If there's one thing that summarises the nightmare of the modern era, it's the smartwatch. Already,. notifications on my phone give me a range of pavlovian reactions ranging from 'Oh Fuck off' to 'Wait, someone actually knows I exist and Said Something to Me'

Anyway.

I've picked up a couple of 'old fashioned' stupid watches - just to give me a chance to escape from them.

The first is Soviet-era Racketa. Probably once belonged to a Soviet submariner -- the outer ring lets you track your watchstanding times. It's not water resistant -  I suppose, if you got water in your submarine, keeping good time would'nt be a problem you'd need to worry about for very long. Good in that you can patch it up -- I've replaced the crystal on it already.



Anyway. It has problems. Most of which relate to it being a relic of a fallen civilisation which has never been properly maintained. It's clearly dying slowly. (At least until I can put the guts into a decent solvent to clear the old oils out of it)

To complement it, (And so I can tell what time it is when I'm swimming) this just arrived from the Chistopol watch factory. A hundred quid - and I've fitted a new bezel to get a second time-zone on it, strap and anti-magnetic back to it. It'll go down to 200 meters and run for ten years, with an automatic winder. 

It's not a Rolex - but it's not exactly the typical 'cheap and awful' either. It's cheap and clever-  using good design and engineering to save money and achieve the same results as more expensive watches. Even if it struggles to be accurate to within 20 seconds a day..... it's reliable, but not precise. (It's also a completely in-house movement which is something watch nerds care about) . I've managed to tweak it to get it running within a second every 2 hours which isn't bad.



Both of these irritate the watch-nerds I know.

Gizmodo has a slideshow here.

Faye's not rocking yellow hot pants, and there's still no sign of Ed, but other than that, looks good.

So, I've just started playing a Claws/Willpower Stalker (because I've never done one before, ever - something I'm planning on rectifying with all the ATs I've never played before).

Anyway, I'm taking my time with him, playing the low level content for the first time in many years rather than hopping on the first PI radio team I hear about and getting PL'ed into the 20s.  And I'm liking what I'm playing.  So I'd like to plan ahead for him. 

Dren, if you have the time, could you please come up with a build I can use to guide this guy to level 50 with?  Thanks.

It's a little short (for Dream Theater) at "only" nine and a half minutes, but despite what a first glance might suggest, I see this more as a utility song than another spaceflight power as such - the repeating theme here is "now with the means to expand" more than anything else, which to me says logistics and support effects. Since conjured material tends to vanish when the song providing it ends or is interrupted, I instead propose a transformative effect, letting Doug change existing materials within his AoE into any piece of gear he can understand at least the working principles of (the more detail he has and can visualize, the faster it works, the less input material quality matters, and more durable the result) and which he can persuade himself is justifiable as part of a space colony mission's equipment list, from pre-launch training to self sufficiency.

Obviously he's not going to be providing a meaningful population's worth of gear without a large investment in time and materials even with the whole length of the song every day, but to make a set of space suits before all the air is sucked out of the room, repair or place that one critical gadget in a pinch, or provide samples and study materials to use and duplicate them, it's just the thing. (Or for outfitting a place to live while he tries to find a portal song out of empty or post-apocalyptic Earths, for that matter.)


non-embedded

...that you can now buy single-origin enhancements pretty much from level 5 from the vendors in Atlas Park?

And the "Upgrade" button in Enhancement Management that will auto-upgrade all your non-invention enhancements to the next multiple of 5?

Probably should've screenshotted this and posted it in another thread but, meh.

GTA Vice City was set in 1986
GTA Vice City Came out in 2002.

That's 16 years of a gap.

It's now 19 Years since Vice City came out.

And when you consider how different the world of 1986 felt to the world of 2002 ---   the world of 2021 doesn't particularly feel as different. The computers are faster - the discourse is shittier but, on the whole, we've been in this we'red sort of indistinct melange, where things like facebook and amazone just smear across the decades, and 2007, 2010 and 2015 and all that just sort of smear into one.


Compare the 50's, the 60's, the 70's the 80's and the 90's ----- and then it just doesn't seem like there's been much if any character to the last two decades. Not until Last January - or last week with the Afghan withdrawal.

It's just that, for the last decade, it feels like the character of the world hasn't changed.

The so-called “nation” of Afghanistan has collapsed faster than a Florida apartment building. Might as well discuss it, because it’s a big historical turning point.

Lots of people are blaming Biden but I don’t see any other countries stepping up to provide security against the Taliban. Nor an explanation of how a winning strategy would have worked.

You Can’t Buy a Cause: Examining the roots of the Afghanistan forces’ collapse.

... but Merriam-Webster's thesaurus isn't giving me enough of them. I can't keep alternating the terms "portal" and "gate" over and over - the readers would get bored.

Are there at least three more terms for the thingy that is used by stepping into or through it here so that you appear over there?

Well, my microwave oven finally conked out (it's been around 15 years so I'm not too upset) and needed replaced, which isn't ideal but within the emergency budget... and lo and behold, the store was doing a $25 off $100+ promotion... so I added Origin Bumblebee

Get in loser, we're going to space! :p

Ontario court certifies class action against Uber that could see some workers recognized as employees

Two things of importance here.

First, are Uber drivers contractors or employees under Ontario law? The case should decide that.

Second, that bit in Uber's Terms of Service about all disputes it is involved in going through mediation in the Netherlands has been set aside. They collect Canadian taxes, they have cases heard in Canadian courts. This is going to have some effects on the Internet...