totm aug 2023 What funny/interesting thing happened in your life today?

[AlamoVampire]

PMDG has just made us flight simmers ECSTATIC!! At LONG LAST we have been given a FUNCTIONAL electronic flight bag or as they call it a universal flight tablet!!! I am doing my first ever flight with it and its AWESOME! It has one feature that I had hopes that it would have. A MOVING MAP!!!!! What does that mean? It means I can finally dump AI ATC and fly pure vatsim human ATC now! I used the AI because it could give me a taxi ribbon to follow at complex airports like KLAX or KJFK or EGLL or EHAM or LFPG. I can zoom in down far enough to see my aircraft on the ground and taxi using my charts or as i type im headed for the intersection of CNERY into the J169 airway. Pretty fantastic! Best part? The UFT/EFB is function for my 737-700 and 737-800 and day 1 with will upgrades from today until then and forevermore on the 777 then 747!!

so happy!

235110292023

new page

235210292023

Edited October 30, 2023 by AlamoVampire

[Geonovast]

Despite living nearby for 12 years, I finally got around to seeing this in person.  (HST model outside city hall in Marshfield, MO, where Edwin Hubble was from)

[AtomicTech]

3 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

Despite living nearby for 12 years, I finally got around to seeing this in person.  (HST model outside city hall in Marshfield, MO, where Edwin Hubble was from)

Sweet!!

[DDE]

We're moving within the office, so I decided to clear out my locker a bit. Dug up the department roster from early 2020 at most. Before COVID. Before the war.

Somehow, everybody got sand into their eyes.

Edited November 5, 2023 by DDE

[SunlitZelkova]

Post-writing note: This is something of a monologue or rant. My thought process is more or less on display in it. Apologies if you find it unpleasant!

So one of my big projects I have been working on to different degrees for a long time is either a world or a series of worlds, where sometimes there are political differences from our timeline, but no matter what, the space programs vary.

About a couple weeks ago, I decided to consolidate everything into one timeline. The premise was that the Soviets land on the Moon and fly by it first.

But then I wavered, because some of the other worlds I had dreamed up- like one where George H.W. Bush's Space Exploration Initiative succeeded- were so interesting. A discussion I had in the Science and Spaceflight section about the Soviet Vostok derived lunar flyby spacecraft, the Vostok-7, was attractive too. So I restored all of the old docs I had deleted that had the info about the other worlds on them.

But now I'm wavering again, because there is just so much these worlds entail and it doesn't seem worth it. I'd rather focus everything into one big detailed one than a bunch of small ones.

But at the same time, a big detailed one would be a lot of work for something I might not even use anyways. This started as a way to figure out what astronauts would be on spaceflights and what date they would land on, so when I plant flags in KSP after flying replicas of never built spacecraft, I could have a good looking plaque on it.

I'm quite pooped and need some time to think about it.

Another think I'm tempted to do is dump every single space world except for two- the world where the Soviets land on the Moon first and the world where the Constellation program succeeded. This is only because these concepts were near and dear to me when I first became a space addict in the 2nd grade.

I'm way more invested in building the world where CxP succeeded, because this is the world of Space Brothers, the Japanese manga about two brothers who became astronauts, is also a world where CxP succeeded, so I'm incorporating elements of that into my flight schedule.

BUT I also like the world where the Soviets land first. When I was a teen, one of my beloved guinea pigs looked up to the ceiling a lot and I interpreted this as him wanting to go to the Moon, and because of my political inclinations at that time, that's how I became interested in the Soviet space program. So I have a lot of happy memories dreaming of landing in an LK with my four guinea pigs and jumping around on the Moon, and it's cool to imagine a world where that equipment actually flew. I was also fascinated with the cancelled Soviet stuff when I was in the 2nd and 3rd grade, as previously mentioned.

But, by nature of the expansive proposed programs of the 60s and 70s, building a world where the Space Race continued is a total pain in the butt. To put it into perspective, I've so far written down the rough parameters of a whopping 500 STS missions, ranging from lunar transport to nuclear shuttle refueling, spanning from 1979 to 1994. I really don't want to do this indefinitely, which is part of why I wrote in the plot point of a Space Tug exploding on its way back from the Moon and forcing the retirement of some of the STS stuff. I also originally planned to end the world where the Soviets landed first by having a nuclear war destroy the world in 2011. But then I watched Cowboy Bebop last summer, and came up with the idea of connecting the world where the Space Race never ended to a world inspired by Cowboy Bebop (well, more or less transplanting that world in a realistic way into my world. Like ICT fusion drives instead of the warp portals in the show). So I cut the plan to end the world with a nuclear war.

That would have been a huge project. Last month I embarked on a study to see if it was even realistic to have the Soviets land on the Moon first. It wasn't, so I considered dropping that world and having the CxP world be the only one. But, I still had those memories of the Soviet Moon program and my pigs. So, I came back to it and figured out a somewhat realistic way of having them land first, more realistic than what I originally had at least.

In some ways, it's what Philip K. Dick called a "hell chore". This whole thing, besides maybe the CxP world, really is. If my two pigs I had the most memories with were still alive, I'd probably drop the world where the Soviets first with no second thoughts. But it's hard to get away from it.

But now that I'm thinking about it, I had these previous thoughts about career choices, politics, and future plans too. It was hard to get away from what I did while my pigs were alive because of the good memories of it. I felt as though if I stopped doing those things, I would be forgetting them.

However, I did overcome this feeling in regards to my career choices and politics. So why can't I overcome it with my hobby?

Yes, I no longer think I need to do the world where the Soviets land first just because I had good memories when I desired to do it. It is not an affront to the memory of my pigs just because I don't feel like doing that anymore.

So, to answer the question of what happened in my life today? I resolved a big issue that was bothering me- how to organize my big hobby.

Writing this helped a lot, so if anyone else ever has an issue in their life, I recommend trying to write out what you've been through, think about what you want, and see where that leads you.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

My wife decided to cook hamburgers for the kids using my CarbonSteel skillet. 

(At this point, the initiated should be guessing everything went fine - a well seasoned carbon steel skillet is perfect for meat.) 

Problem. 

She's opposed to using the tallow I rendered or butter or even olive oil to pre-grease the pan: she's cooking lean hamburger and doesn't want to add fats. 

Mmmkay. 

But then the kids wanted cheese. 

Anyone want to guess how the pan looks? 

On 11/3/2023 at 12:33 PM, DDE said:

, everybody got sand into their eyes

Condolences 

PS - I hate that the forums mixes separate posts 

[SunlitZelkova]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Anyone want to guess how the pan looks? 

Oof. Coincidentally I was spared a loosely similar situation when I was on the verge of cooking beef for quesadillas without putting anything in the pan first. I’ve never really cooked meat before though so my mother came over and showed me how.

There was no cheese involved at that point in the recipe though, so I might have suffered damage. I know from watching my sister cook that you always put something in the pan though, so I don’t know what possessed me to think cooking meat without oil would be okay.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

48 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

without oil

Properly seasoned, the pan survived... But I had to heat it up with some water and scrape with an aluminum spatula to get the cheese off. 

No harm done. 

Thing is - just a light coat of oil isn't frying... I just cannot convince 'she who has her own ideas about things' that I'm right. 

[Nuke]

wind blew a tree on the power lines across the streat, one of those explosive actuated interruptors went off. made a cool flash and a loud bang, after spinning up the backup generator and charging the system, while some guys went to clearing the tree with a chain saw. power is back, for now. its funny because i had just finished all the housework for the day and was going to either play minecraft or upgrade my psu, but i don't feel like either now. i also don't trust those winds, another tree could topple. 

 

its funny because this summer the property owner went and removed about half a dozen trees from their lot, did a firewood sale to pay for it. all that work and you still get a fine. 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Nuke

[Nuke]

6 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Properly seasoned, the pan survived... But I had to heat it up with some water and scrape with an aluminum spatula to get the cheese off. 

No harm done. 

Thing is - just a light coat of oil isn't frying... I just cannot convince 'she who has her own ideas about things' that I'm right. 

ive had good luck with cermet coatings. they last at least twice as long as teflon and are workable longer into their use life. their only failure mode is they can chip if you drop a piece of silverware on it. im too lazy for cast iron. 

if you had fatty beef its not much of a problem. usually has enough in it to keep the surface from sticking. i have electric burners and just keep the heat lower and use patience. but if you got a hot burner keep an 1:10 oil water mixture in a squirt bottle and keep your surface wet (shake well before each squirt). unfortunately with the burners i got that trick doesn't work. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

4 hours ago, Nuke said:

unfortunately with the burners i got that trick doesn't work. 

Mine either - I can only imagine the fireball. 

I've taught my teen the joy of Corned Beef Hash as an instant energy snack and he's been certified to both cook with and clean the Carbon Steel. 

However, 'she who cares about such things' regularly notes that his cooking leaves a fine mist of grease spatter around. 

So even if an oil mister did not give me a kitchen fireball creator - it would be banned for aesthetics

[StrandedonEarth]

We managed to get an early access code to get Taylor Swift tickets for one of her Vancouver shows. The tickets are now safely bought and tucked away in my Apple Wallet, and the kids (26 and 17) are ecstatic.

[Royalswissarmyknife]

My kyboad on l m us som kys. 

My keyboard Wont let me use some keys. 

[DDE]

Happy Friday.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I finally figured out why the violin guy gets special treatment before and during an orchestral concert. 

...its a baroque tradition. 

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/violin/why-orchestras-have-so-many-violins/#:~:text=The first violin section normally,to play a lower harmony.

[LHACK4142]

My team's robot has blood on it, so now we can say it's made with blood, sweat, and tears.  Nobody was hurt, I just got a small cut, but it's fun to tell people our robot has blood on it.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

7 hours ago, LHACK4142 said:

My team's robot has blood on it, so now we can say it's made with blood, sweat, and tears.  Nobody was hurt, I just got a small cut, but it's fun to tell people our robot has blood on it.

... 

And this is how it starts. 

{cue The Doors} 

[StrandedonEarth]

9 hours ago, LHACK4142 said:

My team's robot has blood on it, so now we can say it's made with blood, sweat, and tears.  Nobody was hurt, I just got a small cut, but it's fun to tell people our robot has blood on it.

Blood of a virgin? I'd be careful. Don't want to get any nightshade on it, of which many painkillers are derivatives, not to mention potatoes/tomatoes. Don't want to summon any demons...

Spoiler

Ref. "The Mangler" in the short story anthology  Night Shift by Stephen King (a fantastic collection IMO)

 

[kerbiloid]

It's important to keep this robot away from crossroads now, and to watch the Moon phases.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

It's important to keep this robot away from crossroads now, and to watch the Moon phases.

Not if its a Virgo

...unless Mercury is in retrograde - then we are fornicated

[kerbiloid]

4 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Not if its a Virgo

He hasn't specified the place of the bleeding cut...

Spoiler

...and didn't even say that it was at his end of the ritual knife.

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Blood of a virgin? I'd be careful. Don't want to get any nightshade on it, of which many painkillers are derivatives, not to mention potatoes/tomatoes. Don't want to summon any demons...

  Hide contents

Ref. "The Mangler" in the short story anthology  Night Shift by Stephen King (a fantastic collection IMO)

 

Or feed it after midnight.

er, wait a sec… 

[kerbiloid]

Btw, are the bloodthirsty metal golems technically robots?

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Or feed it after midnight.

er, wait a sec… 

Did the bleeding on it occur after midnight during a new moon? Powerful juju if so

[GDJ]

My birthday today. I made 53 rotations around the Sun.