While people are preparing for the probable calamity that is Irma, it should be noted that one of those affected by the Harvey disaster has dropped off the radar. Though he rode out the storm and its initial aftermath well, the last we heard of Ubu, he was glad he didn't live in Beaumont. That was a week ago. Shortly after that, there was a report that parts of Houston were forcibly evacuated due to a dam breach. Shortly before that, news reports and Ubu's own blog indicated that he was at risk from fire ant's, chemical leaks, telemarketers, and alligators.
Not a dam breach, but it was an overtopping. In the 1940's, two emergency reservoirs were built to prevent events like Harvey from wiping out downtown. They're normally empty; only filling during heavy rain events. It's going to be another week or two before they fully drain; some residents in west Houston still can't get back into their homes.
Posted by: ubu at Tue Sep 12 13:11:41 2017 (SlLGE)
This is looking to be a very bad thing, especially, if, as expected, the thing peters out over Kentucky and the Virginia panhandle. Hurricane levels of rain on the towns in those mountains valleys will be a nightmare. Worse, a lot of the folks there don't have an appreciation of these storms, there may not be good flood maps to direct evacuations, and the topography makes evacuation something of a crap shoot except over very long distances. Furthermore, it is fiendishly difficult to predict exactly where one of these beasts will drop their rain. A lot of people may be caught in this.
It looks like St. Martin got crushed. The governor of the U.S.V.I. was just on the news and mentioned that the damage is severe with the hospital on St. Thomas badly damaged. (It should be noted that he also went to great lengths to say that the widely reported story of his ordering the confiscation of everyone's guns in the territory is bogus.)
Irma ain't looking good. It appears to be taking the path of maximum mayhem through the islands and it's likely that somewhere between Corpus Christi and Nantucket, next week is going to utterly suck.
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1) Paste the embed code as normal. Note the area where the code gives the video link, which will be something like src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/320fjjj3838aa8ff" Right before the end quote mark, type "?start="
Now, for the next part, go back to the video you want to embed. Set the timeline slider to where you want the video to start, i.e. 2:03. Once it's all loaded and settled, go to the time display in the lower left of the video area, where it will now say "2:03 / 4:45" or whatever. Highlight the left side, the time start you want, i.e. 2:03. Right-click/context-click the highlighted area, left click "Copy the video url at the current time" You can also *just* right click the time signature and get the same context menu, I think. Past the url you just copied somewhere. It will end with a number, like "43" or "128". Type or copy/paste that number after the "=" above. Don't change anything else. Now, when you hit play, the video will start at the point you designated.
2) Not this season, no.
3) I'm trying to get away from Android, without much luck. Just now starting to experiment with running Android apps on Win10, so I don't want to tell someone to do that. I like Asus brand anything; always had good luck with Asus. Get at least 3MB of RAM no matter what. DO NOT get less than 2 if you have to compromise. Make sure it takes microsd cards for memory expansion, and if possible look at reviews to see if people have trouble getting the microsd to work properly with the tablet. This is surprisingly not unusual. Other than that, it doesn't matter, really.
4) frn is the Fuel Rewards Network and if it's invalid you need a new Shell card.
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Alas, with me.nu, you can embed, or you can have a start time, but not both.
Ben, in the share panel under a youtube video, there is a checkbox to include the start time, so that's easier than what you said.
Posted by: Mauser at Mon Sep 4 17:46:44 2017 (TYvUn)
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I'm quite enjoying Gamers (because it has very little to do with gamers), and New Game S2. The Tsurezure no Children is very nice too, even if they left some better couples outside of the animation.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Sep 4 18:06:41 2017 (pjL8P)
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A Galaxy Tab A would probably be decent for anything non-gaming. I have the first-generation $50 Kindle 7-inch tablet, and it's usable, but the display's fairly low-quality, and it's slow.
Posted by: Rick C at Mon Sep 4 18:42:30 2017 (ITnFO)
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1. As Ben says, just add ?start=seconds to the video ID when embedding, e.g. start=120 to start at the two minute mark:
[youtube=GvVaaZ21C44?start=120 size=720x]
2. I love my MediaPad M3, but it's pricey and only justifiable because I use it every single day. (Still kind of annoyed about my iPad, which I never really used.)
3. This season, I'm really enjoying Made in Abyss. It doesn't look like they'll get anywhere close to a resolution, though.
4. It's an invalid when it has a broken leg. Frns have lots of legs so this happens frnquently.
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Well, I feel dumb now. I had completely missed that the number was a reference to seconds. I assumed it was some kind of internal index or something.
It is Not Entirely Clear When or Why They Dropped the "Don't" From Their Mission Statement
...but assuming it was ever really there in the first place, I imagine that the conversation between Larry Page and his underlings was something along these lines...
Imagine a world where an authoritarian government monitors everything you do, amasses huge amounts of data on almost every interaction you make, and awards you a single score that measures how "trustworthy†you are.
In this world, anything from defaulting on a loan to criticising the ruling party, from running a red light to failing to care for your parents properly, could cause you to lose points. And in this world, your score becomes the ultimate truth of who you are – determining whether you can borrow money, get your children into the best schools or travel abroad; whether you get a room in a fancy hotel, a seat in a top restaurant – or even just get a date.
This is where we're heading, as soon as the party most in tune with the techweasels regains power, and when that happens I fear the yoke may be too heavy for society to throw off.
Orwell, was writing cautionary tales, the tech giants see them as utopian fantasies.
This has been a surprisingly good show, being Kohei Horikoshi's take on superheroes, specifically AMERICAN comic book superheroes, albeit in a Japanese setting and in a Shounen style of storytelling.
That last bit was a cause for some trepidation, especially as season two began with a tournament fighting arc, which, in Japanese boys comics, is usually where interesting stories go to die. Fortunately, this show has thus far used such framing devices, not as filler, but as a way of providing venues for characterization of what is a fairly large cast.
The breakneck pace of the first twelve episodes does slow considerably as much of the show's action is now taking place simultaneously in different locales and some events are told in a Rashomon style from different viewpoints. However, the story is continually moving along and most of the villians are actually quite interesting, several having interesting ( though admittedly warped) philosophical reasons for their mayhem.
The Japanese storytelling techniques notwithstanding, this is a show that GETS the American superhero genre in a way that American superhero comics often don't anymore. Most notably it appears to be a disquisition of the nature of heroism. At least three of the characters are pointedly reflective of some of the more obnoxiously nihilistic 'Iron Age' tropes, not in homage to those ideas, but in mockery of them. The number one hero of the universe, a pivotal, but largely background character named All Might, is a VERY American superhero combining the best aspects of Captain America and Superman. Powerful and idealistic, All Might is an astounding beacon of strength and sincerity...
IN A WORLD
...where superheroes are basically licensed mercenaries .
You see, some years prior, superpowers spread like a disease through the general population granting over 99% of humanity "quirks" which range from the useless to the dangerous. Superheroes are, perhaps surprisingly, not passe' since the criminal element is similarly blessed. Superheroing is somewhat akin to private security firms, licenses and bonding are required and they work closely with the police (many have product endorsement side gigs based on their social media presence). One way to get a license is to go to an accredited superhero college...This is the goal of one Izuku Midoriya, who has, since a young age dreamed of being a superhero. There's just one problem, as the show starts he is revealed to be one of the infinitesimally small number of people with no quirk at all.
The main characters are for the most part quite likeable and (generally) idealistic, though perhaps not quite as much as they think they are, heroism being more than a career path or physical strength (as they are finding out). Interestingly, even some whose goals seem at first glance to be cynical are pursuing them for noble reasons. This is really, well done.
This series is a shonen show, and all that implies, but it is an outlier of its genre in a most positive way. I am enjoying this series immensely more than I have any right to be right now.
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The tournament nearly killed it for me. It was every bit the embodiment of everything I hate about the whole Arena Combat style of filler (Can't really call it storytelling). I'm glad they got past it. Although I've been away from the show for a while. (I was up to where the latest bad guy escaped).
Posted by: Mauser at Thu Sep 7 21:16:25 2017 (TYvUn)
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I haven't watched season 2 past the first episode. The first season was so good, then splat, tournament.
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I was exactly the same way, I dropped it for months because I was having traumatic flashbacks to Bleach. But some months later, I did watch another ep about a month ago and ended up binge watching it, only catching up recently. There is an extended tournament arc of about 8 episodes and it is hinted that there will be another one in a year or so, but those episodes also surprised me in doing a bit of world building and actually work to develop some of the characters.
At one point someone actually does say something very close to " AND NOW THE BATTLE REALLY BEGINS!1!" but he's an asshole and is there to remind us of how not to do things.
Don't get me wrong, the pacing slows a bit after the first season, but the characters and main plot continue to develop (and a few secondary plots are revealed), and the show continues to have both its charm and insight.
The tournaments are actually important to the overall plot in that they are a way for up and coming heroes to get endorsement deals, job offers and increase their social media presence. This is consequential not only because directly affects the characters, but provides insights into the motivation of a particular villain
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Fri Sep 8 12:40:39 2017 (KicmI)
Actually, Eromanga Sensei ended some time ago, but I only just finished it as shortly after watching the first few I had developed a nagging fear that it was going to be horrible.
Fortunately it was merely offensive.
Sometimes exuberantly so....
The show did not conclude, it merely stopped, though there was continuous, if unsteady character development throughout. It remained enjoyably silly till the end. On the debit side, it kind of jumped the shark when the second female author entered out of left field. More disappointing was that her arrival made the series an actual harem show (which it had not quite been up till that point). Still, it was cute and generally funny. It also had a lot to say about the creative process, but it really said all it had to say in the first 8 episodes, and it was pretty much fan service after that.
and crossovers...with troubling implications.
Some of the characters, particularly those introduced later, appear to have been conceived by rolling dice and referencing an NPC encounter table, but I must say that Elf Yamada is one of the better characters in recent years, having surprising depth and complexity for an utter loon. The show did not live up to its early promise as it spent the last third checking off every trope box on the harem show bucket list as if to apologize for the quirky and touching first part. Disturbingly, this may imply other...issues...with the plot.
It's still cute and funny overall, but nowhere near what it could have been.
So, in an attempt to mitigate simultaneous afflictions of boredom and writers block, I went and watched the Japanese dub of RWBY which is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
Wow.
This interpretation has a truly bizarre series of editorial choices. Some, like the almost complete omission of the JNPR story elements one can almost get one's head around. Others, like severely cutting the fight scenes (removing most of the cute character bits and even some of the better choreography) are completely inexplicable.
To be fair, the very odd Jaune Arc...er...arc in the first season was indeed a dumpster fire of a subplot (until the end), but it clearly established why Jaune appeared to be a few islets of brilliance in a sea of derpitude.
Along with Weiss, Jaune is one of the characters who has come the farthest in overcoming personal shortcomings, and without this backstory, his later development (especially in season 4) is not going to have anything like the same impact. That whole arc as well as the other excised footage also developed Phyrra's character, establishing her both as 'the pro from Dover' and as a mentor to many of the other characters, particularly Ruby. The whole notion that JNPR are genuinely significant to the story is lost, as are several things that seemed to be random, throwaway bits, but were, in fact important foreshadowing. This can't help but hurt the show later. Indeed, one of the best and most consequential conversations in the series, (Ruby's "Nope" speech from season one) is completely omitted.
Way more important than we initially thought.
The voice work is off as well. However, it's not that the voice acting is bad per se (it's not) but rather that the characters are voiced as straight up versions of their respective (assumed) archtypes. To my surprise though, the guy they got to play Oobleck nails it.
I'm not sure, but they may have cut as much as 45 minutes out of the show as of the middle of season three, much of it, as is noted above, fairly consequential to the later plot.
This brings back memories of my youth in anime fandom when everyone was griping about how edits by the American rights holders would almost inevitably gut the impact of or destroy the cohesiveness of the plots of anime brought to the U.S.
Well, it's not just American distributors that do that...
