kbutler

"When gravity is involved, the golden orb spiders will happily build their asymmetrical webs, and sit facing downwards waiting for prey. In space, their webs were more symmetrical, however when there was light, the spiders used it as a reference point and built their webs as if the light was the opposite to 'downwards'."

https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-happens-to-spiders-... (with video)

Anyone else think the name needs to be:

Katamari MetArtSee?

Zoom scales sounds like a great job for AI!

They didn't mention the watch I wanted so badly and my parents got for me in 1981 - the "Melody Alarm" or "12-Tune Musical Alarm/Chronograph by Casio".

I was delighted to find a youtube video of it - the music brings back such memories. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJdKt9JwRkc&t=90s

https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1981-Sea... (#21 third from bottom left) https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1981-Sea...

I'm sure the $50 was a huge expense for them at the time, but I sure loved that watch! Westminster chimes on the hours. Staying up to hear it play Jingle Bells for 12am on Christmas and have it wish me Happy Birthday. Having it accidentally go off in Church or school.

It introduced me to some classic songs I hadn't known before, and I'd run through its repertoire for fun, or just cycle through the modes to play the scales.

I wore it long after its stainless steel was scratched and worn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T71hN_VW2aI

Maybe if I make an emulator I'll start wearing a watch again!

Happy to report the northern and central GBR coral cover is currently higher than any time measured before 2020. Southern is currently below its long-term average, but 2024 was a record high in coral cover.

https://www.aims.gov.au/monitoring-great-barrier-reef/gbr-co...

This doesn't mean everything is fine, but it is doing way better than 2017.

Experimental _art_ / crafting material.

I had thought he had passed away earlier this year, but it was John C. Dvorak, who wrote the Infoworld industry news column before (/contemporaneously with) Mark Stephens, who adopted the name Robert X. Cringely. https://www.wired.com/1998/12/cringely/

John Dvorak passed July 20, 2026 Mark Stephens/Robert X. Cringely October 3, 2026

Eight of us. Seemed reasonable...

We actually volunteered to gate check them, not realizing we would have two really tight connections because of delays.

But we all agreed we would rather be in Italy without our bags than our bags in Italy without us.

Boox Go 7 BW?

https://goodereader.com/blog/product/onyx-boox-go-7-bw "The Onyx Boox Go 7 is a dedicated e-book reader with a black and white e-paper display. This device has the same specifications and software as the Go 7 Color Gen 2, except that this model doesn’t have a Kaleido 3; instead, it uses the latest generation Carta 1300 e-paper panel, which increases responsiveness. The key selling points of this model are the physical page-turn buttons and Google Android 13, as well as full access to the Play Store. For those of you who want an e-reader that doesn’t lock you into a specific ecosystem, this deserves a look."

(slower by 2 minutes...)

Had to overcome some crashing issues, but then gameplay was fun (keyboard user), much as I remembered. It was engaging and easy to become absorbed like it was 20 years ago. Music is enjoyable, though limited playlist. Graphics are obviously dated, and my family laughed at the progressively more buxom daughters being described as increasingly beautiful.

Definitely a series of mini-games in a trenchcoat, wrapped in a story. It can get repetitive, but I enjoyed playing through it again on a couple of difficulties, and then went looking for additional piratey things.

Played the original, and the 2004 remake, and recently re-played the remake. It's available on Steam and GOG - if I remember correctly, the offline installer from GOG makes it easier to add some quality-of-life mods to help it run better on modern computers.

This, Civilization, the Wizardry remake, and a few old Ultimas brought back some great memories.

I'll have to go play through the Scott Adams Adventures again, too. Wonder if I can get my family engaged in those?

This is delightful (from that wikipedia page):

The first appearance of Meier's name on the retail box of a game was as the credited creator of Formula 1 Racing in 1982. In 1984 Stealey began marketing Meier himself, hoping to attract other developers by promoting him as an auteur; by 1986 MicroProse was using Meier's name and face in advertisements for its games. In 1987, the company released Sid Meier's Pirates!, the first game with Meier's name in the title. He later explained that the inclusion of his name was because Pirates! is very different from the company's earlier titles. Stealey decided that Meier's name would make those who purchased the flight simulators more likely to play the game. Stealey recalled: "We were at dinner at a Software Publishers Association meeting, and Robin Williams was there. And he kept us in stitches for two hours. And he turns to me and says 'Bill, you should put Sid's name on a couple of these boxes, and promote him as the star.' And that's how Sid's name got on Pirates, and Civilization."

Yeah, did they ever go on to do anything else?

:-D

We recently traveled to Italy, and after purposefully packing light ("just a carryon"), of our 8 gate-checked carry-on bags, we received 2 on day 7 and the rest on day 8.

It was revealing to see how much our agonizing "should I take this or not" decisions just did not matter, because we didn't have them anyway. Receiving our bags after the week was somewhat overwhelming - look at all this stuff!

In the future, we will bring less (but maybe not quite "travel with a passport and a credit card"), but we will make sure that our bags-that-stay-with-us contain at least needed medications and next-day necessities.

And if given a choice, we'd all much rather we make it to the destination without our bags than the other way around!

The real message is that, even if you don't get rich and can't buy that clothing item that is 10x your nest worth, your work can provide for your needs and your family - rent, groceries, helping extended family...

(Worked at a couple of startups, didn't get rich, but had good experiences, paid for family needs, and put aside investments for the future.)

Sounds like what they call "bla ra" in Thailand (Northeastern Thailand has a lot of Laotian influence). Thick/chunky, unlike the more refined "fish sauce" - "nam bla".

Lived in a house for a while with neighbors making it - slow fermenting pots of fish. Not a pleasant olfactory experience.

Once I ordered extra pickles and I got them - in a vertical stack of about 6 pickles.

Constant change in position, dynamic motion, strong & brief muscular exertion of whole hand and arm, even including the shoulder vs constant static position w/ small repetitive motions, where the fingers really are doing almost all the work.

Don't allow your head/chin to drift forward.

Welcome to "tech neck" - upper crossed syndrome, from looking slightly down.

You're inviting some surprising symptoms, not just neck and back pain, but things like numbness, tingling, or pain shooting down your arms. Really not fun.

Key posture correction seems to be pulling head back. Some physical therapy exercises can help as well.

https://deukspine.com/blog/tech-neck-forward-head-posture-tr...

Straight wrists is good, but hovering like a pianist is not good for extended computer use.

I smoothed the sharp corners of the notch by the keyboard, and smoothed a corner where it got dinged from a drop, but nothing this extensive.

Respect.

I definitely empathize with "concerned I would file through the machine."

Closing the strait for 1 week is 1.9% of annual traffic if equally distributed, so it is very similar.

Refactoring w/o removing all dead code.

I finally subscribed to Dr. Dobbs for the Michael Abrash graphics articles, about a month before he ended them.

I doubt anyone thought the sticker made it actually legal.

More along the lines of "65 miles an hour? I was only out for 30 minutes..."

When gate-checking carryon bags, staff told passengers to take batteries out of the carryons.

It seems like something that is high risk during flight shouldn't be left to passenger compliance with spoken instructions.

More current discussion:

I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574707

One of these years is going to be the year of the Linux desktop!

Hmm: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Linux+desktop&...

I think there's some truth to this - you may still have the tendencies to be introverted, neurotic, disagreeable, etc., but you can choose how much you let those tendencies drive your behavior.

You have a choice of how to respond to your feelings - if you feel introverted, so you never talk to people, it dominates your life and personality. If you feel introverted, but you frequently talk to people anyway, you can make friends, participate in activities, and reduce the impact of those feelings on your life.

"I have a tendency (diagnosis), therefore I'm excused" or "I have a tendency, so I've created habits to create good results in spite of it."

And with practice, it gets easier, though it may always take work, and much more effort than for people to whom it comes naturally.

Maybe this doesn't change your personality to "I naturally socialize with others", but maybe it lets you change to "I can enjoy socializing with others".

You may be thinking DVI, which is a subset of HDMI, and lacks audio, and can have a passive DVI->HDMI connection.

We had tried video in the car for our teens, but found that audio books worked a lot better - shared experience, nobody has a bad angle/line of sight, can still see the scenery and engage in the travel, less looking down prompting motion sickness, etc.

Though now that everybody has a device, we have to intentionally opt for a shared experience, rather than 1:1 devices.