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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Author: Karel Kerezman

  • On Social Media

    Well, just by typing that subject line I’m going to have a particular Pet Shop Boys song stuck in my head for a while.

    There are worse things.

    Anyway: Since that-which-was-Twitter continues its slide toward both irrelevance and hostility toward the masses who made it what it was, I should mention that I’ve (more or less) moved elsewhere. If you look on the sidebar you’ll see the “Find Me Here” link list. Other than the webcomic and the self-referential link to… the website you’re reading now… no, I don’t know why that’s there, honestly… you’ll find the social-media-ish things I’m inhabiting (to greater or lesser degrees) in the meantime.

    I wouldn’t say that any of them are my exclusive hangout. Even Twitter was never my exclusive hangout, just… where the bulk of my time & energy went. (Maybe I should thank the emerald edgelord for freeing me from that? Er, no. No, never, never will I thank that jackwagon for anything, ever.)

    Anyway: I can be found at “the fediverse” (on a Mastodon server), Tumblr, Bluesky, and I really ought to pick my Pixelfed account back up again, plus potentially whatever else may come down the pipe later. (Technically I have accounts at Spoutible and Cohost but… eh. I haven’t touched those in months, not going to bother linking them.)

    Things are a hot mess, aren’t they? Find me somewhere and we’ll chat about it.

  • The Smiley Face Lies

    The scene: Our apartment.

    The time: 3:20am.

    The temperature: Too dingdanged high.

    Observe the “Comfort” indicators. As if higher than 85F indoors was somehow comfortable. Side note: The outdoor temperature sensor tends to read a bit high because there’s no “good” place to mount it on our apartment’s outside deck. Online sources suggest it was more like “only” 72F…

    I’d turned the big AC unit off at quarter to 11pm last night to conserve power (and reduce noise), but by 4am I’d already turned it back on again. We have another couple days of near-100F high temperatures to get through, and maybe afterward we can “enjoy” the rest of the summer.

    Remember when the Portland Oregon metro area was (rightfully!) known for being rainy most of the time? I sure do, but those days are long, long gone. Hundred-degree heatwaves are no longer notable rarities but expected trials, year after year.

    And I hate it.

  • Watchlist – Summer 2023

    In lieu of more interesting content, let’s do a quick rundown of a few of the shows I’m watching lately:

    (more…)

  • Film, Orson Welles, and Facts

    Last night, out of a mix of boredom and mild curiosity, I watched They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead. It’s a weird, somewhat confusing window into a very specific portion of the life of a famous film director. And right out of the gate, a thesis statement of sorts is presented to the viewer: The title is a quote ascribed to Orson Welles… and immediately other voices claim that no, he never said that.

    Huh.

    (more…)

  • Satisfactory: The Flowchart

    I’ve reached endgame for my “ChooChooingScenery” game of Satisfactory, the point where I gear up to send off the final Space Elevator shipment consisting of four products: Assembly Director Systems, Magnetic Field Generators, Nuclear Pasta (which, despite its name, contains zero radioactive source material), and Thermal Propulsion Rockets.

    The math is all sorted out, source materials (almost) entirely in production, and I have a vague notion that I’m going to build a gigantic factory in the “dune desert” to house this last great project. But I want to make it nice and neat for a change. I want to build a set of machines that not only fit together well but looks good doing it.

    And I can’t do that if I’m not absolutely clear on the exact order of what things I need to go into which other things to make the next things.

    (more…)

  • Satisfactory: A Tale Of Two Factories

    It was the jankiest of builds, it was the jankiest of builds.

    Sorry, Charles Dickens, but in this case repeating myself is the most accurate way to start.

    This past Tuesday evening, the kids and I finished up the “Tier 8 Products” factory build. Which is to say, we’ve now automated the final three requirements for the final milestone unlock: Turbomotors, Fused Modular Frames, and Cooling Systems. (Electromagnetic Control Rods are built elsewhere for various reasons.) I noted in voice chat at the end of the session that our co-op build was vastly more efficient and elegant than my personal version of this same (basic) factory had turned out. Spud found this amusing, as he sees our version as being quite “full of the jank.” Which isn’t wrong, but there’s janky and there’s janky.

    Please allow me to illustrate.

    Yes, it “needs” supports underneath. We’ll get there some day. There’s beautification to be done all over this co-op map.
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