A very detailed and informative press conference doing an almost frame-by-frame analysis of the landing of the Perseverance Rover on Mars. For those that just want to watch the landing, the raw footage of the landing begins at 1:47:44.
Side effects may include anxiety, despair, suicidal thoughts, weltschmerz, existential dread, paranoia, uncontrollable urges to quote Dostoevsky, Orwell, or Huxley, general unease, and crippling cynicism.
Questions for my Readers: Uncategorized
Isn't LOG HORIZON supposed to be out this season? Did it not get picked up by an English Language streaming service?
What's y'alls recommendation for a VPN?
Any good shows running now that don't involve giving money to Disney?
Ordinarily, when thinking of concealed carry, I assume .380 ACP (9mm Cort). However, unforeseen circumstances have caused me to become very interested in .32 ACP. Are there any reliable defensive loads in that caliber?
Is it safe yet to upgrade to Big Sur? Also, given that I skipped Catalina because of the horror stories, can I upgrade straight from Mojave?
When you eat taoyaki, do you truly appreciate the effort that went into preparing it?
1
I don't think Log Horizon got picked up. Certain Kick Ass Jolly folk have Rogered the need and been supplying on their streaming/DL site. It's been decent so far, with an arc about the evolving politics of Akiba and another about what's been happening with Krusty, Kanami, and co.
For VPNs, I've been running NordVPN and been decently satisfied.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Fri Feb 26 09:13:06 2021 (ohc1G)
2
It's on Funimation. I haven't been following it, since I never got very far in season 2 for some reason. animeschedule.net has good listings of what streams where.
And you stole a picture I was planning to use next week, darnit. :-)
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Fri Feb 26 09:23:56 2021 (ZlYZd)
3
Related, I don't plan to upgrade to Big Sur, although my work Mac will get it soon; I consider Catalina to be nearly out of beta. Apple's updaters will probably only offer to take you straight to the latest BS, although as always, multiple independent backups are a must.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Fri Feb 26 09:27:43 2021 (ZlYZd)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Feb 27 18:56:22 2021 (5iiQK)
12
Meh, I just discovered that the reason I'd been missing the last few seasons of RWBY is because Roosterteeth took it off their own site and went exclusive with CR.
Posted by: Mauser at Mon Mar 1 23:41:07 2021 (Ix1l6)
13
In general, I wouldn't recommend .32. But I have some knowledgeable friends I can ask.
Being a real niche cartridge though, don't expect to find any ammo until WELL after the shortage is over.
Posted by: Mauser at Mon Mar 1 23:42:38 2021 (Ix1l6)
14
well, .32 FMJ ball ammo falls well inside my personal parameters, which are pretty much "something is better than nothing" with a dose of "so, Smart Person, would you be willing to stand in front of this woefully ineffective cartridge when it is discharged ?".
Mrs Garply has carried an old Walther PP in .32 for many years, and because it fits her hand well and she finds it easy to control, her shot placement is scary good.
As regards ball ammo, the Fiocchi 73 grain load has real good word-of-mouth, and I own a few boxes of it which have functioned flawlessly so far, but then so has all of the W-W and Remington we have run through it.
for "defensive" ammo in .32 there is a Hornady loading with a 60 grain ETX hollowpoint that I have seen and fired. might be others, don't know for sure.
Posted by: quux_garply at Tue Mar 2 11:20:54 2021 (AKJpt)
15
Fiocchi 73gr was the best in the Lucky Gunner test, too. But I just looked through my sources and indeed .32 ACP is impossible to get. I thought the situation with .380 ACP was bad, but this is on another level.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tue Mar 2 21:34:58 2021 (LZ7Bg)
After the Gatling gut punch and cliffhanger that was the prequel, I was expecting some respite for the characters and none has been forthcoming. There really needs to be SOMETHING to break the tension, a tender moment, perhaps some comedy relief.
A beach episode would be nice.
However, the writers seem to be a bunch of disaffected boughie boys who think that the unrelenting misery and depravity of iron age comics is the hight of literary accomplishment.
The writers are also hacks because this show is not a medical procedural, the last cour was not entertaining, and this particular emerging plotline is derivative, unoriginal, unappealing and has been done to death.
Also, he must be a squish, because a True Conservative (TM) would be enjoying this plot line. A True Conservative (TM) would have intuited instantly that we will now be able to do something about the last thirty years of rising evil; with the courts defunct a True Conservative (TM) would absolutely be eager and enthusiastic about resolving all disputes with knives.
Slightly more seriously, Trump was the breather episode. This plot arc started in 1992 or 1988, when they needed a new villain to replace the Soviet Union. So 41 stabbed 40 in the back, leading to 42, and 42's wife's ambition to become America's Lenin and turn the US into the USSR. 43 was a relief that this didn't immediately happen, even as 43 stabbed the base in the back. Then with 44, back on track to mass graves. 45 was the brief hope spot before we head into the climax.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Thu Feb 25 09:51:52 2021 (6y7dz)
4
So what you're saying is that it's a Mexican soap opera?
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Thu Feb 25 17:49:18 2021 (ZlYZd)
5
Oh. I'm avoiding current events until the next election, war with China, or the revolution, whichever comes first.
Posted by: Ubu at Sat Feb 27 17:39:05 2021 (UlsdO)
Most other Cara Dune figures were either sold out, cancelled after I ordered them, or were already going for more that a hundred dollars. I still hold out a very slim hope for the FuncoPops.
1
Ah, I was meaning to link to that second Correia post. I had a brief link to that train wreck of a CJR post, but Correia does a very good job of dismantling it.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wed Feb 24 19:13:45 2021 (PiXy!)
Do You Have Too Many Brain Cells?
In these trying times, do you need to free up cranial space for some other purpose like like a concealed weapon, toolkit, or emergency food supply?
You see, she's a pretty good V-Tuber....buuuut... on Saturdays she's been doing a dramatic readings of what may be the most [ ADJECTIVES GO HERE ] RWBY / High School DxD / Sonic the Hedgehog / Harem / Gary Stu / Hentai Fanfic in the history of ever.
The pain begins at minute 28 with an overview of what has gone before and a brief explanation of the "stylistic quirks" that she has to cope with during her reading. The actual reading begins 41.5 minutes in and if you play it in the background will provide your day with 5 hours of pure, distilled, concentrated, and unadulterated cringe guaranteed to make you dumber. I caught the last two hours and when I got in from work today I burned my sausage biscuit in the microwave because I'm that stupid now.
This is epically abominable.
Luna is not responsible for writing this travesty, and her voice box suffered greatly from it.
One of our Crack Team of Science Babe's has some commentary on the matter.
"Uuuuu Laaaaa!"
UPDATE:
Oh.
Oops.
Apologies to everyone who viewed the post in the first two hours that it was up.
I was surprised when I saw the "live feed", but figured that it was a test flight ,and, being quite busy today just linked the previous embed as part of a particularly perfunctory post and ran out to run errands. A few minutes ago I came back and checked for any more info and realized that there was none and then a comment by "David" which confirmed my unease.
Thanks David.
I replaced the "live feed" with a recent video on Ingenuity.
The different embed retroactively makes the post technically correct...(the best kind of correct).
It's rather interesting that You-Tube, the company that claims to care greatly about fact checking and yeeted with prejudice anyone who mentioned the Hunter Biden story have let this chlickwhore stay up for (checks Youtube) WOW this has been up for THREE DAYS and it is still up.
The previous embed is impressive and does look for all the world like an actual live stream with black and white video supplemented by color corrected video with an additional time delay. The vistas looked very much like Mars indeed, but it's completely fake. If you are very curious about the video that was previously embedded it is here. I'd rather not give the people-shaped-colostomy-bag who posted it any clicks though.
Again, I'm sorry. I'll strive to do better in the future.
1
First flight of the helicopter isn't planned until about two months from now, someone is scamming for views.
Posted by: David at Sun Feb 21 15:09:15 2021 (aT8ji)
2
It's actually fairly common for people to exploit that "live" tag. I see it all the time with space stuff, there were "live" videos of most of the SpaceX Starship tests days after they met there "missed it by that much!" ends. I believe you can still find "live" video of Starman and his Tesla roadster. And of course youtube doesn't care, because they get the lion's share of any ad revenue generated.
Posted by: David at Sun Feb 21 21:49:52 2021 (aT8ji)
1
That sale banner is taken from the Palmetto site, I'm pretty sure. I remember it because I saw it pasted upon cases of ammunition (they only lasted for an hour). I was quite amused that their computer algorithm deemed it necessary to create an advertising campaign for ammunition of all things -- which they no doubt could sell just as quickly with no discounts at all.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Fri Feb 19 16:48:24 2021 (LZ7Bg)
2
Also, anyone knows if Avatar is doing okay? I left him a comment, but he may have abandoned Mee.nu a while ago. My power was out for 4 days straight. I think he's in Dallas and weather was worse up there. I know someone on Plano who had pipes burst.
Ubu is in Houston, but he's faring a little better. He already posted a summary of sorts.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Fri Feb 19 16:50:44 2021 (LZ7Bg)
3
I've E-mailed Avatar, Ubu, and Ben a short time ago. I haven't heard anything as of yet.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Fri Feb 19 20:02:24 2021 (5iiQK)
4
I haven't seen anything from you but I can't get to my old email addresses for Bridgebunnies and Houblog right now. Have power; no water (busted pipes outside). Was still recovering from WuFlu; this has set me back a couple weeks or so in recovery.
Posted by: Ubu at Sat Feb 20 10:57:15 2021 (UlsdO)
5
Crap. That's horrible. Do you, by any chance, have any out of season Hurricane water?
I hope you feel better
Ben responded yesterday, he and the rest of the 4 Geek Family are OK but the local infrastructure is now a unique fixer-upper opportunity.
Still no word on Avatar.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Feb 20 13:00:48 2021 (5iiQK)
6
I'm down to a couple of small bottles of potable water. Got a 250 gal. tank that I don't consider potable; that's what I'm flushing toilets with. carrying buckets is wearing me out though. Grocery store is out. Despite covid, i had to go there yesterday; out of other necessities.
Posted by: Ubu at Sat Feb 20 14:37:41 2021 (UlsdO)
7
Ubu, I'm out in Friendswood dealing with fallout from all the leaks. We've got pressure, but we're supplemented by the Houston system, so we're on a boil notice. May be safe/potable by Monday. Friendswood can't certify until Houston can certify.
Posted by: Will at Sun Feb 21 00:46:17 2021 (G6Lqs)
8
Yep, I'm finally in water as of today. Could not get a plumber to return my calls; but my yard guy does contracting on the side and knew someone to do the work.
Posted by: Ubu at Mon Feb 22 21:45:03 2021 (UlsdO)
Today in Journaism
Yesterday, Shanon Melero at Jezebel did a piece on the disgraceful decision to omit the iconic Chun-Li from the new Mortal Combat re-boot and inquired as to how such a travesty was allowed to happen.
19 minutes later, the layers of researchers and fact checkers who are assigned the sisyphean task of preventing Jezebel's writers from publishing moronic merde, chimed in with an answer to her inquiry.
1
Obviously those layers of fact checkers and editors no longer employed by major news media (if they ever were) did not go to work for Jezabel after leaving the MSM.
Posted by: Ubu at Fri Feb 19 08:29:56 2021 (UlsdO)
2
The usual suspects have leapt to Jezebel's defense, explaining that they were only pretending to be retarded.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Fri Feb 19 09:18:16 2021 (PiXy!)
3
They certainly aren't helping out Donald Trump, Jr., who lambasted Texas' "Democrat" Governor Greg Abbott, over Abbott's horrible handling of Texas' energy crisis.
While I'm certainly on board with the accusation that Abbott has done a miserable job, Greg Abbott is one of the longest-tenured Republicans to ever serve at the highest levels of Texas governance.
Posted by: Ben at Sat Feb 20 14:02:23 2021 (9Wcjc)
1
Yay for no 'splodies. But the current thinking is that there were in fact no lakes, more and more they're finding that everything we see on the surface of Mars can be explained by glaciers and ice flows, and there was probably never liquid water present in any significant amount.
Posted by: David at Thu Feb 18 20:53:44 2021 (aT8ji)
He was a voice in the darkness for many years. When there were no other opinions being broadcast he was there reminding people that no matter what they might see, hear and read in the media, there were other people who thought like them. We were reminded, by Rush, that each of us was not alone and or crazy, no matter how much the powers that be insisted that we were alone.
He was quite possibly the most influential radio personality in U.S. history. He jump-started conservative publishing, highlighting conservative thinkers on his program at a time when no one else would give them the time of day. His very existence was a lifeline to both the populist and intellectual right, and the megaphone he wielded broke the the information monopoly of the day, allowing voices not of the establishment to be heard, and affect change.
In his own odd, button down way, he was kind of..punk, delighting in stirring up controversy and when the scolds came for them, he'd usually turn the tables on them and raise millions for various children's charities.
I don't agree with everything he said. He talked 3 hours a day for 22 years so I'm sure there's something there to offend everybody. But he was a voice for the people that the powers that be hate. People like myself would never have emerged from the wilderness if not for him.
Through his personal hardships , his deafness, his cancer he remained, in public, upbeat until the end, providing an example as well as an inspiration.
1
Mark Steyn got it in one with "Rush took politics seriously but not solemnly." Rush was an inherent optimist, and that was also why so many people followed him. IMHO, he was one of those childhood heroes that, after all these years, remained a hero.
I like to think that in Elysium, he, Andrew Breitbart, and Ronald Reagan swapping tales and laughs.
Posted by: cxt217 at Wed Feb 17 23:23:32 2021 (4i7w0)
RWBY has been a very uneven series, it started out with dreadful production values that were more than compensated for by engaging characters, an intriguing plot and the superb fight choreography of Monty Oum. The series had a lot of potential. Furthermore, it inspired tremendous goodwill as its cast and crew seemed likable and were punching so far above their weight that it was absolutely inspiring.
Mr. Oum's untimely death during the production of season three foreshadowed rough seas for the series, while the last season he worked on was by far the best until then, subsequent seasons were, despite much higher production values, not as engaging cumulating in the inept 4-episode faceplant that was the finale of season 5.
However, the subsequent seasons were, while very different, nevertheless enjoyable and the show has improved steadily; regaining much of its appeal even as Rooster Teeth has squandered much of its goodwill with the public.
Now, with season 8 the show has finally surpassed even the excellent season three, with absolutely brilliant pacing, action and storytelling. Characters develop in unexpected, yet believable ways for both good and ill and the plot has been full of genuine surprises with the action nonstop.
If you dropped the show, I recommend picking it up again, but you'll probably want to at least watch last season, as this one begins in the middle of the chaos that season ended with. Fortunately, with short seasons and 10-15 minute runtimes on most episodes, the show is a quick watch.
1
Season 8? I thought there were 6. And what I thought was 6 was turned into "Season 5 part 2" on the Rooster Teeth site. Is it no longer running there?
Posted by: Mauser at Thu Feb 18 00:33:15 2021 (Ix1l6)
One of the Best Things About Science Fiction
...is how it allows one some escapist respite from any reminders of current events.
If you have not seen Babylon 5 you are wrong!
But, you are also lucky, as it is currently running on HBO MAX where it has been digitally remastered with modern monitor resolutions in mind. It really is one of the best sci-fi series ever.
1
Glad to see this got a 1080p remaster. They don't seem to have worked miracles, but it looks substantially better than the version I watched most recently. (I have the DVD box set but it's packed away somewhere.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wed Feb 17 09:02:11 2021 (PiXy!)
After the 9/11 attacks, he received hate mail as well as death threats and assumed his career was over,
But on a flight to Toronto one day, an airline employee gave him an unexpected upgrade to first class. When he asked for an explanation, he recalled in the 2009 interview, the employee said, "I was in Tower 2, and I walked out.â€
Moreover, architects, structural engineers and other people in the know were so impressed with how long the towers stayed up after the impacts that he spent his last years advising designers of high-rise projects around the world on matters of safety and structural redundancy.
Subsequent analysis showed that the construction methods that he invented and tested in the WTC kept the towers standing far longer than if they had been built to the then current standards and saved literally thousands of lives.
Hobby Space News of the commercial space industry A Babe In The Universe Rather Eclectic Cosmology Encyclopedia Astronautica Superb spacecraft resource The Unwanted Blog Scott Lowther blogs about forgotten aerospace projects and sells amazingly informative articles on the same. Also, there are cats. Transterrestrial Musings Commentary on Infinity...and beyond! Colony WorldsSpace colonization news! The Alternate Energy Blog It's a blog about alternate energy (DUH!) Next Big Future Brian Wang: Tracking our progress to the FUTURE. Nuclear Green Charles Barton, who seems to be either a cool curmudgeon, or a rational hippy, talks about energy policy and the terrible environmental consequences of not going nuclear Energy From Thorium Focuses on the merits of thorium cycle nuclear reactors WizBang Current events commentary...with a wiz and a bang The Gates of Vienna Tenaciously studying a very old war The Anchoress insightful blogging, presumably from the catacombs Murdoc Online"Howling Mad Murdoc" has a millblog...golly! EaglespeakMaritime security matters Commander Salamander Fullbore blackshoe blogging! Belmont Club Richard Fernandez blogs on current events BaldilocksUnderstated and interesting blog on current events The Dissident Frogman French bi-lingual current events blog The "Moderate" VoiceI don't think that word means what they think it does....but this lefty blog is a worthy read nonetheless. Meryl Yourish News, Jews and Meryls' Views Classical Values Eric Scheie blogs about the culture war and its incompatibility with our republic. Jerry Pournell: Chaos ManorOne of Science fictions greats blogs on futurism, current events, technology and wisdom A Distant Soil The website of Colleen Dorans' superb fantasy comic, includes a blog focused on the comic industry, creator issues and human rights. John C. Wright The Sci-Fi/ Fantasy writer muses on a wide range of topics. Now Read This! The founder of the UK Comics Creators Guild blogs on comics past and present. The Rambling Rebuilder Charity, relief work, roleplaying games Rats NestThe Art and rantings of Vince Riley Gorilla Daze Allan Harvey, UK based cartoonist and comics historian has a comicophillic blog! Pulpjunkie Tim Driscoll reviews old movies, silents and talkies, classics and clunkers. Suburban Banshee Just like a suburban Leprechaun....but taller, more dangerous and a certified genius. Satharn's Musings Through TimeThe Crazy Catlady of The Barony of Tir Ysgithr アニ・ノート(Ani-Nouto) Thoughtful, curmudgeonly, otakuism that pulls no punches and suffers no fools. Chizumatic Stephen Den Beste analyzes anime...with a microscope, a slide rule and a tricorder. Wonderduck Anime, Formula One Racing, Sad Girls in Snow...Duck Triumphalism Beta Waffle What will likely be the most thoroughly tested waffle evah! Zoopraxiscope Too In this thrilling sequel to Zoopraxiscope, Don, Middle American Man of Mystery, keeps tabs on anime, orchids, and absurdities. Mahou Meido MeganekkoUbu blogs on Anime, computer games and other non-vital interests Twentysided More geekery than you can shake a stick at Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas Sounds like Plaigarism...but isn't Ambient IronyAll Meenuvians Praise the lathe of the maker! Hail Pixy!!