It's been a while, but I lurk and come back.

It is now airing on Crunchyroll.com.

All I will say about it is that Amalgam is now taking off the kid gloves.

Japanese engineer builds giant robot to realize 'Gundam' dream

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan...SKBN1HK0HX

Lindsey Buckingham's out of the group, just before the reunion tour.

When it comes to Fleetwood Mac, the only constant is change.

Edit: Here is an Imgur album where I'll be adding (nearly) all of the images posted in the thread:
https://imgur.com/a/2M9A6

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To keep the 3D modeling thread as a repository of useful tools and freebies, I'm starting a new one to post imaes and blather about my pygmy Trek-style ship. Coming back to it tofay since my hands stopped giving me trouble, I did a bunch of work on the saucer frame after slimming down the engineering section one to about 75%, basically line at a time due to the complex shape. It's still kinda chunky compared to the frame parts visible in the damaged ship images and cutaways I dug up in the meantime, but keeping the relative scale in mind not outlandishly so.

On the subject of relative scale, you know that saying about how if it's stupid but it worked it was still stupid and you were lucky? How about obvious bad ideas that make you laugh so much you want to use them anyway? It seems Geordi was on the design team for this one, as well as one or more Caitians...



Mounting the warp core horizontally let me use one about the same as Voyager's so I tried adding a phaser strip about the same size (1m elements, 3m total width, or about half the size of a Galaxy or Sovereign's strips.) I don't know, do you think it's a bit much?

As the bad ideas keep on coming, you can see that I also made another shuttle, this one based on the even-rounder original concept sketch for the type-7. Him name is Hopkin. Hopkin Green Shuttle. Don't take my shuttle. I'll find my shuttle.

The two super-low-poly type-15s have been there in every render all along, stashed on a shelf among the cargo boxes. They displace six of the 1x2x1m boxes each, but they're not any bigger than a dune buggy and much more capable, so I've kept them anyway. I gained that back after stretching the shuttle bay another 7m aft to make room for a second medium-large shuttle anyway, without even having designated the space for a saucer cargo bay or two yet. I also decided on a target for nominal full crew, three bridge stations plus three engineering stations times four watches is 24, plus a doctor and five mission-configured holographic crew for a nice round thirty, though a single person with engineering and navigation cross-training and the five holograms can probably operate her decently enough. Considerig even the ship Seven of Nine/Annika Hansen's parents operated alone on their cultural expedition to study the Borg ('E's a fascinating critter, dangerous as all heck. Let's poke 'im with a stick!) was still about twice as large, I fully expect to need to scale back from that a bit, or else pack 'em in like the Defiant in triple bunks or something. At least the Sea Angel does have holodeck for rec time, though it's also earmarked for Stellar Cartography and/or use as part of the engineering workshop, which it directly abuts and has a wide bay door to. Between an integrated industrial replicator (not standard in holodecks as far as I know, though they do create small physical props and costumes) and the ability to simulate various machine tools and do rapid visualization and prototyping it fits like hand and glove, even if the shows rarely used them that way. (Only Voyager as far as I recall, and possibly only in the silly "break Warp 10, become a hyperevolved swamp lizard" episode at that.)

Fitting in the rest of the functional rooms I want in the saucer mainly amounts to bridge, sickbay, mess hall/lounge, transporter room, and some quarters, so available volume is still looking pretty decent, though I'm not sure how much is going to be left for boxed and liquid cargo storage. I still haven't built the photorp racks and autoloader either, but that's a lesser concern since the only other thing in the rollbar pod is a couple consoles and the hardware cabinet for the sensor dish and gribblies I stuck on the front so it wouldn't just be the torpedo tube on one side and the rest dull and blank.

So this isn't JUST me blathering on at the wind, can anyone think of a shipboard location that should be added other than the ones I listed above, engineering, the shuttle bay, and the computer room? A briefing room, I guess - scenes in the Captain's Ready Room are common enough. Maybe some Jeffries tubes? The ship is tiny, though, there's not really anywhere you need to crawl through to get to stuff besides the pod and maybe a service corridor around the perimeter of the saucer to poke at the environmental equipment.

And apparently I forgot to post this yesterday, after falling and landing awkwardly in a sudden, unexpected game of Twister over a pile of chainsaws. (Yes, literally. No, they weren't running, but they made the ground so uneven I couldn't move to get up, and by the time someone got a couple out from under me I'd been in a stress position so long I still couldn't get up until I laid there for a few more minutes and had something to climb on.) Marvypoo, and here hoping for a suggestion or at least a couple laughs was one of the things I used for incentive to actually get up despite being sore from pulled muscles basically all over.

lyrics are in the description

Trump attorney Cohen is being investigated for possible bank fraud, campaign finance violations

Cohen Search Warrants Sought Info On Hush Money Pay-Offs, Taxi Medallions

What To Make Of The FBI’s ‘Extraordinary’ Raid Of Michael Cohen

So, we bought a 3M pouch laminator (TL901C) back in December. It's been fine for us, we've laminated score sheets and assorted for our collection of board games.

This week, I got an email from where we ordered it, that said there was a "recall for refund, stop using immediately" because of an overheating issue. (Melting lower cases, no injuries yet.)

Where I get into the annoyance is that they've set it up so that you have to call in. 3M is in Minnesota. I live in Denver. They specifically list hours of 8:00-4:30 central time. I work 8:00-5:00 mountain time, with a 1 hour lunch.

I tried calling the 800 number for the recall on my lunch break. I had to hang up, still on hold, as I ran out of lunch. So I sent them an email via their contact form.

While they've sent me the steps they'd like to see for recall participation in terms of evidence (cut cord, photo of model label with cut cord, invoice from purchase), they expressed that they'd prefer me to call them to participate in the recall. And that call volume means it's going to take longer than normal to get through to them.

Note: This is a $20 product. I've already sunk an hour into this. Basically, it feels like they don't really want to give me money back, they'd just prefer that I throw it away after providing the proof they need to show the recall is showing results, and let them keep the $20, which is why they've achieved my "do not buy" list.

So, thoughts, do I just send them the evidence and consider the money lost? Do I not give them evidence of the lamintor's destruction, and make noise that I need to be provided a better way to get that refund before I do so? I'm already at the point I don't want to sink more phone time in, and I work at a job that waiting on hold while I'm working is pretty much impossible. We are planning on not using the laminator and sourcing a (non-3M) replacement.

So, two weeks ago I decided to scrap my Facebook account and re-invest that time into getting back into the habit of reading books.

Before 2013, I used to read between two and four books per month and plan to build up to that again, hopefully.

Right now I am finishing Cal Newport's Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World which actually was the kick in the pants I needed to finally kill the Facebook hydra.

Feel free to add books you are currently reading to this thread or any recommendations. Me? I read biographies, religious studies, philosophy (Love the ____and Philosophy books), manga, graphic novels, sci-fi, fantasy, science, even romance novels if they are interesting enough.

Can also add audiobooks if that is your preferred way to consume them.

Starting April 6 - tomorrow! - all 4G LTE cellphones in Canada will automatically get AlertReady warning messages. So don't be surprised if your phone starts making that annoying alert noise that the radio alerts always start with.

For the geeky types amongst us: All cellphone companies in Canada are now required to deliver federal, provincial, and local emergency messages via cell broadcast to all WPA-compatible LTE devices. Messages will be targeted geographically (each tower will only broadcast alerts pertaining to the area that the tower is in) and cannot be suppressed except by turning off the phone altogether. (Yes, this means you might get an alert at 3AM - but it's a frikkin' emergency, folks!)

Alert types: Fire, Tornado, Flash Flood, Earthquake, Hurricane, Tsunami, Thunderstorm, Storm Surge, Landslide, Dam Overflow, Magnetic Storm (although I can't imagine how this type of alert would get through - if a magnetic storm's powerful enough for an alert, it'll have already fried phones' electronics), Meteorite, Lahar, Pyroclastic Flow, Pyroclastic Surge, Volcanic Ash, Biological hazard, Chemical hazard, Radiological hazard, Drinking Water Contamination, Explosives, Air Quality, Falling Object, Terrorist Threat, Civil Emergency, Animal Danger, Amber Alert (abducted child), 911 Service Disruption, Test.