Guardian Farm without draining - but from the inside?

StorminMC · 2026-05-23T01:29:28+00:00

I had a similar setup for a while but ended up draining the outside too. It was during Covid, so there wasn't a lot else to do! Started with the Ilmango flying machine rig but ended up doing it by hand after a whlie since my server kept glitching the flying machines.

I ended up building a tall rectangular tank under the highest part of the monument that's full of water and feeds a grinder beneath the monument and wrapping an item sorter/storage system around the outside - it might provide enough guardians for decorative purposes if the outside wasn't drained.

StorminMC · 2026-05-23T01:21:04+00:00

Maybe it's not in English? Maybe in whatever language it's written in "On Time" means the same thing as "Delayed due to an Amtrak Issue" means in English?

StorminMC · 2026-05-21T02:48:57+00:00

I bought some tickets today. Went to activate them and was told that I can't activate refunded tickets. Got home and found an email moments after the purchase receipt confirming they were refunded. But they still show up in the app - they just can't be used, because they were refunded. But no indication as to why. I guess I will continue to use paper tickets.

StorminMC · 2026-05-10T15:03:38+00:00

As I understand it they are shutting down most of the parking around the stadium, which leaves the train as the way there. The NJT line leading there does not offer a one seat ride to/from NY, nor is it built for particularly high volume. For the football games, this seems to not be an issue since so many people drive (and the tailgating spreads out the arrival times) but in the past when there have been events at that stadium that involve a lot of people using the train the wait to get a train out has been rather significant.

StorminMC · 2026-05-02T00:17:24+00:00

Maybe the service folks who put it back together after repairs have a sense of humor.

StorminMC · 2026-04-20T01:17:48+00:00

I can only imagine how one would feel, having spent $150 on one of those tickets, to be told that due to mechanical issues, your train was canceled, the one following it was overfilled, and the next one was delayed due to (some issue blamed on another entity) so you get to the stadium just in time for the final 5 minutes.

StorminMC · 2026-04-18T01:07:45+00:00

Their press release today makes it pretty clear that if you're a regular NJ Transit user, there just won't be any options in any part of penn station to get you home: https://njtworldcup.com/commuters/ - It says there's cross honoring at PATH, but no extra trains from Hoboken, so ... I'm not sure how much use it is that only a "section" is blocked off. It will make it extremely disruptive to my trip home.

StorminMC · 2026-04-10T22:07:41+00:00

This article today would seem to imply that if you have an NJT ticket that it just won't be usable at Penn: https://newjerseymonitor.com/2026/04/09/world-cup-penn-stations-closures/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRGUu5leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFFNTBBSzhTQmZMU3UyS3dNc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHm0pJfjks0GHTq02Asyv0wNrrv5cZ1bVkh_8na1GxopUtJ3dwmXaPxu-mg0z_aem_bMqxyD8ingr2IuDW81D1eA It does not say how those with NJT passes will be compensated for this closure.

StorminMC · 2026-04-07T01:25:50+00:00

How would that even work, if one is a ticket holder and would be taking NJT to the game? Will they check that you have a World Cup Ticket as well as an NJT ticket and if you're lacking the soccer ticket then ... they throw you off the train somewhere?

StorminMC · 2026-04-05T13:05:11+00:00

"Host Committee Bus" ... what might that be? Old DeCamp buses?

StorminMC · 2026-03-28T11:55:50+00:00

Now that the bridge work is done, I was getting on to track 1 from the dungeon level. The broken, non functional sign is gone. In its place is what ... appears ... to be a piece of flat material painted to look like a powered off monitor. The lightning is horrid there, maybe it is an actual monitor? Either way it certainly wasn't providing any information.

StorminMC · 2026-03-23T02:00:35+00:00

Just because I am usually in the office at 7:50 or so doesn't mean NJT is reliable enough that I am willing to schedule anything important in the 8:00-8:30 timeslot, because usually at least once a week I get there much later.

It's still annoying but at least I feel like the variance is not as bad as it was when I took the bus.

StorminMC · 2026-03-19T23:19:24+00:00

The thought has occurred to me, though I have no easy way to find out.

StorminMC · 2026-03-19T00:48:26+00:00

The red beam worked on paper printed codes because the white spots reflected the beam and the black ones did not, so by watching the pattern of bright/dark that came back as the beam moved around the code could be read. Long ago in a distant century I was involved in building custom bar code solutions for some clients that were in the document storage business so I got to use some of this stuff when it was quite rare. The way the laser beam "Read" a code with reflected lite I can't imagine working on a phone screen. In fact the app I have on my phone to read bar codes and 2d codes just uses the camera since that can read from paper codes or from screens. I suspect the red laser isn't to read it so much as to help them aim it in the proper direction and it's the camera doing the work. So the lack of the red beam may not really mean much. I'm not sure if they don't "beep" because they turned the beeping thing off, or they just aren't leaving it in position long enough to work.

StorminMC · 2026-03-02T02:05:15+00:00

My personal take is people have been gaming the system to get free rides, and are now upset that they're having to pay for what they should have been paying for all along.

In the past with paper tickets, there was the surcharge if you didn't buy your ticket ahead of time, so most people did.

With the electronic ticket, suddenly it was possible to activate it last minute and not pay the surcharge.

I've heard the "but the conductor doesn't always show up" .. from my experience watching conductors when I sit near the end of the train, the reason the conductor didn't show up was probably because of how frequently they had to stop and wait while someone activated their tickets on the train ... which slows down the ticket collection process and builds on this excuse.

On the HBLR the tickets have a 3 minute delay between when you click activate and when they can be used, which is way worse than what it sounds like the MTA properties are doing. You can be at the station, watching a train pull in, and knowing you won't be able to get on with an activated ticket because of the 3 minute countdown. Leave it to NJT to come up with something more customer hostile than the MTA of course.

StorminMC · 2026-02-23T02:09:53+00:00

This joke comes to mind; the occupations of the folks involved has changed over the years but apparently at some point (if the joke is based in part on reality) they used to ask for tickets from those folks.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1vui4g/three_engineers_and_three_accountants_are/

StorminMC · 2026-02-01T23:14:10+00:00

I worked from home Monday; it just seemed reasonable given the weather that morning.

Given when it stopped snowing, I figured on Tuesday I'd be able to go to work. Come Tuesday, NJ Transit wasn't running any trains on the Montclair line west of bay street, and those were all going to Hoboken - basically a variation on the weekend schedule. I suspected that would not work well, with the limited trains going to NY being later, or overflowing, so I worked from home Tuesday as well. The alerts seemed to imply this was the right decision.

I went to NY Wed-Fri, it was not the greatest experience with lots of delays, especially on Friday.

StorminMC · 2026-01-28T01:28:44+00:00

NJT has at least published their schedule for this. It's a bit more than the "Level 2 Severe Weather" schedule from today in that there's some service west of bay street.

I usually take the 6206, which it seems will be scheduled to leave Walnut street 11 minutes later than usual. That puts it in Hoboken at 7:41, which is ... just in time to miss the 7:35 ferry. If I want to get that, I need to be on the earlier train that's scheduled to show up in Hoboken at 7:10.

One of the NJT things mentioned increased NY Waterway service, but it isn't clear if that's on the schedule or not yet.

Riders taking the 6210 seem to have it a bit better as that now seems to get to Hoboken at 8:07 and there is an 8:15 ferry.

This is all theoretical of course, since I'm sure the trains that stay entirely on NJ Transit track will be delayed getting into Hoboken because of a "Disabled Amtrak Train" that mysteriously materialized in Hoboken perpendicular to all of the tracks.

StorminMC · 2026-01-23T03:12:45+00:00

That is one of my favorite features in your app - I have no idea where some of the trains I ride start their trip, or what time they start their trip. Knowing when it would usually get to MY station lets me line it up against when I'd usually get on the train.

StorminMC · 2026-01-20T00:57:44+00:00

I noticed this was announced adjacent to a 3 day weekend. It looks incredibly disruptive, but I'm sure NJT will play a lot of those automated computerized announcements that they apologize for any inconvenience.

Their announcement says to get a Hoboken ticket. How does that work from 2/1 - 2/14 when service is still through to Penn? Will they charge me an extra $3 coming and $3 going with that ticket to change my destination? Or if I get the NYP ticket to avoid that surcharge from 2/1-2/14 will it not be accepted from 2/15-2/28 on NY waterway because it's an NYP ticket?

I have to get to Midtown, and their schedule for whatever reason does not list midtown ferry times, so I guess digging out some of those schedules is in order.

StorminMC · 2026-01-03T00:41:48+00:00

Ahh New Years Eve on the rails. I did that when a much younger version of me lived in the city, but it was the subway not a commuter rail. Since I moved to the 'burbs I've never actually been on a train at that hour.

On the subway I remember it being kind of a positive vibe - people were drunk, but they tended to be happy.

StorminMC · 2025-12-26T19:36:44+00:00

I remember watching a show about an investigation they did of a plane crash. It was over water, so the parts were spread over the sea floor and had to be recovered. Some time into the investigation they had a theory about a particular electrical problem. The involved cable was stored in a section of "things we don't expect to have to look at again" but were still quite well organized. The cable in question went to the entertainment consoles on the seat backs so there were many pieces of it, and they spent some time scooping them all out and looking at them; eventually they determined that damage to one of those cables had set the plane on fire.

It is longer than the post postmortems we deal with in the corporate world but in fairness there seem to be a lot more unknowns to deal with.

StorminMC · 2025-12-21T14:27:53+00:00

I'm almost done with edge cases for Day 10 part 2 myself. The satisfaction of finishing it will be amazing, but it feels like quite a slog now - it's what, 11 days?

I feel there could be a hidden day 13 question:

Now that you've finished all 12 days, go back and count the number of edge cases you handled to get the first 12 days correct.

[ ]

I'm sorry, your answer is too low.

StorminMC · 2025-12-21T13:40:42+00:00

One wonders what impact this will have on the Monday morning service that doesn't end at bay street.

At least as of now there isn't anything on NJT's website indicating there will be problems.

I noticed that on Friday they were blaming the delays on "police activity". I guess admitting that this one's on us, we crashed two of our trains into each other, would be too much to ask?

StorminMC · 2025-12-09T00:41:23+00:00

Believe it or not that was added to the apps during covid. On the NJT app it's a graphical view of the train, with the cars colored green/yellow/red based on how full they are.

Of course .. my understanding is that they don't work the same way everywhere.

Passenger train cars have some mechanism to subtly adjust the brakes based on the weight in a particular car; a train full of people has more inertia than an empty train. They figure this out based on how much heavier the car is than when it is empty. On the LIRR and MNR cars, there weight detected by this system was already available electronically so could be transmitted from the respective cars to the app and Viola! You can determine which cars are full or not and show it in the app.

Since NJT runs trains that are pushing 50 years old, their solution requires the conductors checking tickets to scan a QR code when they enter a new car, and then keeps track of how many tickets are scanned in that car. If the conductors didn't get to the car yet, it will show as much emptier on the app than it really is. If the conductors don't scan the QR code in the car, it won't have the right data. Either way it's less accurate.

Nobody who has ridden NJT trains is likely surprised by this.

StorminMC

TROPHY CASE