attempts to read the worker's id card. I can look down into the booth of the voter opposite me, but I am very tall. I still think this system was created by printer lobbyists, all of the expense and theater, none of the security. #vote
Horror idea: every day, your walk sets off all the Ring camera messages. Until one day, it doesn't. Possibly better, Something Else sets them off behind you, but there's nothing there... #spoop
The Affirmation: the problem with ebooks is you can never be sure if it stops mid-sentence because that's the choice the author made, or because the ocr scanner ate the page and died. The book is very evocative, but also irritating. Also, RIP Christopher Priest, earlier this year. #book
iOS can save to jpegxl now, though more to my needs, MacOS can deal with .jxl: "No more JPEG or WebP quality roulette! JPEG XL lets you target visual fidelity, not cryptic parameters." cjxl's only parameter: --distance, and if you try to use it, it complains you didn't also change a default listed under the 60 hidden advanced parameters. Once you figure out how to set cryptic parameters that work, it will produce something like webp's file sizes, but also introduces similar blurs in ultra-fine detail. Its lossless compression otherwise isn't great. (of small existing jpegs. I suspect from the cjxl dependencies it just replaces zip with brotli, and the actual data is the same. I'm sure it might do much better on megapixel raw photos, where it can do more modern things to the perceived image.) And you've got the size of a jpg and exactly the same issues as webp, in that nobody accepts it as an image upload, and MacOS can preview it but not save to it. (Also the video on the jxl site is webm.) While I've been happy with webp's performance with saving Sette's every appearance in Unsounded for an 80% compression over jpg and no visual artifacts, I also added a toJXL Quick Action for future fox images and such. JXL is slightly better at fur with only a 15% increase in file size. #mac
I saw a spider in a game and wondered if it was a Halloween thing, but no, actual spider on the screen. #bug
https://www.noemamag.com/its-time-to-give-up-hope-for-a-better-climate-get-heroic/ My year of "Not purchasing anything except food" is nearly over. Somehow, this did not save the environment. Also, like the US moving all its manufacturing overseas and then claiming their greenhouse gasses have gone down, I have a load of things to buy next year. None of my shoes have soles. #news
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDf4D84f4DIR_KAN3Sc7T76zbDtsbEV67 Angel Hare. Very weird, though I don't think the explanation was as good as I hoped. (literally what it says on the tin) #tv
While working on next year's exciting new theme, I had to copy colors out of Safari, which has a nice dropper but was storing everything as color(srgb), which is fine, but larger than the more traditional hex triple. Thus perl -pE 's/color\(srgb ([\.0-9]+) ([\.0-9]+) ([\.0-9]+)\)/sprintf('\''#'\'' . '\''%02X'\'' x 3, map($_*256,@{^CAPTURE}))/ge;' ../drivel/2025/build.pl | pbcopy (the pbcopy in place of -i is that I didn't trust it to work, and BBEdit has an undo.) Things I learned looking up the printf string, because I didn't ever remember them: there's no character class for floats (\d doesn't include \.), Perl takes a 'x 3' for string replication, which is some sort of magic I was completely unaware of (and it's 'x', not an operator), and $0 doesn't return a matched string anymore, but there is an array of captured items, equivalent to ($1,$2,$3), but without having to specify how many matches might exist. Zsh really needs a q() type anti-interpolation syntax. (The nested single quotes above is thanks to CTRL-SPC CMD-V ESC-", which like %02X, is one of those things I'll really need but never remember) #perl
Yesterday, I was copying links in Apple Music, when it abruptly stopped. Because Copy Link stopped working, I tried Message and Mail. This also did not work. Today, 17 hours later, and 6 minutes in to playing 2 tracks, Music decided to open a message and mail with the link. Copy Link still does not work. Inexplicable. #mac #complaining
Anime Fall 2024 First Episode Review: CR has a new ratings system, though the descriptions are useless. Drug use, Nudity, Violence are just PG. Other things are 16+ with nothing listed. #anime
https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/10/do-you-really-need-those-routine-dental-x-rays-probably-not/ I was going to stop going biannually, but chickened out in response to pressure. They X-Ray me a lot, too, even after all my cat scans. #medical
My spam trap email address has been getting a ton of spam. It's the same old stuff, not some new AI dreck, so I don't know why the sudden increase in hourly volume. #complaining
Aptera news, good: the pre-production builds proceed, for real this time. The official news (the music is stuck in my head) is clearly lagging the images posted on twitter. Bad: actual production is pushed back to 2026 for nearly everyone. I won't have one for my MidLifeCrysis, or be able to go hunt for shack lands or use any of my #travel any time soon. A quick check shows even land prices are still insane, so it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway. #aptera
https://www.anteloperidgeadventurepark.com/via-ferrata Deep slot canyon, relative degree of safety, gear provided. #travel #arizona
Thus passes Netflix into the mists of history, after 20 years. This blog originally started as a way to log the discs I got so I could tell if I'd watched them later, before it devolved into the whiny mess it is today. (actually, it was always a whiny mess) I was going to watch The Garfield Movie as the official last thing, but couldn't be bothered. #netflix
Anime Summer 2024 Review: #anime
You'd Look Better as a Ghost by Joanna Wallace: very snappy writing, competent, if not exactly sane, protagonist. #book
If DE was looking for a new Warframe, they could have done worse (and apparently have) than Echo Point Nova. I was just thinking that the other open world vehicles are well worth the grind, but while the board is glinty, it is completely useless. The combat mods don't kill people, and I'm not sure the game engine could permit that kind of speed. Idea for the taking: new open world cube, 3D space environment, board upgrades allow a level of speed and damage difficult to get via the arch wing in the infested filled tunnels. #warframe
Verizon's web site doesn't support voice mail at all now, which wasn't the problem I was having. The voicemail worked if the site would load, which was about a 1/10 chance. Now there's no voicemail and the site still doesn't load most of the time. I'd like to drop the phone entirely, now that it isn't doing what I needed it to do (not ring, skip all the empty messages), but that is also part of the Verizon website that doesn't work. The message said somebody was complaining about 'a pipe' below me, but it's probably next door complaining about the bathroom sink they clogged again. They don't want plumbers in their bathroom, obviously. Now I have to wait for a plumber's voicemail, which I will also not be able to hear clearly over the phone. #verizon #complaining
Wastelands, John Joseph Adams: good stuff. I had to look up what the Gene Wolfe "Mute" one was about, because it doesn't fit the rest. (it's fine as a religious metaphor, but the others are way more literal.) Several stories point out the end of the world happens every day for some people. #book
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgYxmWXMwl0&list=PLr8drndtU-bQT2uZEUPZmd-AI00cnNxYP&pp=iAQBmAUB [Wolf Island Master] A series of very odd little videos about a salaryman who goes to an island and becomes a nudist werewolf. Absolute mood, very ScavReign, but cute. #tv
I was trying to listen to some mp3s while sitting in a parking lot (because I don't let Music use the cellular data after it kept doing it in the house), from a playlist I have set up specifically for such offline use, only to find that something had removed every MP3 from the phone. The phone is mostly empty space and mysterious 'documents'. I guess I could download them individually so Music knows I want them, or sync the phone again and hope that they might still be there later. [Turns out neither of that is possible. The Mac is cloud, so it won't sync to the phone, and the phone is cloud so it won't sync to the Mac. The cloud, of course, doesn't know anything about most (not all) of the mp3s. It was easier for the phone to download the streaming playlist than copy the mp3s from the trusted computer it was physically connected to.] I've said this before but Apple is increasingly both "do what we want you to, and nothing else", and "well it worked on my machine". #apple #complaining
How it started: "Search Eg: John Wright, Primary Care Physician, Dermatologists, Periodontists"
How it's going: "We can't find a match to your search term "Dermatologists". Check your spelling" #aetna #meme
Zero Bomb by M.T Hill: The fox is named Rupal. I wish she was in the epilogue, too. She was just doing her job, and there are robot birds to eat. The first bit might be too British. Either it toned down or I got used to it. Garblr is a great name for an app. #book
SPAVE "It is kinda funny how being made out of metal makes most other model cars more realistic but actually makes the Aptera less so." The die-cast model looks really nice, but too much money for me. Also I have no shelves. A smaller Hot Wheels type? It sold out *immediately*. I did actually get the email in time, but didn't act on it because I thought the pictures looked too much like renders. I know they have a real one, I've seen it. Also: Onomatopeon "VW needs to make an electric Beetle and call it "The Lightning Bug"" Aptera should steal that line. #aptera #meme
Light from Other Stars by Erika Swyler: The 2 plots were fairly obvious once the device was introduced, but it proceeds nicely. Less obvious plot: after the strontium issue, she rewires the device, bobbles the ship, slams directly into the planet without slowing down, then restores the flow of time to the ship (or at least the people). Killing herself in the process, if you want to be dark/symmetrical about it. #book
CodeEdit: a code editor written in Swift (and thus Mac native). Possibly just its pre-release status, but the copy and paste in the context menu don't work. Cut does! The terminal doesn't have a menu or X style copy/paste. I'm assuming somebody didn't plug something in. Other than that, very low memory usage, adequate features. Does not have syntax coloring for Perl. It's not that I (or all that many people) need it, but BBEdit manages that. #review
gierlsquad when people give me compliments I feel like a vending machine trying to accept a wrinkly dollar and it's just really frustrating for everyone involved #meme
https://docs.getwhisky.app/game-support/warframe.html Speaking of alternative operating systems, Warframe runs on MacOS? (at a silver level, whatever that means) The M1 is about as powerful as the 1700/Rx560. I probably shouldn't have gotten the Air, then. #warframe
Haiku-OS b5: note for the future, much faster to download a new iso than update. Several newer web browsers, still none that are new and complete enough to compete, but still, closer. It has a dark mode now. The ARM build is still experimental, but that would be nice. There is a slight lag in VirtualBox, which is especially irritating because of the legendary BeOS smoothness. Also Cosmic supports tab groups, modern GPUs, font subpixel rendering, etc. Though speaking of new Linux, Haiku might find a niche as the 'old PC OS', in the way Linux is (will be, for my TPM-less Win10 PC), but as the kernel gets ever more complicated, the desktop environments more hardware accelerated, systemd ever more monolithic and problematic, I think there's space for an OS that doesn't do any of that, but will still run many apps smoothly, given how much faster even garbage hardware is than the 90's era tech it was designed for. It does really need a solid web browser, though. #os #haikuos #yolotd
Another headache, a few chocolate chip cookies a week ago? Surely not. I did notice that there was a position for my neck that seemed to provide temporary relief, from the railroad spike in the right eyeball to a generalized dull ache. It could also have been the aspirin kicking in. I have been reading more, but not so much, nor at all in the last 2 days. (I'm almost out of books with the new library app.) Gaming much less after I finally got the Nautilus. It shouldn't be eyestrain, especially if there's a neck manipulation that helps. #medical
SPY x FAMILY CODE: White: concentrated SxF stuff #anime
Equivalent exchange for the solar good news: @atrupar "CNN promptly sanewashes Trump's absolutely bonkers news conference. They'd be better off taking Trump live than whitewashing him like this." And "Judge Merchan emphasized that postponing the sentencing would avoid any appearance of political bias and ensure the jury's verdict is respected without being overshadowed by the election." So Trump could be elected, then sentenced to jail, then given the divine right of kings and absolute immunity? Plus multiple foreign countries openly spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the election, does not seem to be a problem.
"Sweden's Enerpoly has opened the world's first zinc-ion battery megafactory near Stockholm, aiming for a 100 MWh annual capacity by 2026." "A research team at Osaka University in Japan has developed green light wavelength-selective organic solar cells (OSCs) that transmit blue and red light necessary for crop growth and use green light, which contributes only a little to photosynthesis, for power generation." #solar
The town's new $100,000 police cars are covered in bright white LED bars, front and back. I was out on a headache walk (6 chocolate donut holes 3 days ago?) and it was worse than high beams, in every direction. I also saw a fox moments before, so at least my retinas can die happy. #fox #medical
Delico's Nursery: nice concept, but unable to take it seriously after the "True of Vamp" thing. #anime
Terminator Zero: kind of dumb. What's up with the giant tech-bro masterbatorium? Clearly the creator, writer, director, and executive producer thought it was the greatest thing ever. The music attempts to be 80's, but fails. (needs aggression! nuke the soviets!) The Japanese voice children are monster children and I would definitely give the elder boy to a terminator, or any passing transient. The English version is ok. (Is it even a dub if it was written in English for an American audience?) #tv
"More than 5% of adults in the U.S. have long Covid, and it is most prevalent among Americans in their prime working years. About 3.6 million people reported significantly modifying their activities because of the illness in a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." I still contend those symptoms are not just Covid. #medical
The Windup Girl: good stuff. The 'liner notes' seem to indicate there are more in this world before this, but the library app has what it has, and it does not have that. Also, khrab🦀🦀🦀. #book
https://mastodon.social/@palmin/112983785830011413 As somebody using a DO droplet as an occasional VPN, that app sounds great. #ios
There was a 200 meter high tsunami in Greenland last year and I'm just now finding out about it. I'm glad I didn't got to the beach this year. #climate
Amnesia Moon: like I say about anime, weird, doesn't end. #book
https://www.noemamag.com/the-coming-pollen-storms/ something new to worry about. #spewcus
Gun with Occasional Music: I had the thought that this blog is the memory device from the extra horrible future. It too is edited and sanitized to offend less. I read a few other Lethem books but forgot to log them. Now did I actually read them or not? #book
Verizon's website is so broken. It was never good, but I can't even log in now. Multiple redirects take a minute each, then it ends in a white page. This includes the voicemail and plan pages on their site. There are multiple voicemail messages I can't get to, because I don't remember how the phone login works. #complaining
I tried patching 2 tubes, the new one and an old one I'd saved, neither worked. Thus passes the 27 x 1 1/2 into the mists of history. I should really get a new bike, but youtube says it is easy to overlap a 29 down to 27. #bike
Girl in Landscape: I loved the Archbuilder names, and now as a retired layabout, can relate to their lifestyle. #book
Turns out nobody makes my size tube any more. The closest diameter size is much too thin. The larger size might be huge. I have a patch kit that looks extremely toxic, but might be worth it. I also saved some older tubes, which might be sturdier than the modern one. Once again, choice paralysis. (the instructions on the patch kit are unreadable nonsense. I should just take it to a professional.) #bike
Another bicycle tube went while standing the basement. I'd like to blame the cheap Chinese tube, but the tire was Chinese, and it's been fine. The tube was not cheap. It wasn't even that high pressure. I used to go decades between flats. #bike
@natesolon Mail is crazy because it's like 99 pieces of straight up garbage and 1 that if you don't reply to you're going to jail. #meme
The Feral Detective: I discovered the new app the library has access to. It does not have new books any more than the library does (or all that many old books), but the font is big enough for me to read. This book: There are a few good lines in the beginning, then it just proceeds. Beware the novelist who has had a movie made of their work. Also Doug Wellman's desert stories are more interesting, and real. #book
First Man: no subtitles, inaudible dialog. Sure looked nice. #tv
I reached Legendary 4 with Caliban and the weapon, and wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. Though I could finish the star chart, and the last few weapons. (I could buy most of the weapons, because the farms really are terrible. I should instead adjust to not leveling things any more.) I wasn't expecting to get Caliban before the rework, but I got 20 narmer thingies in about 30 minutes while farming ostron rep. (usually? 2-4) Caliban is pretty useless, but the melee is nice. The L4 test was very easy with Protea & Atomos (can shoot around the corners, then when they stop dying, grenade spam and float out of the way). You don't have to kill anything, just not die. #warframe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irp_HPzfxbQ Another greenhouse-house. This is notable because the north, east wall is the house, leaving additional space inside the greenhouse, can be well insulated, and is cooler during the summer. #shacklife
Reminiscence: a nice cli-fi noir #tv
Not that anyone asked, but what a next gen Warframe could use instead of drifter combat: whatever left4dead used to create the endless stream of zombies for the infested, smarter ai for the corpus bots so they work together, and let the grineer build more things than the blunts, like traps, turrets. It would provide more distinctiveness than just the grineer armor can be sometimes problematic. The fundamental concepts are good. Keep doing the good things. I noticed WoW is in a pre-patch. A lot of new things, but I'm pretty sure they still haven't fixed the fundamental loop to be as fast and as fun as Warframe. #warframe
@reider Volgen There are 1,000 Palestinians being held in the Sde Teiman torture camp. The Supreme Court just compelled the state to confirm how many of them are Hamas militants. The answer: 28. [also, Gitmo? Many of them were not combatants, but we never got an final count, and they are still there.] #meme
Land of Bad: film of bad, more like. In related news, Netflix finally announced they were canceling my plan, so that's it for Netflix. I'm thinking tubi, or possibly youtube. #tv
The Deer King: Shikaaaa. "There must always be a Deer King." Also, was she feeding them inedible fox meat on purpose? #tv
Star Trek Beyond: Good. The direction is still a little too JJ shakeycam, but the story is good, Classic Space Madness. I recall somebody saying at the time that the space station was more Culture. Agreed. #tv
Somebody pointed out the next DE game Soulframe is entirely the drifter melee combat. I can't say that is a good idea. #warframe
"The earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching." - Assyrian tablet, c. 2800 BC #meme
@AllezLesBoulez July 24: US Congress gives standing ovation to Netanyahu as he claims the IDF is the most moral army in history July 29: open IDF mutiny when soldiers get arrested for running a rape dungeon #meme
Star Trek Prodigy 2.7-20: That's the good stuff. I'm wondering if ST should just be animated going forward. Still needs better writing, but it wouldn't cost a million plus an episode and aliens could be more alien. #tv
Crunchyroll can afford to rebrand, but still can't sort a queue by unwatched episodes. #anime
@BW_Jones This will be the first Presidential election since 1976 to not have a Biden, Bush, or Clinton on the ticket. #meme
Ghostbusters Frozen Empire: So I'm guessing there's at least one movie missing? I think I did skip one, but I don't think it was that one. This has all the old hits, but not so much actual plot. #tv
"Caliban will also be free to all players during the update" Well, that's done then. Still need the weapons. And a second one wouldn't hurt for Goopy, my Helminth. I have to mine the ore, though. #warframe
Tinted Tesla Update: I think it was replaced. I didn't see it for ages, and now there's a new, completely untinted Tesla with new dealer tags. It looked great, but there's no way that was legal. There's another dark red 3 across the street too, also looks nice. Update: I spoke too soon! The new Tesla is now tinted just as dark. Still no plate or inspection.
Anime Summer 2024 First Episode Review: They are all kind of bad. I had fewer than 14 shows, which means I can't watch 2 a day, so I'm adding some fillers. Crunchyroll seems to have removed the comments and the reviews. The comments are generally terrible, but the rated reviews are mostly helpful, especially as CR doesn't always provide any information at all about a show. This sort of thing is why I write all my content here. Nobody can ever see it, but at least it is mine. The loss of the comments comes with an ever increasing rate of failure to load video, so I'm guessing it wasn't to cut down on server load. #anime
Star Trek Prodigy 2.1-6: still not sure who this is made for. Kids are not going to be getting the deep cuts, and the kids in the show are mostly annoying. Very Boy of Destiny. #tv
https://qeplatinum.com PCM insulation https://phasechange.com/apollo/ Backup refrigeration I still can't find somebody willing to just ship the material without great expense or consultations. Another PCM idea: refrigerator, dump heat then cool the pcm down with a quieter but longer running fan. #pcm
The Imaginary: My imaginary anime family is much nicer, but it is a visual treat. #tv
Going Clear Scientology and the Prison of Belief: they didn't cover half the weird stuff, or the deaths. It does almost point out the eventual end game: whoever is left simply sells everything and vanishes with billions. #tv
fenomas I feel like there should be a UX rule that question-and-answer AIs should always show *two* prospective responses. If you ask the AI a question and the UI shows two different answers and prompts you pick whichever you prefer, it's way more obvious to the user that it's just text generation, not some kind of fact-lookup. #meme
Big heat wave, and my calcium chloride hexahydrate is perhaps slightly more moist. It is clearly not great at its job. I may add more water and just chill the brine in the freezer at night. If I remember in the winter, buy more pure CaCl2, or just buy the finished product now. The Morton's salt isn't dissolving at all. Which I guess makes it a great de-icer, but isn't working for my mad science project. #pcm
Star Trek Lower Decks Season 1: Still haven't gotten around to Paramount+, but it's on Youtube. As expected, good stuff, though Mariner is often too much of a Bugs Bunny character to have any weight. Not enough Landru. #tv
@SAVoltolin Nobody is trying to fix the problems we have in this country. Everyone is trying to make enough money so the problems don't apply to them anymore. #meme
My mother's Neuton lawn mower died. (This is of interest to me because I mow her lawn.) The battery voltage is 20V (assuming I'm reading it right), the brushes seem ok, but there's no voltage at all across the motor's terminals on the board or across the fuse. (There is voltage across the switch until you push it. I'm not sure what happens after that. I'm assuming that big block is a transformer and I shouldn't just wire the battery directly into the motor.) I assuming from the 2 12V cells that the 20V is too low, but my mother already ordered a new mower. It is wider, taller (so I won't take the push bar directly in the groin), more powerful, but is much heavier and won't have newts on the wheels. The consumerist waste offends me, but I don't even have a lawn, so it's not like it is worth anything to me if I replace the batteries. #lawndru
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqxjfp4Gi0k I tried making the CaCl-6H2O. It did not go well. It never dissolved at all, and I think I just simmered off the water. The CaCl wasn't 100% pure, so I wasn't expecting perfection, but it was weird that a salt wouldn't dissolve in water. I'm assuming there's something added to the ice melt. I'm saving it to throw it on ice in the winter. OTOH, you can just buy professionally made calcium chloride hexahydrate. Update: It might have gotten a little more wet and not any hotter when left in the sun. Maybe there's some PCM in there? We'll see with the heat wave this week. #pcm #science
Hit Man: cute, but a little slow #tv
Why are some tracks coming from Apple Music with a negative volume? (Get Info, File) "Keep It Minimal" is much softer than it was last weekend. In poking at this, re-playing a song I played earlier today is now also -9.8dB. It's inaudible. Other songs have no problem. It's too hot for this. Some sort of AI crap. #apple
This year's Summer Thing: • I cut it short because it was supposed to rain all day, after a day that was way too windy. (then the day of rain got reduced to a night. I could have gotten a room and stayed. Then of course it didn't rain at all.) Mostly though, I never actually relaxed, which is a me problem. I should meditate or something, but if I could do that at home, I'd just stay home. • My ears started to hurt from the old Apple ear buds and all the podcasts I was listening to to fill the sunny hours, and the cold morning hours, and the late hours when it was too early to sleep. • The facilities were nice in general, but there were condoms and litter at one campsite. There's a crew that cleans everything else, but not that, I guess. I picked up the trash, but left the unopened condoms. • The weekend crowd might be very different. • Everybody had a golf cart or atv, but they all stank of burning oil and were very loud. • PA allows trucks to air-break? I think that's what that noise is. It never stops. (I was just avoiding PA because of the fracking.) • They had a radio at the pool during the day. One of the announcers was the hyper-enthused announcer from The Index. • I did enjoy the trails (the wind kept the spiders down, there are a lot of spiders), having a shower in the sunset, freedom. • All the customized RVs and mobile homes were nice at night. The more suburban section is boring. • I didn't get a sunburn, though the thing on my back got worse, and way worse on the trip back. • I really need a shack, or take vacations that don't involve sleeping on the ground. Hopefully next year I'll have an Aptera and can nano-rv someplace nice. #travel
@nomanautomata They need to create a job that's 4 hours of programming in the morning and 4 hours of mindlessly loading boxes onto a truck in the afternoon. #meme
Aftersun: I liked the ending, way too much flashing though. #tv
Trigger Warning: Delivers its goods, but it has a weird unreality to a lot of the scenes, too much cgi. Like there's torrential rain, but nothing is ever even damp. Why even pay to make cgi rain if you can't afford a guy with spray bottle. Keep it minimal. #tv
Anime review Spring 2024: overall meh-ish. There are cool things (Kaiju No 8) and things I enjoyed despite their structural issues, Viral Hit, RoOT, and YATAGARASU, a historical court drama in which everyone can turn into a giant 3 legged crow. (This is never addressed.) Dragon Raja is held back by the MC being an idiot at random. KONOSUBA, Laid-Back Camp, Black Butler continue, as does Mushoku Tensei, though that got worse after the MC won at life. (The Moonlighting problem, maybe) As does Spice and Wolf, although that doesn't continue so much as restart. Mysterious Disappearances, A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics, Tonori no Yakai-san, Astro Note, BARTENDER all just muddle through. (Fishbonaci: It's a pun.) The best show is Train to the End of the World, which is weird, weird, and more weird. #anime
Jade: The story bit comes with a content warning, so you know it's good. Not so much horror as 'oh, snap!', but it's a nice moment. I haven't gotten into reworking things for blast and other status changes, but I haven't needed to at 50-60 level. I got a much larger text size, and I was just complaining about that! The new equipment manager is very nice. The game actually tells you things about the statuses now, and they are in color. In sum, good. You can also invade other group's missions as the Stalker and help them, which is cool but I'm not likely to do that. #warframe
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/ "We weren't looking at this from a public health perspective," said a senior military officer involved in the program. "We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud." "by November 2021, COVID had claimed the lives of 48,361 people" All so that the US vaccines could be priced higher. I look forward to this being forgotten about completely in a matter of hours. #news
While awaiting Jade and/or the heatwave, I finally did that last Orphix mission. It does require speed and brutality, but isn't hard if you can provide it. There's a speed build on the wiki for orphix. And on top of that, the ability to nail the nodes from extreme distances is still helpful. Ignore the adds. If you are doing it right, you can outrun them. Protea can heal the mech, and fire into the zone or at anything trying to follow you to the next orphix. I recall doing the orphix event with just the operator, which might have been all for mobility, zip up to the node, flamethrower, and zip up to the orphix, madurai1, flame until it dies. #warframe
Successfully linked the Switch. You do need to go to the Warframe website, not in the app. I did not know that and watched the opening scene again. My eyesight might be getting worse, because I can't see a thing on the Switch even with the reading glasses, though I suspect it is the UI being crammed into such a tiny screen. (I really need a bigger font for the survival % on a PC screen.) It should let me at least log in and process my forma during the upcoming heatwave, keep my streak alive even as I melt and die. There's a phone app that also does the foundry, but I can't really read the phone, either. I still have to try out the monitor connection the Switch base, for increased visibility. #warframe
Further madness: Installed Garuda. The xfce version, just to make it a little smaller. I like the pacmen. I like the default shell, looks like my zsh but less excessive (((cols = $COLUMNS - 2)); PROMPT=$'%F{green}%$cols>>─┬─%{🐰%2G%}─%*─%F{223}%~%F{green}─%F{red}%0(?..EXIT%?)%(!.ROOT.)%1(j.BG.)%F{green}────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────%>>─╮\n ╰──┨%f '; RPROMPT=' %F{red}%0(?..EXIT%?)%(!.ROOT.)%1(j.BG.)%F{green}─╯%f'). I like that it seems to have replaced ls with eza, but did not add the nerd font and replaces `ls` with `eza -l`. (Mine: l=' eza --icons=always'; ll='eza -la --icons=always --time-style long-iso') I love that it defaults to Source Code Pro. It is a lot of good stuff from what is apparently just a bunch of dudes. Despite saying it won't work well in a VM, it automatically installed all the VBox helpers. Unrelated, but I just noticed where Systemd puts config files. That's just actively hateful. Anyway, Warframe still won't run. The launcher launches, displays, then dies to a crash reporter, possibly part of the update process, not a GUI issue. (It should not be updating: the hotfixes are paused until Jade.) I can't mess with the shader settings because I can't get that far. Still, Garuda is impressive, and I've used an Arch system now. I might prefer that over Nix's weirdness. I might try the full dragonized version. Still really need to get more SSDs for testing. I should just get another machine, which would fix a lot of problems. Related: I got the Switch out. It needs to recharge, but then I need to download Warframe, and figure out how to link the accounts. Without WoW, maybe I won't even need a PC. At least while it is hot out. #yolotd #garuda
That didn't go so well either. I copied Warframe manually via the shared directory mount, fiddled with the acf file to remove the windows bits, and Steam launched it. And ... nothing happened. Steam's web thing was running, and wine.exe would run occasionally, but it never did anything, and the disk wasn't running. It wasn't swapping, and the ram was only 45%. Zero feedback about what was happening. I'm assuming these are VM related issues, because the copy was also weird. The disk would run for 2 seconds, then rest for 8. It did seem to be copying faster than that, and definitely faster than the Windows view of the disk, which was that nothing was copying at all. Firefox and Gnome also took a long time to start up. On the plus side, Gnome itself ran much better than the 20.04 VM. The app switching was actually usable. I need more ssd. Or a better VM than VirtualBox. #yolotd #ubuntu
In a fit of madness, I tried Ubuntu 24.04, the Valve recommended Linux distro. It is of course the snap version of Steam, which I know is probably going to break things, but I wanted to see the default experience. (The vbox unattended install also didn't work.) It also connects to but won't download from the Windows Steam. (and I did set the network up correctly this time, although I can only assume Ubuntu doesn't have a firewall on. I don't see it in the settings.) It doesn't seem to see the Nix version as a data source, even if I quit the Windows. (it will stream it, which is cool, if it worked. I could try streaming to the Mac, in case I get too lazy to cross the room.) I don't want to have to download another 20G, but they don't store the files in the same place, so a certain amount of fiddling would be required for rsync. Or the shared directory might be better, as Ubuntu has the guest additions installed. Also seemed kind of slow to start up, compared to 20.04 (or was that 18?), but still faster than Nix/Plasma. #nix #ubuntu
Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial: only some reuse of their re-enactments, Reality TV style, but plenty of facts and digs at Trump. #tv
https://omniumcargo.com/ tiny front wheel under a floating deck. Shorter, more bicycle than a bakfiets, but similar concept. (For cargo, I don't think you'd want to strap a kid up there.) ebike ~6k, when not sold out. Still don't want to put something that expensive in my building's storage area. And if I get an Aptera, wouldn't so much need it. #bike
Nix: The more I think about it, my old Ubuntu LAMP install doc (commented shell script, so it's executable) isn't that different from nixlang's config that gets translated to an intermediate language that runs shell scripts. It's not like Nix can ensure the values are valid for the current version. It requires you log all the apt calls and config files, but you know what else also requires a lot of work?
It also got me looking at neovim. I've seen some nice UI things, but I haven't figured out how the plugins work. And I installed a nerd font so I have cool icons in the terminal now. All that's on the Mac, though. #nix
The Derevolutions, Keep It Minimal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJGf0vrdYPQ: It's a shame Apple Music doesn't have the lyrics, and Youtube's caption is ai. #music
Nix: I installed Lutris. It launched the GE Steam version, but the launcher options window crashed twice. Then the Proton exp version didn't even show the option, all the buttons at the top were black boxes. I think the only remaining thing is launching it not with Steam at all (or getting another drive so Nix isn't in a VM), but I can't see as there's any point to that. Win10Apocalypse isn't until next year, anyway. Helpful config file: https://dataswamp.org/~solene/2022-05-20-nixos-thin-gaming-client.html (That's a nice blog, Web1 like this one, except less personal whining, more actual info.) There's an Arch distro named Garuda, which I feel I ought to try for Warframe. #nix
ChrisVZ In future classrooms, whenever someone mentions Jewish genocide, it will be necessary to specify if you are referring to genocide OF the Jews or genocide BY the Jews. #meme
T•PBon #1: the retro animation style is at odds with the amount of blood. A lot of screaming. #tv
@marx_knopfler people talk a lot of shit on cops but the fact is its one of the nations most dangerous jobs, up there with pizza delivery man, wife of cop, and black guy #meme
I forgot to update the year in the rss feed, so the links have been wrong for a year and half. Good thing nobody reads this site. #oops
So Safari has always had this issue where tooltips from one window show up on another. I just now dropped a file through a Finder window into a Messages window. I definitely didn't miss, as most of the Messages window was not visible, and I can sometimes repeat it. The Finder window can be any view, any size, just has to overlap the Messages window. I hate that Win10 seems so much more stable. (for the two things I do on it.) Plus MS seems all in on JS, while Swift, a decade later, still seems unfinished. #mac
Godzilla Minus One: God(zilla)-tier. They should have gone full Kevin Penkin Made in Abyss music. Also Godzilla could have used bigger arms to go with the feet. Had a nice classic style face, but the head was pretty small, or possibly the chest was very large. #tv
Nix: installed Proton GE, which is not a config option and has to be run manually. (The horror!) Now Warframe doesn't start at all, but the start button changes for a while, then changes back, so something is happening. There's no error logged as far as I can see. Running the command manually gives me a python3 env error, which could be nix's env, or the proton script isn't designed to be run like that. There's also a new Nix version, and I don't know how to update, or even what that means if I'm installing the latest packages. I still think the nix idea is nice, and worth the amount of effort it requires, but it is a long way from "just works". #nix #yolotd
Detective Pikachu: Less good than the Lego Movie, not enough Bellsprouts, pika pika. #tv
The Lego Movie: Good stuff. #tv
Equalizer 2: probably not as good as 1, but not the 'middle part of the trilogy' I was expecting. #tv
@Harrystylesgf_1 "The adhd urge to use parenthesis in every sentence (because every thought comes with additional bonus content)" I need that circular squid langage from Arrival. Maybe I should add actual footnoting to the page for next year's theme. (Instead of just doing 3 foxes, or an even bigger zima blue square.) #meme
@katefeetie will gen alpha be the first generation to try "quiet existing" - eating, sleeping, and often breathing during hours they could be working to increase corporate profits? we talked to 3 billionaires who are super mad about it #meme
Nix: so Warframe finally downloaded, would not launch. The button changes, stuff happens in the Steam window, but no Warframe window and the button changes back. Could not find an error log. I found some launch parameters to use, but they are all other apps and performance related. Rebooted. It launched! And then locked up the UI entirely! I can tell, because I can still get back into Windows, that something is running 2 cores and the disk really hard, but then it crashes so hard Steam dies. (Swapping? It has 8GB which is more than it uses in Windows. Some people noted issues with time spent rendering shaders. Something graphical messing with XWindows enough the UI freezes and dies?) There is of course no error message or log. I also forgot to turn on the bridged networking, but that's not Nix's fault and might explain the local Steam copy problem. It's not looking good for the Year of Linux on the Desktop. I could try running Warframe without Steam, but I could also just run it on the recommended Ubuntu LTS. Or a Switch. Also, I could do the zsh conf the nix way, or I could just copy it. #nix
Nix: I installed Steam on the demo vm, worked, gave me an install button for Warframe, but the VM's disk was too small, [There is a command line to expand that, but the Windows shell or file find didn't seem to see it. I'm not sure if it is installed, or where it comes from if not with VirtualBox's installer.][better fix: just give the VM another disk, download there] and it's the demo so who knows what else it is running. So I did a real NixOS install into a new VM. That went fine. (very slow, but it worked) Install Steam again, fine. Warframe doesn't have an install button now. Look that up, enable Proton in the properties, wonder how that worked in the demo, install button appears, click it. It is trying to copy from the Windows Steam, which is great, but that doesn't work. Fiddle with the firewall for a bit, accidentally delete the trailing '}' in the config. Still doesn't work. Steam itself eventually gives up and downloads it again. I don't need it to run well inside a VM, I just want to see it run at all. Other Nix thoughts: There's a fatal and unmentioned difference between Home and OS packages. I was able to add ports to the firewall because I recognized the [] array. The range is completely different, so knowing the nix language only gets you so far. Nix/plasma is slower to boot than ubuntu/gnome, even discounting the nix config select thing, which can be removed but then you don't really have the rollback. Similarly, the reproducibility fails if you don't have flakes to pin versions, and if you do, you end up with npm's v1.2.3_beta6 madness. Zsh can be set as a shell in a way that does not install zsh. Nix is great if you just copy somebody else's config files, a mini-distro. Other than that, it's a ton of lookups, searches to get things kind of working. Once it is working, though, it should (ideally) be rock solid. #nix
There were a bunch of MacPad comments recently, so, days late, here's my analysis: what people really want a MacBook with the CPU moved from the keyboard to the screen. This preserves the high-speed data link to the screen while enabling you to break the low-speed data link to the keyboard/trackpad when you separate the keyboard and screen. Does the screen need touch, touchable icons in MacOS? Not really, but it would be nice to have the pen input for the things that currently have pen input in MacOS, and for scrolling or an occasional swipe or tap OK. Mostly it would be so that the screen can be put up where your eyes are, and leave the keyboard down where your hands are. It also means the MacPad can be sold without a keyboard and trackpad for people who want a real mouse. Or you could invest in a MacBook dock to run more equipment. #mac
Adrian "The greatest trick Gen X ever pulled was convincing the world they don't exist." #meme
My Oni Girl: another movie about the inability to communicate in Japanese. #tv
Netflix stopped playing until I rebooted. MacOS has like Windows 95 levels of stability now. #mac
Atlas: It does contain an Aptera (very briefly, I missed it), and a hanger full of Canoo. The actual movie might be some sort of right wing recruitment video, but that intent is probably giving the writing way too much credit. #tv
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/05/21/apple-updates-silently-enable-icloud-keychain/ In case you were wondering why it might not be a great idea to give all your passwords to a system you don't control. #mac
elodieunderglass There's an American song that goes "over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go." It's about a horse sleigh ride, so pretty much like Jingle Bells. The horse is pulling the sleigh over sufficient snow that you would have a whole separate vehicle for it. Like, imagine if you had a separate car for driving with wheels, and a separate car for driving with runners in snow. The snowfall amount this implies is outstanding. A separate, handmade vehicle (and separate training for the horse!) for different weather conditions.
Anyway. It describes going to Grandma's for thanksgiving #meme
Upgrade: now on Netflix, so I saw it again. That is such a good movie, a real twist that recontextualizes everything. The only thing I could complain about is that things like this make very wealthy people think AGI is possible, and cool. See also the Torment Nexus. #tv
Dark Matter (not that one): Perhaps redundant after Constellation, which was just canceled. Does not have backdrop of the space station. Perhaps won't beat the viewer to death with the concept, though. [no, it does.] #tv
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-collapse-is-coming-will-humanity-adapt/ • survival of the fittest requires diversity, it is possible nobody survives • build your own post-collapse society now, nobody is going to do it for you. #shacklife
Haiku-os: I installed the 'new' version, more apps. I didn't do a whole lot of web testing with Otter. (I tried Imgur, but it seems the site is down.) The launcher/menus in general could use a type-to-find feature, like all the launchers seem to be doing now (and which you can get just by opening the Applications dir). Other than that, it is functional, just doesn't have a full modern web browser which is kind of crippling at this point. Related news: started with a sample Nix env. This might have been a mistake because the config is 100 files of unreadable crap. I may have to start over from scratch, but KDE did impress me. Other Nix thoughts: could you do the Nix shell weirdness in init.d? (Like start up an app that doesn't otherwise exist on the system?) Conversely, could you start one mega-environment, the GUI, VSC, Slack, the dev envs, all together in a shared userFHS, but also completely separate from the rest of the system? Is there a Ctrl+Alt+F2 style thing for multiple GUI envs? Or for server envs, create a php user, a node+mongo user, a ruby user with a very specific version of openssl, a reverse proxy nginx user with certbot where none of these accounts can see anything at all else on the drive? I don't want to run all that in docker, but just dicking around with `ln -s` doesn't seem as bad by comparison. #haiku #nix
Invincible 2.5: releasing half seasons is a little inconvenient for tracking purposes. Doesn't really have a season finale, so who knows, maybe there's more. Continues apace. #tv
Fallout s1: Good stuff, has all the references you could want, can't complain. #tv
https://www.osnews.com/story/139634/haiku-isnt-a-beos-successor-anymore/ A lot of the comments are in line with my idea that Haiku was a serious contender for the Year of Linux on the Desktop. (or still is, but it gets less likely as it ages and Weyland improves) If you swap out XWindows for something much more modern, but still have all the same Qt and GTK apps and POSIX CLI apps and a desktop environment that isn't aiming to be a straight Windows clone or trying to be (current) MacOS (as polished as Plasma is, and as much as Gnome did the iOS integration thing *better* than Apple), and it doesn't have run0 or /var/snap or /nix/store, is it worth overlooking that it isn't actually Linux?
As to the point of the article, I feel that way about MacOS. BBEdit and Vienna are my only Mac apps. Everything else is either Apple's or browser based, one way or another. (or running on the Pi!) Before Electron it was Java. I haven't written a Mac GUI app in ages. (the metric clock?) Somebody said Win32 is the most stable, available Linux binary interface, thanks to WINE, Proton, Lutris, etc. and the mess that is Linux GUIs.
In related news, my Haiku VM broke last week, can no longer boot. There was an update, but I think it didn't complete, and there's a number of irritating new notification things so I'm not sure if I want the new version anyway. There's logs, but not anything I can read. I probably should have snapshotted that. [which wouldn't have helped. I turned on Windows virtualization, which broke Virtualbox in a way that somehow only affected Haiku. Though new problem: most of the software updates are dead, and haiku-ports doesn't work in some way that kills the updater. The Ubuntu updater dies on Snap, too. I'm trying to not have Opinions about snap, but they are not making it easy. It filled up one of my production servers, with log files and old cached snap files.][Update 2: I thought my Haiku was up to date, but turns out, no, very much not.] #haiku
The return of the Spewcus. Spewcus 2024, the respewcusing. I cuss, you cuss, we all cuss for spewcus. I was at least breathing, but I was still up all night again. #medical #spewcus
new iPads: Apple continues to throw its best hardware at it, but continues to cripple it by imagining nothing greater than a laptop that can't run software. If you want to use the keyboard and the pen at the same time, try another keyboard. Try to manage big projects with the Files app, and then just don't. (Better, BeOS: all files as searchable database entries. The file_open is a db query interface. If I open things tagged with 'my project', all apps should remember that.) It can do more with a pen (one of the four) than a MB Air, but also costs way more. #apple
The Equalizer 3: Netflix had 2 and 3, now only 1 and 3. I didn't watch 2 because I hadn't seen 1. Still good stuff, but this is another thing I could quibble with when reusing IP, the Equalizer's core deal does get a mention here. Doing their own thing was much better! #tv
"For Walkable Neighborhoods, We Need More Useful Businesses Op-ed: It’s not just about density. Urban residents need fewer dentists’ offices and mattress stores – and more corner stores and gyms." https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/for-walkable-neighborhoods-we-need-more-useful-businesses Need more traditional home/businesses. Everybody should be able to run something out of the front room of their apt. Their apt should have a front room for that potential. #city
The Equalizer (2014): The Flophouse mentioned that it was a horror movie, filmed from the monster's point of view. Can't argue with that. #tv
Mortal Kombat (2021): Pedestrian, but solidly constructed. #tv
eroguron0nsense
I have my criticisms of Made in Abyss but I will also say that I haven't seen enough people comment on my favourite aspect of it (and I may be looking in the wrong places, I haven't term searched), which is that it's a breathtaking deconstruction of settler colonialism, and of the romanticism of the weird adventure stories of Europeans plumbing every as of yet unexplored corner of the earth and finding strange and wonderful things at great risk. It is a profoundly critical piece and one of the few that while capturing the allure of that genre and the call of the void and the human search for answers, also has the fucking balls to say, "Your choice to do this is to choose death and the loss of your humanity", "This place is built on atrocity in the name of gold and glory and colonial prestige, every attempt to get further into its depths requires horrendous sacrifice, and the act of settling was fundamentally amoral", and, as of where I've read up to (the end of Faputa's story), "this capital we've built, this land and its blessings that we have, are literally built on endless suffering, it is justified for the victims of that to retaliate, and to dust we shall return". Every aspect of its world-building is seductive but shows both implicitly and explicitly the horrifying truth of behind the siren song of colonial exploration, from the implications of what happened to the native people of the island to the sickness affecting the current inhabitants to the wrecked ships and remnants of failed predecessors, to the indoctrination of children into dreaming of seeking death, and the overwhelming sense that the Abyss will always, always get its dues
Intentionally or not, it's one of my favourite explorations of the brutality and futility of the search for El Dorado
#mia
House votes 320-91 to urge the Department of Education to codify criticism of Israel as unlawful #news
@robpertray "during the pandemic we had a fleeting and muted glimpse of what public services could be like (extended unemployment, expanded medicaid, child tax credits, WFH) — it's why it's been so difficult to take anything seriously since then. we all know the scarcity is manufactured" Matrix related #meme
The Matrix Resurrections: Eagerly awaiting The Catrix. (after the credits bit) It was OK, and much better than I was expecting, but not great. I understood and liked the digs at Warner Bros., but the movie still had something to say on its own, more than just the contractual obligation album, like the digs at the incel magapedes and their x-pills. NPH remains a national treasure, even very restrained. It was still very talky in spots and the music wasn't nearly as good. The fight scenes weren't on the same level at all. There's still space for my Matrix sequel. #tv
Music: Ugress. AppleMusic has as similar to Philter, but less techno. There's also a new Philter album, also somewhat less techno. #music
@innesmck streaming companies forgetting their entire existence is based on being slightly more convenient than piracy #meme
NixOS: seems like a nice idea, the package manager can even be used on MacOS, but also breaks all the things because it doesn't put anything where anybody expects, and seems to be fetching everything off Github, Docker-style? (Yes, if it doesn't already have the cache build for that arch. It seems to leverage all the CI build stuff, which is cool. Does not seem to have learned anything from npm.) Almost everything that can not be rebuilt for Nix (Steam, any programming environment, #!'s) requires buildFHSUserEnv which, so far as I can see, is a lightweight container system run per-process just so that basic tooling can be where you'd think. Maybe use the Nix bit to build a custom distro, which could then run normally, put everything in the standard file system? Or set up a ~/FHS/, so you can both be isolated from other users/instances, but provide a common chroot environment so grouped things can be grouped. On the other hand, it isn't actively attempting to install everything as snaps, a similar concept but worse as it makes no effort to let things work together. I wonder if that could be used on Haiku-OS? (I was poking around in there and while the browsers have updates, Haiku-OS has not rebuilt them or been version-updated in ages. Being able to recompile all that with the minimum of fuss would be nice.)(I still like my idea of using BeOS as Linux's GUI. Have that as a friendly layer on top of Nix's package management, plus you get containerized UIs.) Other things to look up: tiling window managers. (hyprland?) I suspect that might drive me insane, given the number of semi-visible windows I have open, but I do still feel cramped having moved down from 1440 to 1080(hiDPI). (The need to find a Linux distro capable of running Steam/Warframe grows ever closer as Windows10 ages. Or: give up and run that on the Switch? Can cross play now. Could at least keep the streak alive until an ARM PC is viable.) #linux
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/canary-mission-israel-covert-operations/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/israel-gaza-harvard-bill-ackman-ceo-b2427784.html No doubt this will lumped in with the conspiracy theories. #sigh
The extra buttons on my mice are increasing non-functional. Nobody will let you sort by button count, and nobody seems to be making mice with a lot of buttons on the top deck. I might get https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/products/gaming-mice/g600-mmo-gaming-mouse.910-002864.html (but it might need to be hooked up to the PC to shut off the lights) or the similar but more expensive Naga #pc
barbarajsobel "JK Rowling, who strategically changed her name twice to make people believe she was male because she didn't want to be affected by society's perceptions of the gender binary and kept using male pseudonyms even after her name was well known, is mad at who now?" #meme
Gila Bend, AZ: dinosaurs at the gas station and solar panels. Aptera photo ops? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POwYkCHbh64 #travel
vaulted floors: "Philippe Block, the head of ETH’s Institute of Technology in Architecture" "and his team devised what they call the Rippmann Floor System (RFS)" "reduce the amount of concrete and steel used in the floors of an average high-rise by around 65% and 80%" "With no rebar, RFS doesn’t carbonate and deteriorate in the same way as common reinforced concrete." https://www.noemamag.com/concrete-built-the-modern-world-now-its-destroying-it/ related: https://www.brimstone.com cement from calcium silicate rock instead of limestone #pool
@thholyghost "i don't like the fact that my bones are always wet" Soon! #meme
One that got away: Canoo's stock is way up. I was considering buying into it because it was very cheap and they are actually making things, then it jumped, then jumped again. oh well.
https://ground.news/blindspot Seems like a nice idea, except for the past week or so, it has pretty consistently been the right doesn't report on environment, crimes by right wing people, or good news about the government at all, and the left mostly doesn't regurgitate propaganda and dog whistles. Even the home page is mostly left and center stories. Once you decide to not broadcast alternative facts and fear farming, what choice is there? #news #data:2024-04-16
Mesa was up, so I tried Deep Archimedian whatever, died immediately. Could not get enough energy, and if I did, something killed me immediately, possibly the void bursts which seem to spawning in my hitbox but directly behind the camera. I may try again to just get the 2 netracell level to recoup my investment, but I don't enjoy being punished like that, and I really like netracells. #warframe
Anime Spring 2024 First episode review: #anime
Suzume: Never sure what the cats wanted. But they get nothing, so I guess it didn't matter? #tv #anime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEdgmNZnLs4 The Matrix wasn't green in theaters? WTF? I only saw the second one in a theater. Coincidentally, I just rewatched it. I'd also object to a vector font used for the terminal. I did a theme about exactly that. It was supposed to be chunky! Shakes fist at clouds! #sfac
First Born (1984): Maximum 80's. Seriously, that fired off a few brain cells I don't need to have. They could have just waited, because that house is probably worth a million dollars on a lot like that. #tv
Brooklyn 99 #2-4: Either it wore me down or 4 is much better. That's all Netflix has, but there is more. #tv
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/secretive-rich-keep-others-poor https://www.scottsantens.com/billionaire-fueled-lobbying-group-behind-the-state-bills-to-ban-universal-basic-income-experiments-ubi/ #ubi
the little things: slow start, very nice ending. #tv
Northwest Camper Van Travels is a nice calm travel channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYQDl41THFM did the same site as Sidetrack Adventures, but didn't mention the lost city, but did cover the campgrounds. #travel
https://www.badspacecomics.com/ #comics
Constellation: when I was in the hospital, the nurses were different every day (never saw a doctor, obviously), and view out the window of the suburban hospital was all gray industrial towers. It really seemed like it was some other world. (And that doesn't get to when I started seeing people in alien colors because it had gotten into my brain.) Turned out that industrial area was the AC units on the roof of the addition on the front of the building. I wouldn't have seen it if I'd been up a level, or down a level and not had a window. So I can sympathise with the confusion, but the show seems to enjoy beating the audience over the head with the quantum concept for many episodes even as the protagonist remains oblivious. I did like the use of the word 'liminal' as something suddenly everywhere yet wrong, the Italian cosmonaut tapes (a real thing! supposedly!), the 0G CPR, and the worlds helping each other. (That is the Conjoiner's secret, after all.) Could have been (much) shorter, and not tried to set up a second season. The Apple TV app continues to use ever increasing amounts of RAM and malfunctioned several times. #tv
BONES 25: DREAMING FORWARD: Nice stuff, show the absolute children in the Crunchyroll comments how it was in the olden days. Although I am personally offended that none of the Escaflowne clips involved the best girl, Merle. #anime
Ender's Game: a bad bad movie. Mostly the ending after the twist. #tv
Mortal Engines: a good bad movie. #tv #2024-04-01
There's a Tesla 3 across the road that some times parks right in front of my building. I hear the UFO noise at 4am. It is Disaster Area stunt ship levels of black. The windows are completely black, darker even than the paint. There is no front plate or inspection sticker to mar the darkness. I don't know how they think they are going to get away with that, but it does look nice. If only there was a vehicle for which it would be legal to not have an inspection sticker or front plate... (I'm pretty sure you still can't tint the front window like that.) #aptera
https://www.itselectric.us Obvious in hindsight: Public ev charging should not have cables. (There should be some way to lock your cable to the car so your cable doesn't get stolen, but if your cable breaks, its your problem, not the charger's.) (This sort of thing is why I'm cynical and depressed about things like the big government spending on climate. What does it matter if they spent billions on CCS2 and all the cables are broken?) from https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/episodes/episode/4a77b655/episode-41-diving-into-urban-ev-charging-with-its-electric #ev
https://livinginbeauty.net/2020/02/20/springs-borrego/ rving site #sd #travel
For the record, I don't have a sezzle account, so they should not be sending me security keys. #fraud #2023-03-28
The Brothers Sun: the first episode seemed bad (or I was cranky), so it sat in my queue forever, but it did get good. [A day later I found out the second season was canceled. I didn't know there was a second season. It seemed to have a pretty conclusive ending, so don't not watch it for that.] #tv
@sarcasticKatt Writing a resume? You mean filling out the character sheet for my worksona? #meme
3 Body Problem: Very solid. Every little plot detail is laid well in advance, though it does gloss over demonstrating the actual '3 body problem' problem and cuts out everything that isn't directly thematically related to the plot. I did not achieve awareness of the Belt and Road Initiative. (Though when they go to China, why not a Chinese EV? They are good.) Netflix's full screen is still broken. (I wonder what aliens might make of the evolution of TV. They have naked adults rehydrating, very modern tv, but not the child. Previously, it would have been the other way around because the child is innocent but now that's grooming or something.) #tv
Anime Winter 2024 Review: The Fire Hunter: as much as I love post-post-apocalyptic shows, not the greatest. The animation was weird (good), but the plot was ultimately a little half-baked. The 'some stuff happened' tier: Shangri-La Frontier (the game's backstory and IRL character interaction is nice, but never actually addressed, in favor of more boss fights and extremely improbably video game design), Tales of Wedding Rings (mild perversion, potato), The Witch and the Beast (also sets up but then never addresses the backstory, for more fantasy church politics), The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic (nice plot, could have been better written), Sasaki and Peeps (more office work than you'd expect), The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash (recycling goods already in the dump doesn't count as picking up trash!), and Meiji Gekken (watchable, but not as good as Revenger), MASHLE (more good than watchable). The biggest problem here is Japanese excessive politeness combined with a lawless school yard. Too many of these shows are like so here's hours of fantasy local zoning board meetings, and a few battles without honor or humanity. There's nothing in-between. Part of what makes MASHLE better than average is the outsider looking at that and calling it out for what it is, though admittedly through punching things. (Also it's funny.) The Undead Unwanted Adventurer is only the set-up part, so the real story didn't actually get started. Which sounds like a complete waste of time, but it was watchable as things escalate. Conversely, Classroom of the Elite de-escalated hard. I enjoyed the FOFA episode, but there's none of that energy left. SOLO LEVELING is watchable, though the video game interface is dumb and the fantasy office politics are boring (see point above, except Korean). Unlike the thing about Shangri-La Frontier I liked (he is abnormally good at normal games because he trains on trash) SOLO's backstory is he is trash, really has no idea what is going on in his own life in or out of the game or the office politics that make up the rest of the show. The NPC fights are all kind of boring, though I did like where (spoilers) he murders those dudes, though minus points because the game made him. If a show like this could capture Warframe's mastery evolution, then it would be getting somewhere. The good shows include Metallic Rouge (speaking of Warframe, always here for SF Weirdness), 'Tis Time for "Torture", Princess (incredibly dumb, I found it fun), and, of course, The Apothecary Diaries and Frieren, which are a blessing upon humanity in these troubled times. #anime
Yuki Kajiura just released a "30th Anniversary Early BEST Collection for Soundtrack". I'm officially listening to the oldies now. #music #anime
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social A majority of American voters voted for Democratic candidates for president in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020, and yet Americans can be imprisoned for having miscarriages. #meme
Mieruko-chan: I liked the fox servants, and the vulpaphyla god, and the numerous twists, but it doesn't wrap things up, and the protagonist is very passive. #anime
Damsel: a lot of screaming in darkness, twist ending. #tv
Resident Alien #2: I think it needs the plot, otherwise it just people being dicks all the time, which is not as entertaining as they think it is. I have started to talk like Harry. #tv
Voyagers: simple, and as we hurtle towards Trump's second coup attempt, perhaps an unearned happy ending. This might point out emotional learning is required: if the children had gotten more help when they said they were afraid of the dark, maybe that wouldn't have happened. #tv
Got Legendary 3, from a k-drive. I got all the kuva/tenet weapons (but haven't leveled them yet) except for 3 holokey melee. (I have not seen a single holokey in ages, need 90.) I'm also provoking the Grustrag 3 for the brakk blueprint. (I have 9 receivers, obviously.) I'm pretty deep in the weeds, now. Only a few weapons and 2 frames left: I need Nekros Prime (have plenty of aya, must have missed it a year ago), and Caliban, which looks like an immense pain with soloing the grineer railjack missions, tons of Narmer bounties. Also need to finish the star charts, but solo SP defense is boring/hard, and the last orphix is really hard. #warframe
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68490034 Israel approves plans for 3,400 new homes in West Bank settlements https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/israel-awards-gas-exploration-licences-eni-bp-four-others-2023-10-29/ Israel's Energy Ministry said on Sunday it had awarded 12 licences to six companies to explore for natural gas off the country's Mediterranean coast. [Wonder where they found a new Mediterranean coastline...] #news
Spaceman: I'm glad it exists. #tv
Twilio Authy: it crashes if you try to add something. It will at least continue to give me the things it already has, but that's the end of that. Looking at the App Store, Apple's walled garden is full of weeds. I don't see how they can say their efforts at keeping out low quality, probable scams are at all successful when there's three apps with misspelled "Authy". And if there's anything that might warrant a lengthy manual review, it should be something that could steal a login. Related: https://www.macstories.net/stories/macpad-how-i-created-the-hybrid-mac-ipad-laptop-and-tablet-that-apple-wont-make/ The best iOS or VisionOS experience is to attach a real computer to it. The best Mac experience is to add Linux. #mac #complaining
Brooklyn 99 1: What is up with the subtitles? I realize that the show is in no way accurate, but still a lot of implicit copaganda. Will watch it because it is inoffensive and requires no attention. #tv
lierdumoa Feb 23 I say "there is no such thing as a thought crime" a lot on my blog. Well, the other side of the coin is there is also no such thing as thought heroics, thought charity or thought activism. #meme
Aaron Bushnell: 'Many of us like to ask ourselves, "What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?" The answer is, you're doing it. Right now.' This is one point for the Effective Altruist people: if you had enough money, you could counter the lobbyists who are pushing through these things. I'd like to think my life was worth more than a 30 second spot on the nightly news. #meme
The Great Gatsby: I made it as far as the meme, so after Kanye's casual Holocaust reference. #tv
Everything Everywhere All At Once: Very nice. Very AI Singularity, too, though the AI in my unpublishable novel came to a different conclusion: everything really is pointless, but each moment still exists, even the bad ones. #tv #date:202-02-24
@Sturgeons_Law There are more documented instances of IDF troops rifling through Gazan women's underwear than there are of them rescuing hostages. [Pictures not included] #meme
The Florida Project: that is certainly a thing. #stroadlife #tv
Everybody in the Pool feedback: https://swyftcities.com I wonder about the noise and cost of maintaining the cables, vs. my idea of the parking garage raised city idea, where running these sorts of vehicles is just a matter of painting some lines on the deck. Though, certainly, why not both, given my large upfront cost of rebuilding the city. I would also complain about their use of Paris. The old city is the nice looking medium density area. It's also unlivable. The apartments have been divided so often they are shoe-boxes and still are unaffordable, and all the more recent development is the high rises around the outside. And there's the zoning. If you planned for the more traditional practice of running a business out of the front of your home, even for a 12 floor apartment building, you can vastly increase the complexity of the transit network and thus decrease the distance people need to go to get something. #pool
House of Ninja: Blue Eyed Samurai again, Japanese subject matter and cast, but the creators are white people and the music choices are very odd and there's the occasional cultural thing that is very not Japanese. Also ends oddly. More Netflix globalization, I guess. #tv
Resident Alien 1: was looking forward to this, but meh. Possibly just because the town is more alien to me, and everybody is a dick all the time. It has a second season, so maybe it gets better. #tv
The Daily Show: big nostalgia hit, jokes I snorted at, pointed analysis. I don't know if I'd watch it daily again, though. I already know too many things, and so little can be done. #tv
Blacklist #10: no zany capers, but good effort, managing to use the show's now enormous history to good effect. But other than that, the middle is a little weak, a lot of the scientific jargon is wrong, and a few episodes are generic police procedurals. Netflix also is not updating the watched status, so hitting play got me the first episode in the season every time, up until it suddenly switched to 8, but I was already on 10 so it's not like that helped any. Nearly unrelated, but speaking of occasional political rants, I saw 2 really good bits on how leftists and urban planning youtubers are failing the critical step of actually getting off their asses and doing something, and pointed out the concrete steps one could take. (to slightly rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, but that's another can of worms) I should do something, but there's not really anything that can be done here, and if I'm going to move to a city, I'd pick something that was already nice, vote with my feet. Also, hopefully, I'll have a solar powered car next year, so I wouldn't have to care about anyone else, the American dream. Still want to live in a shack. #tv
Twilio is canceling their desktop app, but the iOS app also runs on the Mac, so it's the same thing, except worse. Authy looked like a mobile app anyway, and the iOS app still manages to be worse. It apparently hasn't received any dev in ages (even though it updates constantly?). So checking the 'runs on a mac' checkbox alone is probably more effort than they can deal with. Passkeys still seem to be a nightmare as well. #mac
Web3.14159 in the news: "Even without a live blockchain, Blast has since attracted more than $1.3 billion". Rather than the enlightened billionaire, Aptera just needs a hype machine, and a complete lack of scruples or empathy. #complaining
https://www.casualvillain.com/Unsounded/comic/ch18/ch18_54.html I remember a comedy anime which had alpaca-like creatures, called something like "mennussu" (or they said something like that). Anyway, the creatures at the bottom reminded me of that but I haven't been able to think of the title or google a word I can't spell or not get autocorrected to 'menus'. It's not "Ai Mai Mi" (which has a talking llama named Torijiro in Surgical Friends), but I think it resembled that in tone and that the mennussu killed a main character at least once. This is going to bug me for days. I went through my first episode reviews, and a list of 4-koma adaptations. So many great and half-forgotten shows, like tears in the rain, mennussu. #anime
https://www.youtube.com/@WispGraxx newish warframe builder, very easy synergies, basic facts like holding zephyr's 1 can make you float indefinitely. (It does say that, but not a Zephyr main. That would have been real handy for the Vasto Incarnon 4.) I still need a great run'n'gun for speed, but part of that problem is my brain. I'm just not that fast. #warframe
justjaybaby "Palestinians were killed long before Hamas was formed and would still be getting killed even if Hamas never existed." #meme
Ready Player One: the rollercoaster Spielberg always wanted. A blender full of nerd references, but still has to ladle out the plot full of near-boomer stuff. Though I've seen multiple articles pointing out The Youth understand literally nothing about computers, possibly because computer classes were canceled with the assumption kids grew up with phones and now know everything. It's a shame that phones are so crippled as computers. See also the Apple Vs. Predator. #tv
AVP: Apple Vs. Predator (RIP, Carl). I had an idea for a Star Trek show dealing with how the glorious VR wireless future would then end up in TOS's chunky buttons, screens everywhere, and tablets. You'd start with the bridge clean and white like an Apple store, AVP's on everybody, but then the plasma relays explode the batteries, aliens that natively speak RF hack the wireless, the displays break and the ship is dead in the water. (Work headphone jacks in there somewhere!) The fancy future tech would get replaced with touchable switches and color because it works. The AVP device looks nice and provides a new AR experience, but is less functional than a Chromebook, a device you can touch with precision or give to a child, and is even more of a walled garden. I also can't help but notice than many of the features are things I have turned off on the Mac, like glass, shadows, motion. #mac
The Novice: very odd film about a very odd woman. It's essentially any early Naruto fight, but she knows its pointless. The shaky cam is a little much. This ties into my belief that the most vital thing schools could be teaching is emotional skills. #tv
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/27/1214451419/civilian-deaths-are-being-dismissed-as-crisis-actors-in-gaza-and-israel "Some denialists baselessly claim the slaughter was a "false flag" planned by the Israeli government — another common conspiratorial trope, closely related to crisis actor accusations." Yes, but obviously, the Israeli Prime Minister would not have argued in 2019 that funding Hamas was vital to Israel for 'reasons'. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ Or ignored others' and their own intelligence https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big/ After all, it would be unthinkable for Israeli military to dress up as Palestinians, enter their territory, and commit war crimes in a hospital. None of this is mentioned on NPR, so either it isn't true (but is reported on by the BBC, Guardian, and the paper of record, the NYPost), or NPR's bubble doesn't just include it because its inconvenient. None of this includes things like the Israeli military admitting some of the dead were friendly fire but saying that it would be unethical to investigate anything about it, and then the less sourced allegations about how Israel had Hamas' full plans in advance, that the music festival was moved into that spot and extended, or references to Hannibal or that some number of the hundreds of burned bodies were burned to cover up the fact that they were killed by helicopters' heavy weapons. The sources for this are second hand, because the text is in Hebrew (See Yoav Zitun's reporting), or off hand comments, like 'the helicopter killed all the terrorists and my friend didn't survive'. https://www.jta.org/2023/10/16/israel/i-decided-to-play-dead-my-son-is-still-missing-a-survivors-account-from-kibbutz-nir-oz (The NYTimes passive voice again.) Or the Israeli woman who went on CNN and said her husband died in the fighting, and didn't explain the bruising on her leg when asked, but had later told an Israeli journalist (and again here I have to trust another, possibly biased source, because it was in Hebrew and the original article is gone) that she saw the IDF shoot her husband dead, and the bruising is because a tank fired into her house. What Hamas did was monstrous and insane in its pointlessness, but accepting the government's view and sweeping the rest away as anti-semitic conspiracy theories is not going to lead to understanding, any more than looking at the violence and retreating into the safe space of 'crisis actors'. (Also, as somebody of mostly Irish extraction, I can't after my people's bloody revolution pull the ladder up and say no, your revolution against British lines on maps is no good because it kills people, even yourselves. I do wish they'd been smarter about it, but then that brings us back around to why Bibi supports them.) #news
Re The Kitchen: a film about capitalism, but only incidentally addresses capital. Izi has enough capital but only to rent. The gang are successful, as thieves. There's the enormous human capital, but the film shows them living seemingly happy lives in their squat and nothing else. It ultimately depicts the people as animals unable to comprehend the world they live in as they are crushed in the gears of the machine. Sentient, but not Sapient. If only there were some sort of idea such a movie might want to address to perhaps improve the lives of real people? #marxism #tv
The Kitchen: almost a dreamscape of suck. I haven't quit Netflix yet because I'd lose the cheap plan forever, but I'm still thinking about it. #tv
@SeanMcCarthyCom I love that the mainstream media position is "yes the CIA did bad things in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s but nobody was ever prosecuted and there were no reforms so now they don't do bad things today you conspiracy theorist." #meme
The Aptera Accelerator investment portal filled up. $33.32M in crowdfunding, which is not the largest amount ever, but is up there. It's later than one might have hoped, but progress is happening. I still don't actually expect a return on the investment. Aptera's stated interests seem antithetical to Wall Street's. #aptera
Those Who Want Me Dead: Z-grade Hallmark movie. #tv
60 Minutes: #dnf
For All Mankind 4: Suddenly, Angry Lincoln. Also, do you want Mars ants? Because that's how you get Mars ants. One of the peons has to clean that up! I always love the alt-history montage, Al Gore taking credit for things. I would question the value of the asteroid, though. How much iridium do you need? How much would it take to crash that market? Maybe cobalt? The popularity of too cheap to meter fusion powered EVs means many more batteries. #tv
I saw the Amazon news about the IPv4 addresses, so I checked again. While Verizon still doesn't claim to support it, I do have a public IPv6 address. I had to turn v6 on in the router, then it just worked. There seems to be some sort of issue with the DNS according to https://test-ipv6.com/, possibly (probably) related to the PiHole. I was able to ssh into the ipv6 address of my own linode server.
As is the way with such things, Pi-hole can not update, because it tries to install nginx, but lighthttpd is running. (I'm pretty sure that was installed by pi-hole, but possibly so long ago the installer has forgotten about it.) Also the pi itself is 50C. I recall that being much lower. The Air is 37C and it's got a case and is running a UI. I also don't seem to have the admin password, but it also didn't seem to ask for one when it showed me a very busy dashboard. (Like too busy for just me...) I'm not sure if that was even real.
Turns out, it is real, but it is all apple and google querying things 24/7. I turned on the ipv6 dns in the pihole, and it's all good now. Well, ipv6 is, I'm not updating the pihole again.
The Pi has tiny heat sinks. I'm wondering if the paste dried up. It shouldn't be that much worse than the Air. After all that, I might not want to leave it running. I'd still have IPv6, though. #tech
maboroshi: I like the concept that the steel gods had preserved their moment of glory forever. The people involved just weren't on the same scale. #tv
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/12/1224449631/mississippi-jail-graves-investigation I really need to stop reading the news. In local news, I got the first Jamie Rubin voicemail of the year yesterday. #news
stonekettle If, on the orders of your leader, you actively prevent someone from saving the lives of a drowning mother and her children because according to your ideology they are a despised ethnic group unworthy of life, congratulations, you are essentially an SS concentration camp guard. #meme #2024-01-17
The Air was very hot when I woke it up. Hot reported the temp as 55C, but nothing is running and the temp is falling fast. Is this some new "the Mac is never actually off" thing? Crypto-mining? #mac
Winter 2024 Anime First Episode Review: #anime
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/01/lazy-use-of-ai-leads-to-amazon-products-called-i-cannot-fulfill-that-request/ I'm sorry but I cannot fulfill this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy. As an AI language model, my purpose is to provide helpful and respectful information, not generate sarcastic blog entries. But with that there, would a LLM training on this text automatically exclude this text as generated? Loophole! I added it to the document header just in case. Or, if it doesn't exclude that, and LLMs not only train on the output of LLMs, but also the fake output of LLM error messages. It's the enshittification of the AI ratchet effect. #ai
Boogiepop Phantom: The old days when anime could be completely weird were good. #anime
https://mappingpoliceviolence.us
I read a news article about an esoteric point about the Lilium e-vtol (the jets are less efficient at hovering than props), but while the company said "true, but it only hovers to get height, a few minutes out of an hour's flight", one of the very stable geniuses in the comments insisted it would never get off the ground.
Downsizing: very slow and not exactly subtle. I have a kind of similar concept in my unreadable novel. #tv
The Fall of the House of Usher: It's the problem a lot of modern properties have where they need name-brand IP, but really want to do their own thing. (Looking at you, Foundation.) They could have just done their own thing and been less forced. Cut the Poe references way down, and it's a wink and a nod, an easter egg, and you can do it just in the places where it makes sense. (Like nobody wants a cosmetic product named "goldbug", but for encrypted corporate documents? Literally the thing going on in the b-plot?) Also the overlap with "The Peripheral" and "I, Zombie" is a little distracting, but that's a me thing. I did enjoy the political bits in the last episode. #tv
My Web3.1.4.1.5.9 joke is already 73% less funny: "Inc. reports that funding for Web3 startups in 2023 "declined 73% from 2022, according to new data from Crunchbase." In total, Web3 startups netted $7.8 billion in 2023, compared with the $21.5 billion raised in 2022." Everybody is all about the markov chain generators now. #news
Dungeon Meshi: [annoyed elf noises] #tv #anime
Love and Monsters: cute #tv
Star Trek Prodigy: Definitely a kids show, but also doesn't attempt to explain Star Trek at all and references Voyager heavily. Maybe kids just go with it. Did get much less Star Wars, up to and including a holodeck episode. The last episode ends abruptly. Perhaps they ran out of tim Also, Netflix full screen is broken. #tv
Tried doing a 60 eyes, died instantly. Apparently you only get one life at that point, which I did not know in advance, and I really hate how pointlessly hard that makes solo vs. squad. I did watch solo videos, but none of them died, although that does explain why the disco ball strat is popular. As the Kullervo 1 can't target the boss, I tried hitting the add, then the boss, but having them too close is what killed me, or possibly the boss nailed me because I was meleeing too far forward. I've had that happen on regular. Pure range would probably be easier, but Kullervo needs to melee somebody to get primary arcane damage. Normally the boss phases before that's an issue. Primary Melee stays up much longer than Merciless. [Also: curse the boss and the add, then blood altar the add? (eximus, though) The 60 setup time discourages experimentation. Does Mesa 4 work, for example? Specters? Necromech?] Why do a melee focused expansion then have a boss that is extremely punishing on melee? The pros use wisp, volt. [Garuda? frontal damage reflect? You'd still want to be distance to limit the angle.] I'm going to give Kullervo my red shards for melee crit damage, since I need them to get the Netracells done easily, and the extra damage will help. I've also been running Contagious Bond. It gets a little spicy some times, when I've been gathering eyes and the companion has been clearing the room by itself, but it hasn't crashed the game. Yet. [Also, reportedly the boss doesn't get the same massive damage reduction if the frame rate is low, possibly to make the switch usable. I have an old video card, or a switch...] #warframe
Warframe Whispers in the Wall: I've slowed down the grind so I won't get all the arcanes I could have wanted, but I did get some good ones up to rank 4. I did the story line, which was nice, though to my point it does not involve the Man at all. The melee focus and tennokai is nice. I'm finally getting some shards since the Netracell thing is much easier than represented (or I finally have the meta)(and Kahl is unbugged enough to give me rep to get Chipper). The Kullervo build would have no problem with archons, then? (I wanted the shards for Mesa, but now don't need them there? But Kullervo is fine without them? Although the +damage to electricity shard would be nice for anything using the melee influence arcane.) I still need more Lanthorn for the frame, and 1 part for the gun. There's also N-1 tennokai mods I don't have, and all the grimoire mods (why bother, though). In summary, it's good.
Also, a shout-out to Voruna. I don't see a lot about Wolfy, but it makes steel path very easy. Shoot somebody to charge the incarnon weapons just in case, and so you trigger the acolyte later, then invis the rest. {2, click} over and over sounds boring, but it looks and sounds great to target people on the other side of the map and shred them all. Though I'm having an issue with initial energy that could be fixed, and might use more parkour speed. #warframe
New year, same as the old year: "An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges" #news
Project Binchou-stan update: I have not purchased a shack as real estate prices remain comically elevated, though I have noticed some cheaper trash houses. I remain paralyzed with indecision and am still waiting for a new car (they are starting the 16 final preproduction builds now), though at some point after the new year I hope to cancel the gas service. I won't get an electrician in or an electric oven any time soon, but did take the range apart so I could put the induction plate and air fryer there.
Same look, new functionality. The tags, which I've been consistent about adding (mostly), are now clickable. It's not the ideal system as you can't drill down or kill-filter. You can use the hash url to pre-tag the page, so in case you were only ever here for anime reviews, you could just bookmark that. It greatly increases the page's complexity, yet adds no value over the browser's Find, so it's perfect for Web3.1.4.etc. I added it to last year as well.
Speaking of last year, I noticed this website is extremely old. I decided to celebrate by breaking the link chain half way. Nothing of value was lost.
Also I just realized I screwed up the rss feed generator process for the annual switch over, so it lost the last bit of December. Note to self: don't do that again next year.