Overheard at pharmacy: “Do you give out the latest COVID-19, uh, omicron?”
Gee, I hope not…
(Yeah, i know what he meant, and so did the pharmacist.)
Tag: Imported to blog
The “Today’s Outlook” section of the California electricity ISO shows detailed trends and breakdowns of …
The “Today’s Outlook” section of the California electricity ISO shows detailed trends and breakdowns of how much electricity is available from which sources over the course of the day, and both actual and projected demand.
You’d think demand would be highest during the hottest part of the day, but it’s early evening, when people are getting home and turning on their own air conditioners. Just as solar is fading.
Let’s just say the kid was not impressed with Attack of the Clones.
Let’s just say the kid was not impressed with Attack of the Clones.
TBH I think it’s the weakest of the prequels and of the 6 that George Lucas was actually involved in.
The Phantom Menace is better than i remember. It’s well constructed, and there are incredible subtleties and thematic elements hidden among the flashy (and cheesy) A-plot.
AotC is…not. I could see what they were trying to do, but it doesn’t hold together as well, and the story hinges on a romance that is, frankly, unconvincing.
TPM is about dualities, symbiosis, and most of all, misdirection. An elaborately costumed decoy queen, an invasion waged to maneuver the Senate into giving Palpatine more power, and so on. And the movie is that too: a big flashy effects and battle and comedy extravaganza in front of a master manipulator quietly going about his scheming.
I mean, yeah, the dialogue isn’t very good, and there are all the horrible stereotypes, but the core of the story is thematically solid.
AotC…was trying.
In more ways than one.
It’s like an early draft of a script went into full-blown production. And no one could tell Lucas, hey, maybe you should try something different here, or keep working on the dialog there, etc.
The effects are amazing, the music’s top notch, there are cool concepts and interesting characters and good actors doing the best they can with what they have. When they can.
And there are great moments too, like Dooku telling Obi-Wan the absolute truth about the republic having fallen under the sway of a Sith Lord, just in a way that Obi-Wan can’t believe it. Or Padme quietly picking the lock on her handcuffs in the background while Anakin and Obi-Wan argue in the foreground.
Mainly I think it needed more script revisions and to let someone else direct it.
None of these complaints is inherent to the structure or functionality of Twitter…
Picking up on this again briefly:
None of these complaints is inherent to the structure or functionality of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc. They’re deliberate UI design choices to optimize for the company’s targets. A third party client could bypass it all (which of course is why they don’t allow those).
Similarly, Mastodon and Pixelfed and so on *could* implement UI like this, but they don’t. The project goals aren’t engagement at all costs. And each instance can have its own goals.
Someone could add an ATTENTION-GRABBING EXPERIENCE on top of the Mastodon or Pixelfed code.
And those of us connecting with different software wouldn’t be affected.
Or they could write an app that adds it! Though I’m not sure many people would consider that an improved experience.
Then again, people do use Yahoo mail. 🤷♂️
IMO there are two sensible ways to handle granular push #notification preferences:1. Use the system’s …
IMO there are two sensible ways to handle granular push #notification preferences:
1. Use the system’s per-app settings for all of it. (Tusky does this, even putting your per-account preferences in the system UI)
2. Use the app’s settings for all of it, and let the system just be an on/off toggle for what you’ve chosen in the app (like it was before the system had UI for it)
And while I’m griping about Instagram, why the heck are the detailed notification preferences split …
And while I’m griping about Instagram, why the heck are the detailed notification preferences split between the app and the system notification UI?
That’s terrible design.
Well, if it’s intended for usability, anyway.
If your goal is to make people see more notifications, though… 🙄
One of the things I like about Mastodon vs commercial social networks is that it …
One of the things I like about Mastodon vs commercial social networks is that it doesn’t TRY TO GET MY ATTENTION every time I open the page or app and offer ALL THESE THINGS I SHOULD BE LOOKING AT that might be relevant to what it thinks my interests are, to make sure I stay online and don’t stay away again for sooooo long! (Even if it’s only been a few days.)
Seriously, I opened Instagram for the first time in a month or so and I was bombarded with more ads and recommendations than photos from people I was actually following.
I opened an alt profile in Twitter yesterday to post something off the cuff, and all the trending topics, pushing new features, etc were like walking onto the Las Vegas Strip when all you want is a sandwich.
Never mind the normal “you haven’t logged onto Twitter in a few hours, here’s all the stuff you missed, and look, people are posting new stuff while you’re catching up, you’d better keep scrolling!” Compared to Mastodon just showing you the latest that you’re actually following. And if you want to fill in what you missed, that’s *up to you*
Subdomains vs Subdirectories & Indieweb Split
In response to girrodocus’s question: #PersonalWebsite creators… what’s your rationale for deciding when to use a subdomain or a subdirectory?
I usually prefer to put sections in subdirectories. That makes it possible to make the entire site portable (depending on authoring tools, anyway). Ideally, I want something that could be zipped up and moved. Or sent to Archive Team. (One of the downsides of dynamic site generators.)
When I use subdomains, it’s typically because I want some sort of isolation between the content, or the server apps, etc. But in those cases I’m as likely to use another domain entirely.
I put my main blog in a subdomain, but if I set up my own git repository or something like that, I’d probably put it in a subdomain.
That said, I’m currently trying to sort out what I want to keep at the domain I’ve had for the last 20 years and what to move to my Indieweb identity site. But that’s a whole different conversation.
Replying to their interest in how I’m sorting:
It took 4 or 5 years from me discovering #IndieWeb to actually building support into my website(s), because hyperborea.org, named after a fictional place, felt like a digital *home*, but not an *identity*. So I set up kvibber.com as my digital identity instead.
I’ve been considering several approaches:
* New stuff on kvibber, leave old stuff where it is
* Professional stuff on kvibber, fun stuff on hyperborea
* Original work on kvibber, fandom stuff on hyperborea
I might move my scenic & nature photos over to kvibber.com but leave the funny & comic-con photos on hyperborea.org, or move my tech articles over but leave the personal posts.
I’m also planning to put together a light microblog, probably on kvibber, to be the canonical location for short posts on Mastodon/Twitter/etc that I want to keep, but don’t feel big enough for a full blog entry. That’ll probably go on kvibber, even though it’ll blur the pro/fun & original/fan distinctions.
Huge meteorite strikes, historical
One of the things I find fascinating about Tunguska vs Chelyabinsk is that in one case it took decades of scientific research and multiple theories to settle on what probably caused it, while in the other we have video footage and the actual meteorite.
But there were eyewitnesses to Tunguska despite its remoteness, and somehow I’d never read their reports before.
As for the debate about what caused the Tunguska event: it was clearly something from space, but they never found an impact crater or an actual meteorite, just damaged forest. Plus the scientific expeditions weren’t carried out until years later. Current consensus is that it was a meteor, but it exploded in the air before impact, causing the visible fireball across the sky, intense heat, shock waves, atmospheric disturbances and so on but no crater.
Overstuffed websites
I’m not ready to give up on the flexibility of WordPress for my main blog yet, but holy crap are those pages heavy. Even with compression. There’s no reason it should take 450K (before compression) and 20 requests to display a 500-word post.
And I don’t even do ads, popups, social sharing buttons or anything else like that.
By contrast, my Les Mis blog, where I post about once a year, is currently generated by Eleventy using a custom minimal theme that only takes around 10K of HTML, 3K CSS, and a third request for the icon. And another 40K for the header font, which I recently set up locally so it no longer has to call out to Google Fonts.
One domain, just 4 requests, and only 50K for the first hit and 10K for each subsequent page.
Compression cuts down on those 500K WP pages – all the text and code compresses really well so only around 200K bandwidth is needed. But it’s still got multiple JS and CSS requests going on.
I was able to cut it down significantly by switching to a lighter theme and turning on the minimize/combine feature in WP-Optimize so it’s making fewer script calls. But it’s still way bigger than the minimalist setup I have with 11ty
Some of it is images, though. I still have my latest Flickr posts in the sidebar, and I’m using Jetpack’s related posts feature which includes thumbnails. I could cut out a big chunk by removing those, but I kind of still like the idea of having them in there.
I think I need to take a look at how much extra stuff I really want on that site and rip some of it out. Eventually I’d like to replace all the JetPack features because they just seem to keep adding more scripts. Plus I want an entirely local stats package instead of one that’s offloaded to a third party even if they’re less awful than, say, Google or Facebook
Otoh, I want to keep Gravatar on the comments sections (on the older posts where people actually commented) because that’s actually useful to readers as an aid for following a conversation better. But that’s all on top of the base page size
Anyway, I should shut up about this and go to bed
Thread start on Wandering.shop
In reply to FiXato remarking that the Gemini version is likely even smaller:
It is! Not only does it not need the font, but instead of minimal layout and style, there’s *no* layout or style! Or even metadata!
I got an email about a class action settlement over alleged price fixing of CD/DVD …
I got an email about a class action settlement over alleged price fixing of CD/DVD drives in the early 2000s. Went to the website for more info, and found… this. 😲
Really inspires confidence, I tell ya
Overheard during Zoom Mad Libs…
Overheard during Zoom Mad Libs:
Teacher: “I need an expression.”
Student: (unintelligible)
Teacher: “An *appropriate* expression.”
Overheard: “Alexa, tell ____ I’m not talking to her!”
Overheard: “Alexa, tell ____ I’m not talking to her!”
The way the palantir network compromises Saruman and Denethor shows the danger in who controls the algorithm
LOTR rewatch: The way the palantir network compromises Saruman and Denethor shows the danger in who controls the algorithm that manages your newsfeed.
Pippin picks it up, starts doomscrolling, and can’t put it down. Literally.
Aragorn plans out his post, gets on *just* long enough to make his point, and gets the hell out, knowing he’s made an impression.
Sorry, there’s no exception in the rules for Pokemon.
Finally made it out to the botanical gardens up in the hills for a hike.
Finally made it out to the botanical gardens up in the hills for a hike. They’ve actually stayed open this whole time by requiring reservations to limit the number of people on the grounds at a time. (Also face masks, distancing, and closing off benches and some sections.)
Ironically there were more people there than I usually see. The limits must be against an increased demand due to the fact that they were actually open!
#nature #signs #bench #trail #closed #hiking #mask #photo
So he disassembled & reassembled the dead Nexus 5x that got stuck bootlooping 2 years …
So he disassembled & reassembled the dead Nexus 5x that got stuck bootlooping 2 years ago. Plugged it in. Waited. It actually powered on enough for us to get it into recovery mode!
Unfortunately I should have left it in fastboot mode, because now that I’ve downloaded an image to install, I can’t get it to power up again at all.
covid closures & beaches
The beach is closed now, along with the bike path and the sidewalk I was standing on. ALL of Los Angeles County’s beaches are closed.
Neighboring Ventura County just re-opened some of theirs with distancing rules in place, and while Orange County has resisted closing their beaches, they had so many people show up at the coast this weekend that some cities are thinking about closing them after all. (Well, maybe only on weekends when non-locals might show up. 🙄 )
Thinking back to the last “normal” weekend in southern California
Thinking back to the last “normal” weekend in southern California before it became clear that covid-19 was spreading locally & closures started.
After a busy Saturday & Sunday morning, I went out for a calming photo walk at the beach.
Not many people were there. I’m not sure if it was just not warm enough yet, or people were starting to keep their distance already, or if they were just all at the other end where there was a kite festival.
#photo #beach #SocialDistancing #california
Covid19/events
Back in my college theater days, I remember one of the teachers remarking that what sets theater apart from other types of events is the audience. A sporting event with no one watching still counts for the rankings and records. A play without an audience might as well be a dress rehearsal.
Well, sporting events are being scheduled without fans…and my old college just announced that this quarter’s performances will be done without audiences.
Though I guess they do still count for class credit