TerryHancock

TerryHancock, 10 months ago to random

If you're wondering...

Alien life and intelligence was a special research interest of mine for decades. I have studied this question seriously in the scientific literature and I did my tiny bit in bioastronomy observational research while I was working as a technician/researcher.

But...

I don't believe in the "UFO" stories one tiny bit. I don't think they deserve serious consideration.

That's the short, TL;DR version.

But I'll add some detail.
[...]

TerryHancock, 10 months ago to random

I think we need to add new terms beyond "pay wall":

"spy wall" -- you must give us your personal info before you can see this. (Or "pry wall"?).

"ad wall" -- you must turn off your ad-blocker so we can show you ads, before you can see this.

I mean. I'm not necessarily saying it's evil to share such links, but unless it's really important to me, I'm not going to go past those. And it rarely is.

TerryHancock, 1 year ago to space

Why #SpaceX #Starship is actually worth it: A thread.

It is clear that many people only saw a chance to pile on Elon Musk from the Starship explosion last week, and that's a shame.

Because, whatever I might feel about Elon Musk, Starship is the most innovative and potentially disruptive technology in the #Space industry for decades. And this is an industry that desperately needed the shake-up.

So I'm going to talk about why. It may take awhile, because there's a lot to cover.

[...]

TerryHancock, 8 months ago to random

#10Films

For the TL;DR crowd, here are the titles for my 10 movies. Read my replies to this post for why I picked them (and a few more lovely shots from each):

Через Тернии К Звездам (1981)
a.k.a. "Per Aspera Ad Astra"

Grosse Point Blank (1997)

Twilight of the Cockroaches (1987)

Seven Days in May (1964)

Forbidden Planet (1956)

Dark Star (1974)

Run Lola Run (1998)

Silent Running (1972)

Loins of Punjab Presents (2007)

The Last Starfighter (1984)

...

TerryHancock, 10 months ago to random

I wonder. Is someone considering forking the Chromium code base at this point?

How tough is that?

A lot of stuff depends on it. If it's going to start having evil baked into it, that's a widespread problem.

I was just recently (re)considering whether I should be trying to use CEF for an offline browser project/UI project.

TerryHancock, 9 months ago to random

What is truly stupid about SELLING vaccines is that a major benefit of vaccination is to the OTHER people around you. It is a classic example of a PUBLIC good.

They should be free.
We can afford to do that.
We can afford to make most medical care free.

We're choosing not to, and for dumb, self-destructive reasons.
:welp:

TerryHancock, 8 months ago to random

DAY 6/10
#10films
I have been invited by
@Rozzychan who was invited by @bluedreaming
to post just one image (no poster, no title, no explanation) from 10 films that have had an impact on me.

So... @cjrando -- do you have interest in this silly game?

TerryHancock, 8 months ago to random

One of my last Netflix DVD movies was "The French Connection" (1971).

I'd heard a lot of references to this movie, but never actually watched it.

Interesting directing. VERY naturalistic dialog, like you're just overhearing it. Basically zero exposition, you just have to figure out what's going on from what you see and hear.

Almost no music.

Also Gene Hackman's character has never met a racial slur he didn't love.

NOT a very positive view of the police overall.

TerryHancock, 8 months ago to movies

#AskFedi #Movies #SciFi

I am trying to remember a kid's movie from the late 1970s to early 1980s. Might have been made-for-TV or feature film -- can't remember the title.

I had it mixed up with "Explorers" (1985), but it's not that one.

Two pre-teen boys.

A central story is the "boy genius" does some kind of exploit at the local bank "to show it can be done" (prefiguring "pen-testing"?).

There is also a "bionic rabbit" mentioned.

Side kick makes the "bionic" sound FX when he runs.

???

TerryHancock, 1 month ago to random

Maybe it's going to work out. Maybe not.

But today, Nextcloud is really pissing me off. :dumpsterfire:

Slow.
Latency from hell.
Insane symlink behavior.

Honestly, if you can't beat rsync with your snazzy new code, you should just write a web front-end for rsync and be done with it.

Hmmm.... :leftsharkdance:

TerryHancock, 10 months ago to random

Much as I enjoyed "The Three Body Problem", I regret to inform you that the Alpha Centauri triple star system is quite, quite stable and predictable.

And there are probably many stable orbits for planets within it, although it's unclear if any would be in the "Goldilocks" zone.

TerryHancock, 1 year ago to random

Just because some people are capable of climbing over a barrier does not mean the barrier is not a problem.

TerryHancock, 8 months ago to random

Occasionally I forget that not everyone is as obsessed with cinematography as I am.

I usually watch movies with a particular eye for interesting shots.

Often with the "How the hell did they move the camera like that?" thought in my head.

TerryHancock, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago) to proxmox

#AskFedi #VM #LAN

I have multiple VMs on a host machine (#Proxmox, but I don't think that matters for this question).

I want to have several VMs on a virtual -- i.e. software only -- network inside the Proxmox server. Like there's a little pretend switch, connected to pretend NICs on each VM.

WHAT IS THAT CALLED?

I would've thought "VLAN" meant this, but when I look it up, it seems to be a more expansive term, and people talk about "managed switches", etc.

[1/3]

TerryHancock, 7 months ago to random

So... yeah. The deficits in my knowledge of armature animation in Blender are an issue.

Currently fighting NLA editor, action editor, graph editor, and dope sheet just to get it to do very basic stuff.

I am clearly out of my depth here.

Weirdly, I have three characters who have been animated in quite different ways.

It's not just a matter of getting better at animation. I also have to unwind all the stuff we've already done wrong. :neko_cry:

TerryHancock, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to science

I have just 10 full sets left of my "Portrait of the Solar System" set.

And I need some room for new posters. So I'm putting these on a 75% OFF sale from now to JULY 31 just for you Fediverse folks, with discount code:

FEDI2023SS

That makes the whole set just $15+S&H. Which, for the US, adds about $12, higher elsewhere.

Ships USPS in a large cardboard tube, with a protective wrap inside, as they are on thick print stock.

https://anansispace.gumroad.com/l/ssFullSet/FEDI2023SS

#Science #Art #SolarSystem #Posters

[...]

TerryHancock, 9 months ago to random

#FavIndyFilmProjects Okay, this one you're more likely to have heard of, but I have to mention Felicia Day's "The Guild".

This is an early web series on YouTube, which follows a group of online gamers interacting in real world drama.

Very low budget production with excellent character development, acting, and comic timing. I have binged watched the whole thing several times. Was a big inspiration for me.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1138475

TerryHancock, 9 months ago to random

#80sSciFi #SFTV

So, I am watching the original miniseries, "V" (for the first time). Somehow I missed this when it came out.

Surprised by how well-made it is, actually. I was expecting it to be MUCH cheesier than this.

The parallels with the QAnon conspiracy universe are kind of chilling, though. Feels almost like this was the playbook they cribbed from: conspiracy of scientists, withholding findings because of "research grants". And of course, the aliens disguised as humans.

[...]

TerryHancock, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Oh dear.

rsync preserves symlinks with "-a". But not hardlinks.

:welp:

I thought this was taking too long.

Going to have to try this again.

[EDIT: "-a", not "default"].

TerryHancock, 10 months ago to random

I think I have less to say about "Oppenheimer". I definitely appreciated it as a film, but it did have some issues for me.

Some of them are the standard Christopher Nolan gripes: the sound mix is kind of inhuman. Dialog gets lost under the heavy soundtrack (and NOT just when the bomb is going off).

...

TerryHancock, 9 months ago to random

#AskFedi #Rsync

Hmm.

How does rsync know that a file has "changed"?

Relative to what?

Does it keep track of when it was last run?

Is there some kind of hidden file that it's using? Is it marking the files somehow?

Or does "changed" just mean "relative to the destination"?

And if it's that, then why is there an "update" option?

The man page is kind of vague on this.

Just want to make sure I'm not going to accidentally destroy important data.

TerryHancock, 8 months ago to random

I really want more dumb products, honestly.

I mean, who looks at a fridge and thinks, "This could be smarter. Needs an internet connection"?

TerryHancock, 9 months ago to random

Wow. YouTube has definitely diagnosed me as "autistic" and probably also "ADHD". 😅

What's more, my whole family is: Mom is autistic, Dad is ADHD, my wife is ADHD, my kids are various degrees of overlap.

Which makes sense, right?

Because they are inheriting these traits from both of us, and I inherited from my parents. It's just genetics, right?

What is weird is understanding neurotypical people.

We need some videos to explain them to us! :kermit:

TerryHancock, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago) to random

One of the advantages of putting your content on the big silo sites is that it may still be around, long after you've forgotten about it.

Owning your own portals, blogs, photo sites, etc, IS great, but it requires you to keep maintaining the site, and once you stop, this content just erodes and disappears.

I'm writing some documentation for a software package that was important to me years ago, but now is succumbing to internet bitrot.

It illustrates this problem pretty well.

[1/7] 🧵

TerryHancock, 8 months ago to random

When you've accumulated knowledge about a subject over a very long period of time, it can be easy to underestimate just how much there is.

I start explaining the "simple basics", and it blows up to thousands of words in no time at all, because actually, it's not really that simple!