efaardvark
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Status Updates posted by efaardvark
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Crap. My crunchy list was about a kilometer long already, now it seems like the merger has brought in a ton of "new" (to crunchy) stuff as well. Wish I could quit my job to focus on my anime backlog.
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Crunchy's new queue system is annoying me.
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@efaardvark I’ve seen some people on their forums complaining about it. I watch their series through VRV which I have some issues with as well.
@Seshi Which one would that be?
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Currently I'm researching how long gas stays usable when left sitting in your car's gas tank. I've had my car a full year now and I'm only halfway through my second tankful! (FWIW, according to my calculations I've averaged 372.3mpg over the year!)
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Currently listening to people in the other room say things like, "it broke the spatula", "I can't pack any more in there", and "I can't do this sober". I think they're making cookies.
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DART launch team photo. (I’m the guy in back with the lid.)
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Thanks @Kit. Might be changing jobs in the near future tho. I’m currently working for a contractor but JPL/Caltech has made me an offer that looks good. It is in integration and testing and moves me away from real-time ops but it is more in tune with my training as a systems engineer. Benefits are better and it comes with a bigger paycheck too.
The downside is it drops me right in the middle of GDS - ground data system - testing for all those cubesats going up on Artemis in a couple/few months.
(Currently there’s one guy doing it full time and one loaner half-timer and they’re apparently not getting much sleep. How do you schedule testing with JAXA, Goddard, and ESA in the same day and still find time to sleep?)
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Did not smell smoke this morning. That's always good. AND we still had power! Even better.
The clothes dryer was not feeling well however. Started the laundry and discovered it was taking forever to dry the clothes. Gave it a once-over but this is a (very) old dryer that has been repaired many times already so it could be pretty much anything. The dial to set the heat and one of the mode selector buttons don't stay attached. The lint trap bracket is cracked. The bearing for the drum that tumbles the clothes rattles and probably needs replacing. So does the blower. Etc. Etc..
So a not-so-quick trip to the nearby Lowes (hardware/housewares/appliance chain store) and I've got a new dryer set to be delivered and installed in a couple weeks. New washer too, since it has a number of issues as well. Got it at the same time as the dryer and it too has been repaired at least as many times. Expensive (isn't everything these days) but a new washer/dryer every couple decades isn't so bad. At least this way I hopefully won't have to deal with any laundry-related issues for another decade or so.
Meanwhile I also upgraded Ubuntu to 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" last night in a fit of madness. I was a little worried since 19.10 had depreciated 32-bit software support and updated the kernel from 4.18 under cosmic to 5.3.0 under eoan. Bash went from 4.4 to 5.0. Gcc went from 8.2 to 9.2. Bumps on the 3d and AMDGPU gfx driver(s) too. Lots of moving parts, several critical for the things I do. Net result: Looks like my local server running the RLCraft modpack is down for good.. probably a java thing. (1.8 -> 11.0.. yeah.) KSP is still fine however (checked that much before upgrading), as is my minecraft client/launcher (once I updated to the most recent version that is). Spotify, Discord, and everything else I've checked also seems ok. So far, so good.
Can't tell if I'm winning or losing this week.
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Definitely agree to this. As far as I know, I don't own any 'smart' appliance so far. I really don't see the point anyway. Also, one of the firs things they taught me in engineering was that generally speaking it's a great idea to use as few parts as possible, because it reduces the possibilities of dysfunctioning elements.
I am glad that there (still) are at least some things we can fix ourselves. I am given to understand that for example in apple computers it is usually not the case that you can even exchange simple parts. If I look at laptops nowadays with RAM modules soldered into it in a way that you can't really desolder it without damaging anything (at least with my primitive soldering irons), I really envy the days when I mainly used tower PCs. -
Heh.. be careful what you wish for. I happen to live in one of those places with a warmer climate. Lately I don't know from day to day if I'm going to catch fire or just lose power.
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Discworld coming to TV! Awesome!
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Dress rehearsal for m20 tonight and they're trying to be as faithful as possible to the real thing... right down to the 3am liftoff.
On the plus side, working from home means all I have to do is stumble from my bed to the computer and be awake enough to remember my password when I get there.
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Drinking coffee & waking up to the sights and sound so f 1911 New York City...
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I once tried to sneak in time travel into a paper. It was something like 'given current scientific methods, it is not possible to test what would have happened if x did not take place' (it was something on 'counterfactuals'). The reviewer caught it though, and said that this was obscure (as counterfactuals are defined as not factual). Had to take it out, but I still don't think it is an impossibility.
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End of my first week working from home!
I think I'm actually more tired and discombobulated now than I was at the end of last week however.
At least I'm down to only doing the job of two people. 
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Finally gave up AT&T and called Spectrum. They're definitely the second choice in terms of uplink and downlink speed and ping times. OTOH, they actually managed to get their shit working, unlike that other utility. And OTGH pretty much anything beats AT&T's old 8mbit DSL.
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hold on, are you saying AT&T never got you that internet connection you mentioned quite a while ago? what on earth were they doing?
It is such a long story. By the end the local sheriff got involved and even the AT&T supervisor who came to the house was saying that maybe it would be better if we went with Spectrum. How much time do you have?
Short version.. we now have trimmed trees - at least in the easement area directly behind our house - and Spectrum Internet. Soon we will have our old phone #s ported over and be rid of the last vestiges of AT&T. Good riddance.
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Finally got a weekend off. Did some Minecraft and anime.. and laundry, but I’ll take what I can get.
Thought I might have to go in early Monday for a test (computer systems, not COVID) but even that managed to miss me. Monday still sucks - when does it not? - but I feel like this was the first real weekend I’ve had in months.
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Finally starting my vacation! Theoretically anyway. Gotta work at 12:10-9AM (pacific time) Christmas day for JWST, then sometime over the weekend move furniture so I can move Mom out of her nursing home and into an assisted-living arrangement next week. Hopefully the new year will be.. less eventful.
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So far I’m good here. A bit of rain started in the wee hours this morning but that’s fine. We need the water. We’re supposed to get a series of fronts coming through but not much intensity. Other than idiots on the freeways not paying attention to the laws of physics it seems like we’ll just have to deal with several days of rainy weather down here in SoCal. Up north there might be issues. They’re talking up to 10 feet of snow in the Sierras. Again, we need the water, but these days the snow doesn’t stick around and people are worried about it melting and causing flooding once the storm is over.
Actually, my brother in Wisconsin seems to be having more “fun” with the weather. He’s reporting that there’s a 100-car pileup on the interstate due to ice and snow.
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First inflation wrecks my savings, then the stock market tanks my 401k, now this. 2022 has not been a good year for my retirement plans.
No association of Viagra and Cialis with reduced Alzheimer’s disease risk.
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For anyone wanting to follow the Mars 2020 (aka Perseverance) landing tonight here’s all the links.
In related news, Krispy Kreme has a limited-time offer.
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For now this is just rich boys and their toys. Significant only in that it is a private endeavor that can successfully reach space. SS2 is just a rollercoaster ride, and an extremely expensive, suborbital one at that. Same with Bezos’ rocket.
What I am rooting for is SpaceX’s “Starship”. 100 tons to LEO on a totally reusable, completely private-sector vehicle that is even cheaper to fly than the revolutionary Falcon 9 is -really- going usher in a whole new era.
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@Wedgy I read a science fiction story way, way back in the late 70s or early 80s. It was actually a series of “hard” sf short stories, many brutal in fact, about the difficulties of building and maintaining a Lunar colony. In among the stories about all the different ways to die, the difficult logistics, the politics, and the economics, there was a story about a huge underground cavern that was described as an old magma chamber 1000s of feet in rough diameter. Patched to be airtight and filled with atmosphere it was the setting for a largish settlement. The story was full of insight and wonder, but the bit that stuck with me was the way the dwellings were arranged. There were a number of “traditional” buildings laid out on the ground in the center of the area, but most of the people actually lived in “pigeonholes” drilled into the sides of the chamber. There was a road and a system of cranes and elevators that serviced the dwellings, but mostly these were only used for freight. The people themselves mainly traveled via personal wingsuits.. light-duty suits were self-powered by the muscles of the person wearing them to enable human-powered flight in the low lunar gravity. There were also heavy-duty suits with small electric ducted fans that acted like small jet engines for speed or to carry light payloads. And of course there were sport versions. I’d pay some serious cash for a vacation in a place like that.
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Found out a coworker tested + for C19 so I’m getting myself tested as well. No symptoms <knock knock> but I’ve got a big week ahead at work and an 82yo mother in memory care that I have to visit regularly & I need to know.
