Useless Conversation

[Sky]

Most of my normal options like that are off the table because my next door neighbor has a wildlife feeding station on their back patio. There are at least 3 feeding stations on my side of the block (backed by woods, there may be more on the other two edges with houses).

I saw him coming up the street late last night, but he was in defensive mode. I called to him and he immediately ran back up the street. After the same thing happened a second time, I stopped trying because I didn't want to continue blocking him from wherever he was headed. Even the best cat whisperer can only do so much!

But yeah, if it weren't for the coyotes and raccoons, I'd probably have a bunch of stuff set up for the local cats (and skunks, they're decent enough except for the rare fights between younger males without good control of the you-know-which).

[Engels]

Apropos of nothing whatsoever, yesterday I found out that 'Schildbutt' is a kind of WW2 German torpedo.

[schild]

When we do the next donation drive, this is off the table as a grief title.

[Chimpy]

When we do the next donation drive, this is off the table as a grief title.

What about for previous drives where the person who paid for one still hasn't chosen? Asking for a friend.

[calapine]

Is it me or is Google Search getting continuously worse?

[Pennilenko]

Is it me or is Google Search getting continuously worse?

I feel like it has, but I have been able to mitigate it with search operators.

[Khaldun]

I think so, yes. I think the accumulated weight of Google's attempts to both monetize and protect their algorithm and relentless SEO and some loss of will in the face of it are all producing a lot of degradation of search. I'm seeing it even in library catalogs, which increasingly are being shaped by service vendors and not by any kind of expert bibliographic authority. It's also a by-product of too much badly run or cheaply run machine learning without any kind of attempt to intervene in bad loops and also a sense maybe that Google may not really give a flying fuck any longer whether users find the outcomes of search useful because they believe you have no choice anyway. Much as you can see Amazon fully retreating from the proposition that they care about whether you're finding the products you want and walling off almost any way to communicate with them directly if there's a problem with an order.

[Morat20]

Well darn, no laundry for a few days. Looks like the pipes that service my washing machine froze last night.

Not something I'm used to in Houston.

Everything else is fine (washing machine is in the garage, on an exterior wall). I'm really glad I had my house repiped with pex, though. Hopefully that'll spare the joins and it'll be fine when it defrosts.

[Mandella]

I just wanted to say best wishes to you guys west of the Mississippi. I've been in the middle of enough weather related infrastructure collapses to have a lot of sympathy. We managed to dodge the worst of this one in the Southeast, but I'm sure we'll get our share of climate change "surprise" again soon.

[Rasix]

Our winter so far has been pretty fucking pathetic. We've had one "hard freeze". None of my plants even have cold weather damage.

There are going to be so many snakes in spring. Scorpions and mosquitos too. Fun fun.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, every time we have a warm winter, I'm like "well, here come double the number of ticks and they're coming a lot earlier".

[Sky]

Today I learned a new tracking trick. Woke up and saw what I thought were cat tracks (the kitty that's been hanging around the hood was my guess).

Went home for lunch to snowblow the 4ish" of snow off the driveway and was looking at the tracks. The gait was a little odd, but it was not squirrel/bunny/fox/raccoon, so I still was feeling cat.

Then as I was backing and forthing, I noticed the prints were in a little trough (very lightweight snow).

Skunk!

Low enough that it was brushing the snow aside with it's belly.

[01101010]

I have no frame of reference for the weather/seasons here in Denver since I am got here in Sept. But thus far, I am pretty ok with things. 40s-50s most days but the past week has been damn cold. Last friday it was barely breaking 12F during the day and was -10F at night and that carried on till Monday morning. That's been it for the brutal cold out here so far. Cold today, but in the 30s is night and day above the weekend.

That said, I do feel for the folks in Southern states that aren't built for this cold. I was in Miami for a few years and remember once or twice it getting into the 40s at night and realizing there was no central heat... so yeah, couple that with no power? fuck right off...

[Rasix]

Fortunately, the area here has enough variance in high and low temperatures that we're pretty well set up to handle either. There is a small portion exterior water line exposed, but it's insulated. The pool overflow valve can be covered with a towel  and the pool plumbing has a freezing temperature setting. Everyone has heat, because we're all wimps when it gets under 50 outside. Granted, we haven't been stress tested with 8-10" of snow or persistent freezing temperatures. I think we'd be OK, but some of the older neighborhoods, cookie cutter suburban sprawl, and shoddily made apartments may have issues.

My wife really wants to move to an area with more winter weather, but I'd rather not. Snow's fine to visit, but I'd rather it not be part of my everyday existence.

[Trippy]

I will say for the places that get heavy amounts of snow consistently, they usually have extremely efficient snow removal setups in place. I remember flying in to Chicago on a business trip right after a big snowstorm dumped waist knee to thigh deep amounts of snow on the city and noticing while landing a huge fleet of snowplows parked on the end of the runway and all the major roads from the airport to the suburbs where the business I was visiting were totally clear (i.e. I didn't have to make any detours to get to my hotel).

Conversely if it snowed at sea level here in the San Francisco Bay Area I'm pretty sure it would be total chaos on the roads (it's happened once in my lifetime here back in 1976).

Edit: sure

[Chimpy]

I have no frame of reference for the weather/seasons here in Denver since I am got here in Sept. But thus far, I am pretty ok with things. 40s-50s most days but the past week has been damn cold.

Denver winters are a lot of "14" of snow on Monday, Wednesday it is sunny and 65."

I will say for the places that get heavy amounts of snow consistently, they usually have extremely efficient snow removal setups in place. I remember flying in to Chicago on a business trip right after a big snowstorm dumped waist knee to thigh deep amounts of snow on the city and noticing while landing a huge fleet of snowplows parked on the end of the runway and all the major roads from the airport to the suburbs where the business I was visiting were totally clear (i.e. I didn't have to make any detours to get to my hotel).

Conversely if it snowed at sea level here in the Bay Area I'm pretty it would be total chaos on the roads (it's happened once in my lifetime here back in 1976).

O'Hare's snow removal operations are pretty ridiculous, yes.

The reason the expressways were clear was not the ample amounts of plow trucks (though there are a lot of them) it was because from November to March there is so much salt buildup on the highway surface that it takes snow falling at pretty incredible rates for it not to all just melt on contact. It's also why it is hard to find a car in the Chicago area more than 5 years old that doesn't look like it has car leprosy around the wheel wells from all the rust.  

All salt jokes aside, the city of Chicago itself has something like 4000 "plows". Granted, probably a third of them are the garbage trucks (the City runs its own fleet for residential garbage collection) as every one of them has a plow attachment on the front. The Toll Authority and IDOT between them probably have another several hundred just for the Chicago metro area before you get into all the other municipal entities.

I worked with a guy in Chicago in the early 2000s that talked about working in Seattle in the early 90s and them reporting on the news when there was a snowstorm that dropped like 10" that there were 9 snowplows in the entire city.

[Sky]

I'm actively lobbying my councilman to REDUCE the road salting, it's been stupid this year. A couple weeks ago they salted the road twice with no snow forecast whatsoever.

I save my 'suck it up buttercup' feelings for northerners who should be prepared for the weather up here. We understand most southerners would just roll over and die if they had to survive in winter conditions   But to be serious, not knowing things like how to prep your pipes for freezing temps, that's a hard lesson to learn through experience. Up here it's just a seasonal chore, like raking leaves.

[Trippy]

The reason the expressways were clear was not the ample amounts of plow trucks (though there are a lot of them) it was because from November to March there is so much salt buildup on the highway surface that it takes snow falling at pretty incredible rates for it not to all just melt on contact. It's also why it is hard to find a car in the Chicago area more than 5 years old that doesn't look like it has car leprosy around the wheel wells from all the rust.  

Ah! I knew road salting was a thing in certain regions but I didn't realize it was that efficient at keeping snow from staying on the ground.

[Chimpy]

The reason the expressways were clear was not the ample amounts of plow trucks (though there are a lot of them) it was because from November to March there is so much salt buildup on the highway surface that it takes snow falling at pretty incredible rates for it not to all just melt on contact. It's also why it is hard to find a car in the Chicago area more than 5 years old that doesn't look like it has car leprosy around the wheel wells from all the rust.  

Ah! I knew road salting was a thing in certain regions but I didn't realize it was that efficient at keeping snow from staying on the ground.

It depends on the temperature and how fast the snow is falling. But in your normal "hey we got 3" of snow last night, gotta shovel the driveway!" snowfall in Chicago the plow trucks basically don't even have to hit the roads. Though they do. To add more salt.

[01101010]

Growing up in the Cleveland Ohio area, I never knew there were places that didn't salt the fuck out of the roads and destroy all the cars while doing so.

[Sky]

Some library trivia you may find interesting. While books and media remain our strongest circulating collections by sheer numbers (and we've seen droves of new users for a variety of reasons), the highest demand on staff time have been for our snowshoe collection, vaccine appointments, and tax forms/prep appointments.

Two of those are governmental duties passed on to libraries while simultaneously cutting our funding from the same governmental entities (state/county, not the fed, because they don't give money to libraries). The snowshoes are wildly popular, sold out in the area. Our director just yesterday drove a couple counties over to buy out a supply from a sporting place she managed to find with stock.

These are the times we live in.

Another point of trivia: we have the highest numbers across pretty much any report in the system despite being one of the most conservative libraries re:COVID-19 (limited appointments, we work on a "Code Orange" designation so we wouldn't have to keep changing our rules every two weeks...before they stopped trying to give guidance on hotspots :( ). A couple libraries are closed, but some are wide open. I was just thinking about this re: the job change opportunity...I'd have to support those bad actors in person and it'll be months before I'm vaccinated. Gah.

[Tale]

I feel absolutely bereft at the news that a person I've played MMOs with since 1999 was suddenly hospitalised in late 2020 with early onset dementia and likely won't return. I never met him, but I know who he is and what he did in real life (ran an internet company and sold it to a bigger one, while raising a family in a rural town). He was the life and spirit of our guild, and we both always had something good to say to each other on the message board.

Twenty years ago I remember him getting me to entertain his kid daughter by making my troll warrior jump around and do /wave and /cheer emotes. We played EverQuest, SWG and WoW together, but he also went far in EQ2, LOTRO, FFXIV and more. I didn't spent much time gaming with him over the last decade or so, but he continued on with a group of close friends in the guild. They confirmed in December that he was AWOL on every account and eventually tracked down his family in February, hearing the news from his wife and (now grown) daughter. Nothing will be the same again. I can see now that some of the people I played MMOs with really have become my lifelong friends, whether or not I ever meet them. Two others have died over the last decade and we mourned them, too, but this guy is an absolute pillar of what we became, and I don't think we even know what we are without him.

[01101010]

Well after 4 days of weather advisories and warnings, it started raining this morning in Denver... about 2 hours ago. Currently, it is all changing over to snow and we are supposed to get quite a pile this weekend.

I caught a local newscaster earlier in the week talking about it and heard "yeah, we are in for about 2-3 by Monday morning." I assumed 2-3 inches and blew it off. Nope, he meant 2-3 feet. We'll see, but after watching how fast snow can pile up out here... should be fun. Last time I saw snow that high was 2010 in Pittsburgh and that was wild. Morning after that snowstorm I walked out the front door and there was no contours to the front yard - no way to know where the road was or where the driveway was...

Wife and I are staying in and watching the snow roll in while watching movies and catching up on work.

[rattran]

My aunt lives near Colorado Ave & I-25, she got to watch a snowplow turn into a bank parking lot to turn around, and get stuck. They ended up leaving it there.

[01101010]

Overall got about 8" but it was so windy that there are spots around me that are drifted up around 3ft and other spots you can see the grass. Nothing too terrible, but yesterday was a trip... literally snowed and was windy for about 20 straight hours.

[WayAbvPar]

I feel absolutely bereft at the news that a person I've played MMOs with since 1999 was suddenly hospitalised in late 2020 with early onset dementia and likely won't return. I never met him, but I know who he is and what he did in real life (ran an internet company and sold it to a bigger one, while raising a family in a rural town). He was the life and spirit of our guild, and we both always had something good to say to each other on the message board.

Twenty years ago I remember him getting me to entertain his kid daughter by making my troll warrior jump around and do /wave and /cheer emotes. We played EverQuest, SWG and WoW together, but he also went far in EQ2, LOTRO, FFXIV and more. I didn't spent much time gaming with him over the last decade or so, but he continued on with a group of close friends in the guild. They confirmed in December that he was AWOL on every account and eventually tracked down his family in February, hearing the news from his wife and (now grown) daughter. Nothing will be the same again. I can see now that some of the people I played MMOs with really have become my lifelong friends, whether or not I ever meet them. Two others have died over the last decade and we mourned them, too, but this guy is an absolute pillar of what we became, and I don't think we even know what we are without him.

This is gutting. We are entering 'this' phase of our lives now. Parents are gone (or will be soon), and lifelong friends will start to die off. It fucking sucks.

[01101010]

I just learned my mentor in my fraternity in undergrad died unexpectedly last weekend. Another brother I haven't spoken with in awhile, sent me the news and I honestly haven't processed it fully. We weren't close after he graduated, but still this one hits pretty hard. First guy I ever met that seemed to be older than he was...

[Sky]

So now this quick study has become one of my most poignant pieces. The young lady had never done figure modeling before, so I did my best to make things comfortable for her. Intelligent, beautiful and wicked professional, she was a joy to work with. Always pushing for a better, more dynamic pose...even if I chuckled when I knew she couldn't hold it...but she always did! Shaking like a baby deer, maybe, but her will was iron.

She was the type of person who lit up a room when she entered, and then she would open her mouth and inspire everyone in earshot to action. Can't say enough about her, I thought she was going to be one of those who made a real impact on society as an activist and entertainer. She had just begun her acting career: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11779118/ but her brains, beauty, and work ethic would've taken her far. And she would've done something with it, she was a vocal activist for equality.

We may never know what drove her to take her own life, but I suspect it was the forces of the past, the loafs of the establishment. She had begun calling out racist cops, and in our relatively small city, you don't cross the Italians. Not because they're some actual crime syndicate (they cosplay it tho), but a much worse fraternity: old racist good ol boys that use a union to protect each other. The worst part is her dad is a retired black cop (I went to high school with him). Racists are the laziest, shittiest people (there are far better reasons to hate people!).

I'm just shocked at this turn of events, but unfortunately I'm not surprised. Words have consequences, and we live in an era with a lot of shitty words from stupid people. Fuck all of 'em. Combined, they are not worth one of this brilliant glimpse of the future of humanity.

[Engels]

I'm sorry to hear of this death, Sky. If its not too intrusive, may I asked what kind of reprisal the cops laid on the woman that she took her own life? If its too personal or you're not sure of the details, that's cool too. If I've somehow misconstrued the situation feel free to berate me like wet slog.

[Sky]

I don't know, I can only speculate based on the kind of bullying I had as a (white, male) kid. We have an in-group that holds all the city and county departments, as well as a lot of the businesses and services.

For example, I was once jumped by a dozen guys (I had been friends with about half of them) for laughing at a band (the singer bounded onto stage with a 'yabba dabba do!' and they threw out coloring books and shit...). After the show, they piled out of the business next door. I remember appealing to the guys I knew, but 'it's about family'. I was almost stabbed that night, barely got away when my girlfriend pulled the car around. They continued to jump me for weeks, including jumping some friends of mine. My singer almost ended up in the hospital from one incident.

That was just for laughing at the wrong time (about something inherently silly), in public as a white male, and nobody but this one cousin saw it. I can't imagine what she was dealing with as a biracial activist literally calling out racist and corrupt cops.

[Rendakor]

What kind of nightmare world do you live in?

[Khaldun]

I just saw a thread on Reddit where someone was showing two sketches of the same photographic subject over six years of art training and a lot of people were like "um, you've gotten way more technically proficient at realism, but the expressiveness of your first sketch is way better and is emotionally more real. I'm not sure the artist got it?

That sketch here is emotionally real even before the story and way more after. There's something in it that matches the story, hard as that is.

[Sky]

I just saw a thread on Reddit where someone was showing two sketches of the same photographic subject over six years of art training and a lot of people were like "um, you've gotten way more technically proficient at realism, but the expressiveness of your first sketch is way better and is emotionally more real. I'm not sure the artist got it?

That sketch here is emotionally real even before the story and way more after. There's something in it that matches the story, hard as that is.

Moving from classical atelier training into a more illustrative school (Watts Atelier) helped a TON in being more intentful of design during drawing. I still was getting plenty of stale pieces, but I also started creating some nice stuff, independent of time spent or render level (though generally rendering will stiffen the heck out of something). I have exactly one collector, but she sees a ton in my drawings, it's fun listening to her reaction to them. Thanks for the compliment, that's what I try to capture in portraits and it's wicked difficult. I engage the model in conversation and try to translate my overall impression of their personality, a little eyebrow lift or corner of the mouth or whatever. This was a 20min study from life, I have 2 10-20min figure drawings hanging in the living room. Quick sketch is tough for me, but when it clicks, it's the best.

This is really weird on a lot of levels. It made me see my portraits in a whole new light. I'm really angry about this whole thing. It's a lot of what I hate about this area that I can usually set aside because it's also a beautiful and affordable place (well, getting less affordable on a daily basis). I do my part to make it a better community with my service at the library, and a friend from school has been the chief of police for a while now and is roundly hated for his reforms...but even that is the long battle of attrition thanks to the union.

Anyway, I'm going to take the compliment and try to get my head in a better place  Here's my favorite portrait thus far. Robbie was so intense and weathered, we had a long talk before the artists showed up for the session and he's basically what I'd have looked like if I hadn't gotten off the path I was on in my early 20s (we are the same age but he looks 20 years older than me). We talked some hard shit and it felt like he was living in those memories when we got to the long pose (this is a 50 minute drawing). I wish I could've done a bit more, but the intensity in his stare (not to mention his awkward way of holding himself) is wicked unsettling in person, to the point where I'm not allowed to hang it outside the studio, the fiancee won't have it!

[Sky]

Fucking Lemmy, man. There was no realer deal.

https://www.wearethepit.com/2021/03/lemmy-had-his-ashes-turned-into-bullets-and-distributed-to-his-friends/

[Sky]

I was going to put this in the guitar thread, but the tech is interesting enough I think it might be interesting to some outside that realm.

Basically these nutty krauts wired up interfaces to a bunch of pedal effects that you can demo on their website. In real time, playing through the actual pedal in Deutschland. Crazy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hQcQKkMXC8