EchoCranium

Quality control chemist testing pharmaceuticals. Most of what we do is for clinical trial use and research purposes. It’s been a good job.

I bought a couple Sceptre TVs six years ago, been great.

I have that same soldering pen. Apparently I’ve been holding it wrong for years. I’m such an amateur.

Starblazers episodes used to air randomly on one of the local UHF channels when I was around 11 years old. For some reason I remembered it recently, and some quick online searching found that it was an edited and English dubbed version of Space Battleship Yamato. Binge watched the original subtitled episodes. It was nostalgic seeing the characters that I remembered from decades ago, but good to see the entire uncut story all the way to its end.

Next generation stealth plane: going back to basics.

I’d probably sit and play Unreal, or maybe Riven if I was feeling more chill. Could easily burn through 12 hours like that. Just need to be able to take a case of Jolt, a few bags of chips, and some Skittles along and I’d be set.

Josta soda. A guarana cola drink Pepsi put out in the 90’s before energy drinks became a big thing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Josta_drink.jpeg

Always look on the bright side of life - Monty Python

Came across one in a consignment bin a few weeks ago. Aww, nope, not even for $2.

Yes her hair was green as seaweed, Her skin was blue and pale, Her legs they are a work of art, I loved that girl with all my heart, And I don’t give a damn about the upper part, Cause that’s how I get my tail! (The Mermaid by Great Big Sea)

The Dirtbag Diaries, The Moth, This American Life

None of these are programming related. I think quite a few people know about the last two, but Dirtbag Diaries probably less so. If you enjoy the outdoors, hiking, climbing, biking, whatever, it’s worth checking out.

If so, I wanna see what happens if you plug in a usb mouse jiggler.

It’s a dual drive redundant setup. Unless something catastrophic happens, I doubt both drives will go out at the same time. I could do an offsite backup as well, but just haven’t.

Been using a Synology NAS for the past year for automatic photo backups. Take a photo, it gets copied to my drive at home so long as there’s internet access available. No issues so far. Turned off my backups to Google.

I remember back in grade school (early 80’s) we had lessons about how to use a phone book. Now I’m surprised if I ever see a new one dropped off at the front door.

Is that what a horseshoe is supposed to look like?

Agree on CrossFit. At my last job, there was a group of people who went together and would talk about it. For hours, every day. Got really sick of hearing about it. My wife even joined up for a while. While she had fun and it was good for her, I just didn’t have the patience to listen to her talk about it and all the gym gossip when she got home. I felt guilty knowing I should be more supportive, but I just couldn’t do it after hearing about WODs all day.

The NRA has a bloody hand in promoting this culture. Decades of escalating fearmongering brought them members, money, and political influence. It also took them far off course from their original goals promoting safety and responsibility. They now exist solely to promote more firearms sales at any cost, and actively push legislation against any attempts to regulate ownership. I enjoy going to the range once in a while to do some target shooting, and used to hunt years ago, but will never be a NRA member. I have no respect for this organization and what they’ve become.

In the 80s and 90s HP printers were great. They just worked, even in rough dirty manufacturing environments. You could just about drop kick one, and it would still print out a page for you. Now they’re crap. The investment firm that owns the brand is past beating the dead horse, now trying to squeeze every last dollar out of the carcas.

I don’t think Phizer did anything to make the vaccine better, just more available. Their size makes it possible to do things at larger scale. Phizer has pretty much given up on doing any R&D and now just buys up smaller innovative companies. They extract out any patents and other IP they want, and move on. I work in pharma, and everyone I know who’s worked for them in the past has a story about how Pfizer came in, bought their facility, then shut the doors within a couple years. Definitely didn’t make the lives of all those workers better, who had to uproot their families and find new jobs elsewhere.