Wandering Adventure Party

@sollat 5 internet points for whomever writes ones of those fake old-fashioned letters from the front of the font (typeface!) wars.

Ever since overdrive stopped supporting mp3's I haven't been able to listen to library audiobooks on my iPod nano (or phone for that matter, my not smart phone can handle music/audio books but not an app). Does anyone have a good method for getting Libby books as mp3's? (or Kanopy or Hoopla for that matter)

I'm using macOS.

Lise Meitner & Marie Curie were born on the same day 11 years apart? How did I not know this?

And happy birthday to any other women in science born November 7th, you've got some great predecessors!

Check out what I found on the way home!

(Do I need it? No. Was it too good to pass up? Yes.)

@AngelaPreston I'm just worried it's going to give him too much momentum for a presidential run. I'm genuinely not sure I could "hold my nose and vote D" for him in a general election. This is a guy who takes joy in personally helping to clear homeless encampments.

Orange county, CA is one of the swing (but slightly to the liberal side) counties in the state (most tend to be a bit more extreme) and it went 55/45 for Prop 50.

The other large counties that are swing are our neighbor Riverside (which is slightly conservative) which went 56/44 for Prop 50 and San Bernardino (also slightly conservative) which went 57/43 for Prop 50.

The state as a whole went 64/38 for Prop 50. Californians are not happy.

Though the next news outlet headline I see about how this was a "win for Newsome" might cause me to throw something and/or send a cranky letter.

#USPol #CAPol

@CactuarJoe @lytta God Monster of Indian Flats (well I have a softspot for it as one of the the the first real monsterdon's I did)

#Monsterdon

Anyone have a keyboard case they like where the keyboard portion can be detached so you can use the iPad as an ereader?

Preferably that doesn't cost an arm & a leg.

Do I actually want to put slack on this thing? Ugh, but probably necessary since I'm already kludging it together at home with a modified user agent on chrome to make it work at all.

Also I really didn't want to sign in to google there, but if I want to access the UCINT slide deck I'll need to do that. Which will of course conflict with signing in to my personal google email. sigh

I hate decisions and change.

(Says the person who works on cutting edge science. I contain multitudes.)

Can I get this working in time for Monsterdon? I dunno, apparently the power cord I got from my buy nothing group isn’t working right…
But maybe I’ll at least have two screens so I can play the movie on one and post on the other, which would be an improvement over the usual.

I’m going to show up to the next UCINT meeting and someone is going to faint that “Sam showed up with an electronic device that wasn’t 10 years out of a date” (my phone doesn’t count since it’s intentionally limited even though it’s not that old)

Posting from the (new to me) iPad. This is wild. Apparently a decade has changed them dramatically and I have no idea what I’m doing anymore…

Not sure the keyboard is a good idea for me, might be too much like reading on my laptop at home. Maybe there is a way to have the keyboard only at work so it acts like a mini-laptop for meetings and leave it there? Would need a separate travel case then…

(Thanks to @jenzi who had one he wasn’t using and sent it to me in return for a donation to the Henzi foundation)

First two responses (that I can see) are Ea-nāṣir jokes. A+ thing to wake up to this morning, fedi, thanks!

Luzzy :verified_trans: (@meluzzy@woof.tech)

Me: *I find a funny post in fedi* Me: I'll reblog Fedi client: Hold on! This post was written in 2150BC at the city of Uruk, Mesopotamia. Are you sure you want to revive an ancient Sumerian post? Me: uuuhhhhh.... >:3 yes.

Woof.tech (Mastodon) (woof.tech)

@AngelaPreston I found it much easier to give things to people? Via buy nothing or even putting out a pile for people to look through on a street corner (and then taking anything not taken back inside). I'm happy something is being used and that outweighs the "oh no I might need it in the future" aspect for minor items. I had a couple of good sized shopping bags of old clothes (things that were too worn out to wear) and ran into a serious sewer at a local event who was thrilled to take them off my hands to scavenge for scrap fabric for when she repairs stuff. Particularly since I had jeans and things in there where they couldn't be worn as-is any more, but there was plenty of usable fabric left.

It helps that I have a steady job now where I can say "I can probably afford to replace that cheap frying pan I never use if it turns out I need that size next year". Also since odds are I will never need that size...

@AngelaPreston I have zero idea what you're referring to, but now I really want to know!

Welp, so much for that idea...

For anyone following the "Sam attempts to call mom" saga: apparently her phone wasn't getting calls from anyone, not just me, for at least a week and a half. Verizon had to reset something for it to work. But because she could call out it wasn't obvious as a problem on her end (though I wasn't the only person to have this issue with her! one of her friends did too!).

@AngelaPreston For reflectors anything with the 3M reflective stuff is really good, even a little bit of light and it gets picked up (I've spotted walkers on the trail based on a tab on their shoes when they were otherwise in dark clothing in the dark that's how good the stuff is). One of the easiest options is to buy the loops that go around your ankles, which keep your pants out of the way and are also reflective. They are made of velcro and have a strip of the reflective stuff running through the middle.

For lights: get something either rechargeable or get a set of rechargeable batteries if it uses AA/AAA. If you ride a lot at night bright lights go through batteries really, really fast. The best light is one that you have with you and you will use. I like lezyne because their default attachment is essentially a giant rubber band thing so it's very flexible for handlebar sizes/styles, but it is a brand you pay a premium for and it might be overkill for you.

My front headlight is a lezyne macro drive 1300XXL, but I've found that anything over 400 is really blinding to pedestrians and even 400 is a problem on trails. I'll use 200 on a trail and 400 on the street. Brighter also makes your eyes do weird things as you try to look around and they can't adjust right, so my super powered light means it lasts for a long time on the lower modes I use, but you can buy something much cheaper if you're ok with charging more frequently. I had planned to get one of the smaller drive lights which have a lower max lumens, but got a deal on the 1300 so went with that.

My rear light is a lezyne zecto, which I really like because one of the options is to have two of the LEDs blink and one be steady. Blinky attracts attention, but isn't good for helping people judge distance (and I want cars to know where I am!) so the steady one presumably helps with that. I am not certain with the new zecto design if this is still an option however. I know knockoffs of these are available for much less on amazon.

I considered and ultimately decided not to get this one: https://ride.lezyne.com/collections/led-rear-bike-lights/products/laser-drive-rear because I hate having to adjust the rear light between the trail and roads and I wouldn't want the lines on the trail distracting people, but for your desired high visibility it seems very good?

(You can often find "new but damaged packaging" for lezyne stuff if you haunt eBay and get a discount)

My desire to start dealing with the mess that left me in a puddle of anxiety Friday afternoon at work is so low I haven't even finished getting ready to leave home yet...

@CactuarJoe My ancient iPad? I fear it might be too old and slow to do anything much effectively. The tower fan a couple feet further however shudders

#Monsterdon