Scripting is the closest thing to magic I’ve seen in real life. Wave your hand over the script and poof, a job is done.

I automated so much at my last job I usually never “worked” more than a half hour a day. I am not a programmer, but I slowly learned enough Excel functions and VBA, then simple batch files and some AutoHotkey. Since it was only stuff for my job I needed to learn to program for, it took much less time than learning to program for any situation. Also much of your work is going to be relatively the same as many others’ work, so there is a lot of code out there you can lift from and tweak until you learn to build it from scratch.

When browsing in All or similar, there’s a non-zero chance of coming across things that can be offensive, explicit, or disgusting. You shouldn’t encounter anything pornographic or where people die or get horribly injured, but that is my only expectation.

I browse in thumbnail view for that reason. It’s enough to see if I want to see a full image, if it’s not something I want to see, I didn’t get hit full blast by it, and if it’s something I don’t want people around to see at that moment, it’s much harder for them to see it and faster to scroll past.

When you select a sort that pulls from every community, it’s you asking to see everything. Death, injury, and private parts are about the only things the bulk of society can agree are at least somewhat offensive, so those are the only things you should expect to see blocked by a NSFW filter. Lewd, gross, and offensive are still free to pass, for better or worse. That’s the Internet culture has existed for most of its existence and feels pretty universal in my experience.

I’m in agreement with others in that a British guy isn’t the best choice and also that anything resembling voter intimidation isn’t what we need.

I think Lincoln would be a better character to choose as a mask. He’s an American hero, and due to party on one hand and actions on the other, it adds anonymity as to the affiliation of the wearer as both sides of the political fence hold him up as virtuous.

I just finished up a biographical podcast of George Orwell, and much was discussed about him being used symbolically by both the right and left. I feel Lincoln fits the same circumstances, being the first Republican president, though his actions fit more to the current left. If we see a return of the loss of habeus corpus, that’s be another thing they’d have in common. I don’t want to be right on that though…

Good news then!

NPR: Why drone light shows are replacing traditional July 4th fireworks

Cities like Napa, Calif., and Salt Lake City, Utah, have opted out of traditional pyrotechnics this year. They say they’re worried about pollution and the risk of wildfires, so instead, they’ll create a tribute to America with a light show made by drones.

Passat Headlamp Assembly

Check out 4:30 in this video and see if that looks like what you have. Seems DLR is a self contained assembly that is replaced as a whole unit.

You are truly a person with great taste! 😁

I’ll have to check out Even More News.

Lemon does sound like it’d be a lot of sour in addition to the vinegar itself.

I used powdered ginger and thought fresh grated would be the way to go. I also feel it’d be easier to strain it if the final drink.

Overall I thought it was good though. I gave some to my girlfriend not telling her what it was and she thought it was some vile beer type thing that went bad. 😆

I’d absolutely drink it again though. With some tweaks it’d be really good. I am solidly pro switchel.

I checked out BtB due to constant weird if mouth on Reddit and immediately enjoyed Robert’s personality. There were also a lot of Cody and Paul F. Tompkins episodes at the time, and I was also already a fan of them, so that helped as well.

I so want to like Some More News, but it feels to doomy to me and Cody’s stage persona is a bit much for me, so I enjoy him better as regular Cody on BtB more.

I also feel the more before I was born stuff that BtB usually focuses on us easier for me to deal with as most of the people are long dead and gone, so it feels more like entertainment. For more current things, I try to stick to “legitimate news” instead of things designed more for entertainment. ICHH is an exception because it covers a lot mainstream news wouldn’t touch, and it does it pretty calmly and treats it with seriousness moreso than trying to make it into some kind of bit. Plus they often mention ways to participate or to at least try and help with some of the things. I feel the topics are things important to know, and aren’t just things that make me depressed about the whole world.

Hood Politics with Prop is probably the next one I may allow myself to get into.

Same! I originally just tried to limit myself to BtB, but then I listened to ICHH to learn about the Unicorn Ranch, and I ended up learning about so many other topics. Then I kept seeing interesting CPWDCS, so now I listen to some of those.

They turn out so much great content every week, and ICHH has really helped me to better understand more people and issues than I ever would have been able to on my own.

Reminds me of this short sci fi story I just recently listened to on a podcast.

The Plastic People

That’s the story in text. If you want to hear it read to you, it’s CZM Book Club: The Plastic People by Tobias Buckell out on 23 Dec 2023.

Fuji or Pink Lady for red apples, Mutsu (aka. Crispin) for green apples. Jonagolds split the difference.

I think I had watched his switchel and shrub videos too!

I want to say it was Alton Brown where I first learned about these. I’ve made shrub a few times and even had it at the local Pennsylvania German heritage fairs.

Since I had the stuff on hand, I quick threw some together, just eyeballing the ingredients. It’s pretty darn good!

Main flavor is obviously molasses, so if you don’t like that, you won’t like switchel. The ginger and vinegar work together very nicely! Both bring a nice zing and brightness to the drink. It contrasts well with the warm and earthy flavor of the molasses.

I put most of it in the fridge for after work as it’s going to be a super hot day again and I didn’t want a vinegar taste in my mouth overpowering my coffee.

If you have the stuff, I absolutely recommend it.

Very true. Any fruit syrup with a vinegar glug would get you there well enough if one wanted to see if they were shrub-folk.

Ooo I need to try making switchel. Just remembered I have molasses sitting around for another item.

You seriously put much thought into this, and I appreciate that.

I was just thinking some shrub syrup fits the bill and is tasty, convenient, and a touch unconventional these days so you can look like a trendsetter.

Your comment seems to fit shrub perfectly.

True, but it is the manga that’s the artists’ work. Anime is (usually) an adaptation by someone else. I always appreciate when they put in similar effort, but I’m appreciative when they just adapt things faithfully. Looking at you, Promised Neverland!

Golden Kamuy is a meme with the bad CG animations that sometimes get put in. The bear is the famous one that looks like a cut n paste hack job.

But it is what it is. For action orientated anime especially, I’m just happy they get animated so I can follow the action better. My brain can fill in the missing bits.

Always looked forward to the color cover art of his! I’ll have to read more Junji Ito. Someone just the other week informed me of Enigma of Amigara Fault and I really liked that.

Komi is on my list, but my brain always confuses it with Aharen-san Is Indecipherable, which I’ve already seen.

Having watched anime from the 80s on, the low quality stuff nowadays I typically don’t notice. As long as the stories are good and the voices aren’t terrible, that’s pretty much all I need.

Dr Stone had some really great moments and I enjoyed it greatly. I finished the manga, and I’ll say at some point most of the science kinda goes out the window as far as them explaining stuff, and people seemed split on if they liked or hated the ending. Was good overall, but kind of lost some of the charm for me when they started building modern tech.

I’m totally caught up on the OP manga. I’m at the end of Dressrosa in the anime.

If you know enough to get those Gintama references, you should be good to go. The first like 40ish episodes (up until the first movie) it’s pretty much a Seinfeld show-about-nothing type of thing, but it sets you up with many of the huge cast of reoccurring characters and sets the baseline for all to come. By the last few seasons though you won’t recognize anyone as you have so much backstory to everything going on and their mundane adventures of trying to afford their next meal have scaled up so slowly to a space epic. You really grow with them all so much along the way, and I feel the world is even more fleshed out than One Piece if you can imagine. If you know some basics of Japanese history in regard to them losing their isolation with outside countries and some basic shogun/samurai/shinsengumi history you will get some of the deeper and IRL cultural references as well. Some 10 minute Youtube videos will give you more than enough. Some characters are historical figures, parodies of course, but knowing that they were real people will make it funnier as well. I wouldn’t call this historical fiction at all, but a very light alternate history wouldn’t be inaccurate.

I watched season 1 of JJK, liked it enough to pick up the manga, but dropped both. I’m in my 40’s now, so it has to be a standout shonen to get me into it at this point. It just felt like it went more teen than adult to me as it went on. I dropped it for Chainsaw Man and I stick by that decision.

That reminded me, I was going to say Steins’ Gate is seinen so it’s directed more to adults, and that reminded me of another awesome and underrated show: Golden Kamuy! It follows and Ainu girl (aboriginal Japanese) and an ex-soldier on a treasure hunt where the map is tattooed on vicious killer escaped prisoners! It is very much historical fiction, but full of gags and comedy, but you learn a lot about the Ainu people which I though was outstanding stuff I had never heard of. The story was awesome too. Lots of alliance shifting and backstabbing and plots, and nice brutal combat scenes and some great villains! If you want something more adult but still with juvenile humor (nudity jokes, poop jokes, penis jokes) this is what you want. English dub is great too IMO, that’s the one I watched. It was the first manga I read because I couldnt wait to find out what happened next. Amazing storytelling and historical research. If you read the manga, each ends with notes going over the real history of the people and places in that chapter. It even earned a museum tour near the end of its run!

When I saw the post title, I was going to say One Piece. I checked out some random episodes years ago, and it was too weird just jumping in the middle (where they met Chopper at the time) so I gave up on it, and then it got too big to get into. My friends finally pressured me into picking it up, and I read the manga in about 6 months and now I’m 3/4 through the anime and love it so much after over 20 years of anime watching. It’s just such a fun world and I love all the characters, good and bad alike. How it’s still so exciting after all this time is amazing and it’s so awesome that all the plotlines keep intersecting like it’s been planned out all along.

Since we’ve already got that one checked off, I love Steins’ Gate as a sci fi fan. Go in blind for the best experience.

Gintama is amazing, but it starts pretty slow and doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere, but then you really get hooked on the characters and the world like with One Piece. Eventually though, it turns into something HUGE and it’s like it’s gradually evolved into something epic. It’s got a ton of anime/manga references, which will make it even funnier once you’ve seen more shonen stuff. I love it, but it’s totally not a show for everyone, but I watched it all through Covid lockdown and it was one of the best rides of my life. It’s One Piece-ish, but in a very smartass way. They break the fourth wall, make fun of you for watching, there’s many disgusting bits, the reuse animation on purpose, the characters are totally insane. Replace One Piece’s pirates with aliens, the MC is a mix of Luffy and Zoro, and instead of searching for a treasure, they’re fighting an epic space war.

Hah, thank you! I just can’t see a question going unanswered! I love learning and researching, so it is usually a fun challenge if it’s something I don’t know.

If you’d like to see more of me doing my thing, check me out at [email protected] every day where I research and teach about more types of owl than you could ever imagine.