I use Firefox and uBlock Origin. Not sure what kind of experience anyone else is having with YouTube, but recently my home page has been empty because I “don’t have watch history turned on”. Okay, fine. I won’t be able to browse suggested videos, and I’ll spend less time on their platform....
I use Brave Browser (with Ublock Origin and AdBlock) and rarely have any issues. I do have Freetube downloaded, installed and ready to go for when they escalate their game (and they will). For certain other applications, a youtube downloader can be quite handy.
Ads truly are the most annoying, counterproductive and least creative way of putting yourself out there. Even worse, they can never seem to match an ad with the content it gets forced upon, and this serves only to train people to associate their brand with uselessness and irrelevance. Even if you have a product that is good, you’ve just presented yourself as an obstructing pair of clown shoes and that becomes your first and long-lasting impression. When the time comes that they may need it, most people will not remember your product from that ad, only that your brand is a pair of clown shoes.
The simple truth is, if you have a good product, you do not need advertising. You only need advertising if you have a bad product and you are worried that negative word of mouth will spread faster than you can dupe your share of people into buying it.
Edit: Replaced a word that may be taken as a slur.
For a week now, the town of Grindavik [Google Earth] in Iceland has been ravaged by underground volcanic activity. It’s a fishing town situated southwest iceland along the coast. It’s on the Reykjanes peninsula which is the youngest area of Iceland formed 2000-3000 years ago from volcanic activity....
A barrage of hundreds of earthquakes, including two exceeding a magnitude of 5.0 and at least seven topping 4.5, rattled Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula on Friday. The seismic swarm suggests the eruption of an area volcano in the hours or day ahead and has prompted the Icelandic Meteorological Office to declare a Civil...
Well there is supposed to be a 4-sided pyramid (similar to Gaza but bigger) and also some kind of large underground base for UAP.
What is there? I dunno. Sometime after Operation Highjump, It was decided that folks like us are no longer permitted to go there. It could be an intergalactic puppy farm for all I know.
Just as with books, movies, plays etc the past holds a treasure trove of amazing experiences. Unless you have a lot more free time than I do it’s unlikely you’ve played anywhere near the majority of the classics. Let’s get out those pink sunnies and compare notes on some of our favourite releases....
In my old party days circa 2000, I had a nice party house in the hood. The neighborhood wasn’t all that great, but it was a nice big house for cheap rent. Lots of rooms and space. I was young and had more knowledge of computers than money, and this meant I could bus to work instead of driving and paying to park.
I worked at a large engineering company. They upgraded their computers for the Y2K bug. This left them with an extraordinary amount of old PC’s they had to actually pay to dispose of properly. To save money, they yanked the hard drives and raffled them off to the employees. We’re talking nearly 400 PCs. 386’s, 486’s and even some (then highly coveted) 486-dx2’s.
A few people that won just gave me their PC. They didn’t want it since it wasn’t usable without a hard drive but knew I did. I cashed in a few favors here and there to get a few of those choice 486-dx2’s from those that won them where I could. In all, I made (6) pretty decent Dell PC’s and set them up in various rooms in the house. I also had my cadd workstation and my roommate had his PC as well. I put Windows 98SE, VNC and Twisted Metal 2 on each.
I lan’d together all (8) PC’s into a home network using a partial reel of CAT6 cable that I got from another friend in exchange for devising and assembling his wife a new PC for her birthday. He was in the IBEW and the cable was scrap surplus from construction at a major airport. He gave me some speaker wire as well. In hindsight, it was for a public address system and was not the best for musical range but it did work. I borrowed a crimper and helped myself to some RJ45 connectors from our IT department. I ran the lan cables to network the PC’s. I placed a speaker in every room and wired them into the home stereo. Mono, but I only had so many speakers. I then converted my workstation to more of a home theater, running a video out to the TV. PC audio was outputted to the home stereo as auxiliary.
It made for a kick ass home theater system for the year 2000. In it’s day, it was pretty hip. We had some great multiplayer games for years to come and nearly everyone had their own room to play in. TM2 was really neat in that it could take up to 8 players.
VNC gave you control over any computer from any computer. You could watch a movie on the Home Theater in any room you want to, or all of em even. Kick on winamp with milkdrop and just jam out. Put on ‘The cat sitter’ and get the cat all riled up. Ahh, good times.
In all, and not accounting for any time spent or software licenses, I may have invested 30 dollars for a new corded drill (which I still have today). Beer was probably the highest total expenditure for the project. There were some wire coat hangers that got away fishing the wires through the walls that are probably still there.
Also, I totally agree with you on Chrono Trigger. It has another title set in that same world that can be tricky to find called Chrono Cross. I personally think Trigger was the better of the two titles but Cross is play worthy.
Last year I had an old concrete porch re-done. Long story short, they did not keep it wet when curing, and now the concrete has several cracks in it. I’m concerned about the cracks getting worse and spreading over time, so I am thinking about filling the cracks with some kind of compounds. Any recommendations? I’m thinking a...
The chemical reaction that binds concrete in a matrix takes place after you add the water and continues until you dry it out. Anything you put in the crack will be a temporary fix only. The material will work itself out over time, and you will additionally be trapping a certain amount of moisture in the crack with it. You will now have a concrete pad with a ‘pocket’ and a ‘plug’ made from different materials. Materials that are likely to expand and contract at different rates exposing an opening for moisture and debris at least once through the year.
You only get (1) chance to successfully pour concrete i’m afraid. Your pad is damaged for all time. The crack will certainly grow from thermal conditions alone. It’s incapable of healing itself. What you need to stave that off is good chemistry for binding and something that expands and contracts at approx. the same rate as the concrete. I’d call the company that poured it. They’ll know what repair product best matches their chemistry. If you put the wrong products in it, it’s going to accelerate the degradation.
I am a refractory designer, and the company I work for makes several ‘patch’ type products of different chemistries. They all have a use. Temperature, application, chemistry, elevation even. While these do work, they are again only temporary.
They come in different consistencies. One of those is what we call a plastic. It is very much like a putty until it dries. It does contain some moisture so it will shrink as it dries out. It does not contain as much moisture as a self flowing castable would.
YouTube screwing itself with adblockers again
I use Firefox and uBlock Origin. Not sure what kind of experience anyone else is having with YouTube, but recently my home page has been empty because I “don’t have watch history turned on”. Okay, fine. I won’t be able to browse suggested videos, and I’ll spend less time on their platform....
Historic volcanic event occurring in Grindavik, Reykjanes Iceland
For a week now, the town of Grindavik [Google Earth] in Iceland has been ravaged by underground volcanic activity. It’s a fishing town situated southwest iceland along the coast. It’s on the Reykjanes peninsula which is the youngest area of Iceland formed 2000-3000 years ago from volcanic activity....
Major volcanic event occuring in Reykjanes, Iceland (www.washingtonpost.com)
A barrage of hundreds of earthquakes, including two exceeding a magnitude of 5.0 and at least seven topping 4.5, rattled Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula on Friday. The seismic swarm suggests the eruption of an area volcano in the hours or day ahead and has prompted the Icelandic Meteorological Office to declare a Civil...
Putin rumored to be near death (www.dailystar.co.uk)
It’s the Daily Star, so take it for what it is, but reckoning day might be a coming for ole pooty poot.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission has successfully landed on the Moon’s south pole (www.theverge.com)
The Grotto - Fantasy Environment Art made with Blender and Photoshop (i.imgur.com)
Been playing a lot of Baldur’s Gate this week and it really got me in the mood to make something a bit more fantasy-oriented!
Antarctica Is Losing a Flabbergasting Amount of Ice (futurism.com)
Researchers are concerned about a huge chunk of ice larger than Mexico failing to refreeze as temperatures drop in Antarctica.
Is Star Trek’s Warp Drive Possible? (daily.jstor.org)
Gaming often fetishises the new but many great things exist in the past, so let's strap into our time machines and talk about our favourite games released before say 2010?
Just as with books, movies, plays etc the past holds a treasure trove of amazing experiences. Unless you have a lot more free time than I do it’s unlikely you’ve played anywhere near the majority of the classics. Let’s get out those pink sunnies and compare notes on some of our favourite releases....
Dive Bar Chili
A guy walks into a seedy dive bar feeling a little hungry. He orders a beer and a bowl of chili from the bartender....
Alan’s Arking (Little Miss Sunshine, Argo, Edward Scissorhands) dead at 89 (www.bbc.com)
Hot Testicle Hypothesis May Explain Why Elephants Evolved Anti-Cancer Genes (www.technologynetworks.com)
Tips on Filling Cracks in Concrete
Last year I had an old concrete porch re-done. Long story short, they did not keep it wet when curing, and now the concrete has several cracks in it. I’m concerned about the cracks getting worse and spreading over time, so I am thinking about filling the cracks with some kind of compounds. Any recommendations? I’m thinking a...