thetimesink

Since YouTube channels garner viewers from the literally the "World Wide" Web, time zones come into play. Stuart's place is a good example. After seeing yet another global Netizen show up there today, I figured I'd showcase a fun tool for general use.

In 2014, Randall Munro (engineer, cartoonist, author) created a time zone map for his web-comic XKCD. If you click the image above it will open a graphic generated in real time (+/- 15 minutes) for your time zone.

You can copy this link for use in a portal or as a bookmark.

Yes, it's cool with him (as long as you don't charge for its use).

If you are a hard core geek or code monkey, here is an explanation.

Enjoy!

Crosspost from YouTube; edited for Dreamwidth.

So, Monday was the first day of school locally (masks, 1^st graders who have never attended kindergarten due to Covid, most grades with diminished socialization skills). TeacherLady texted me during my workout in the morning (outdoors, but marginally okay sans mask) with:

I feel like I'm on a Star Wars planet!

  Back at her with, "As in Darth Vader Breathing?", thinking masks...

  Followed by, "...or the strange natives with no concept of civilization?"

Back to me with, The color of the sky...

Yeah, she's not wrong...


    
    Click to embiggen




(Your gamma may vary. Raw file is available as a .dng.)

Through the trees...

Yesterday was the first day in waaay to long that I didn't need an N95 to work out (or even to work outside!). Outside work at times was a bit of a wash as I was woodworking (and would mask anyway): Mrs. Teacher Lady needed a workstand next to her work station as well as a mount for her document camera. Let's hear it for pallet wood and "just glad to do something with tools".

In other news, I've just realized that I've become "that old guy down the street".

(I may have to do a list of the Times I've Discovered I'm Older Than I Picture Myself In My Mind...)

 Travel is cancelled. Between the heat and the air quality pretty much all of our travel plans are backed up for a while. Shelley was going to take a trip to the coast with one of her girlfriends; that was shot when the temperature over there was projected to be in the 90s. ...and since there's no air conditioning where she'd be staying? Yeah, that wouldn't work for an MS patient. ..and we also have to lay out safe bathroom stops along the way as we did for a Sacto run a few months back.

 Heat grows and the records fall. Today is the first morning that we've been able to open the windows and let the house blow out a little bit! What with the heat and the smoke we've just had to keep the windows closed and run the AC. That's a PIA, as the over night low has been in the 70s; two weeks ago the night time low was in the 80s with the high here about 114. That is better than Los Angeles at 121; even the coastal region due west of us was at 120 the same day. How that can be less than a mile from the ocean is a mind boggler. ...but it's going to feel good to be able to go workout in a few minutes without an N95 strapped on.

 The three-legged cat hops. I hadn't lost my mind totally when I wrote that line: in the midst of all this, one of the outside cats didn't show for a day or two; when he did he was looking kind of worse for wear and wouldn't put weight on one of his hind legs. A trip to the vet and an x-ray showed that his right femur was absolutely shattered. Yeah, no other external injuries or marks (which pretty much takes away the idea of getting hit by a car). What went on we don't know, but since his leg wasn't repairable he ended up losing it. So he hops around. I threw together a feeding system (pallet wood!) for him since he had to wear a cone for a couple of weeks; I also set up a large enclosure in the living room so he and the inside cats could get acclimated to each other (they'd only seen one another through windows, and my "kitten" is an alpha). One concern was that since he'd be "hopping", that could be interpreted as an injury and that can set off hunter instincts in the other cats. That has since been resolved for the most part. The Mark II version of the feeder had a scratching post on it; I'm taking it down now but keeping it around as this won't be the last time we have a cat-with-cone. ...and I'm folding back the living room cage one panel at a time so he can still have a safe place to go while still giving him a sense of security. Now that everyone is settled I'll take a photo of him on Shelley's lap getting petted at night. ....or more likely a picture of him and the two kittens in stalking mode with him (he gives as good as he gets).


(Yes, if you're going to come back as a cat, you should do it at our place.)

 The sunlight is orange. By that I mean the shafts of sunlight through the trees are orange. You know, that pretty orange that photographers go for just as the sun rises over the hills? …or the hour or so before sunset when that copper/golden hue tints the flowers or the neighborhood boss as he surveys his domain? Yeah, like that. …only this orange is from the drift smoke from fires that are literally hundreds of miles away.

We live in a valley that stretches about 400 miles (from Redding in northern Cali to south of Bakersfield). …and while the closest fires last week were 150 miles to the west and the smoke had no effect here, the smoke from the fires north of San Francisco was channeled through the passes and right down into the valley.

 The light flakes drift slowly down. Last week was last week; this week the fire is local, say 35 miles as the crow flies. …or the ash falls. The Creek Fire will pass 150,000 acres tonight. …and this isn’t a “back country” fire, the type you manage until the rains come; this is mountain communities and people (think: the town of Paradise was simply gone a few years back). Both my oldest and I have worked sections of large wildland and wilderness fires, but I think the largest between us was 50,000 acres. This isn’t Dresden, but we have our own “fire weather” here in the form of pyrocumulonimbus cloud cover. That makes air operations unworkable due to wind conditions and visibility. Ground attacks are useless due to the terrain, and dozer lines cannot be put in place fast enough to be of use.

I can follow the daily growth of this beast via the nightly IR surveys and the GIS map overlays produced each morning. …and via the air traffic radar tonight I could “see” that one of the 737 Fireliner tankers had arrived and was working a 75 acre spot fire (there’s enough detail to visualize the spotter plane leading the tanker to selected drop points while the Air Ops boss flew a bit higher to direct their attack). Even money they won’t be able to stop that one from blowing up and heading uncontrolled down a river canyon.

Oh, and as a size reference? You could drop Chicago into the main fire. …or heck, Toronto. Boston? Yea, two (with all the water).


 N95s? Yes. My workout area is outside on a patio; with the ash fall, I’ve had to use an N95 (’cause I'm not not working out; more on that in another post). I’ve also supplied my oldest as he comes by to use the equipment each day.

Fires and earthquakes: want to trade?

Another from the Southland:

I had my I'm turning into my father moment when i was downstairs debating how practical it'd be to take my old laptop take my old 32 inch monitor put it somewhere and turn it into a dedicated twitch/media/music station where i can either watch streams while i game or work or use it for my Sonos home audio when i add on to that too.

My response:

"Use caution; geekdom is a tough road." (attachment)

Click through for the full-sized version.

(Notes: pretty much "as shot" with just a touch of sharpening.)
(Another note: These are large files as FullBleed.net is designed to "fill" your monitor screen regardless of resolution (I'm not able to test on a Mac or an ultrawide.)

I didn't have a title that worked for today, primarily because May the 4^th is now associated with the Star Wars movies...

...but in a not-so-distant galaxy, and all too close to home for a young college student working with new ideologies and with people NotFromTheMainland (see Siderea's "Archipelago of Weird"), May 4^th was a watershed moment:

I was a freshman. ...on a college campus with protests (the Vietnam War had just been expanded into Cambodia). ...and from a parochial, conservative upbringing. ...and suddenly, four students from another state college in another small town were dead.

Red Pill or Blue Pill? That metaphor wouldn't come into vogue until sometime later; but seeing it today, in two articles from Rolling Stone, from two musicians who were there dialed in the title.

The "Police Riot" at the Chicago Democratic Convention occurred a year before, but the rhetoric involved... Well, see the above about living at home (finishing high school).

People's Park would occur a year later; that one sticks with me, as a guy I graduated with in '68 took a piece of buckshot when he went to his apartment's balcony to see what the noise was.

Politicians, Ideologies, Decisions...


Yes, I'm in a funk (and yes, I'm working on breaking it).