After spending all day tracking down 250kb of bad sectors on an SSD that were causing my work computer to behave very badly (thank you, chkdsk!) while the corporate IT guy offered to bring me a new (completely blank and virtually useless) computer, I'll just leave this here for Josh so we can be smug together.
All through their lives, I’ve done it for them. Set-up new hardware, installed new software and acted as in-house technician whenever things went wrong. As a result, I have a family of digital illiterates.
I'm guilty of this. So very guilty. But then, if I didn't help them, they would just become embittered, and make the problem worse by calling in the Geek Squad, after which I would likely have to do even more work to undo whatever damage is inflicted.
My only saving grace is that I try to provide systems that allow them to experiment. I tell them, "You will never be able to break this just by using it," and they take some small comfort in it. Telling them that, and then managing their fight-or-flight reaction as I recommend to them a Linux desktop is another story entirely.
Monday night, Dave installed wifi routers for two relatives. His sister had already taught one relative how to use her new smart phone. As a thank you for setting up wifi networks (as he has done at everyone of their houses), they bought him/us a giftcard for a dinner out.
I'll take it. The current goal is to raise technically literate children so someday this mantle gets passed to them.
I feel like I'm doing a poor job in raising a technically functional child. I hope deep down that he just starts tinkering when he's stuck which is how I eventually learned things.
Maybe it'll be ok, it's not like I was taught by my dad. But it's also not like I have the competency of Josh or Dave either.
I think i've mentioned it before, but my competency only stems from having just about no button fear. I really just kind of go through and start hitting random buttons until I find something I want.
I also usually have google open on another device or window as a resource.
This all stems from me totally bricking a computer in my introductory C++ course in school while learning "Hello, world". I still don't know what i did. I don't want to do it again, whatever it was.
Video of what a mosquito is doing while it's biting you. (phenomena.nationalgeographic.com)
Great article explaining the videos and what is happening. I had no idea how complex mosquito bites actual were.
RHCP was pretty good. Pretty much played all of their radio hits, plus a couple of songs from what I assume would have been their latest album (or just songs I'd never heard).
I won't say that I've been the biggest RHCP fan, but I appreciated that they could play all of their songs live. Flea and their guitarist (Josh Klinghoffer?) were pretty amazing, to the point where I could have just listened to them riff while Will Ferrell played drums.
Notable:
Will Ferrell and Chad Smith look strangely alike
Ended the show with a three-song encore, one of which was "Give It Away Now," which is pretty much what I wanted to hear. I wasn't disappointed.
Aaaaaaaaaaand finished Voyager. Fuck you Rick Berman. Double fuck you Brannon Braga. I seriously can't believe how much they wasted the potential for what could have been a great show... if they had taken ONE RISK during the entire seven year run. All action, no consequences.
That being said, I still gave it a 4/5 on Netflix. Why? It is possibly the highest quality sc-fi show ever produced. Every episode went down like candy. So, while I was entertained, I was just so terribly disappointed because I wanted it to be on par with DS9 (and it could have been!). Perhaps, though, this show is really the most Star Trek of all the Star Trek series (episodic, idealistic).
One last note: I think Kate Mulgrew is underrated. She made terrible dialogue almost believable for seven seasons. Not quite a Patrick Stewart, of course, but definitely 2nd behind him. Note, however, that in terms of captains, it goes: JLP>Sisco>Janeway>>Kirk>Archer. In terms of dialogue quality (from the writers), however, it goes: Sisco>Janeway>JLP>Kirk>Archer.
Now to mop up the rest of TOS... then the Animated Series, and I'm done! Let the cheese begin...
It's weird to me that we continue to enjoy these shows, despite their poor execution, lack of risk-taking, and punishing filler-episode drudgery. Babylon 5, though it's getting better, is still pretty consistently bad, and yet every day at lunch I've been queuing it up while eating a sandwich.
Maybe we just have a high tolerance for bullshit? Or we grow numb to it over time? Or, perhaps, the nuggets of awesome, the kernels of the truly intriguing storylines, characters, and science fiction elements are enough to sustain us through seasons of waist-deep inanity? Or maybe we just enjoy thinking on how much better the show would have been if they'd had decent writing?
Science fiction is hard to love. But then I still have a signed picture of Worf in his wedding regalia sitting above the wall of my cubicle.
I always felt like B5, BSG, SG, and the like were just trying to be Star Trek, and capitalize on the same audience that watched ST. Since these didn't really have another television scifi show airing during the same general timeframe to compete against, everyone was just "well, there's nothing else but this shit on, so whatever."
I never found any of the ST imitations to ever be compelling.
BSG was a contender in its own right, I feel (the first two seasons). Or at least brought something new to the table. Farscape and Andromeda were *way* more derivative (though, Farscape did have alien puppets as main characters). B5 tries to make improvements to the Star Trek formula by removing warp drives, replicators, and transporters, but then stumbles again when it adds in telepaths and bad acting. Stargate? Eh, the movie was enough. Two shows seems excessive.
Science fiction fans are picky as hell, fear change, lament our underrepresented genre, but resent having our passions be applied to a wider audience. We also have a really bad habit of only watching shows long after they're out of production. The B5s and Andromedas may be derivative, but as I would guess, part of the reason we can enjoy them is because they try to derive from something we love. Nobody will have Data, Picard, or Spock again, but there's value in trying to mine something new, even if it is just trying to milk dollars out of a starved audience.
Sorry to harp on the same bandwagon that everyone else is drinking from (not to mix metaphors) but have you all seen La Mulgrew in Orange is the New Black? Episode 2 is like a masterclass in acting.
Also, her in The Captains? I mean, she got interviewed on a stage. She is so dedicated.
I've been randomly watching some eps from the end of season 7 and there are some quite good ones in there. Even some early ones are good. But you're right that they missed TONS of opportunities in every season.
Why is Archer always the end of every list?
Fucking Loser at Movie All By Himself (www.theonion.com)
“I’m not expecting too much from Red 2, but it should be fun,” added the heartbreakingly defeated man, who sources believe must have given up on meaningful relationships long ago. “I think Catherine Zeta-Jones is in this one.”
Maybe.
I might be over-thinking it, but the Bulletproof scene is maybe the best one in the movie. Up until then, Anna Kendrick's character is the anti-underdog: under-appreciated but savvy, snarky but forgiven. It's only after she decides to strike out on her own, shining brightly like the movie would like her to, adding her own unique twist on a tired, doomed-to-fail song, that she sees her efforts crumble, to no fault of hers or her companions. She discovers that she is not the secret weapon, that she is fallible, and to some degree less capable than she previously thought.
Only after someone makes a vomit angel on a gym floor does she realize the true meaning of a capella.
But I don't know. I'm told it's a movie for hearing people. And I don't hear particularly well.
So I've totally abandoned stealth, and just gone for it. It was pretty difficult going for a bit, but then I got the Masterkey shotgun attachment to the M4. The combination lays waste to all the things. Pretty awesome.
edit: also, I am having a tough time "not killing" for a bit - Snake keeps retching, and the little audible plays "You love all the killing"
I don't think Konami intended for me to go full Rambo on this shit. Sometimes it gets really hard and it seems like there might be infinite enemies in a situation, but you can just keep buying buckshot and 40mm grenades, and all the badguys just kinda fall out of your way. Plus, you can even use an M60 just like Rambo!
Are you into the Saints Row games? I played one of them because it had Michael Dorn voiceacting. The newest one just looks... too insane.
We have LEGO club at the library. We provide a theme, but in general whatever they build is good by us. Today a four year-old was building a (remarkably accurate) oil rig. Asked why and he replied "because that's where the money is".
True that. Oil money pays more of my friends salaries than not, it built the library I work in, and it pays a good portion of my husband's salary.
Of course it is possible that the kid has a mom/dad/uncle/aunt/whatever who works on an oil rig and he's been told about it and shown pictures of it as to why this person disappears for weeks at a time. But I prefer to think we're just training them up young in Alaska.
Y'know... I'll applaud that. Valid syntax and everything. Makes me feel vindicated in my paranoid sanitizing of idkfa's inputs (php.net).
