It would help if Hollywood made good movies or the distributors brought in good ones from other countries. But it wouldn't help my local idiot chain, they show garbage.

Normally when I go to Phoenix, I LOVE to take in a movie at Harkins or AMC. I've been there four times in the last five months: ZERO movies seen. I despair, and am about to start ripping my 700+ movies to Jellyfin.

The original series of Yes, Minister was a masterclass of saying what you don't mean.

I sold expensive copper cables to people who wanted them. And I told them that AC power zip lines would work pretty much just as well, and that's what I use for my audio system. But hey, whatever brings you joy.

I read 66+ books last year, suck on that, mega-readers! ;-)

Considering the rate at which we are furiously burning international good will, and that we're seeing foreign degreed scientists and researchers not come to this country for conferences and such, AND we're seeing OUR scientists and researchers leave the USA for foreign countries, I guess we'll have to see how well Abhay's statement ages.

And I mainly buy it when travelling, I need the rocket fuel for 500 mile drives. Iced peppermint mocha with whipped cream. Nothing special, that's it. And I stand a 25-50% chance of it getting messed up, one way or another. Granted, the robot in question is talking about back office operations, but if one could make my order 100% correct, I'd be all for it.

My wife's father became a conservative after a heart attack. There's definite evidence to brain damage causing personality changes.

8ish years ago I worked at an Air Force base (contract) with a group of guys to replace every computer on the base with an HP laptop that we installed a Win 10 image on made by USAF IT guys. I wonder how those laptops held up over time and what they're looking at for upgrades now.

All we did was image them and verify that they booted, the uninstall the old equipment and verify that the new system booted properly after installation then we were done, we didn't have CACs to log in. We even did SCIFs, but they were shut down while we were present.

Just wondering.

The only reason that I log my books read is to easily recommend books to friends or others later. I'm a librarian and that's useful to me. The professional angle, though, is irrelevant: I was logging and recommending before I got the job.

I read approximately 66 books last year: biography, historical, sci fi, manga, etc.: lots of women authors. I didn't break it down by gender, though. I should consider that. I did switch to comfort reads as my brother was dying and will be continuing that for the near future.

and three lenses to complement my Mamiya RB67 when I don't want to carry heavy. I usually have my Canon R6 Mk 2 when I'm shooting along with my Minolta flash meter for those Mamiyas.

But I'm weird. And my iPhone 16 gets plenty of work.

I needed to cut my stay short by two or three days, and because I booked direct on the hotel site and not through a third-party site, I had no problem. They said if I had not booked direct, they could not have stopped the charge because of the site wanting their commission cut. At the same time, you have to look at whether or not you're booking a non-refundable room rate or you may be stuck regardless. You still have to be a savvy shopper.

I can imagine a cluster of tape writers as I've seen one. At Apache Point Observatory, during the initial phases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, they were gathering so much data every night that they were streaming it on to like six DLT tapes. Those were then shipped daily to University of Washington. Rinse, repeat. It was a pretty neat rack installation.

I'd love to see trailers for fake movies, if it were done well. Like for that Orson Wells(?) movie that never got made, I think there was also a gangster movie trailer that circulated, I don't remember the details. I think that could be a lot of fun. But I doubt they'd ever get that creative.