efaardvark

6 minutes ago, Blue Dragon said:

I also like to write notes in some of my books. If it's particularly engaging, or something I want to look for and reference later, I might underline a sentence or write notes in the margins. Not every book, but certain ones make me do that XD I know that drives some people nuts, but I just got into this habit in school and college. I think a lot of it has to do with how I learn...I like to write things out so I can remember it :3

I do that too and it was one of the reasons I got the reader Boox that I did.  It essentially has a built-in Wacom tablet.  There are a number of other readers that also have built-in note-taking abilities as well, but the reader that I picked is one of those that actually lets you write in the margins of your e-books.

Hello and welcome!  Stuff like YYH isn't my thing, but for (the original) FLCL.

And of course less than a year after I buy my Boox somebody goes and invents a color e-ink display...

Not exactly watching *now* but over the holiday weekend I binged Kami-Nai and Aoi Hitomi no Shoujo.  Both were rewatches.  Both still decent.  Really like the OP for The Third.

@xnaylynn  Hello, Ren.  Welcome!  Any fan of Trigun can't be all bad. 

Got a drilling/mining rig started on Minmus.  Unfortunately it turns out that the best ore deposits aren't near the science/research base I'd previously started so logistics are going to be a bit less efficient than I'd like.  At least for a while.  Once I get an orbiting refinery it won't make much difference.  I do think in the future I'm going to focus operations around the mining rig.  Anything new (that needs to be on the ground) will go there, and as stuff breaks or is no longer needed at the science station I'll have less and less at the science base until finally just the original core rocket will be left, and I'll just fly that away.  That rocket is where the actual science lab module with the scientists (Erbald and Bob) is and the plan was always to use it as a "hopper" to move to a new area once all the science in the old area had been found/researched.  I picked the current location because there are several "biomes" near there that will keep the science team busy for a while without having to move the lab, but eventually I was going to have to move it, and/or it will need refueling anyway.

The mining rig, otoh, will pretty much stay where it is.  It flies like a brick, and is about as fuel efficient.  Launching it from Kerbin was incredibly expensive, and landing it was a challenge, even on Minmus.  Ore in an area doesn't run out, so there's no need to move it and every reason to keep it where it is.  I scanned the moon in detail before picked the spot where I landed it and the only places that have higher ore concentrations are at the poles.  Orbital mechanics makes those areas a lot less efficient logistics-wise, not to mention harder to get things to & from orbit in terms of piloting skills of the player.  So yeah, the new mining rig will probably become the core of my new "base" going forward.

I also rescued one Kathgard from orbit.  She sure seemed happy about it... 

... and had Hanuki, the engineer in charge of the mining rig, do a bit of jet-pack reconnoitering in the immediate area surrounding the rig's landing site before he started the actual mining/drilling operation.

Engineers Bill and Lozer tearing down a booster for tankage and spare parts with the help of pilot Jebediah at the Goliath research base on Minmus.  I do like the KAS mod.  Next step will be to start mining and refining fuel, once I get the tankage built.

One word.  Plex.  Electronic sorting, searching, and finding is soooo much easier.  Plus electrons should make it a lot easier to take it all with me when I head to the outer planets. 

Then there are my "backup" copies of everything in the bookshelf.  Multivolume sets are grouped together, but that's about it.  My physical shelf is totally disorganized.  Not even alphabetized.  New stuff goes in wherever there's enough physical space.. once I've ripped a copy for the plex server of course.  If I like the artwork enough then I lean it against the rest or prop it up with the cover (or whatever) facing outward for display purposes.  That's about it.

So it looks like the US Army guys at Edgewood are saying that by 2050 cyborgs will likely be a real thing, both on the battlefield and in the general population.  Sounds like a GitS world isn't that far off.

Some of these contracts.. Yikes!  I mean, yeah, three stars.  But 17 Kerbals?  I only have 12 in my whole space program right now, and 5 of them are more or less permanently assigned to my Minmus science/research station.  And I haven't even found any class-E asteroids yet!  I've only just recently upgraded my tracking station so I can even start looking for them.  Still, 17 years to do it in, and over $250k advance.  Might be worth it.  With the advance I can expand my Minmus base to add some mining equipment so I don't have to lift the fuel, ore, and monoprop from Kerbin, and that would give me a constant supply of consumables even after I'm done with this particular contract.

Heh.  Then I'd "just" need to hire (or rescue) the Kerbals, get tankage and living quarters built, shipped, and installed into an as-yet-undiscovered asteroid, AND then move said asteroid into Minmus orbit.  That's a lot of work.  I need to start researching the "Nerv" (nuclear rocket motor) if I'm going to be taking on asteroid-moving contracts, and it'd be better if I'd already found the asteroid.  Then I could mine the asteroid itself for the fuel resources and not have to ship them in from some unbuilt elsewhere.  Maybe I should let this one go after all.  I don't think I'm quite ready to tackle something like this just yet in my current game.

6 hours ago, Ohiotaku said:

@efaardvark

Is the weather I’m hearing about out there having any impact on your plans?

It may.  First real rain we've had in a while so the streets will be slick.  Los Angeles drivers are idiots when it comes to weather.  (Bad weather?  Drive extra fast to make up for any delays.)  The snow level is coming down too.  Maybe as low as 2000 feet.  Fortunately I don't have to go up the 14 (freeway) as that's probably going to be icy.  There's been some high winds too, and we even had a brush fire down in Santa Barbara a couple days ago.

Probably nothing bad enough to call off the turkey-day festivities though.  I'll check the sigalerts site when I get up tomorrow to see what I'm up against.  I'll likely just get going a little earlier than usual to allow for traffic delays.  Maybe start back a little earlier too.

Our family usually all heads over to my cousin's place in Fillmore.  (About an hour's drive on LA freeways.)  They usually do a deep-fried turkey as the centerpiece, and everyone else kind of does a pot-luck thing for the side dishes and deserts.  Afterwards there's usually a group that turns on the (US) football game at some point, the kids go play computer/console games, my mom and her sister talk forever about who knows what...  Basically, get together with friends and family, eat, and do whatever seems like fun.

I was driving a rover and the front fell off.   This is not normal.  

4 hours ago, SanguineTear said:

foxgirls

4 hours ago, Musuko said:

Wow! Only $20 for every novel up to Koyomi? That's crazy.

Are these digital only? I've already bought the first season set (Bakemonogatari, Nisemonogatari, Kizumonogatari) in physical copies.

Yeah, the Humble Bundles are electronic versions only.  Still, not a bad deal.  They usually give you a PDF version as one of the formats too, which is my preference.  (The other format options would be ePUB and/or mobi.)

9 hours ago, Serge heartless said:

that doesn't even sound fun, sounds like work

I guess that's one way to look at it.  To me any such "work" just makes it that much more satisfying when I succeed.

13 hours ago, Beocat said:

@efaardvark it honestly sounds like an RPG with a spacefaring twist I can see how it would be fun as I tend to gravitate towards games like that too. The more menus and things you can do, the better sometimes

I will readily admit that it does take a certain mindset to enjoy fully.  It is basically a SimNASA.  There's a lot of different aspects to the game though.  It is part flight sim.  It has aspects of civilization, simcity, railroad tycoon, and a few others.  Some people really get into designing/engineering vehicles, even ones like trucks or helicopters for which there is no in-game reason.  Some people like replicating real-life vehicles.  Some people build gundam-like vehicle (even some that transform in-flight).  There's one youtuber, "SWDennis" who spends a lot of time just trying to get the physics game engine to do wacky, unexpected things.  Some people just like to see the faces that their kerbal pilots/passengers make as you fly them around.  Some people like to build ICBMs and target the other space centers on Kerbin.  (Kerbin is the home planet of the Kerbal race.)  Some people get into the kind of puzzle-solving aspect of the contracts.  Some people like to explore. 

As if that's not enough there's a huge set of mods too.  The base game has no weapons (well, unless you count hurtling rockets) but there's a mod called BDArmory that lets you build lasers, missile launchers, machine guns, etc. into your vehicles.  I'm into programming, so I have a mod called kOS that lets you control your rockets via programs you write.  There's a whole modpack called "reality overhaul" that make real-life things like ullage motors and air/water/food/power supplies necessary.  In fact, the only game that I know of that rivals the KSP mod scene is minecraft.  There's literally thousands of mods for the game.  Getting bored of the game?  Add a few mods and all of a sudden there's a whole new set of game dynamics to explore.

It's always a good time.  And that's just the original game!  There's a KSP2 coming out next year that looks to be awesome as well!

Maybe you had to be there.  I'm sure that orbital mechanics, delta-V, rocket engineering, mission planning logistics, and the rest is not for everyone.  To each their own. 

For myself.. Well, if I'm not already bored of it after all these years then I don't think I'll be getting bored of it any time soon. 

Built a space telescope ...

And launched it into a solar orbit...

Then I built a rover...

And sent it to Minmus, where it found and scanned an interesting green sandstone rock,

getting a bunch of science in the process..

4 hours ago, Jiskey said:

Handwavium?

Stringing together technical-sounding terms in meaningless ways to "explain" impossible technology.  "Reversing the polarity on the pattern buffer to phase the ship into subspace and keep from being hit by photon torpedos."  Bafflegab.  Closely related to unobtanium and very similar to MacGuffinite.

I hope that Disney doesn't ruin Hulu.  The deal with Comcast keeps recognizable shows like SNL and The Office for at least 5 years, but less-popular (i.e. less profitable) shows, and especially stuff that doesn't mesh well with the corporate image of itself that Disney likes to promote, may very well not get renewed.  The focus of what gets added to the catalog going forward now that Disney has total control will likely change significantly as well.  There's quite a lot of anime content that is liable to get lost in the shuffle.

And of course with Disney you know the subscription price will increase, by hook or by crook.  They're already cracking down on account sharing, even between family members (via IP/device tracking and monitoring your broadband network usage, especially if you get your broadband through Comcast), and Disney+'s $13/mo Hulu/espn bundle even includes the ads version of Hulu.  Yes, you pay for the bundle and it still includes commercials!  I haven't investigated Disney+ too closely so maybe you can avoid ads at the $45 level, but even beside the bundling aspect in the first place, having to pay /anything/ for ads is just sooo wrong!

What other streaming options are there though?  With Disney and Apple it seems like streaming in general has become big-business, which typically means expensive.  Not to mention less interesting as anything that's not top-10 profitable and politically acceptable to the corporate censors gets weeded out.  Legally I mean.  Yeah, I know I can get everything from a couple (dozen) other "download" sources.  I want to make sure the animators get paid for their efforts however.  If you get your stuff "for free" from places like that they you're just rewarding advertising and IP theft, and discouraging future anime production.

As for me, I'm on Crunchy mainly, and I've occasionally used Netflix, Hulu, and Funimation.  None of them has everything.  You can't get everything even if you subscribe to all 4.

22 hours ago, Jiskey said:

That's cool, I've never really come across people from California too. (I live in the San Fernando Valley area) I'm pretty much the same when it comes to watching series. I prefer subs as well as that's what I'm mostly used to and I feel like when it comes to dubs there are not that many that are good. It varies with me depending on what I'm in the mood for whether it be a series with 100+ or a short season of 12 - 13 episodes. When it comes to binge watching it depends on how much I like a series where I'll binge watch it the way through or take my time with it.  Have you been enjoying any of those 3 so far? I'm watching other airing series too, but I just listed the ones I particularly look forward to. I tend to avoid series like Yuno. (not necessarily "harem", but those series with a main male character who is surrounded by nearly a strictly female cast) I find those kind of series to always just be okay for me too which is another reason why I avoid picking them up. I made a new account on MAL and my username is Toucandy so I'd be more than glad to continue conversing on there. I couldn't help but notice your pic is Hoshino from Planetes. I not too long ago watched that series and thought it was a very enjoyable watch. 

San Fernando Valley?  Sounds like you're relatively close.  I'm just a bit East of you in the Crescenta Valley.

I usually follow the 3-episode rule.. watch 3 episodes then decide if I want to continue.  Of the 3 (Bookworm, Dr. Stone, and Noukin) I haven't watched any of Dr. Stone yet.  The others I've watched the first few episodes, but I've set them aside for now.  When the season is done I'll go back and binge them.  Time allowing... the backlog in my Crunchyroll queue is hopelessly enormous.

Planetes   That's the kind of science fiction I like.  Also things like Ghost in the Shell are good.  Stuff like Star Wars, or even star Trek, is basically the same as fantasy to me.  That's fine for the entertainment, but not nearly as compelling to me as something that might actually be workable in real life.  I have a background in physics, space, computers, and electrical engineering too, so I'm pretty hard to please in that respect.  I can smell the handwavium from miles away.

I just noticed that the Humble store is currently selling a light novel/book bundle with a bunch of Kodansha's "Monogatari" stuff by Nisio Ishin (aka "NisiOisiN").  If you're a Bake/Nise/Etc fan you might want to check it out.

(Not sure if this is quite the right category for this topic but I didn't see a light-novel category sooo... <plunk>)

11 hours ago, Beocat said:

we use our double garage for storage, not parking

I resemble that remark.. or at least my garage does.