Trivial (or not so trivial) stuff that makes you happy.

[Trebuchet]

I was wondering if you had seen the boat. I do remember the use of the old transom material. "not much else of the old boat is left." - yes, much as I admire the work being done the boat has become a bit like the antique axe that has the handle and blade replaced many times.

Acorn to Arabella - now bookmarked, thanks.

The ship of Theseus! And yes, Leo has a video discussing that. I believe he has plans to use some old wood in the interior and such.

I finally finished lighting the tree; 600 LED lights plus the angel. The problematic string of lights started working after I fiddled with the bulbs, went out again when I started putting it on, then I fiddled again and it has stayed on. I am NOT touching it if I can help it.

I will be very interested to see if this picture comes out sideways or upright.





Aww, nuts. Tilt your head to the right.

ETA: In the stuff I don't get department:
I was holding the phone in portrait mode to take the picture.
When I brought it into the editor, it was sideways.
I went ahead and saved it that way, figuring it might turn again.
I put it on my other forum, still sideways.
So I re-edited to turn it upright.
Then I went to put it in this thread.
The thumbnail showed sideways when I was composing the post, and does so now while I'm editing.
But then it showed upright when the post went in.
Until you click on it, then it's sideways again.
Makes no sense.

[Gillianren]

I'm making a point this year of acknowledging the good things in my life.

Difficult but important; I'm trying to teach the kids to do the same.

Last night was my weekly script read. Graham makes the kids leave me alone while I'm on the computer with my friends, so I can have the time. They spent the evening painting with the paints Irene had gotten in her Crayola Advent calendar, and they painted me rainbows.

[Noclevername]

I'm making a point this year of acknowledging the good things in my life.

That's a very important thing. I am dealing with depression, and I make it a point daily to remind myself how good I really have it, especially in the loving family department. Most folks I know tend to take for granted their basic needs being reliably met, let alone comforts and luxuries we benefit from on a daily basis, that most people in the world would kill to have.

My family volunteers sometimes for a local charity, delivering goods (clothes, toys, furniture, etc) to people in need, and my sister makes a point of bringing her kids along to help the less well off so that* they can really see how privileged their lives are.

*ADDED: My phrasing above implies that that giving the kids a lesson is her main motivation for taking them. That's not the case, compassion needs no ulterior motive. Teaching the young is just a welcome bonus.

[SeanF]

ETA: In the stuff I don't get department:
I was holding the phone in portrait mode to take the picture.
When I brought it into the editor, it was sideways.
I went ahead and saved it that way, figuring it might turn again.
I put it on my other forum, still sideways.
So I re-edited to turn it upright.
Then I went to put it in this thread.
The thumbnail showed sideways when I was composing the post, and does so now while I'm editing.
But then it showed upright when the post went in.
Until you click on it, then it's sideways again.
Makes no sense.

Question: iPhone?

I have been told that Apple uses non-standard* metadata for things like picture orientation, which often confuses non-Apple software looking for the industry-standard stuff.

But I do know that this kind of glitch can happen with just about any technology...

*I know, shocking, right?

[DonM435]

Question: iPhone?

I have been told that Apple uses non-standard* metadata for things like picture orientation, which often confuses non-Apple software looking for the industry-standard stuff.

But I do know that this kind of glitch can happen with just about any technology...

*I know, shocking, right?

Aha! Some time ago I had been trying to invert some upside-down pages in a magazine scan that I had. I used the MS Paint to load, rotate, and save them. However, they reverted to upside-down afterward, no matter what I did. Based upon what you said, I suspect that the MS software was reading or writing things in the "wrong" locations.

[Trebuchet]

Question: iPhone?

I have been told that Apple uses non-standard* metadata for things like picture orientation, which often confuses non-Apple software looking for the industry-standard stuff.

But I do know that this kind of glitch can happen with just about any technology...

*I know, shocking, right?

Nope, Samsung S9+, Android. Although the image editor is a Microsoft product from about 15 years ago, because I'm used to it.

[KaiYeves]

A beautiful sunset tonight:

[Solfe]

Aha! Some time ago I had been trying to invert some upside-down pages in a magazine scan that I had. I used the MS Paint to load, rotate, and save them. However, they reverted to upside-down afterward, no matter what I did. Based upon what you said, I suspect that the MS software was reading or writing things in the "wrong" locations.

It's been happening for a while. Apple iPhones can take a series of pictures very fast and the way to do this is to ignore the orientation of the phone when writing data. It saves time. In order to display the pictures correctly, the iPhone saves this tidbit of information to EXIF data after the picture is taken and after the regular metadata is written. When you get image on your computer, if the software doesn't read the EXIF data, the orientation is probably wrong.

What is weird is, if you use the volume buttons to take a picture, the information is saved to the metadata, which most photo software can interpret.

One time, I told my wife the best option was to turn her laptop sideways. Since she had a convertible laptop for work, the screen orientation changed as she rotated it and the image was still just as wrong. She just about died laughing, but I was perplex because I didn't know it was convertible computer. That just made her laugh harder.

[Trebuchet]

Remember, remember, the eighth of December...
...and don't get on the roof to do Christmas lights!
Eight years now. I have all my parts, plus some metal reinforcements, all my faculties, and no real disabilities. I've been very fortunate.

[ozduck]

Remember, remember, the eighth of December...
...and don't get on the roof to do Christmas lights!
Eight years now. I have all my parts, plus some metal reinforcements, all my faculties, and no real disabilities. I've been very fortunate.

A very salutary lesson to all and it is fantastic that you have overcome your injuries - but eight years ago!!!

[Jim]

We have two back fence neighbors. The back yard of the two story overlaps half of our back yard and the backyard of the one story overlaps the other half. The one story has a row of six Bradford pears along the fence line, four along the common fence. It seems one of them died during the late summer/early fall. We had a front come through Sunday night with wind gusts and the dead tree's trunk snapped. It fell across the cedar fence and partly into our yard. It broke the tops off two of the wooden slats but that's about it for damage.

I was going to leave a note asking them to remove their tree, but when I went out at lunch time they already had.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Finally got the power cord for the tablet I bought many months ago. Now have find the password to the local network and clean off most of stuff from the previous owner.

[Solfe]

Back in '77, I was five. When the X-Wings deployed against the Death Star, I stood up and watched to the end of the movie standing in my seat. When I was 44, Rogue One came out. When I saw the X-Wings deploy, I wanted to jump out of my seat.


Today, in the comfort of my own home, I was able to stand for the entire second half of the last episode of The Mandalorian. Good Stuff.

[Trebuchet]

Tomorrow (my time zone and hemisphere) is the Winter Solstice. The days will start getting longer. That's good, because the darkness has really been bothering me.
My mother was somewhat obsessed with the subject, and would always call me up and remind me "the days are getting longer" after the solstice. So now I can think fondly upon her as well. Thanks, Mom.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Tomorrow (my time zone and hemisphere) is the Winter Solstice. The days will start getting longer. That's good, because the darkness has really been bothering me.
My mother was somewhat obsessed with the subject, and would always call me up and remind me "the days are getting longer" after the solstice. So now I can think fondly upon her as well. Thanks, Mom.

Time to turn back the long night.

[Van Rijn]

Time to turn back the long night.

Hah! Andromeda! There were some good concepts in that show. It makes me think of a somewhat more successful Starlost. Starlost had some good concepts, but was absolute dreck from the start to end. There were some fairly decent episodes in Andromeda, even some decent continuing stories, but it got worse with time. I only watched part of the last season, which made little sense and had been subject to a major budget cut. Kevin Sorbo didn’t help, apparently he had a lot of control over the show and he didn’t get much of the techie stuff, reportedly he was responsible for it losing the people that knew what they were doing and a lot of the better concepts disappearing from the show.

[Van Rijn]

Tomorrow (my time zone and hemisphere) is the Winter Solstice. The days will start getting longer. That's good, because the darkness has really been bothering me.

Ironically, it has been a little too sunny here. Yes, the days are short, but it was a wonderfully sunny day today and not all that cold. I did a few things in the yard, mostly just to enjoy it. It was unusually quiet, even quieter outside than inside the house because I have some gizmos producing background sound in the house.

But it is too nice. The region has only gotten about 40% of the rain it should by this point, and that causes issues later in the year. In an average year by this point I’d be tired of the rain and fog. But for now, the weather is about as nice as it could be for this time of year.

[ozduck]

And up here in Australia it will be the summer solstice. The weather is just starting to warm up and we are looking forward to a pleasant 32 C on Christmas Day after a hottish 37 C on Christmas Eve. We don't get long evenings here - sunset today will be at 19:22. In order to ensure maximum confusion about time zones across Australia we, W.A, and Queensland don't have 'Daylight Saving' but the 4 other states do.

[KaiYeves]

And up here in Australia it will be the summer solstice. The weather is just starting to warm up and we are looking forward to a pleasant 32 C on Christmas Day after a hottish 37 C on Christmas Eve. We don't get long evenings here - sunset today will be at 19:22. In order to ensure maximum confusion about time zones across Australia we, W.A, and Queensland don't have 'Daylight Saving' but the 4 other states do.

That sounds nice. Sadly, with this year’s Sydney-Hobart Race cancelled, we snowed-in Americans will miss out on watching Australians jumping off the back of boats and spectating from beach towels onshore.

[ozduck]

That sounds nice. Sadly, with this year’s Sydney-Hobart Race cancelled, we snowed-in Americans will miss out on watching Australians jumping off the back of boats and spectating from beach towels onshore.

Well there is still the Melbourne to Hobart Race. But that is very much what, I assume, Americans would call a 'minor league' race and is basically only mentioned as an afterthought in the local media.

[KaiYeves]

Well there is still the Melbourne to Hobart Race. But that is very much what, I assume, Americans would call a 'minor league' race and is basically only mentioned as an afterthought in the local media.

Just watching the S-H Race on a stream that isn’t geo-blocked can be difficult in the US, but I enjoyed it the past few years. (Although I got a VPN to watch the America’s Cup trials in Auckland, so that should make things easier in the future.)

[Noclevername]

Hah! Andromeda! There were some good concepts in that show. It makes me think of a somewhat more successful Starlost. Starlost had some good concepts, but was absolute dreck from the start to end. There were some fairly decent episodes in Andromeda, even some decent continuing stories, but it got worse with time. I only watched part of the last season, which made little sense and had been subject to a major budget cut. Kevin Sorbo didn’t help, apparently he had a lot of control over the show and he didn’t get much of the techie stuff, reportedly he was responsible for it losing the people that knew what they were doing and a lot of the better concepts disappearing from the show.

Ironically, Sorbo seemed the weakest casting choice. He played the character exactly as if he was still Hercules.

[Trebuchet]

Ironically, Sorbo seemed the weakest casting choice. He played the character exactly as if he was still Hercules.

He seems to have become a bit of a crank in recent years.

[Noclevername]

He seems to have become a bit of a crank in recent years.

IMO he's always been a man unaware of his own mediocrity.

[Gillianren]

Well, we celebrate our holiday for Yule, and the kids are extremely happy with their haul.

[Noclevername]

That's a very important thing. I am dealing with depression, and I make it a point daily to remind myself how good I really have it, especially in the loving family department. Most folks I know tend to take for granted their basic needs being reliably met, let alone comforts and luxuries we benefit from on a daily basis, that most people in the world would kill to have.

Happy that the above daily reminders have helped me manage my depression well enough to function (along with of course, the proper meds and therapy.)

[Noclevername]

A Zoom meeting scheduled today with my father in Florida.

(Happy to be living in an age when technology allows us to be in contact and communicate even when physically distant. Thank you, DARPA and Tim Berners-Lee! Also, an age of hot running water, toilet paper, modern medicine, etc. If I had been born 200 years ago I doubt I'd have lived through my first decade.)

[Gillianren]

Oh, yes. I miss Renaissance faire because it's fun to pretend and wonderful to see friends, not because I actually want to live in those days!

[Noclevername]

Just found out a cousin-in-law is moving into a house only 20 minutes from where we live. We'd been out of contact for some time, so it'll be good to have them nearby.

[Solfe]

My dog has belly deep snow to play in. She loves it.