December 31, 2021
Watching V-Tubers
I learned that it's already my birthday in Timor Leste.
Huh.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
10:28 AM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 13 words, total size 1 kb.
December 29, 2021
It Begins
Elon Musk, the ad-Astra Afrikans-American who has, in the last few years, revolutionized access to space, seems to have dropped one too many red pills.
Devon Delvechio recently did the above video on Musk's changing perspective in the eyes of the hip set but today came a rather pointed rebuke of the man by...the FAA and EPA.
It seems that the FAA has delayed their approval of Musks new spaceship launch until at least March pending an environmental review. Note that the whole point of the rocket is to get completely out of the environment.
Musk has, in the last few years gone from the darling of the Ted-Talk left to something of an annoyance at best. His recent Twitter-feud with Senator Warren and his appearance on the Babylon Bee of all places seems to have cemented his transition in their eyes.
Musk was, for many years, an enthusiastic repeater of leftie platitudes as he took govt. subsidies for electric and solar endeavors during the Obama years. It was this lack of offensiveness from the lefts point of view that likely enabled his much more consequential rocketry project to proceed unnoticed and unmolested.
I suspect that the environmental review delay is a sort of shot across the bow, telling the billionaire to "get back in line". These people, especially those in the Biden Administration, are vindictive enough that they'll strangle a new industry in the crib just to spite Musk.
Worse, it's quite possible that Musks space projects are themselves a primary target. Starlink itself bypasses many donors to the DNC, Solar power satellites could be a big step in curbing emissions...without paying the grifters that fly private jets to conferences to lecture poor people on their carbon footprint.
Musk is an impressive genius but his brilliance is partly a result of his autism, which ill prepares him for the kind of Byzantine emotional maneuvering that is necessary when dealing with our ruling class. Whether this change in opinion of him by the powers that be is something he can survive is something I'll be watching with not a little apprehension.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
08:18 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 353 words, total size 3 kb.
December 24, 2021
A Pyrrhic But Satisfying Victory
Art by Itou: Who truly seems to understand what it's like to work for U.P.S. at Christmas.
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:26 PM
| Comments (7)
| Add Comment
Post contains 461 words, total size 4 kb.
December 22, 2021
This WAS Interesting
In lieu of actual content, here is a really interesting video from Rudyard.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:47 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 16 words, total size 1 kb.
Uh....Yeah
I've got to watch this whole thing after work Friday. Hopefully there isn't something NSFW like catgirl pr0n in the middle of it. What I've seen is Epic.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:39 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 29 words, total size 1 kb.
Wonderduck Status
I'm not at liberty to discuss any specifics, but, to my considerable relief, I was able to talk to Wonderduck by phone two days ago.
He's still in the hospital, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. I suspect he will post something before the week is out.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:29 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 53 words, total size 1 kb.
The Brickmuppet is AWAKE
Art by Shidori225
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:23 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 239 words, total size 2 kb.
December 13, 2021
Dev Watched Santa Inc. So We Don't Have To.
Interestingly, (tragically) Dev watched the WHOLE thing.
This is a much more interesting and fair review of this dumpster fire than most.
It also makes clear that this is an even bigger, and in some ways more disturbing fiasco than is widely reported.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
03:12 PM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 52 words, total size 1 kb.
Holiday Banality.
Narmaya in a holiday mood by Homidere.
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
03:01 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 145 words, total size 2 kb.
December 08, 2021
A Wide-Ranging Discussion on Various Issues of the Day
Here's the shorter version:
Wow.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
02:05 PM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 14 words, total size 1 kb.
December 05, 2021
Wait...What!?
Hopefully, this story is unrelated.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
01:36 PM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 6 words, total size 1 kb.
December 03, 2021
Escalation Avoided
In two separate incidents, NATO and Russian ships have been noted doing very provocative acts... the Russians sending a warship to Denmark in a gross overreaction to the seizure of a Russian merchant vessel and a U.K. and Dutch ship practically sailing into Sevastopol uninvited.
In both cases the incidents never happened, but there was some alarm at the time as the international AIS database showed them happening in real time.
Note too that China has, ostensibly as a part of a CHICOM privacy law(?), severely restricted the use of AIS data in it's merchant fleet. That's a separate and potential troubling development.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:00 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 105 words, total size 1 kb.
An Important Note for Fan Artists who Follow Genshin Impact
Klee and Paimon are not for lewding.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
03:15 PM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.
November 29, 2021
"Tapping Noises" Is This thing On?
Banality follows below fold...
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
05:05 PM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 418 words, total size 3 kb.
November 19, 2021
Not Guilty! Not Guilty! Not Guilty! ( Updated )
Yay! Kudos to the jury, who were under obscene pressure and in genuine fear while they did due diligence with their deliberations..and nevertheless held fast.
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:45 PM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 200 words, total size 3 kb.
November 17, 2021
Why Americans Suck at Geography
The meaning of words has changed such that all good people now avoid maps.
UPDATE: My Alma Mater has responded in a way I didn't expect.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
10:50 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.
November 05, 2021
Well, Here's a Commercial
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
02:32 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 4 words, total size 1 kb.
Simping Mishaps and Sodabags
My re-acclimation to bachelordom continues, with my home about 30% in order now, though the airing out of the house has been delayed by 2 days of rain and 40 degree weather. I have borrowed a tote box from work and have been filling it with books to practice lifting it, in preparation to my return to work Monday. I still can't run and talking is difficult but I'm otherwise fully functional.
Because of the rain , after my workout I spent the day scrolling through news sites, science and technology channels...and watching V-tubers. Because of deep character flaws on my part, I decided to 'gift 3 subs' to one of them. That is, gift 3 subscriptions randomly to the chat community. This digital equivalent to throwing change into the can of a street musician would be worthy of no note had I not committed some inexplicably act of PEBCAK which resulted in the Twitch page thanking me for gifting 31 subs to some wolf girl from Sweden.
"AAAUUUUGGHHH!"
I'm still not clear how I hit the 1.
That was the most ignominious loss of $154.69 that I've suffered in some time.
However the day was not a total loss.
Recognizing that staying inside is no protection from misfortune or my own idiocy, I went to the drugstore.
You see, today I had finally gotten my prescriptions transferred to the local drugstore, which was a surprisingly complex process that has taken 2 days. After that, being in possession of a coupon, I decided to go to KFC to get a bucket of chicken. This will last me several days and provide some respite from the kippers and miso soup I'm eating until I reenter the workforce on Monday. I don't drink much soda, especially post-stroke, but I decided to get a 2 liter bottle to go with the bird meat fried in hot grease & to add some variety to the unsweetened tea and water that I'm drinking, but mostly because it was on the coupon.
Again, none of this would be worthy of comment had they not informed me that they had no 2 liter bottles to sell.
Instead, they had the"half gallon bag of soda".
Wat?
Why?
Has Kentucky Fried Chicken been bought out by Canadians?
Without the Mountain Dew Bottle's green tint, this just looks like a KFC branded bag of piss. This does not strike me as appetizing. Who the hell thought this was a good idea? And while one half of a gallon is slightly less than 2 liters...this ain't nearly a half gallon. And it's in a fricking BAG! Why? What is happening to the world?
In other news. I've got cable and high speed internet again, so does anybody have any shows to recommend?
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
12:19 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 465 words, total size 3 kb.
November 02, 2021
Voting Day Observations
As some of you know, I live in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the current elections in which, is, at the moment, the focus of a great deal of attention from national pundits as it is assumed to be a bellweather.
As they are constitutionally mandated to happen every other odd numbered year, Virginia's elections are not just 'off year' elections, they are double secret off-year elections.
Turnout tends to be even lower than the turnout in non-presidential federal elections we have on alternating even numbered years.
I've been voting since 1988, and I have NEVER seen a line at the polls stretching out into the rain on an off year, let alone a state election. That was the case this afternoon.
I was pleased to see that the dems had not removed all the Republican election signs from outside the polling place as is their habit. It IS possible that they were simply replaced, by Republican poll-workers but there was no pile of Republican election signs at the usual spot in my neighborhood.
To my surprise, Deanna Stanton, the Republican Candidate for the local house of delegates seat was just outside the "no campaigning line" actively greeting people in the parking lot and handing out sample ballots...which helped in identifying who to vote for for school board as school board elections and candidate positions are notoriously opaque and their party affiliation is , by law, not listed on the ballot.
In this blue district she has a snowballs chance in a blast furnace, but it was nice to see a Republican with pluck and verve making a go of it.
Despite much hyperventilation , and McCaullif's odious nature, I'm not optimistic.
Democrats are like tonail fungus in that when you get them in control of your government they are almost impossible to get rid of. They put in place laws district borders and pollworkers to ensure their perpetuation. They also have undeniable appeal to a segment of the electorate:
Enthusiasm is certainly very high in this blue city.
Still, it's good to see people care enough to vote in one of these off-year elections.
There were reports of pollworkers turning people away for not wearing masks, which is illegal and was overturned this afternoon, but damage was still done that adds to the institutional headwinds faced by Youngkin and company.
I'm not very optimistic, but in a couple of hours we'll know.
UPDATE: It's been a couple of hours...we know nothing. Mcauliffe did not concede and instead noted that they had lots of votes to count, before walking off the stage with a Cheshire Cat grin on his face. In most definitely unrelated news, Fairfax, the most populous county in the state announced that they have had "difficulties" and won't know anything for a while. Youngkin has a comfortable lead that will soon be firm enough to establish how many votes will be needed to be found in Fairfax to catch up.
UPDATE 03:55: The new York Times is calling it for Youngkin.
Neither is particularly anxious to make such a call, so I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm tired so I'm going to bed, and hope I'm not disappointed when I wake up.
UPDATE: McAuliffe conceded! Bill Clinton's bag-man and bundler, the guy who set Virginia on a path that has seen it circling the drain for the last 8 years, has finally thrown in the towel. There is a chance, however slim, of turning this around.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:27 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 582 words, total size 5 kb.
Technology Ahead of It's Time
Many of you are familiar with Steve1989's YouTube channel. He collects and reviews survival rations and emergency kits, mostly military from various eras.
Steve's notoriety comes from the fact that, being a Florida-Man, he tries to eat the old ration kits if possible, and his deadpan commentary combined with childlike enthusiasm means hilarity frequently ensues. This is particularly true in the pre-1970s ration kits where at least some components are usually inedibly rancid resulting in his transcendental joy when he finds something like a partially edible K-Rat from 1943.
However that is not nearly as impressive as the video I blundered into today. Last year, he opened a U.S. survival ration from 1906. It consisted of three sets of vitamin fortified mystery beef, and three sets of chocolate.
While grim, the ration was completely edible after 114 years and held up MUCH better than much more recent rations. While the newer C-rats and MREs are no doubt vastly better for morale, the shelf life of the 1906 ration is unbeatable. This ration was a much more basic bit of sustenance, intended for in-extremis situations, and can be eaten cold or as a stew in one's mess kit. It is actually more advanced in some ways than the WW2 ration kits. The packaging involved is pretty sophisticated and elegant even by today's standards, and it actually has slightly more calories than a modern MRE in about 2/3 to half the volume.
On the debit side, it's...pemmican and chocolate, kinda grim, with no other menu options.
But it is not intended to be a general purpose meal, one had other options for that, like mobile canteens, rather this was intended for forced marches and traveling light for a few days.
And at least this one kept more than a century. It would be nice, in these interesting times, if these were still being produced. They are much more compact than the modern alternatives that are (dubiously) advertised as lasting a fifth as long.
It should be noted that this is a slightly more advanced and mechanically refined version of a British emergency ration from the 1890s, which inspired it. That one did not hold up quite as well, but even it was partially edible after 121 years.
Wow.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
02:16 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 381 words, total size 3 kb.
88kb generated in CPU 0.0678, elapsed 0.1983 seconds.
81 queries taking 0.1769 seconds, 443 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
81 queries taking 0.1769 seconds, 443 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
