efaardvark

Getting in some more KSP time today. Between work and end-of-season anime bingeing I have been neglecting my Kerbals. Driving along in my rover, minding my own business.. All of a sudden my rover's batteries started draining. Checked my solar panels. "blocked by the Mun"? Hmmm, now that you mention it the sun does look kind of funny. It's a Münar eclipse!

I did like Hyouka, but I would be reluctant to see a second season. They didn't really leave any loose ends so any second season would have to be a new storyline, and I'm still working off issues from FLCL2 so... no, not looking for a second season. I might go for *an* episode that does a better ending though, or maybe even a movie. Maybe. I'd have to be convinced.

Actually, if you read The Silmarillion, LOTR is a kind of "end of the world, part II". Sauron is actually a lieutenant of Melkor/Bauglir/Morgoth, the REAL bad-ass. But that's ok. The Silmarillion is the creation myth to the whole Middle Earth mileau. It is supposed to be a larger than life backstory. But yeah, a "done" story, forcibly reopened just to make a few more quick bucks, is annoying as heck. That's just disrespecting the fans. I've even got a policy of not even starting a movie/game/anime if I know it goes on for more than a couple iterations in part to avoid that sort of thing. If they're going to do that then get the crew that did so well on the original material and make a new story, game. or whatever. Or a spin-off or something with different characters and story if you want to reuse the scenery. I'd go for it... done it in fact. Seeing a "from the authors of .." is the one of the few types of marketing that actually works fairly well on me. (Assuming I liked the previous work of course.) I also have issues with series that are left in cliffhanger state just because some suit didn't think it'd make enough money to bother wrapping things up. Again, that's just dissin' your base. If you're going to start something, finish it! Looking at you, SyFy! I don't mind though if something is broken up into smaller pieces. LOTR is a huge story. I saw it all (Hobbit + LOTR) in one physical book once upon a time and it was awesome as heck, but so unwieldy as to be practically unreadable. Stuff with that much background behind it has to be kept close to the original storyline or risk alienating the fans. OTOH, putting it ALL in a single movie is also a bit much to ask people to sit through, even the fans. I didn't/don't mind the The Hobbit as a "prequel" either. It actually is a separate story, you don't really need it to understand LOTR, and it lowers the financial risk for the studio to do it that way. I'm fine with that sort of thing, even if it means paying to see 4 separate movies. (Actually, since I'm a fan of the story and they/Jackson did a good job, in hindsight I'd have been fine if they'd split up the movies even more. The extended edition of The Two Towers alone is almost 4 hours long!) I'm not going to pay to see a half-hour movie in 5-minute increments so don't go too far in that direction, but give me value and I don't mind paying for the content. At all. Now if they'd done a half-assed job, or released Fellowship and then stopped just because it didn't make "enough".... then there would have been blood. The whole Middle Earth universe is kind of a special case anyway though. Obviously there's already a huge, existing, multidemographic fan base to sell to, and Tolkien did so much background work to flesh things out for his own purposes that the only real risk is in production. Besides the LOTR/Hobbit there's enough material in The Silmarillion alone to reasonably produce at least half a dozen more spinoffs with little financial risk and without messing the main story up. As long as they stick to Tolkien's material - or at least don't conflict with it - the fans will be fine with it, and money will be made.

I'm big on water too. I always have a bottle with me, and with meals I always order ice water instead of a soda or something. In the mornings I usually have a cup of coffee, and in the afternoons a cup or two of tea. That's really all I drink. Occasionally I'll have something carbonated like soda or beer with certain foods like pizza.

Yes, SW & EA is another "good" example of greed and bad franchise management. I'm so over the whole SW (and ST for that matter) franchises anyway at this point, and I've been officially boycotting EA titles for years already as well. The two together was DOA before it was even released, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Disney is better than most at monetizing, I'll give you that. That's all it is though, IMHO. They realize that driving off the fans kills the goose that lays the golden eggs. They're all "pop" stuff though. Nothing really controversial or serious in a social sense, at least not intentionally. EVERYTHING that comes out of Disney passes through several layers of corporate lawyer, public relations, and profitability committees before getting green-lighted. You can barely hear the writers' intent through all the filters, if indeed you can hear it at all. They are also not good corporate citizens. They sue teachers for using Disney material in class. They take old, public-domain stuff and slap their own copyrights on it. That'd be ok if it were just their own content and "for limited Times" per the Constitution, but then they go and threaten to sue everyone who publishes the original material as well. They have been big promoters of perpetual copyrights. They're fine with using the public apparatus to protect their artificial monopolies (and not incidentally their profit streams) forever. When it comes to paying for that protection by giving back however, not so much.

Be careful, that's what we said over here about the DMCA legislation too. Next thing we know we don't even own our tractors anymore.

This is a general problem with the entertainment industry. Whether it be game, movie, tv show, books, or whatever, if a title is even slightly successful it gets reused. Old movies that worked get reboots. New movies get a sequel. TV shows get another season. Books get a second volume. Games get a new version, or maybe just DLC. Then if the sequel is successful they do it again. And again. And again. They do it until the story suffers and the original authors/actors/programmers are sick of it. But even then if it sells they do it again. And again. And again. And they keep doing it until the story is utterly destroyed and even the die-hard fans are so sick of the franchise they stop paying. Then, and only then, does the industrial promotion apparatus move on to the Next Big Thing. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I view the current era as a transition period. If there's any sanity left in the world, eventually we'll all just have a "data" service to go along with our other utilities like electricity or water. "TV" and "phone" are just particular types of data anyway. I have already given up on "phones". I talk to my brother in Wisconsin long distance using discord. I don't watch "TV" anymore either. Everything is streamed or downloaded. Just give me a fat pipe to the 'Net and be done with it. That's for sure. For example, I was just reading about your (the EU's) proposed new copyright directive, aka Article 13. What kind of leadership even allows that sort of thing to be proposed?? Where's the push-back for public good against the corporate greed? Have ALL the politicians been bought?

There was some talk of an AF discord channel a while back, but I'm not sure what became of it. I actually prefer the forum format though for general discussions, especially over things like skype. I use discord for real-time stuff - during actual game play for instance - but using it as a forum replacement seems like it wastes too much time with chit-chat. It also limits the people you can interact with due to the time zone effect. I don't have time to just hang out in a chat room all day, and I'm not going to stay up all night just to talk with people on the other side of the world. (Interesting as that might be.) However, I do have time to jump in, read a bunch of stuff from yesterday or a couple days ago, post a quick reply, and then go on to deal with other things in my life.

Getting old sucks. Next question? Seriously though, it isn't too bad. I'm 54, still working, and still reasonably healthy. I made some good choices when I was younger and I didn't let them go to my head so personally I'm doing ok at the moment. Physically getting older has its annoyances, but I've also gained quite a few skills along the way too. I'd like to think I've gained a bit of wisdom along the way as well. (No guarantees.) But then there's politics. OMG. My main problem with getting older is probably the worsening political outlook going forward. Our so-called "leadership" here in the US has totally failed at their job of managing things. In fact, they're now a big enabler in making things worse. What's the point of all that cool technology and stuff if not everyone can share in the benefits of it? The younger kids at work already seem to not have nearly the opportunity that I had when I was their age. If I had to start over and raise a family I don't know how I'd do it. It isn't getting any better either. There is no middle-ground. Loyal opposition? What's that? If you're not with us you're a traitor. Moderates have left the building, leaving the motivated extremists to deliver on "choices" like Trump vs Hillary. Doesn't really matter anyway though. The banksters are in control. They get to mark-to-model their assets while everyone else has to use fair market value. Then they get to loan out - and collect interest on - 10x even that fantasy number! I want a business that collects real money on fake assets! And still they can't stay out of trouble. "That's a nice economy you have there.. it'd be a shame if something were to happen to it." So $800Billion - no strings - to bail out the banks, but we can't afford fix the roads or to feed and clothe poor kids, and teachers have to buy their students paper and pencils out of their own miniscule paychecks. Inflation -always- goes up, as do taxes, as does government spending. Spending on what?? Instead of investing in things like science & health research, education, or infrastructure our "leadership" is denying science, cutting research and education budgets, disabling consumer protections against corporate predation, and diverting money into their own pockets. To get the votes "our" politicians have way, way, over-promised on what we, the taxpayers, can deliver, but they're not doing anything to mitigate that. This year alone we went another $Trillion in debt. We're now over $22T. There's only ~330M people in the country! $22T divided by 330M is $67k of debt that every US citizen, man woman, or child, is now saddled with. (But don't worry, if you can't pay then they'll automatically pass that debt along to your kids when you die.) It is even worse when you consider that there's really only 138M taxpayers and the "leadership" isn't even considering cutting spending. In fact, later this year they're going to have to raise the debt ceiling. Again. So much money has already been (over)spent. Taxes are going to have to go up and/or what has been promised is going to have to be reneged on. That's going to make it even harder on everyone and really upset a lot of people who were foolish enough to believe the government's promises and incorporate them into their own future plans. Worst case I might even wind up having to dodge bullets in my "golden" years. It would have been nice to retire and have some fun, but it looks like that's not going to be an option. Me and everyone else are probably going to have to work until we drop. That said, and in an attempt to brighten the tone a bit, there's honestly a lot to look forward to as well. Like I said above, technology is awesome. And getting better. I remember life before the 'Net and the 8086 CPU. They may still need work, but google, wikipedia, "the cloud", etc. are Very Good Things compared to what we had (or didn't have) back then. AMD and Intel aren't done yet either. New cars and trucks are electric, pollution free, and can drive themselves. I remember when I was in grade school not being able to breathe in the city because of smog from all the cars and trucks. We're 100x better now, even before including electric cars. We're -><- this close to a cure for cancer. 3D-printed rockets take stuff to orbit cheaply then come back and land, ready to be refueled and reflown, as god and Heinlein intended. Martian and Lunar colonies are being seriously looked at by $billionaires looking to make money, and that will give us access to literally unlimited resources and new frontiers. Coal is dying. Not even Trump could revive it. Solar power is a very real thing. I have panels on my own roof in fact. They charge my electric car. Good bye Exxon and BP. We'll need more power than things like solar and wind can provide for industry of course, but cheap nuclear is out there, pollution- and carbon-free, and ready to make a comeback when/if we get our heads sorted out. (I'm talking about something sane like fusion or molten-salt fission breeders of course, not more water-cooled boiler bombs like TMI, Chernobyl, or Fukushima.) If we could just fix our politics then getting older wouldn't be that big a deal.

THose things are dangerous. It is girl scout season here at the office and I absent-mindedly ate nearly a whole box of the peanut butter ones last Thursday. Keep them away from me!

I actually kept waiting for them to do something with Ebina. Umaru just kept being a brat, and her brother just kept letting her get away with it. Ebina's was the only character that seemed to have potential. Unfortunately that was never developed either. If there's a second season maybe I'll try that. It wasn't a bad anime. It just didn't seem to want to go anywhere.

Yes. That's the way they taught it in ancient times (middle school), and old habits die hard. I don't know what's going on with the weather here. Rainy yesterday, freezing overnight, now sunny today. Not unheard of, but not normal around here either.

I had to scrape ice off my car windows this morning to see to drive to work. This is not how southern California is supposed to operate!

Maybe it is just me but I got a similar vibe to Gintama from Hinamatsuri. You might try that, especially if you liked the absurdist humor. Only one season (12ep) though so it won't help for long!

I haven't seen Acchi Kocchi mentioned. Aka. Place to Place. Pretty laid-back, funny, cute, etc. Somewhat along the same lines as Azumanga Daiou, which I think I did see someone mention. Some (very non-ecchi) romance though, and only 12 ep. FWIW..

Playing KSP again (finally!) and found a contract to take 6 passengers all over the place. One of them even wants a solar flyby! But of course to get paid I'd need to return her safely to Kerbin afterwords. How do I even do that? For over $800,000 kerbucks I'll give it a try though. I currently only have $2.2M kerbucks, so a contract like this would be a significant chunk of change for me. I'm thinking I could start by taking Magbald and Jendock to Minmus. Minmus is the outer moon of Kerbin so a brief detour into solar orbit from a Minmus encounter shouldn't cost much in terms of delta-V. It should also be possible to get the Münar flyby done (and save dV) by using the Mün for a gravity assist, assuming I get the timing right. If I can make Magbald and Jedock happy then they'll give me over $400k right there. That should be plenty to build the necessary rocket. It'd be even better if I could take everyone to Minmus at once, but that'd be a BIG rocket, and way too expensive. However, I can probably build a rocket to get just two tourists and a pilot to Minmus and back for less than $100k. I wish I had a station built. Having even a low-orbit station is useful for logistics in situations like this. It is a lot more efficient to build a small rocket with limited capability than to build a single vehicle that can handle the whole mission profile. I'd build a "passenger bus" that can barely reach a low-orbit station and return, then have another for getting everyone efficiently to and from other places. Put the high-thrust (but low efficiency) rockets and things like the parachutes and (heavy) heat shields on the "bus". On the other vehicle - the actual space-craft - leave off all that heavy equipment that's useless for other places and just wastes dV. Trim it back to just low-thrust, high efficiency engines, the passenger berths, and the fuel. (Plus "incidentals" like solar panels and communications equipment. And the pilot of course. ) Hmmm.. I've been wanting to build a station anyway. Maybe I can use the profit plus a bit of my cash on hand to put up a small station, then expand it later. I think if I build a "passenger bus" big enough to hold a dozen kerbals and a bit of extra fuel, then leave half of it in orbit as a rendezvous and refueling point that might be the thing to do. Then I'd build and launch the vehicle that goes to the moon(s) separately, dock it with the "station" to refuel and take on the passengers that want to go to Minmus. Do the Minmus mission, come back to the station. Drop off the Minmus crowd and take on the Mün passengers. Refuel. Do the Mün mission, come back. Finally, transfer everyone to the "passenger bus" (the one with the heat shields and parachutes) and bring everyone back home. Payday! Leave the space-craft attached to the station in orbit to make future missions like this even more profitable. Mission planning baby!