Also it occurred to me a few days later that maybe I should have worn my regular classes during totality?
I am still operating under the (load-bearing) belief that I don't need glasses*, (although I got some back in 2018 just out of paranoia). But it was a little too hard to figure out which dancer was Hawaii on the football field back in the fall, so now I'm worried that my time has come.
*I don't need glasses and I don't have allergies, goddammit. I just take Allegra in cedar season/the winter because it seems to keep me from developing allergies.
I'm really bothered by post-Ozempic Jesse Plemons. Like is he even going to be a good actor anymore? How is he going to win an Oscar for a Phillip Seymour Hoffman biopic?
Here's a map with more granular geographic regions (I think they are media markets?).
https://x.com/mathieuavanzi/status/1778144182604890219?s=46&t=qd8I3ZXUD2bzNhzE_AtTxA
And they do not seem to be as elevated in a couple of areas along the path that were cloudy.
I missed the diamond ring on the way in because I was slow to take my glasses off. I think or is it visible w/glasses and I just moved my head? )Caught it on the way out.
For me this eclipse seemed to be make it a fair bit darker than I recalled in 2017. The moon was closer this time so a wider shadow path, but I was also quite near the edge of totality in 2024. So maybe a combination of those factors?
I too would like to loose weight without having to work at it. Maybe I should give Ozempic a shot.
Trump and eclipse in the same post without referencing this? https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/total-eclipse-trump-peeked-n794621
Did he do better this time?
It's a fun graphic I shared around, but for magnitudes, Google says from the 7th to the 12th, searches for "my eyes hurt" numbered 10, 75, 100, 33, 17, 13. So not all that many people, even if you multiply it by 100 for people who didn't google it, or didn't use the same search.
My eyes hurt after the eclipse, but they're fine now. I'm not sure how much is related to staring at the sun through glasses versus just being outside in the sun for like 5 hours.
I was worried but then had a really distinct sense memory of having the same psychosomatic experience in 1999.
I just went to my doctor yesterday and he noted my weight gain, but did not ask me about Ozempic. If Trump isn't lying about his weight, my BMI is worse than his. But I probably have more muscle.
9: You could challenge him to a wrestling match.
I asked my doctor about Ozempic and he said a lot of dissuasive stuff.
Not taking Ozempic, but have lost a decent amount of weight living away from home these past 4 months. Enough that I had to punch a new hole in my belt loop--which sure losing weight is often overrated, but that was certainly one hell of a satisfying bit of work. (But then there's the overly optimistic local artisan belt currently hanging in the shed with weight on it trying to stretch it to where it works at all.)
6: The stats in 6 make me potentially skeptical of the map I shared in 3; would like to see the data behind it.
14: You'll see something similar on Google Trends if you change from "state" to "metro" view. It does seem plausibly eclipse-related in that the eclipse-period searches are a large share of the whole-month (or whole-week) stats the map is from.
"Well you had to take off your glasses, because you couldn't find it otherwise!"
We had a thing to put over your phone's camera lens so you could take a picture. But it was really hard to use because you couldn't see where the phone buttons to adjust the camera were when you had the glasses on.
I too would like to loose weight without having to work at it.
Amputating a leg is probably an instant 25 pounds or so.
My breasts were about 4, but I managed to make it up.
You could have gotten implants first and lost more weight.
I figure circumcision has saved me about a pound.
If you get a vasectomy, you gain lots of weight because you keep making it but it can't get out.
Ozempic for weight loss seems like a recipe for unintended consequences down the road. Couldn't we just monkey with gravity instead?
you keep making it but it can't get out
Babies?
I think science has proven that little babies don't live in your balls.
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One of the main agricultural products of Sakurajima is a huge basketball-sized white radish (Sakurajima daikon).|>
22. Read H.G.Wells, The Truth about Pyecraft, if you're not familiar with it.
That was of course me.
Separately, would I be right in guessing Cook Inlet oil is basically done?
There is nothing too stupid, counterproductive, or dangerous that someone won't try to do to own the libs.
I'm a couple of weeks in with Ozempic, and haven't lost any weight. This after 6 weeks of so on Mounjaro, with no weight loss. I don't seem to be having any side effects, though, so there's no downside. I bet my A1c is pretty low, though.
29 I listened to episodes 3 and 4 of Serial season 4 last night. Sometimes it's not even about owning the libs: committing to a foolish ideology is sufficient for some really stupid shit.
Separately, would I be right in guessing Cook Inlet oil is basically done?
Yeah, absent a new tax credit regime to induce new drilling or something. They've had several auctions for leases with minimal industry interest. If there does end up being any government action to induce production it'll focus on gas rather than oil, though. It's the gas source for local use in Southcentral Alaska and everyone's freaking out because the producers aren't renewing their agreements with utilities. The utilities are talking seriously about importing LNG in the next few years.
I guess I should do my taxes since shooting down bunches of drones sounds expensive.
33: Thanks. Are there any Jones Act compliant LNG tankers?
Newcastle looking to get a good deal on some coals.
36: I doubt it, but they could do one of the usual workarounds by stopping in Vancouver or whatever.
Speaking of health, one of the twins woke up with abdominal pain at 2 am and was throwing up all morning so I took him to urgent care and they referred us to the ER in case it was appendicitis. Turns out it was! He's in surgery now. This is very routine these days so I'm not worried but it's an unexpected development.
On the upside, you'll now be able to tell which is which. When they're inside the igloo, anyway.
They look quite different these days, actually.
Also, way to bring it back to the topic.
Thanks. He's out of surgery and recovering. Turns out I need to stay the night at the hospital with him, which is annoying.
Sleeping in hospitals isn't a good way to get rested, that's for sure.
Hopefully they'll let us go home pretty early in the morning so we can get some actual sleep.
The health of an electric grid is the health of its people. Speaking of, is the old chatter about tidal power in the Anchorage Arms picking up?
oh man. Poor kid, hope he feels better now.
An appendix is lighter that a surgeon's watch.
He definitely feels way better now than before.
47: There's always lots of interest in tidal power in Alaska regardless of how feasible it is. No one is talking about damming the arms of the inlet anymore, though. The focus is on less disruptive in-water turbines, but the tech isn't really there yet.
And wind? Are there Arctic rated designs yet?
Oh yeah, wind is very mature and they're starting to propose some big projects on the main Railbelt grid. The main adjustment for the Arctic is to make the blades black so ice doesn't build up on them.
Blocking the Bering Straight would probably cause problems.
The Bering Chicane, OTOH, should be doable.
Driving through various big empty parts of West Texas I was struck by the variability in the density of wind farms. Was curious if there was that much variability in the wind speeds across the expanses. Turns out their location correlates pretty well with the highest average wind speeds although there are some relatively windy areas that do not have them (southern Hill Country for instance). And there are some significant variations in winds; I was struck at their lack in the area just south of the New Mexico border between the Guadalupe Mts. and Midland-Odessa, was wondering if iit was because that area is so completely dominated by oil production, but it is an area of relatively calmer winds.
It also suffers from html tag closure lossage.
I've only driven through that area around Midland-Odessa twice (to/from New Mexico as part of coast-to-cost drives) and it's one of the few places I've driven that smells like oil production for miles. I think the New Mexico side also smelled like oil but can't remember.
Wind production is very very site-specific and depends on factors like turbulence as well as wind speed per se. You need to collect a lot of data first to determine exactly where to put the turbines. It can vary a lot within quite small distances, and not in ways that are necessarily obvious before you study them.
That said, I'm sure the Permian Basin having relatively few wind farms does have something to with it being such a major oil-producing area.
55: There's been very little talk about offshore wind in Alaska so far, but the new regional director of BOEM used to work for DOE and he's expressed interest in promoting leasing for it. It wouldn't make sense in the Bering Sea, which is too far from the main grid. More likely in Cook Inlet or the Gulf of Alaska.
I drove through Iowa during the bitter cold of February 2021 when the oil people in Texas were saying that wind turbines don't function in the cold and Texas should have less wind power. The ones in Iowa were working just fine even though it was colder then in Texas.
I was thinking more exports. Aluminum, data centers, ammonia bunkering, whatever.
For that sort of thing you need energy that is actually cheap, not just cheap relatively to the extremely expensive status quo in rural Alaska. It may happen someday but it's not close.
I've been out of it for a few years, but am always a bit surprised that colder climates are not seen as at a huge advantage for data centers due to cooling requirements. There is some acknowledged advantages, but am always surprised to see places like San Antonio and Phoenix continue to get investment. Maybe latency trumps a lot of other things. I also know there is a lot of work on raising the allowable operating temperatures for computers but even then there would seem to be an appreciable cooling bonus.
Are you sure the people in charge of planning data centers aren't working for a dystopia?
The doctor came and said he looks great so sounds like we'll be leaving the hospital soon.
sounds like they got it out before it burst - yay! bc a burst appendix really did in our guy when he was a little one & man did he get skinny for a while.
Yes, they got it out before it burst, luckily. It went about as smoothly as we could have hoped. He's home now and doing well.
66: I wonder if there's some hypothetical sweet spot for AK (the Aleutians, in particular), given location (roughly equidistant NA-NEA), cooling (no droughts in the ocean; no urban heatwave AC demands on the grid), and power (Bering Sea winds; relief for pumped storage?).
And for quantum computing multiply those cooling considerations?
Geothermal is really the big opportunity there. I considered commissioning a study of this (remote industrial uses in general, not specifically data centers but also e.g. aluminum smelting a la Iceland, particularly looking at the Aleutians) years ago when I worked in this field but it never went anywhere. I think there is potential for that sort of isolated use in spots with good energy resources but the development costs and risks are very high.
71: unfortunately that's "equidistant" as in "equally far from either NE Asian or PNW workloads, and a long old way from the rest of North America". There's no fibre going west from Alaska and not that much going southeast not neither - compare the huge transpacific capacity: https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ There are a couple of projects going around the top but they're listed as not being ready for service before 2027 and might not happen.
66: it helps, a bit. there are some big DCs in northern Europe that are designed to use a lot of natural cooling. however you don't get to use *no* cooling, and you still need to control the humidity, and on the other hand, electricity is relatively expensive. By a fortunate disposition of providence a lot of places where there is a significant cooling bill also have really cheap solar power. Also there's the cost of the land under the DC.
The real sweet spot is in the Pacific NW, specifically Oregon and western Washington - really really cheap power from the Bonneville Power Administration's dams, not particularly hot, right on the doorstep for West Coast customers and acceptably close for most purposes anywhere in North America. And that's why all the hyperscalers have enormous facilities there.
74.1: Yes,that's why teo has to lay the fiber! And I bet land in the Aleutians is a steal.
More seriously, how much do data center workloads vary over the workday? Might AK relieve peak loads from successive NEA-NS workdays?
Speaking of Alaska and infrastructure, it blew my mind that Anchorage is now the highest volume freight airport in the US. (Passing Memphis, which was first for a long time as FedEx's sole hub. This was prompted by the absurd number of UPS planes flying over the Beyonce concert in Louisville, which is third.)
I just learned that a coworker has a child named after a Game of Thrones character. You read about such things, but I never thought it was real.
Has to be a girl, right? Daenerys is too obvious. My guess is Sansa.
Nope. I had always assumed the name was a reference to Shakespeare's guy from Midsummer Night's Dream, but I'd never seen it spelled out until today.
Oberon/Oberyn? (Or, I suppose, Auberon, if the coworker was a GK Chesterton fan.)
I was trying not to spell it out since this would be really identifiable.
81: No worries. It's hidden in the grass.
I have a friend with a kid named Arya, not named after Game of Thrones, and he insists it's a nice relatively normal name that people wouldn't associate with Game of Thrones after 5-10 years
Well, sure. But by then there's the risk they might associate it with something else.
a kid named Arya, not named after Game of Thrones
Interesting, never come across that as a name outside GoT - where is your friend from?
I have a friend with the same name - as in, first name and surname - as a major GoT character. She's never seen GoT either, to my knowledge.
A girl has no racist ideology.
A Son exists outside of time but is not coeternal with the Father.
An aria is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompaniment, normally part of a larger work.
That's why a rug that doesn't go wall-to-wall, but is only over an isolated part of the floor, is called an aria rug.
86: American and Canadian couple who live in Scotland. I'm skeptical, but I have to say that GoT did rather quickly leave the cultural zeitgiest after that terrible last season. And it's an easily pronounceable name and reasonably common in Persian.
At any rate they don't seem to have any regrets about it.
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A downside of working in coffee shops in Austin is that you're liable to overhear phrases like "visionary functionality in the user experience."
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"Visionary" in this context meaning visible?
It means the UI hallucinates user inputs from time to time.
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Oh man. I actually love our president, who used to be our VPAA, and it is an absolute delight for me to watch her thread the needle on thorny issues like this:
As some of you are aware, one of Heebie U's PRIDE Month activities is a drag show scheduled for April 25, sponsored by our student organization SA/FE (Sexual Awareness for Everybody). This event was originally scheduled to be held in the Chapel, as the group had difficulty locating an available space at this busy time of year. Initial approval was provided for several reasons, including the fact that the Chapel has been used for non-religious events in the past.
Apparently they changed to venue due to pissy Christians, I gather.
Within our community, there is both a desire to honor the Chapel as a sacred space as well as a desire to highlight the inclusiveness of Heebie U, which is also sacred. We are grateful to be part of a community that is willing to work through challenging issues together, as we strive to support our diverse community with its diverse perspectives.
I don't know why this language is so entertaining to me, but it is. Much better than being a functional visionary or a visionary funky, like Kraaby's friend.
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As someone who sometimes has meetings like that, I'm guessing they are talking about* doing something innovative or new in the UI for some web or app based product.
* I mean, they are saying it. It's vanishingly unlikely they are actually doing it.
74:The real sweet spot is in the Pacific NW, specifically Oregon and western Washington - really really cheap power from the Bonneville Power Administration's dams, not particularly hot, right on the doorstep for West Coast customers and acceptably close for most purposes anywhere in North America. And that's why all the hyperscalers have enormous facilities there.
Right. And as someone who spent a significant part of my career in the aluminum industry, it was interesting to watch the aluminum smelter-> data center transformation. The PNW was the center of US smelting until about 2000, but it has dropped off precipitously since then. Data centers need cheap power, smelters need really cheap power. And beyond the amount of power, smelters required redundant supply (the ramifications of an unexpected shutdown were huge and costly), so similar to data centers and that infrastructure was in place.
I believe China still has a huge amount of smelting using coal-powered electricity (may have changed?) which is a mess on a number of different levels.
And as someone who spent a significant part of my career in the aluminum industry,
Shall we say that you put the "I" in aluminium?
101: That whole topic is full of apocrypha and controversy.
This has the basic facts:
https://www.spectraaluminum.com/aluminum-vs-aluminium.html
Sir Humphry [Davy] was not immediately decisive about the name, initially spelling it alumium in 1807. He then changed it to aluminum, and finally settled on aluminium in 1812.uh
One story is that early on Alcoa ordered stationary that left out the second 'i' so that prevailed in the states. Problem is that at the time that spelling really got going Alcoa was known at The Pittsburgh Reduction Company.
Shall we say that you took the "uh" out of aluminuhum?
smelting using coal-powered electricity (may have changed?)
Is changing, somewhat.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/aluminiums-fortunes-tied-yunnan-weather-forecast-2023-04-21/
They had employees called "reductivists".
66: Remember that (limiting to the norm of inhabited places) the difference between outdoor temperature and room temperature is on average higher in cold places than warm places, so for all the moralizing about air conditioning, they spend far more energy heating indoors in the Northeast US than in the Southwest.
107:Sure for buildings in general (although there are other factors than just temp difference--heating is a more direct and "efficient" use of energy than cooling). But for datacenters you have the heat generation built in.
They produce waste heat, but does that actually give sufficient heat in, say, Alaska? Maybe it just means your heating bill is 20% lower.
I think that in all but most extreme cases they can more than heat themselves. Article below talks about using excess heat from a dc in Finland to heat homes.
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/data-center-warms-homes-waste-heat
Alex's map in 74 shows the problem; look how far the central Aleutians (where the energy resources are) are from any of the cables. At least with aluminum smelting you don't necessarily need that kind of connectivity, and there are major shipping lanes nearby. None of this is really practical in the near term though.
109, 110: Any industrial process on this scale is likely to produce more than enough waste heat for local space heat needs. We're talking huge amounts of energy.
Even in cold climates; like JP says, heating is a much more efficient use of available energy than electric generation for cooling (or anything else really) and that makes a difference.
OT: conviction in the film set shooting case. Armourer got 18 months for involuntary manslaughter. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/15/rust-shooting-armorer-sentencing
What use had Big Al for a geographer?
What does the Eschaton need with a starship?
Teofilo, Pourer of Cold Water.
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"without the proven support of the new patriots who have only discovered patriotism since 2019 and who cynically disguise it to mask their chronic incapacity and accuse those who are not of their allegiance of variable-geometry treachery."|>
Actually sort of on original topic:
https://mayadecipherment.com/2024/04/05/the-solar-eclipse-record-from-santa-elena-poco-uinic/