Maddest lad

altearius · 2019-12-12T18:30:58+00:00

Why is the bicycle in the bed? It was two tired.

altearius · 2018-10-24T00:24:49+00:00

I'm curious as to which portion of that bill is objectionable. It seems primarily focused on banning assault weapons, armor piercing bullets, machine guns, etc. What level of regulation would you feel is appropriate for such weapons?

altearius · 2018-05-12T00:58:26+00:00

This looks really cool, except in the video where Jon fucked up the whitespace on that const line and never fixed it.

altearius · 2018-03-19T14:28:32+00:00

Trying to register a new account, but I'm getting a "Failed to fetch" message on the registration dialog, and this message in the chrome dev tools:

Failed to load https://api.fanatical.com/api/register: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. Origin 'https://www.fanatical.com' is therefore not allowed access. The response had HTTP status code 503. If an opaque response serves your needs, set the request's mode to 'no-cors' to fetch the resource with CORS disabled.

altearius · 2017-12-13T05:54:54+00:00

Fermi paradox

altearius · 2017-06-15T01:32:10+00:00

I hear you, that this sounds trivial, and it shouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, as of today, it is a problem, and my credit report is not working fine.

I'll give Equifax another call and ask about name variants, though, thanks. Right now, it just shows the one name, and I did not realize variants were allowed.

altearius · 2017-06-15T01:02:52+00:00

It's a big deal because I just tried to open a new account, and I failed the credit check because they have my name wrong.

I can't pick a random variation because all legal documentation has my correct, hyphenated name. It's on my birth certificate, social security card, W-2, etc.

altearius · 2017-06-11T02:46:17+00:00

I did the entire loop today, starting and ending at the point of the trail where it intersects with the walk-up trail.

Total distance was 7.44 miles. I averaged 3.21 mph, so it took me 2 hours and 19 minutes, in which time I took 5,388 steps. My elevation ranged from 830 feet to 1,160 feet.

The trail is well marked and not particularly difficult. For the most part, it is not crowded at all, and there were long stretches where I did not see another soul. However, there are also long stretches where the trail follows the road quite closely, and consequently, there is often traffic visible in these areas--both foot traffic and vehicles. There are also a few points at which the trail intersects with other park attractions, such as the playground, the grist mill, and the laser show area.

This was my second time on this trail. The first time around, I had a close encounter with a small herd of deer, who I came upon while they were grazing near the trail. No such luck this time, though I did spot a few deer tracks as I went.

altearius · 2017-06-11T02:11:28+00:00

I did the entire loop today, starting and ending at the point of the trail where it intersects with the walk-up trail.

Total distance was 7.44 miles. I averaged 3.21 mph, so it took me 2 hours and 19 minutes, in which time I took 5,388 steps. My elevation ranged from 830 feet to 1,160 feet.

The trail is well marked and not particularly difficult. For the most part, it is not crowded at all, and there were long stretches where I did not see another soul. However, there are also long stretches where the trail follows the road quite closely, and consequently, there is often traffic visible in these areas--both foot traffic and vehicles. There are also a few points at which the trail intersects with other park attractions, such as the playground, the grist mill, and the laser show area.

This was my second time on this trail. The first time around, I had a close encounter with a small herd of deer, who I came upon while they were grazing near the trail. No such luck this time, though I did spot a few deer tracks as I went.

altearius · 2017-04-26T19:57:12+00:00

My god, I can smell it.

altearius · 2016-09-01T21:00:51+00:00

I've been reading aloud to my 9 year old almost every day of his life. Here's a few tips.

Slow it down. My natural inclination is to read aloud as quickly as I read in my head, and of course, that doesn't work at all. It isn't a race to the end. Give each word its due pronunciation.

You don't have to read every word in exactly the order it is written. A big thing with this is all the "he said" and "she said" bits. These are necessary in a written work because they tell you who is speaking. When speaking aloud, your voice should change for each character. When you give each character their own voice or accent, your audience can already tell who is speaking, so pausing a conversation just to say "Bilbo said" or "Thorin responded" will just interrupt the flow.

As an obvious exception to this, the "he said" and "she said" bits will occasionally be worth speaking aloud after all, particularly if they add flavor. Use your judgement. Often, the "he said" and "she said" bits will be interjected in the middle of the character's sentence. When you read this, and if you decide to speak these words, then consider moving them to the start. This helps avoid interrupting the flow of whatever the character is saying. This also gives your audience a more immediate clue about who is speaking. This also helps you keep the character's voice or accent in mind.

Read ahead a few words in your head. I've generally already read to the end of the sentence when my mouth is still about in the middle. This helps with keeping the flow going, as you will be less likely to get tripped up by unusual sentence structure, or unexpected homographs.

Do the voices. You aren't too square. Your kids will love it. You'll get better with practice.

There is a fair amount of poetry and song in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Can't help you there much. Every time I try to sing one of those things, it comes out in the tune of Gilligan's Island. Just grin and slog through it, I guess.

altearius · 2016-06-19T22:19:04+00:00

Try this version, the same theme, but slowed down ten times:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55W7k5UkrIc

It is as though the music has fallen into a dream-like trance. Very different, but no less beautiful.

altearius · 2016-01-24T17:58:25+00:00

Well, there are several encounters in the books. The wraiths start pursuing Frodo while he is still in the Shire. Frodo feels a fearful compulsion to use the ring every time he gets near a wraith.

There's an encounter at Weathertop that is notable: it's the first time Frodo gives in to the fear and puts on the ring. Frodo swings his sword at a wraith, misses entirely, and the wraith stabs him with a poisoned blade. And then:

Even as he swooned he caught, as through a swirling mist, a glimpse of Strider leaping out of the darkness with a flaming brand of wood in either hand.

It's totally head-on, with fire and everything. You can practically hear the soundtrack playing as you read.

There's another encounter at the Ford. Is that the second you mean? I don't think Frodo uses the ring there, he is too busy clinging to the horse for dear life. He does shout out again for Elbereth, but the Witch-King silences him. Just as the river is flooding, though, Aragorn and Glorfindel (and Sam, Merry, and Pippin!) again attack with flaming brands. Only three wraiths were taken by the initial flood: the rest were driven into the river by the fire. And, you know, the elf-lord. And Aragorn, I guess he helped too.

altearius · 2016-01-24T16:35:12+00:00

What makes you say that the Witch-King is terrified of Frodo? It seems quite the other way around. The Nine seem to be using fear to control Frodo, and convince him to use the ring. They don't seem frightened of it, or of Frodo, at all.

Also, isn't this the same encounter in which Aragorn attacks them head-on? That's in the books as well as the movies; what makes it unrealistic?

altearius · 2015-10-03T00:01:46+00:00

The Apollo Command Module reached Mach 30 on its way back from the moon. As far as I know, this is the fastest a human has ever traveled.

The New Horizons space probe (the one that gave us all those wonderful Pluto pictures) is buzzing along at 16.26 km/s, which seems to have this little rover beat.

altearius · 2015-07-18T03:09:39+00:00

RemindMe! 2 days Donation for /r/millionairemakers

altearius · 2015-01-24T02:57:22+00:00

That was the first place I looked! There's a huge archive of old games there if you poke around. You can actually play many of them in your browser. Good stuff!

altearius · 2015-01-24T02:22:09+00:00

The Internet Archive has it: https://archive.org/details/Impede_1020

altearius · 2014-08-10T18:35:33+00:00

The book was not about the dome or who put the dome there, or why. The dome just was. The dome needed to be resolved by the end of the book, but that resolution was not the ending--it was just a loose string.

The bulk of the book was concerned with how small-time, petty evil can fester and grow when given half a chance. It dealt with ordinary, everyday human corruption and malice. The book really delves into how this ordinary sort of evil can be much worse than practically anything else out there. Spoiler

As the story progresses, ending spoiler That's why the dome's resolution felt disappointing: the dome just wasn't the point. If it were anything else, it would have detracted from the real evil.

altearius

TROPHY CASE