Hollywood is NOT cranking out original movies. They follow formulas and reuse them at nausea. It's kinda annoying actually. Everything about it has become lazy and unimaginative

So before I listen toi him whine anymore, did Christopher Landon even make a free Beehaw account and, like, make a post about it? He could have teased it a bit, did an 'ask me anything' or some shit. I actually enjoy a good thriller. I hadn't heard there was a new one out.

You should cease eating them over their inclusion of GMO ingredients alone, but that is just my opinion.

That condition is a despotic red-flag deal-breaker that should be countered with epic abandonment. Let them know this is not OK. If I hadn't uninstalled it years ago, I would have already. Lots of better browsers out there.

HP was great in the 90's. They made quality stuff back then. My HP4MV's were like a tank. They built a great name for themselves legitimately. That all changed in 2000 when that dingbat took over as CEO. Everything they made became ultra cheap. When I'm out shopping, I've been known to approach random strangers that I observe looking to buy a printer just to tell them how bad HP is.

I personally stopped using them in 2002 after a brand new HP-5610 multifunction doc center cockblocked itself from windows 98 because I plugged in the usb data cable that connects the computer and printer without installing their bloaty software FIRST. It was a long night reinstalling the OS I had just reinstalled the week prior. Their helpdesk was so infuriatingly dumb and unhelpful I made it a goal to steer anyone away from them that I can.

The Brother laserjet I purchased as a replacement in 2007-ish is still going strong as well. I've never even serviced it (other than replacing toner and paper). Admittedly, it's getting tired after 18 years.

You do not need to support a company that treats its customers as badly as HP does, and never support anyone or anything that thinks you deserve to stand there like an idiot for 15 minutes before they can do their job for you. That, kids, is called neglectful and disrespectful.

I suspect that on a manufacturing level, someone dropped the ball big time.

They made no press release for this one. Buried it.

7th Saga. It's a turn based top down RPG (similar to Final Fantasy 1 or Dragon Warrior 1). The games AI sometimes just kills you (and takes great delight in it). Easily the most frustrating RPG I've played.

Blaster Master for the Nintendo (NES) as well. Instead of evil AI you get evil level design that wants to kill you.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to have a sandwich and play some Leisure Suit Larry 3.

Iced Earth's debut album was called Night of the Stormrider. It weaves a pretty dark tale of a mans betrayal by religion, subsequent turn to the dark side and final regrets over the course of nine tracks (46 minutes).

Queensryche's (arguably) best album Operation: Mindcrime. It tells the tale of a young malcontent who becomes involved in an underground revolution as an assassin. This is another that is not just one song, but a story that spans fifteen tracks. One of the best rock operas that was ever pulled off in my opinion.

Manowar's album The Triumph Of Steel has a first track called Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts. It is essentially a telling of the tale of Hector and Achilles. It's nearly 30 minutes over the eight unique sounding parts.

Ice Nine Kills has now (2) entire albums with tracks inspired by horror movies, but I wouldn't call them long. Their song Meat & Greet would be a great example. It's a retelling of "The Silence of the Lambs".

Animals Without Leaders has a song called CAFO that I just adore. Its pretty long and although it speaks no tale, it's so sonically unique that it feels like it does. Some of those ultra technical metal bands feel like that (to me at least).

You know, I left Reddit because I didn't like what was going on. Banning US presidential election posts to a political forum makes me not like what's going on. What's next on the ban list?

You may want to opt out of those services. Even LinkedIn seems to know it's got potential to be a flaming hot train wreck, apparently to the point where they desire no responsibility for the public messages made by their machine that they own, train, and qc.

I've been killing an easy 50 a day (maybe more) for at least a month and not really gaining any ground at all on them. I live next door to a conservation area in the Pittsburgh, PA subarbs. Killing them on Grapes, Virginia Creeper and some ash looking weed.

Just to share it, I've noticed at this point that if disturbed, the bug will try to leap away. If it is successful, it seems to return to that very same point in space.

Its a real shame too. I'm a pro bug guy. I really wish I didn't have to kill them, and honestly, they are kinda dapper looking.

Ahh, I was mistaken. Libre is open source.

Having used autocad for nearly 40 years, I will say they stick it to their customers pretty fiercely. I still use 2010 with 3rd party software to get it to run on win10 at home. I do a lot of solid models and assemblies as well as technical 2D drawings and renderings.

FreeCAD is impressive, but it lacks an easy to use interface. NanoCAD and LibreCAD are not open source but are free and are both better 2D alternatives.

Edit: LibreCAD is open source.

They trip all over themselves just to seemingly not use the phrase "open source" huh?

Professional geologist Shawn Willsey posted a graphic of the approximate location of the newest fissure on his livestream. This fissure and flow is not likely to be a threat to the town of Grindavik, but it is a threat to both the blue lagoon and the powerplant.

I am from Pittsburgh and it's a huge party at Gobbler's Knob, Pennsylvania. Shut down the town kind of party. An absolute sea of people. It's been like that long before the movie, but then there's not much to do in February.

This years Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early spring but do note that marmots are not exactly qualified to make to make meterological forecasts. It's a mostly cute tradition with a hint of madness, kinda like sticking a tree in your living room and hanging up socks to celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas. Makes total sense when you're drinking.

For the record, Groundhogs (or woodchucks) are pretty docile and cute. They are also excellent climbers. This little fellow was quite curious about me, and why I was hiding in his field (taking pictures of birds).

Since no one posted an ID, it would appear to be a Wood Frog. The black mottle through the eye with the white line below it is typical of wood frogs.

Likely a male that is 'mookin fer nub'.

I built a PC for my little sister in 2007. She was starting college and didn't have a computer. It totaled 2805 and some change, custom built through Antares Digital (When you know, you Lili). These were all top of the line components (Asus M2N32-WS PRO, Amd athlon64 X2 AM2 5200, Corsair Memory). Not a cheapy system in its day.

Three nights before I was to deliver it to her, I completed all of the setup, had all the software ready to go, even setting up a custom theme for her (We were both metalheads). My folks said that she would need a printer/fax/copy/scanner as well, so last minute, I ended up buying an HP 5610 at target for 192 dollars.

The HP instructions didn't say that if you connected the cable between the printer and the PC before you had installed the drivers, the printer would not mount as a device. In fact, it would never connect to that PC ever again. Apparently, it ruined the registry until you reformatted and reinstalled the OS.

To be fair, the manual did say to install the drivers first, then the cable, but this was not the norm back then and they didn't really emphasize it in any way, nor did it mention that you were about to be FITA big time. Had to scramble to completely reformat the drive, reinstall all the software... Essentially, starting over from a blank slate and getting done in 2 days for delivery to her dorm on move in day. It did connect second time around.

I wrote them an angry letter regarding the poor deployment, but of course I never heard back from them. Never bought another HP for myself or anyone else ever again. I go out of my way to encourage people to not buy anything from HP. If I happen to be somewhere and see someone looking at an HP printer, I'll just approach them, introduce myself, and tell them my story to discourage them from buying it.

The aftermath of the January 14 2024 volcanic eruption which has now officially been declared to be over.

The Map

This is a combination of Agust Gudmundsson's Satellite Map and the 2D quake map. I used Autocad to import each image and then known features to match the scales and orientations, but it's still an approximation. Additionally, the satellite image is greyscale and low resolution so the perimeter of the lava field gets hard to discern in some areas with little to no color contrast.

The Fissures and Lava Fields

The two eruptive fissures (north[900m] and south[150m]) are shown in red. It ejected quite a bit of lava, but the experts say they were lucky that the eruption was as weak as it was. The new lava fields from each are in orange. The initial fissure to the north grew in its size as the eruption continued and extended itself underneath the original berm. This extension and the area where the berm crossed the highway allowed lava behind the ber.

The southern fissure was completely unexpected and it was heartbreaking to witness. While it released a smaller amount of lava at a lower pressure than the north, but due to its proximity to the village, it was enough to destroy at least (2) homes.

The Berms

The berms are shown in blue, both the original (lite blue) and the two new additional ones (medium blue).

The original 10-15 meter high [32-48 foot] berm held up strong and most likely saved the village from much more damage. However, it was not completely effective. A small portion of the berm at the highway had been left open for travel until the day of the eruption when emergency crews plugged it last minute.

During and since the eruption, the emergency crews have built (2) new berms on the west side of Grindavik to further deflect lava and protect the village.

The Infrastructure

The town is still under evacuation order due to the uncertainty of future eruptions and the dangers inside the village due to subsidence and instability.

Electricity seems to be back on in town.

The geothermal pipeline that runs tandem (a few meters west) to the north-to-south highway and was destroyed by lava. This is significant in that this supplies Grindavik it's most abundant heat source, hot water. Homes that were not in harms way are still going to have moderate damage due to frozen pipes. [Edit Jan 21 2024] It was reported that just yesterday emergency crews bypassed the destroyed section of pipe restoring water both hot and cold.

Two of the reported three homes that were destroyed by lava are shown in white. The north home does not appear on many maps. It was reported to be a new home that was yet unoccupied. The south home was occupied and appeared to be a complete loss. I am still unsure about the third home.

The greenhouse, shown in green, survived seemingly undamaged thanks the the original berm. It was reported to have had all of its equipment removed prior to the eruption.

I heard a report that the local government is probably going to be able to offer Grindavik residents a buyout for their homes and property but all I can find is a report that it may be possible.

250 abandoned sheep were reported to have been rescued and removed on Tuesday Jan 16.

The Next Chapter

The future of Grindavik is not looking so good. The data seems to point towards yet another eruption, and likely within the next few weeks.

The Svartsengi GPS Station is near the power plant (north of Grindavik). This is the region where the experts suspect the ultimate source of the magma. It is feeding the magma chamber under Grindavik which is where the eruptive fissures from both December and January formed. It will take months or years of inactivity for this to cool and plug itself. While the system is fed, the pressure will increase. As the pressure builds, the chances of the magma moving or erupting increase. There is no real way known to man as to what exactly is going on down there.

Earthquakes have been very quiet in the area which is to be expected after the balance of pressure. They have ramped back up through the week but are still low in frequency, size and depth. During the eruption, there were numerous mini-clusters of earthquakes near Grindavik (Locations with a high concentration of earthquakes). One of these locations ultimately became where the southern fissure erupted. There were (2) other mini-clusters south of that fissure well inside of Grindavik. Both of these areas of mini-clusters are above the magma chamber and could be places of a future eruption. With the damage to the area, it could just be stress related fractures.

Send hope and prayers to the great and brave people of Grindavik.

Not sure, but I suspect rates just went up. I'm just a science geek from North Carolina that does refractory for a living, hence my interest.

I watched as the first home caught fire. It was brutal to watch it. I did read that it was not occupied. It does not appear on a lot of maps. The second home though that went up was occupied. This was someone's home, someone's place of solace. Children were raised here. Memories were rooted here. It was a total loss. I read that (3) homes in total were destroyed by fire due to the 100km southern fissure's lava output, though I only saw (2). I am unsure about the third. I am unsure where the third one was.

Numerous other homes are going to be severely damaged though. Hot water is actually quite abundant I hear due to the geothermal power plant. The lavaflow from the 900km main fissure was mostly deflected by the berm away from Grindavik, but the berm untimately guided it to the pipeline. Geographically speaking and considering the timeframe they had to work in, I don't think it could be helped.

I understand that hot water is a primary source of heat since it's a cheap and abundant byproduct of the powerplant. It's what you're also bathing in at the Blue Lagoon Hot Springs. Now devoid of heat, I would suspect that many homes are now going to suffer damage from frozen/busted pipes.

My heart still goes out to the incredible people of Iceland. I'd like to think I could cope with an event like this, but I'm fairly certain I would puss out. Icelanders are far more metal than I.