efaardvark
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Status Updates posted by efaardvark
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Looks like the hills behind my house have turned into a volcano!
jk.. That would be pretty extreme even by 2020 standards.
No, this is “just“ a view of the “bobcat” fire that I took on the way home from work.
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This happens every freekin year. Fortunately (for me) the wind so far has been good for us here to the south of the national forest area. Feel bad for the people up north tho.
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RIP.. killed by serial Webex.
(Not quite as bad as having someone read a 100 page PowerPoint to you but still deadly in the wrong hands.)
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And now I’m 56.
I’ve actually had this affliction since the 10th but I didn’t realize it until my phone reminded me about my brother’s birthday yesterday. (Then there’s my mom’s on the 23. Yes, somehow my family wound up with 3 of us in one month.)
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2020, the autumn of civilization?
(I've always kind of liked the sailboat option myself.)
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Keeping an eye on the "bobcat" fire that's wreaking havoc over in the foothill communities east of me. Friday it was almost 13 miles away. Today it is just under 10. It is creeping closer, but also seems to be dying down in intensity with the cooler weather. (Well, relatively cooler. Still supposed to get up to 93F today.) Not a problem for me yet except for air quality and ash, but I'm concerned that there's nothing between the fire and me except for the national forest area. That area is wooded, mountainous terrain that has plenty of fuel for the fire but makes it hard for the firefighters to fight the fire in. In the past fires in that area have been a problem because they can't really be attacked in the forest itself, but as it burns through that area it can suddenly flare up and cause problems, especially if the wind picks up. Worst case we get one of our hot, dry "santa ana" winds coming from the high deserts in the north and east that fans the flames and quickly drives them into the populated areas. Keeping my fingers crossed for this one. 2020 has been kind of an asshole to me so far.
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Tired of this so-called smartphone crap. Apple, Google, Samsung .... where’s my tricorder??
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M20 folks doing an EDL ORT today.
Translation: Mars 2020, aka Perseverance, folks doing an Entry, Descent, and Landing Operational Readiness Test today. At work I swim in an acronym sea.
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This is a whiteboard in the hall outside my office, just at the end of the hall from the door to the building. Ostensibly it is for notices about building and safety because there’s still construction going on in the building and of course the virus situation but the board seems to be accumulating other doodles around the margins as well. At least people seem to be keeping their spirits up in spite of all the other crap going on.
(The board is also pretty much unused in the last couple weeks - for its originally-intended purpose anyway - since they’ve gotten most of the electrical and network connections in and put up a set of “signage” displays/monitors in the hallways and conference rooms for this purpose. Below is one such display doing its thing in one of the mostly-finished conference rooms.)
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The product is a real product, though whether it works as advertised is another question. It is possible though. Even Raspberry PIs have enough processing power to do vision work. Certainly the company is real. I bought one of my computer cases from them a few years ago...
(This is my internet<->LAN firewall/gateway system. SuSE linux on a SFF motherboard and an external USB->ethernet adaptor for the second NIC.)
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Looks like my whole state is on fire. Actually if you zoom out it looks like the whole western US is burning.
season is definitely upon us.
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Well that was close...
https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2020 QG;old=0;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=1#cad
Closest approach was 2,900km and we didn't even see it until 6 hours after it went by.
Probably 3-6m in diameter (about 1/3rd the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor) and travelling at 12.4km/second. Definitely would have made some noise and got people's attention.
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The size was a factor, and also the trajectory. It came in from the sunward side. It was both smaller and slower than Chelyabinsk so in terms of energy this was probably less than a quarter of that. Though that one was maybe up to 500kilotons so even that much would have been significant. The first atomic bombs were "only" around 10-20kiltotons.
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But it's a dry heat.
Or as Bill the Cat would say, "Ack, Thbbft!"
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Thunderstorms and hot, dry weather.. yep, fire season has definitely come to SoCal once again. All we need now are our high winds. (Usually they peak around September/October so it’s a little early yet.)
https://ktla.com/news/california/crews-battle-wildfires-amid-brutal-heat-wave-in-california/ -
Anyone need a yodeling pickel? Amazon's Choice for "archie mcfee".
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Just found out that Tonikaku Kawaii is going to be made into an anime by Kenjirō Hata, the same person who did Hayate no Gotoku. AND it will be on crunchy in October. Might be a bit diabetes-inducing, but I'm going to put it on my list anyway.
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Looks like things were hopping today down in Boca Chica...
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The fact that the whole thing looked off-kilter because of the engine mount didn’t help the visuals. There are mounts for three engines around a common center, but with only one engine mounted the whole thing has to tip over to get the center of thrust going through the center of mass or else the whole thing does a nice arc ending in a powered dive into the ground. The physics works, and obviously the software can handle it, but it looked... dangerous.
The thing that impressed me was the fact that this is just about a third of the top half of the full stack that’s going to eventually put things in space. That’s going to be one impressive launch! A lot of them actually. I mean, the whole thing is supposed to be reusable after all.
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