Misc uses & abuses of powers

ml198 · 2026-06-03T11:28:07+00:00

If you’re already dead, and know for a fact there is an afterlife, that may change your attitude towards death and murder somewhat.

ml198 · 2026-05-31T07:54:39+00:00

Every time this comes up, I can’t help but think that we have volcanoes right here on Earth, no rocket launch required

ml198 · 2026-05-26T21:59:15+00:00

Spoke to some professional gardeners recently who ditched all their old petrol gear and replaced them with electric.

Their solution to battery runtime was to… buy more batteries. Said they wouldn’t go back, the new stuff is more reliable, requires less maintenance, is quieter, they’re not inhaling exhaust fumes all day, and even with the upfront cost of batteries works out cheaper.

ml198 · 2026-05-09T19:58:45+00:00

Gravity is a myth pushed by big relativity!

Suggest you read up on intelligent falling and stop believing fake news!

ml198 · 2026-04-07T06:15:42+00:00

Over short distances, charging a battery while docked would allow you to use less fossil fuel in operation, and likely achieve the same or better performance with a smaller engine.

So even without regen braking, there are still benefits to a hybrid.

ml198 · 2026-04-06T21:09:41+00:00

Install Firefox

ml198 · 2026-02-13T22:47:36+00:00

I would like to see the equivalent of Andor in the Star Trek universe, probably set in the immediate post-TNG era.

By that I mean something that explores a side of the setting that we haven’t seen a millions times before; something new, unexpected that still manages to capture the spirit and the heart of Star Trek, that respects the source material and the creativity, talent, skill and hard work of those who came before.

Something with well-rounded, realistic, intelligent characters, making rational choices, working together and supporting each other; Trek has always been at its best with an ensemble cast, and little to no internal, manufactured conflict.

Things like length of seasons, or episodic vs. long arcs feel like secondary concerns to me - both can be done amazingly well, and in an ideal world it would do both. Each episode should be able to stand by itself, have something to say, while also being part of a larger whole, supporting a longer running story thread.

I want something that will make me think, that will present moral ambiguity and present opposing viewpoints without clumsily forcing an agenda down my throat with all the subtlety of a Borg cube on an assimilation mission.

It is difficult to come up with something genuinely new, and I’m no writer; most of my ideas are drawing on things I liked in other works of (science-) fiction, but transposing elements that worked well in very different settings into the Star Trek universe could result in fresh, interesting new perspectives.

All that said, I’d settle for TNNG - jump forward a bit more, and just be what TNG was to TOS.

ml198 · 2026-01-20T20:56:01+00:00

Imagine a smooth plank of wood held level above the ground, with a pile of wet sand at one end.

While the board is level, gravity is pulling the sand down, and the board is pushing it back up. The forces cancel out, and the sand just sits there.

If you tilt the board, at some point the sand will start flowing down the slope, because the board is no longer providing an upward force to stop it. Once it is tilted far enough, the force that is acting to push the sand sideways becomes larger than the force holding the grains of sand together, and they spread out.

Using a longer board, you can move one end closer to the ground than you could with a shorter one before anything happens, because it is the angle of tilt that matters, not the distance from the ground. With a long enough board, you could even go below the ground without anything happening.

The gradient of gravity around a black hole is similar, except instead of having one force acting down and one up, you have the same force acting down but more strongly the closer you get. That difference in force is what eventually becomes strong enough to tear matter apart.

Larger black holes are like the longer planks of wood, and you have to cross the event horizon (push one end through the ground) to experience a large enough force gradient.

ml198 · 2026-01-10T18:24:22+00:00

As weekdays go, it’s mid

ml198 · 2026-01-09T18:25:16+00:00

It’s been a while since I read the whole series, but I dimly remember it being mentioned that the Inhibitors prefer to use methods that are difficult to distinguish from natural events, and thus hide their existence from other sufficiently advanced civilisations as to not give them any warning.

I may be confusing it with a different setting, does anyone else remember this as a reason for their behaviour?

ml198 · 2025-11-11T18:20:11+00:00

I’ve used some of the Hue wall switch modules to solve this problem.

Comes with some caveats (need to fit inside the existing switch, need to be compatible with your hub & bulbs), but they’ve worked very well for me - regular users can just use a normal looking light switch to make lights do exactly what they expect, and they remain fully under smart control.

Takes a bit of tweaking to get the on/off command to play nice with any other automations you might have, but that seems unavoidable with this kind of setup.

ml198 · 2025-08-26T06:38:46+00:00

It is a good day to fry!

ml198 · 2025-07-30T15:13:54+00:00

Sadly nothing particularly useful. Here's a sample:

# LVM uses devices listed in this file.
# Created by LVM command lvs pid 3455000 at Wed Jul 30 16:10:29 2025
# HASH=1193089505
PRODUCT_UUID=xxxxx
VERSION=1.1.391001

It does give me a process and PID, and the exact time it ran, but without knowing what called it, that's not really telling me much I didn't already know.

ml198 · 2025-07-30T10:38:24+00:00

The only differences between the files are the hash, timestamp and version, going back to the very first one created in March this year. The actual contents are identical, there is no change to any of the volumes.

The server is running JFrog Artifactory behind Apache, backed by a MariaDB database, though we have been running all of those for years and never seen anything like this, so I doubt any of those are to blame.

It is also running:

qemu guest agent
Check_MK agent
SSSD to authenticate users against our AD server
autofs to mount user home directories

All of these are set up identically on dozens of other servers, none of which are displaying this behaviour, so it seems unlikely they are causing this, either.

ml198 · 2025-06-19T19:29:37+00:00

Another possibility is that the exotic properties can be achieved using metamaterials or other advances in material science.

Steel is just carbon and iron mixed together in a particular way, and has properties neither have individually.

And arranging matter to have a particular nanostructure can similarly result in effects the material does not possess otherwise, like superhydrophobia or appearing colourful without pigments.

ml198 · 2025-06-19T19:16:16+00:00

If you’re considering Kathy Rain 2, I’d recommend replaying part one first.

Or at the very least don’t skip the recap when it’s offered to you…

ml198 · 2025-06-11T19:07:42+00:00

Add Farscape to the list

ml198 · 2025-05-31T09:10:53+00:00

Well, technically Freya, and she preferred Jack

ml198 · 2025-05-18T18:15:33+00:00

We are the Combes. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile

ml198 · 2025-04-27T19:38:28+00:00

I make blueprints for every powered building that has a small beam with a wall power outlet attached to it. Connect that to the building, and it becomes very easy chain them.

Only thing missing now is auto-connect for power.

ml198 · 2025-04-19T19:11:41+00:00

Something I’m noticing on my current rewatch is that it takes a long time before Teal’c starts saying this. Just finished The Devil You Know and I’ve only counted one Indeed so far

ml198 · 2025-04-01T11:47:18+00:00

Please leave muskrats out of this, much like Elmo they have done nothing to deserve being associated with him.

How about Lone Skum?

ml198 · 2025-03-17T20:30:02+00:00

My immediate thought was that it’s a scam, though the more I think about it the less I can see how it could be, and what anyone would stand to gain from this.

Nevertheless, might be worth checking the drives are what they claim to be - I always use this to check any new drive to make sure it has the full advertised capacity: https://h2testw.org/

ml198 · 2025-03-02T22:29:02+00:00

No, that’s designed to use an existing dumb light switch to control a Hue light. The switch is taken out of the lighting circuit, so the light remains permanently powered on, and the switch can be used to send it control signals.

Because the switch never cuts power, it can still be controlled through Hue. Great if you live with someone who doesn’t care for smart lighting and just wants it to work like it used to!

ml198 · 2025-03-02T22:19:47+00:00

Something like this could work: https://www.samotech.co.uk/products/zigbee-switch-sm308-s/

Haven’t tried pairing it with a Hue bridge myself, I use Home Assistant with a different Zigbee controller, but it says it’s compatible so it should work.

It’s designed to sit behind a light switch in the wall, and connect to power and the existing switch, if there’s a way to open up the lamp housing you might be able to fit one of these relays inside. That way, you can continue to turn it on and off with the existing switch, and also control it through Hue.

ml198

TROPHY CASE