efaardvark

Sony *really* needs to vet their funimation transfers better.  Half of them have subtitles that don't match the video!  They also need to add descriptions in the appropriate places, though that was something the old crunchy had issues with as well so I've learned to do my browsing and planning on places like MAL and only hit the streaming sites once I have already decided what to watch.

"But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar; for he sought therein to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself." The Silmarillion, JRR TOLKIEN

Blade Runner, The Wrath of Khan, E.T., Conan the Barbarian, Poltergeist, and TRON.  Some decent music too.   I also graduated high school.  '82 was a good year but... damn, now I feel old.

Really annoyed at Canonical and Ubuntu.  Again.  (Still?)  Among other stupid things the latest LTS version of ubuntu linux installs Firefox as a snap!  As if FF wasn't stupidly huge already.  Also, the "new" default desktop also breaks all sorts of things and introduced numerous weird "features".  For instance, if I right-click on the firefox icon (any application really) in the dock I get a popup menu that used to allow me to "open a new window" for that app, which appeared on the display containing that dock/icon.  Only now instead of opening a new window it teleports the popup menu itself to my second display.  If I then (again) select "open a new window" in the popup, it opens the window on the second display, not the one where I wanted it.  I can then drag the new window to the display where I originally wanted it but, WTF Canonical????

Also, selecting text for cut-and-paste only highlights the first word in the selection.  The rest of the selected text doesn't highlight until you release the mouse button!  This means you can't see what you're selecting until you stop selecting it!  AGAIN, WTF????

I know this isn't the forum for this type of thing but for us out here in the southwestern US the region's water situation is getting critical.  That's me so I'm thinking about this a lot.  Full disclosure, I'm in a suburb of Los Angeles here in So. California.  If you're also in the region, or know someone who is, get informed.  Basically, several of  the region's critical civil engineering systems related to water use and distribution are either having or going to have multi-mode failures over the next decade or so.  At this point even a radical change in the weather severe enough to solve the water supply problem would itself create major issues of its own.  We need to get ahead of the problems and come up with a plan to deal with all of them that can be implemented in the time available.

I'm actually glad to see this video.  The cover/thumbnail image might be a bit click-baity but I think they kept the listed title and the content itself reasonable.  Right now things are still status-quo in most people's minds.  Showers work.  There's water to drink.  You flip the switch and the power still flows to light the lamp or brew the coffee.  For anyone not paying attention nothing would seem to be wrong.  The scariest scenario for me however would be if nobody paid attention until the faucets run dry, then everyone panics without knowing the situation or having a plan.  The people who made this video seem to be normal folks throwing up a flag saying, "hey, something serious is happening here". 

I especially like that they're making the food connection.  Las Vegas golf courses are not really the problem here, though the mindset that says that's a good idea in the middle of the desert (and the politics that allows it) might be part of the reason we got to this point.  Farming is by far the biggest issue.  California farms supply a large fraction of the country's food.  Of the world's in fact.  Those farms also use about 80% of the water in the region.  If you can't grow food because there's no water or can't transport it to the customers because fuel is too expensive then that's a serious problem all by itself, even for people outside of California, Nevada, etc..  The water is also used to generate electricity, and energy is a major input to and driver of any economy.  Expensive energy and low revenues from exports is an economic disaster in the making for the region.  And of course water is also used for drinking and sanitation.  The amount of water used for this last is (relatively) tiny but obviously extremely critical.  I doubt we'll ever run out of drinking water, but it might get extremely expensive, and/or take a while to build out an alternative supply system.  Did I mention you'll be dealing with high energy prices, power problems, and an economy already staggering from the costs of a pandemic, bankster abuse, and political mismanagement while trying to implement your solution?

Any of you older nerds out there remember these?  And care to admit it?

OMG.. I'm agreeing with something a Congresscritter is saying about nuclear power . What is the world coming to? Beware low-flying porcines.

Somebody - an anime virgin - saw the picture below on my computer, provoking the remark that "70% of the world's weirdness comes from Japan".  I could not refute this objectively, but neither do I accept the premise that such a situation - should it be proven factual - is necessarily a Bad Thing. 

So now we here in the southwest US are having to choose between water or electricity.  Over in Utah they said they're going to be stopping the water flow out of Lake Powell because if they don't then they'll have to shut down the Glen Canyon hydro plant there as well.  Lake Powell water levels are currently at 3527ft and they have to shut down Glen Canyon at 3,490ft.  Here in S. California we get a lot of power from Lake Mead's "Hoover" dam - which is downstream from Powell on (what used to be) the Colorado river - but Mead is itself already at the 1050ft the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says is needed to keep the generators going there and we're already past the January peak in rainfall.  (And every foot drop in water level has already meant 6MW less electricity for the grid even before we get to full stop on the turbines.)  The Hyatt power plant in northern Calif. was shut down from August to January last/this year due to low levels in Lake Oroville but at least then we still had flow on the Colorado river keeping Glen Canyon and Hoover going.  With Powell shutting its outflow gates so early this year it is only a matter of time before water and power both become hard to find around here.  It looks like they're prioritizing electricity for now but either way it seems this summer is going to be "Bad" around here.  Word of advice for anyone looking to move to S. California - or anywhere in the US southwest really... don't.  At this rate we're going to wind up like Venezuela. 

Somehow wound up on a tiger-team to troubleshoot/fix James Webb telemetry latency issues they've had since launch.

You know that old gag where everyone lines up and then someone asks for volunteers and everyone but one slow guy takes one step back.  I *think* that's what happened.  Either that or I was volunteered in a secret meeting that I wasn't invited to.   Either way... just shoot me now. 

Went over to the "SAF" - spacecraft assembly facility - today at lunch & saw NISAR being built in the bay. 

Also saw the color-by-numbers version of the first picture of another planet from space, and the crayons that were used to color it.  Fun bit of history on display there.  

I like being alone. I have control over my own shit. Therefore, in order to win me over, your presence has to feel better than my solitude. You're not competing with another person, you are competing with my comfort zones. — Horacio Jones

Looks like I have to go out to Goldstone on the 10th.  Damn.. I thought I was done with that when I switched jobs.    

Can't fool me!  I know what's in the green.. and it isn't "mint chocolate"!

Being in a rush resulted in a dinner of oatmeal and a can of soda.  Not a good combination.  PSA.

Just realized that Konosuba's Darkness has the same VA as Pet Girl's Shiina Mashiro. 

And another weekend disappears without even stopping to say, "hi". 

Got a new refrigerator.  Strangely, that had higher priority this weekend than getting my car fixed or doing my taxes.   

At least the deed is done.  I can only hope that I get enough of a tax return to pay for it.    When I finally get around to filing of course.

So I hear the gates to the Taihe Dian blew down in a freak windstorm.  Maybe someone is trying to tell the Chinese leadership something?

Asking for a friend. 

To this day I associate Wagner with the phrase, "Kill the waaabit!".  There was also Rossini's(? heh, probably) "shave and a hare cut (.. two bits!)", among others.  Truly classic(al).

Yes, we were that bored before the 'Net came along. 

\me is pondering the possibility of both Starship and SLS fully stacked on 2 separate pads at the Cape.  Simultaneously.  Talk about a photo op!  It could happen.

Only thing better would be having both of them launch at the same time.  Probably never happen but wouldn't that be awesome?

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.