Happy New Year

[lamaros]

All the best to you for 2012!

[luckton]

And 2011 can DIAF 

Bring on the Mayan armageddon! 

[Merusk]

Bring on the Mayan armageddon! 

Well, it IS an election year, that's pretty damn close.


Now for a few months of writing 2011 instead of 2012 on things. Whee.

[Der Helm]

Gonna be gone for the weekend, all the best F13, don't you change one bit. 

[Azazel]

Yep, roll on 2012. I suppose it's possible that it could be worse than 2011, but it'd have to try fucking hard.

[Minvaren]

Merry New Year!

...want some beef jerky?   

[Chimpy]

Happy trails 2011. Time to party like it's 1999 until December 21 when it all ends!

[luckton]

Happy trails 2011. Time to party like it's 1999 until December 21 when it all ends!

You know, maybe if the Spaniards hadn't killed off the Mayans, they could have finished their fucking calendar.   

[Nebu]

Happy 2012 to you all.  We need a resolutions thread!

[calapine]

Happy 2012 to you all.  We need a resolutions thread!

Happy 2012 everybirdie! 

I'll start:

I'll be less lazy, less needy and less passive-aggressive in 2012!

[Ironwood]

Um, didn't you just break it already ?

[MuffinMan]

Happy New Year.

In NYC, it seems a few other people also thought of coming here.

[Margalis]

My resolution is the same I had last year and the year before: drink more.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Happy New Year, F13! 

Here's to a prosperous, fun, and safe 2012 for all!

[Jimbo]

Happy New Year!  I work from 11pm to 7am, gonna start the new year right!!  Be safe you all!

[Arthur_Parker]

Happy New Year!  Hope 2012 is better than 2011 which totally sucked.

[Ironwood]

Amen.

[Strazos]

Happy New Year and shit.

I guess my resolution is...to eat less ice cream? 

[Samwise]

My resolution for 2012 is to lose the 15-odd pounds that I failed to lose in 2011.  At the moment I've got some kind of wicked stomach flu or food poisoning or something so I'm off to a good start.

[Tannhauser]

Goodbye and good riddance 2011, the year that tried to kill me.  I welcome 2012 with open arms!  We have great movies coming out and great games to play.  Hold your significant other close and keep the smacktards at a distance.

[Johny Cee]

My resolution for 2012 is to lose the 15-odd pounds that I failed to lose in 2011.  At the moment I've got some kind of wicked stomach flu or food poisoning or something so I'm off to a good start.

I got back down to high school weight this year, and it is mostly wonderful.  You just feel like you have more energy when you aren't dragging around that 10 or 15 extra pounds.  The only downside, with our weather here, is that I'm fucking freezing all the time because I'm used to having that extra insulation and fat store. 


Had a great low key New Years.  Hung out with a few couples I know, played silly board games and had a few drinks, and I should be in bed in 30 minutes.  As much fun as crazy New Years celebrations used to be, I just lost my patience for dealing with the massive hangovers and sleep deprivation.

[Sky]

...want some beef jerky?   

Depends.

Are you wearing lederhosen?

I hope those employed can stay employed and those looking find something awesome. Cheers, you crazy bastards and bastardettes. This Laphroaig's for you folks. Well, not literally, it's really for me while I wish you all well. You probably knew that.

[apocrypha]

Happy New Year folks!

May you all continue to talk crazy shit about crazy shit!

xx

[Teleku]

Fuck 2011, dear god make 2012 better.  I'm pretty sure I said that about 2010, however.  Maybe he'll just send a meteor as everybody prediects to answer everyone's prayers.

Merry New Year!   

[Quinton]

23 minutes to 2012.  Have a pre-emptive happy new year, or a late happy new year for you people in future timezones.

I really enjoyed this: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/12/my-new-year-wish.html

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

It fits nicely with my decision to make more stuff in 2012.  It's amazing how easy and inexpensive it is to get PCBs fabricated these days, just for starters.  (http://www.batchpcb.com/ is pretty awesome).

I spent some of today destroying a couple LQFP48 packages while getting the hang of drag-soldering somewhat fine pitch SMT parts.  After a bit of practice, I'm getting the hang of it:

(for size reference, the chip is 7mm on a side, the thin traces are 0.2032mm (8mil) and the thick traces are 0.3048mm (12mil))

[Xuri]

Happy New Year, everyone!

[Trippy]

Happy New Year from the US West Coast!

May you have less stress this year, get more sleep, and most importantly, have more time to play video games!

[JWIV]

Happy New Year folks.  Boy woke me up at 6:30 this morning, so I took him downstairs to play.  Five minutes later, a constant string of fire sirens fill the air.  Nice 3 alarm fire about two blocks from my house.   One awesome thing is that the Fire Dept here does a really good job of doing updates to twitter letting people know what's going on for some of these larger scale events.   Apparently over 100 firefighters and equipment came out because it had spread to multiple houses (gotta love rowhomes).

[Merusk]

Nothing wrong with rowhouses so long as they're properly partitioned.  If it spread, they weren't.

It's like saying all cars are deathtraps in accidents because the Pinto would burst into flames.

[Strazos]

Exactly. A few years ago a fire broke out in one of the condos where I was living (like 10 doors down or so).

That unit was a total loss, but the adjacent unit was still standing in the end...though it wasn't habitable at that point due to smoke damage (I imagine).

[Sheepherder]

Rowhouses like that often enough have a shared cockloft above them, which means smoke can accumulate above all of the units.  So the construction on this type of house is often not ideal.  Though in it's defense they're also generally not made of sawdust held together by glue and gusset plates that fail after about ten minutes of direct flame impingement.

Gasses rise and fall according to their density.  Smoke is a very hot gas, and is therefore not dense.  Smoke will only settle downwards if it is forced downwards, or if it is cooled (which looks really cool if done delicately, by the way).

So in theory by cutting a hole in the roof, placing positive pressure fans blowing through the doorway of each unit, and then attacking the seat of the fire without disturbing the gasses that have accumulated in the loft you can avoid damage to the adjacent units.  Unfortunately, smoke is hot and combustible, so it tends to catch the loft on fire shortly after the interior ceiling is breached.

[Soln]

Happy New Year all.  2012: Let's be careful out there.

[Tebonas]

Having to work again after the holidays when nobody is around sucks, but you make it less boring!

Happy New Year everyone!

[Merusk]

Rowhouses like that often enough have a shared cockloft above them, which means smoke can accumulate above all of the units.  So the construction on this type of house is often not ideal.  Though in it's defense they're also generally not made of sawdust held together by glue and gusset plates that fail after about ten minutes of direct flame impingement.

You have two choices.  Let us cut down old-growth forests so we can provide the "proper" building materials you oh so clever firefighters want, or get used to the idea that any flame reaching the structure means it's a loss so you don't go fucking in there because sustainable building materials aren't going to be "flameproof" like heavy timbers.

[Sheepherder]

Sustainability, heh.   Look, I much prefer lifting prefabricated trusses and OSB myself.  The worst offender is actually the gusset plates, they'll fail long before the wood is structurally unsound because they only grip the surface, and with it's high surface area the plate actually acts like a heat sink, collecting it and conducting it into the wood it's gripping at a far greater rate than a nail would, which speeds charring.

Oh, and happy new year.