efaardvark
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Everything posted by efaardvark
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Moderately excited to hear about a feature-length Red Dwarf movie...
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I kind of did the same with Stargate. The first couple/few seasons were ok, but it succumbed to the mindset that said every season had to be "better" than the last and eventually went off the rails entirely. By the time the Ori came along I had pretty much stopped watching.
As for embarrassing media outlets, at least you don't have FOX.
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Congresscritters do love their sound-bite producing hearings. Actually doing something productive and useful, not so much. (Unless of course there's money involved.)
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Welcome, @Cassandra!
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Setting up a satellite link in the parking lot at work for the Great Shakeout (earthquake) test. So if the zombie apocalypse comes I'll still be able to get to AF on my phone.
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Just found out the 1.8 update for Kerbal Space Program - appropriately named "MOAR BOOSTERS!" - has dropped. (Kind of inside joke for the player base there, but you get the Idea.) New version of Unity underneath, so I'm hoping for a significant performance boost on my Ryzen 2700X + Radeon RX480 system as well. Previous KSP versions were compute-bound on the physics simulation which was almost completely single-threaded. I rarely saw more than 2 cores in use at a time, and even the "old" gfx card (polaris core) wasn't fully utilized. Downloading it as I type, but I probably won't get to play with it until this weekend. Come on Friday! Edit: Ok, I couldn't resist. I did play with it when I got home. Not much though. I really just installed it and "tested" it enough to make sure the new version is working and ready for Saturday. Coffee, then Kerbals is the Plan.
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They do this to me too. Trouble is, nobody else does my work when I'm "off", so it just piles up and I have to scramble to take care of it all when I get back. It is easier to keep up than to catch up.
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I died. Never even saw it.
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It was good, if you're into horror. I'm not, but I watched the whole thing anyway. That alone says something. I also refer it to people who are into the genre. Nothing wrong with it as far as I'm concerned.. other that it is horror/thriller and I'm not into that.
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Insidious ways RLCraft tries to kill you #742: You build a secure, well-lighted basement. According to the old MC rules that area will remain safe. In RLCraft, torches go out, so your "safe" basement turns into a monster farm and spawns a creeper, which sneaks up on you when you're busy at your crafting table and blows you up before you even notice it. Fortunately it didn't break my bed, which is in another room (with it's own door even). If it had broken the bed then RLC's spawn rules would have re-spawned me not at the world spawn point, but at a random spot within 10,000x10,000 blocks of where I died. Random includes underwater and in lava. Even assuming I respawn in a relatively safe area, at this point that probably would have meant re-starting with a new base, since even finding my current base with no equipment or food would be a major challenge. You do get to keep your skills however, so at least that's something.
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So I discovered that events are a thing in the RLCraft modpack. I'll be in the basement if you need me. I did go exploring a bit here and there around my base this week, trying to find a way around the dragon's valley. Honestly I'd like to go that direction since everywhere else around here is savanna or desert, but I'm not leveled up enough or equipped well enough to tackle him. I don't even have an enchantment table yet.. to use a diamond pickaxe I need at least level 12 mining, and even just mining obsidian is dangerous. Obsidian is always near lava, and in RLCraft there's .. things that live in lava. Things that lob lava at you, or even tentacled things that grab you and drag you into the lava. There's a lot of interesting ways to die in RLC.
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Which do you prefer, subs, dubs or both?
efaardvark replied to Zen Wistaria's topic in Anime Discussion
I also prefer the subs, or often just the original audio with the subtitles off entirely. I'll have to take your word for some dubs being better though. To be honest I don't listen to dubs much at all. I'm a super fast reader (like, a whole novel between bedtime and breakfast) and I understand a lot of spoken Japanese, so after a few bad experiences with dubs I just don't even go there anymore. -
Hi Miko! Gamer and science fiction reader/watcher here. Welcome to AF.
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Weird.. today I've had several people ask me if my car is ok, or if I'm worried about it.
Ok, rewind a bit for some recent local history. Over the past couple days my area has had some very dry, warm, high-velocity winds come through. In the past these sorts of conditions have caused power lines to get knocked down into dry brush and the winds whip up the resulting fire(s) into extremely dangerous wildfires. Fires, evacuations, and/or electricity outages have been a hot topic of conversation around here for the past couple days. The power companies' web sites have hundreds of thousand of customers in the area on notice for potentially having their power cut off, either by the power company itself, ostensibly for preventing downed power lines from starting said fires, or by the fires and wind taking out the power distribution lines.
So back to the strange question. At first I was like, "huh?". Did I not get a memo or something? Did I park somewhere I shouldn't have? Did they see my car on the news get run over or pushed off the road by a fire department bulldozer? (Sometimes this happens when the fire department needs to get access to a fire and their trucks or other firefighting gear is blocked by cars parked on narrow streets.)
In a word, no. Apparently people are concerned that people like me with electric vehicles might have trouble evacuating if they have to because of the power outages that tend to accompany the fires.
Again, "huh??", but with a different tone of voice this time. Thanks for the concern, but of all the stupid things to worry about that's .... not a problem.
First of all, I don't even have an EV. I have a pluggable hybrid. I do have an electric motor (or three) and batteries, and a charging socket on one side of the car. I also have the usual slot for gas (petrol for you crazy furriners) on the other side, connected to a gas tank and a somewhat normal internal combustion engine. Not worried at all here. I'm covered either way.
Second, if the power is out then gas cars would have exactly the same problem as pure EVs because gas station pumps run on electricity. No electricity, no charging (duh), but also no gas. I've actually had this problem before with my old (gas) car. In fact, standard operating procedure around here is if you hear that high winds or dry/dangerous fire conditions are in the forecast then stop at the gas station on your way home from work and top off the tank, just in case.
Third, that typically doesn't matter because gas or electrons, there's always going to be something left in the "tank". (Unless you're one of those people who is always running on "Empty", but that's a whole other discussion.) When the police/fire department comes pounding on your door and tells you to evacuate then you just get in your car and leave with what you have. Gas or electric doesn't enter into it any more than the color of your socks.
(That said, even if you're one of those "I'm not out of gas the car is still moving" people, chances are better your electric car will be at least somewhat charged. More than when you parked it anyway. Unlike a gas car, you can "refuel" an EV at home by plugging it in, and most take only a few hours at most to fully recharge. Assuming you're not so extremely lazy that you can't even be bothered to plug in your car when you park it in your garage, chances are that by the time the power goes out and/or you have to evacuate you'll have at least a partial charge on your EV. A gas car's gas gauge of course would still be on "E", and the nearby gas station that's out of power is not going to be able to help.)
There is one actual problem with gas cars however. It has even been reported on the local news, and warned about at press conferences with the fire department spokespeople. Sometimes when people wait a bit too long to evacuate there's so much smoke in the air that it can clog the air filter and cause a car to stall. Cars have to breathe too you know. At least gas cars that rely on oxygen in the air for combustion do. EV cars obviously don't have this problem. (And again, don't worry about me.. my hybrid has an EV-only mode that's only a button-push away.)
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Interesting, never knew people would think of something like that just because someone has a (semi-)electric car. Probably seems still unusual for them?
If Tesla brings out its 1 million miles battery out and graphene batteries really turn out to be all they are supposed to be (allegedly there already are car batteries that charge over 30x fater and go over 500 miles with one charge), or any other superior battery type, most gas cars will quickly become a thing of the past anyway. -
Apparently there was a "news" story citing losing electricity during an emergency as one of the drawbacks of EVs. Probably FOX.. they're always pushing the "burn, baby, burn", anti-climate agenda.
And yes, EVs are the future. Not only do they make city planning SOOO much easier, their TCO is much lower because there's none of the complicated or fiddly mechanical bits like crankshafts, timing belts, or transmissions to go bad. The writing is on the wall. Daimler ("Mercedes") has already announced that they're not going to develop their internal combustion engines any longer. Going forward all their R&D is going into electric drive trains, and eventually all their cars will be exclusively electric. Even planes will be electric in a few decades.
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Aaaaand here we go with the brushfires now too.
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This happens every season, often multiple times. Especially like now when the hot, dry Santa Ana winds come down from the desert, sucking the moisture out of everything (some places are reporting relative humidity in the single digits) and fanning every spark and cigarette butt into a full-blown fire. This latest started along a freeway so my guess would be a cigarette butt. That or an accident, but nobody is reporting one.
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Autumn in RLCraft...
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Windy, with a chance of power outages and/or brushfires.
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As we celebrate mediocrity all the boys upstairs want to see How much you'll pay for what you used to get for free. And there goes the last DJ Who plays what he wants to play And says what he wants to say Hey, hey, hey ... Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers "The Last DJ"
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Finally, some actual PS5 info.
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Finally finished If It's for My Daughter. I was hoping for something cute along the lines of Usagi Drop or Aishiteru Baby. Started out ok, but veered off course a bit with the crazy teacher incident. Came back, but not all the way. After that it was throwing off weird vibes too. It never did decide if it was going to be serious or cute.
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I can vouch for this. My grandma used to have a crazy brit as a roommate. Not only do they add unnecessary vowels, they also use normal words to mean completely different things.. boot for trunk, lift for elevator, etc. And don't EVER use "pants" when you mean "trousers" when you're talking to them or you'll never hear the end of it!
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Here we go with a 3rd straight week of pounding, sawing, and general mayhem as they rebuild/repair the building for the Mars 2020 folks. This is right across the hall BTW. I'm literally taking this pic from my office doorway.
Actually, if you include the server room construction, and the power supply therefor, and the asbestos abatement, and the restroom repair/replacement, and, and, and.... we haven't had more than a couple months' break in the pounding for several YEARS now.
Ow, my head...
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Found out that lava in the RLCraft modpack (specifically the lycanites mod) can spawn mobs like Afrits. Might not be a good idea to use it for indoor lighting and heating in my base(s) then.
