I've noticed that, except me, most of you don't post too much at weekends.
I don't want to know the reason for.

So, this is the thread with a new concept of subject. It doesn't have a defined subject but a defined time lag.
You can post whatever subject you want but only at "leisure time", at the weekend.

Post modernism arrived at DnD. New experimentations for meta - forums.
I hope this thread to be a total failure.

You could do with more but where you live bombs that out.

This/next year the Day of Divergence is on a weekend. So Happy New Zealand!

The Day of Divergence tomorrow is not, but this post is.

@jax, I forgot to mention the missus named a horse after you. He's 6-7mos old now, I'll try to remember to snap a new pic or grab a birth pic off my old phone. In good form with circumstances that's likely to be random. But little horsey just popped out months ahead of expectations. So random that the missus elected to name him after the OP of the Random Horse thread. 

There's a music called A Horse with No Name. Made by a group called America.

That sounds fun. I had also forgotten all about that thread, it's a nice one.

And now the divergence has begun. New Zealand is in 2019, the rest of us (barring some Pacific islands) live in an entirely different year.

Best wishes for all in 2019!

 
A great 2019 for everybody.

Mandarin is not a Chinese word and mandarin ducks now live in Portugal.

[The word "mandarin"] encapsulates an entire colonial history. In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to reach China. Traders and missionaries followed, settling into Macau on land leased from China's Ming dynasty rulers. The Portuguese called the Ming officials they met mandarim, which comes from menteri in Malay and, before that, mantrī in Sanskrit, both of which mean "minister" or "counselor." It makes sense that Portuguese would borrow from Malay; they were simultaneously colonizing Malacca on the Malay peninsula.

For centuries, Europeans' impressions of China filtered largely through the Portuguese. [...] From the vantage-point of English speakers, many of the exonyms for non-European places and languages come filtered through the languages of former colonial powers. Bombay and Ceylon, for example, also come from the Portuguese, whose empire once sprawled through Asia.

I hate the periodic chart. This one makes sense.

From the chart: "The chart emphasizes that in real life a chemist will probably meet O, Si, Al,...and that he better do something about it."

Okay. The thing to do about O is probably - breathe.

But what is the empty space under Al? Should we do something about that too?

Okay. The thing to do about O is probably - breathe.

You breathe much more than just O

But what is the empty space under Al? Should we do something about that too?

That's a mysterious empty space. Learn to live with mystery in your life. 

But what is the empty space under Al? Should we do something about that too?

If you encounter that it steals your molecules.

 It does look like it's sucking up all the matter from the bottom ones and adding it to the top of the list.

Iranians shot a U.S. drone down, in Iran airspace. Trump declared full-out war. Or maybe he retracted the declaration. Or maybe he was stopped. Or maybe his puppetmaster reconsidered.

https://www.voanews.com/middle-east/trump-reportedly-approved-military-retaliation-after-iran-shootdown-us-drone

***
Trump warns Iran of 'obliteration' in event of war

Quite predictably, when you are a U.S. president, you must make war. Even when you are Trump supposedly draining the swamp.

***
According to experts, judging by Trump's tweets, either the procedure of deciding over war with Iran went very irregularly or Trump totally dreamed up being part of such a procedure https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-iran-strike-civilian-death-toll-10-minutes-nsc-2019-6

According to experts, judging by Trump's tweets, either the procedure of deciding over war with Iran went very irregularly or Trump totally dreamed up being part of such a procedure

Given that everyone seems to agree the Trump administration is dysfunctional (not just some "leaked" messages from the UK ambassador) it seems plausible enough to assume it went at least somewhat irregularly.

A five-hour blackout in Manhattan left Jennifer Lopez "devastated and heartbroken" because her concert had to be called off and rescheduled https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48978692

For those who still have electricity this weekend, re-watch Tour de France for the occasional nice landscapes https://sport.francetvinfo.fr/tour-de-france/replay/

She has to say something, I guess. Presumably market research shows that being overdramatic has the best results with the audience.

or those who still have electricity this weekend, re-watch Tour de France for the occasional nice landscapes https://sport.francetvinfo.fr/tour-de-france/replay/

You can actually watch that? I'm geoblocked.

If I really wanted to I suppose I could make an account around here (or around here for Belgian Dutch). They didn't require any accounts up to a few months ago.

But over at Dutch TV it's surprisingly not geoblocked. Could be an oversight? The quality is abysmal to make up for it.

Personally I'd just watch something like this program about squirrels if I wanted landscapes and stuff. Actually for landscapes this documentary about Canadian national parks would probably do better, but it's geoblocked. Meanwhile, over on satellite you can receive Arte in all languages FTA, as well as all the geoblocked British, French, German, etc. TV.

About a decade ago I thought satellite might become obsolete thanks to the Internet, but the situation has become much worse since with all those geoblocks. It seems that satellite is still quite relevant for that reason. However, non-satellite TV is still as limited and obsolete as it has been since the '90s.

On the plus side, the most interesting TV, such as Arte, is typically the least geoblocked.

or those who still have electricity this weekend, re-watch Tour de France for the occasional nice landscapes https://sport.francetvinfo.fr/tour-de-france/replay/

You can actually watch that? I'm geoblocked.

There are means to bypass it. In your case, Freedom to Stream is just a tiny train ride away.

About a decade ago I thought satellite might become obsolete thanks to the Internet, but the situation has become much worse since with all those geoblocks. It seems that satellite is still quite relevant for that reason. However, non-satellite TV is still as limited and obsolete as it has been since the '90s.

In modern cable/streamed (as opposed to radiowave-broadcast) TV there is an updated feature of re-watching or re-playing. But yes, it is still too limited. From what I have seen, the re-watch is only available max 30 days back and you can only browse the schedules in calendary manner as per clocktimes, which makes no sense when you want to watch a whole season of some series in unbroken order. So the TV thing is not worth the waste of money and nerves in this era. And no more updates seem to be forthcoming to this service. The development tends towards the opposite - other internet sharing and on-demand services are being rolled back to resemble the limitations of modern TV.

On the plus side, the most interesting TV, such as Arte, is typically the least geoblocked.

Yes, Arte and things like it are nice. Some Youtube celebs have recently taken to promote Curiositystream, which is a storage of science and nature docus. For a while I considered subscribing to it, but more likely I won't.

A five-hour blackout in Manhattan left Jennifer Lopez "devastated and heartbroken"

She still has concerts and people go to them?! Fascinating.

About a decade ago I thought satellite might become obsolete thanks to the Internet, but the situation has become much worse since with all those geoblocks. It seems that satellite is still quite relevant for that reason.

Now every network is just starting their own streaming service for $15/mo. so the dream of cheaper content on demand has died as well. No matter what the same few corporations have to own it all.

 

Some Youtube celebs have recently taken to promote Curiositystream, which is a storage of science and nature docus. For a while I considered subscribing to it, but more likely I won't.

Yeah, sounds like a way for the algorithm to trash your feed with every idiotic thing remotely similar.

Personally I'd just watch something like this program about squirrels if I wanted landscapes and stuff.

There's three in my yard right now that needs shooting. Little fuckers developed a taste for the wires in my truck.

In modern cable/streamed (as opposed to radiowave-broadcast) TV there is an updated feature of re-watching or re-playing. But yes, it is still too limited.

Since we've had HDD-based recorders (i.e., since before this rewatching feature) that's only relevant if you notice part x of something in the guide and you'd like to see part 1 through x-1 too. In theory that could be quite relevant indeed, but as you said in practice it's only a few weeks. Of course, chances are there'll be at least some reruns, so you can probably catch it at some point. Regardless, it still feels like TV in the '90s, when you had to choose to watch your older recordings or tape over it. (Or you could keep buying new tapes, I suppose.)

Case in point, I recently visited my parents and we watched a documentary recorded about a decade ago. Even if a rewatch feature went back that far, it'd require an elaborate bookmarking system that services like YouTube technically have but make exceedingly hard to use. It feels more like a vestigial feature that they haven't removed yet.

For me YouTube's descent into faux TV didn't become apparent until they removed the star-based rating system. They said just thumbs up & down was enough for them to distill the ratings. Which may well be true, but it's also completely irrelevant. If most videos I watched are thumbs up, I cannot search for the best videos I watched in 2017. I could track this separately if I really wanted to, and it would be smarter to do so because YouTube isn't the only place around, but it's pretty bizarre to me that they thought that little bit of vendor lock-in on my end was worth removing.

Yeah, sounds like a way for the algorithm to trash your feed with every idiotic thing remotely similar.

Some people claim their YouTube suggestions are relevant. I'm having a hard time believing that, or maybe they just mean something else than I do. If I watch a video about some old Atari console, all my suggestions are for Atari stuff. Which, sure, I might watch more about I guess, but you have literally years of my viewing habits at your disposal and yet you suggest stuff I literally watched last week and videos that are practically carbon copies of the one I just finished... I think YouTube should be able to do better.

There's three in my yard right now that needs shooting. Little fuckers developed a taste for the wires in my truck. 

Oy!

Some people claim their YouTube suggestions are relevant. I'm having a hard time believing that, or maybe they just mean something else than I do. [...] I think YouTube should be able to do better.

Are you still giving them a benefit of the doubt? I am never logged in there and I open it up only in browsers where all cookies are purged upon exit, so I always search up stuff that I explicitly want, not what they think I want. Otherwise YT (and other Google-y services) swiftly become rabbithole echochambers and one's perception of the world gets warped accordingly.

Of course, by not being logged in I lose awesome niceties like liking, subbing, etc. but what the heck. I like nothing anyway. I am callous like this.

If I watch a video about some old Atari console, all my suggestions are for Atari stuff. Which, sure, I might watch more about I guess, but you have literally years of my viewing habits at your disposal and yet you suggest stuff I literally watched last week and videos that are practically carbon copies of the one I just finished... I think YouTube should be able to do better.

Yep, that's how they get ya.

If you ever sub one you'll get all the stuff THEY watch too. 

The missus likes funny animal vids and sometimes I watch clips from movies or TV, to see if I'm interested. I've learned clicking dislike, regardless of how I felt about it, helps the algorithm understand not to littler my suggested with such... sorta.

Since we've had HDD-based recorders (i.e., since before this rewatching feature)

You mean where the TV signals when the show starts so the VCR can start recording at the correct moment? Did this feature ever work? These days at my neighbour's when I seek up something to re-watch, I usually have to scroll some good 20 minutes to get to the right spot, so these start/end signals still do not work. Absolute piece of crap worthless junk service not worth paying for.

I would maybe mildly consider it once they begin to provide the opportunity to record/save stuff on USB stick. Well, not even then.

I don't watch enough actual TV to be a good judge. But even so most of the time I watch what's on the DVR via my PC. I've never noticed a problem with capturing the program. Xfinity's website can be bothersome. I find the clunkiness of a TV remote interface to be far more bothersome, tho. I guess YouTube has spoiled me in one way at least.

Are you still giving them a benefit of the doubt?

Benefit of the doubt? I'm not quite sure in what regard I'd be doing that. I use it because it's a sufficiently convenient way to track my subscriptions. Occasionally seeing the worthless suggestions is more of a combination between an accident, curiosity, and perhaps schadenfreude.

You mean where the TV signals when the show starts so the VCR can start recording at the correct moment? Did this feature ever work?

No, that was already available on VHS recorders (and yes, it worked back in the '90s). I was referring simply to the fact that HDDs aren't tapes or DVDs. Sure, you have to perform the occasional bit of management, i.e., deletion and programming, but that's about it.

Absolute piece of crap worthless junk service not worth paying for.

But... that's not a paid service. It's just part of the signal.

The missus likes funny animal vids and sometimes I watch clips from movies or TV, to see if I'm interested. I've learned clicking dislike, regardless of how I felt about it, helps the algorithm understand not to littler my suggested with such... sorta.

One thing the suggestions/autoplay do seem to get right is going from part 1 to part 2 of a series of videos.