Moron; noun: when you realize that it’s too late to make coffee and a candy bar has to do.
On the flip side things got done, I just didn’t get any coffee in the process 😂.
Month: May 2020
I find this timing a touch interesting myself. Until circa 1998 our family PC was an old Tandy 1000. But it was Web TV that introduced us to the World Wide Web in around 1995 or 1996. It wasn’t that long before this became known as MSN TV, after already getting strong influences from the new corporate overlords.
Actually, I find it kind of interesting that Microsoft was an ISP for a time. In the era between getting our first Pentium based machine, and eventually going to aDSL, they were actually one of the better dial up options available in our area.
Watching this week’s episode of My Next Life as a Villianess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, I find myself quite amused.
While studying in the library, a few characters lead to prepare tea and sweets as Catarina and most of the cast are sucked into a book of desires. Things largely proceed like a set of clips from some meh romance novels as character’s desires are played out, causing Mary to smoosh the book shut and threaten its destruction. Sophia may even have out done the princes when it comes to it…
And then we finally get to Lady Catarina’s desire. She was starving when this began: so a house of candy shows up like something out of Hansel and Gretel. Followed by much eating, until it explodes, and she makes like a vacuum eating candy until finally exploding. After which the book spits everyone out. Most of the male cast eventually flees in embarrassment. Meanwhile Mary and Maria suppose that rather than her desire being met, since sweets weren’t real: her desire kept growing until even the book couldn’t take anymore. Then the camera cuts to her enjoying sweets in the background.
Yes, I am both strangely amused, and share Catarina’s desire ^_^
8 Great Anime Series For People Who Don’t Like Anime
https://flip.it/7HLUW_
Not sure if it makes it better or worse that many of these are on my watch list…
On occasion, I read (and see) things and am amused. The graphic at the end of this nVidia post on Vulkan Memory Management is a key example.
The Good: a memory allocation for a big assed buffer with your stuff.
The bad: a memory allocation for a bunch of buffers with your stuff.
The ….: a bunch of memory allocations for a bunch of buffers with your stuff.
Yes, I am easily amused. No, I am not typing those wonky symbols.
While my day began with Vulkan things, I came across a rather nice read on gamma:
I think this is a rather nice summary, and it won’t make people’s eyes gloss over a chalk board full of mathmagics, lol. The description of the three images especially make it clear.
This afternoon: the dogs were so comfortable, it almost burnt. Like over 9000.
Eventually it was family nap time.
And Willow is still a grand master of comfy.
So far my adjustment to the new Kindle has been going well. Also nice that I’ve been able to catch up on my reading a bit, hehe.
My biggest real concern was the refreshing, which kept me on the wall a while. E-ink screens are actually pretty fascinating technology, but not your average display. The refresh rates are high enough that hard flipping pages aren’t an issue, but a whole lotta flashin’ is goin’ on when images are involved. Typically this is more towards the UI, browsing covers on shelves kind of things. I assume this is in the name of making book covers render without artifacts. Because the black flashes are often more a ping-ping-ping than a slam-bam, and mostly occur in UI.
Thus far it hasn’t bothered me, or been anywhere near as bad as I had expected. But it should probably come with a seizure warning or something just in case.
The pint sized device is also damned convenient. It’s literally small enough to stuff in the breast pocket of my t-shirt, a feat not even a Goosebumps book could achieve so well. For the most part though, I just carry it like a PADD from Star Trek.
Actually the size and design of the 10th generation Kindle very much fits my mental image of the 24’th century PADD.
This is especially true with the extra bezel towards the bottom. And that the damned thing weighs so little: you could mistake it for a sheet of paper, or a weight reduced plastic Frisbee.
Thus far I’ve found the e-ink rather lovely. It’s suitably sharp that I find it easy to read. Brightness controls range from that’s really friggin’ dim to a fairly bright white. After a few days, I backed off from a few notches over half to a few notches below; the brightness scale is 24 notches.
At really low brightness: for a moment I was reminded of the original GameBoy; which really is an unfair comparison because it’s a much better screen than those ever were. Cranked up the front light makes it feel more like a tablet set to white on black. Dimmed to the middle is like a crossing point between notably white, and something closer to a page in a book.
If you have 20/20 and drop your phone on your face a lot, I could see why higher resolution would be an interest. For me it’s kind of like the 720p vs 1080p debate in phone screens. Yeah, better resolution would be nice, but I’m not inclined to cram the screen close enough to my eyeball for it to be a big return on investment. So I’ve no worries there. Mostly, it’s like paper. Which isn’t all resoluted equal itself, but just fine in the magority.
It’s been a pleasure to read on for conventional text. Most of the content I’ve loaded takes the form of novels. For that kind of text it’s brillant. Haven’t tried fancier technical books but expect anything not too PDF centric rather than reflowable would be fine. For manga it’s a no go, but just like on a phone: this is more a matter of size than quality. The Kindle can render the content well enough but no one really wants to shrink a comic book page down that tiny, and I don’t really like the panel-by-panel thing.
Personally, I think the browser experience sucks like a twenty year old phone, combined with a broken thumb stick. Let’s just say for reading Wikipedia: reaching for my iPad is a better plan.
Battery life is fair. The past week has seen the battery drop from 100% to 68% since Monday, and I’ve probably been reading a mixture of 20~30 minute to 2~3 hour sittings. Unlike my old HDX: the battery is not 7 years old! And much like my various tablets, I don’t need a booklamp.
Actually that’s one of the things I’ve come to like about e-books in general. As a teenager: I spent a lot of time with a book canted towards TV light, reading in the dark. As an adult: my love and respect for a good booklight is such that mine is kept safely on my bookshelf, batteries removed. I can’t say that I really miss needing a booklight, and I reckon the amount of reading I do at night is probably a larger percentage than when I was a kid.
Damned adulting, and all that more wearing pants and reading less :-o.
Me: Working on the computer.
Willow: Whining for a treat.
Me: “If you’re gonna bug me then I’m gonna bug you!”
Me: *Picks up dog, gives hug, sits down, and pets dog*
Willow: *wags tail, enjoys minute of attention, jumps off*
Me: *Walks over to the dog treats*
Yeah, you can figure out the rest.
Pretty sure that I’m the wrong species or something. They’re so comfortable!
I’m not going to photograph the death glares I got for sneezing a few minutes after this picture was taken. For fear there will be a trial, lol