Unlurker

AWS is 10x slower than a dedicated server for the same price [video] (youtube.com)

S3 is also 10x more expensive than this single consumer grade second hand hard drive I have. Managed NAT gateways are also 10000x more expensive than my router. This is a boring argument that has been done to death.

I hate these comparisons because it's not apples to apples. The entire point of AWS is so you don't have to get a dedicated server. It's infra as a service.

'Once in 300 years' rain hits Thai city as floods ravage South East Asia (bbc.com)

'Once in 300 years'??? While the functional form of the statistical distributions themselves might still be valid, certainly the old parameters are no longer so.

The entire thesis of once in 300 years or once in 1000 years or once in 100 years weather event really has to be let go by the media. The fact is these things are happening or more and more often and are a direct result of climate change and then not once in 300 years, they’re happening all the time

yeah they should measure rainfall in swimming pools, or sydney harbours.

I mean, we’re still working on convincing people that climate change is actually happening, so if they want to keep reporting the 100yr storms that happen every year now, that’s fine by me.

They should be clearer: "storms that were once in a 100 years in the 'old' climate". But how do you fit in nuance and statistics into news headlines etc?

Space Truckin' – The Nostromo (2012) (alienseries.wordpress.com)

Tangential: Alien(s) brought H.R. Giger to my attention, for which I shall ever be thankful. My parents visited Gruyères in Switzerland a couple of years ago, and whilst they didn't tour the museum[0] (his art isn't their thing) they did take a couple of photos of the sculptures outside for me. I'll get there one day. [0]: https://www.hrgigermuseum.com/en/

His cafè just opposite the museum is also quite something, chairs and tables from spine-infested shapes. And when in Gruyères then one should taste meringues double crème, or fondue in colder months. And last but not least - its a region of Swiss pre-alps, mountains up to cca 2000m high, lovely hikes all around in picture-perfect nature and fields (government pays farmers to keep it looking nice) and even nearby very nice via ferrata on Moléson peak which I did 2 weeks ago, this time with some snow. It overlooks the castle and whole area from avove. That was interesting and intense experience while being alone on whole mountain.

That website was really frustrating on iOS, had to close it before seeing much.

Swiss people can't ever grasp html

With all the back and forth over the props, also with Ridley Scott scrapping loads of spaceship footage in order to reshoot everything after repainting the models, I get the impression that communication was quite bad in the production. I'm sure we've all encountered this in industry to some degree but having months of work tossed because it ain't look right must sting somewhat.

I was taken by how freely they spent months of man hours on things to go 'meh' and casually throw them away. Different world. Quite holistic with their production costs

Once production starts the costs for many roles are locked in and they work till it wraps, often due to union rules and contracts. Anyone working in parallel with the film crews just does whatever the director/producers prioritizes since they’re not getting sent home. It's definitely a different world though because you’re not supposed to go under budget. If investors give you $100mil to make a movie, they want to maximize the return on that $100mil, so if you’re $5mil under budget, they want you to go and spend that money to make it even better (usually in post production now, but back then it was less of an option).

people brush their teeth three times a day???

I thought the article was great, but I couldn't get that sentence out of my head!

Have you watched Alien: Earth?

Yes, that and Romulus is what I was thinking of. Alien Earth has that whole fanfic-style flashback episode.

↙ time adjusted for second-chance

Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good (kristofferbalintona.me)

Caveat: all this is on iOS: The only reason I want emacs on my phone is the one thing I don’t have: I want my org notes to be on both desktop and mobile. But syncing files across both has been dreadful, even in paid apps: duplicates everywhere and I constantly have to rechoose the files in a file finder UI. So my reminders are not just ever present for the time when they’re relevant, they’re just “not there” unless I take a lot of manual steps (if I’m lucky only) once a day.

For Android, https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncthingfork/ works really well. I've heard good things about https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/synctrain/id6553985316?platform=iphone for iOS, but I'm guessing it can't work constantly in the background like on Android?

I don't use emacs or org mode, so I'm probably way off the mark, but I imagine I'd use git if I were to do something like that?

Yup: emacs for editing org-mode files but git for sync.

> don't listen to ~any emacs user's opinion I sort of came here to say the same thing. The intersection between (the set of people who care about good UX) and (the set of people who would try to use emacs on android) is the empty set. Emacs users' self-flagellation is pretty legendary, and I say this as an emacs user (though I've mostly given up on how janky and slow it is compared to modern editors and only use it for magit these days)

I’m an Emacs enthusiast and also build iOS apps powered by org markup. The more I used my apps, the more I wanted their UX optimised for mobile. This often means completely rethinking the Emacs experience when bringing to mobile. This is most obvious in my latest app [1]. Org markup fully fades as implementation details. Of all my apps, this is the one I personally use the most. Proudly, I also started getting non-Emacs users interested in org [2]. Anyway, that’s all to say that as an Emacs fan, I want the full Emacs experience on desktop, but when on iPhone, I want fully optimised mobile UX. No meta anything there ;) [1] https://xenodium.com/journelly-like-tweeting-but-for-your-eyes-only [2] https://ellanew.com/ptpl/157-2025-05-19-journelly-is-org-for-those-who-dont-do-org

I just haven't found Emacs to be particularly productive over SSH. IMO it works best on a local machine, there's just too much in the GUI which isn't as workable over terminal. Font rendering, images, clickable text links all take a hit. None are really deal breakers, but Emacs TUI just kind of feels like an afterthought. X11 over SSH doesn't feel responsive to me. Its almost more of an aesthetic choice really, its just that Emacs feels comfier to me on a local machine. You otherwise lose too much of that feeling of customizing everything to your own taste, which is to me the nicest part of Emacs. It's kind of what I imagine a well tuned Forth to feel like. Neovim is great over SSH, and I kind of prefer it as an editor - but Org support is too compelling. I've tried Neovim Org configs but they just can't compete with the legacy of Emacs Org. Org roam is unbeatable even with the preponderance of wiki style knowledge base apps. Org publish is just too good, as well. I've played with Neorg, and I really like it as a project, but it does feel like it is about 20 years behind. I use git a lot but it runs into the large binary problem. I know git-annex is supposed to be good, but I haven't used it much. Syncthing is good but a lot of UI. I like unison but it isn't super well suited to the 'background sync' workflow. My laptop is also a modified chromebook with a 50 GB HDD. I could get a real computer and solve a lot of my sync issues tomorrow, but then what would I have to complain about? I see people with surface pros running VB studio, drinking Folger's with no discernable side effects and they are probably happier and more productive than I am. Point being I might try Emacs on android

I've used git-annex and I'll tell you, it's overcomplicated. Git LFS is probably better.

Space: 1999 – Special Effects Techniques (catacombs.space1999.net)

I think Space: 1999's greatest achievement was its design. The whole aesthetic, from Alpha's styling to the clothing, is simply gorgeous, and easily surpasses the visuals of many series that followed. That, and the funky theme, of course.

Dat guitar. It lives rent free in my mind.

I strongly agree. The actual plots of Space1999 were pretty laughable but I don’t think the production design has ever been beaten, even it today’s shows. The sets and vehicles look fully functional, even the clothes look perfectly wearable despite being very 70s. Contrast this with Star Trek, with weird consoles and uniforms that look uncomfortable. The theme is, of course, beyond reproach. I like to imagine the producers couldn’t decide between epic sci-fi chords, funk, and jangly surf guitar so the composer just said screw it and did all three.

The plots are also extremely illogical and incoherent. I think though the greatest failure is in character development. Rewatching it recently I felt like it was a drama about a really bad boss. Martin Landau's character is a terrible leader: shouty, over emotional, inclined to sudden bouts of despair, micromanaging. It's obviously a great pity because as everyone agrees it's a beautiful show with a top notch theme.

> The actual plots of Space1999 were pretty laughable And sooooo slooooooooow. Given the fact that is was such an expensive (for the time) show, I really, really want to know how it is that they couldn't cough up for a writer that could produce something engaging rather than completely forgettable. I mean it's not like SciFi was new at that point. Flash Gordon, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, etc. were more than a decade old and even Star Trek was more than 5 years old.

For the time, it was OK. Audiences needed the time to digest some of it.