You may want to opt out of those services. Even LinkedIn seems to know it’s got potential to be a flaming hot train wreck, apparently to the point where they desire no responsibility for the public messages made by their machine that they own, train, and qc.

I built a PC for my little sister in 2007. She was starting college and didn’t have a computer. It totaled 2805 and some change, custom built through Antares Digital (When you know, you Lili). These were all top of the line components (Asus M2N32-WS PRO, Amd athlon64 X2 AM2 5200, Corsair Memory). Not a cheapy system in its day.

Three nights before I was to deliver it to her, I completed all of the setup, had all the software ready to go, even setting up a custom theme for her (We were both metalheads). My folks said that she would need a printer/fax/copy/scanner as well, so last minute, I ended up buying an HP 5610 at target for 192 dollars.

The HP instructions didn’t say that if you connected the cable between the printer and the PC before you had installed the drivers, the printer would not mount as a device. In fact, it would never connect to that PC ever again. Apparently, it ruined the registry until you reformatted and reinstalled the OS.

To be fair, the manual did say to install the drivers first, then the cable, but this was not the norm back then and they didn’t really emphasize it in any way, nor did it mention that you were about to be FITA big time. Had to scramble to completely reformat the drive, reinstall all the software… Essentially, starting over from a blank slate and getting done in 2 days for delivery to her dorm on move in day. It did connect second time around.

I wrote them an angry letter regarding the poor deployment, but of course I never heard back from them. Never bought another HP for myself or anyone else ever again. I go out of my way to encourage people to not buy anything from HP. If I happen to be somewhere and see someone looking at an HP printer, I’ll just approach them, introduce myself, and tell them my story to discourage them from buying it.

Not sure, but I suspect rates just went up. I’m just a science geek from North Carolina that does refractory for a living, hence my interest.

I watched as the first home caught fire. It was brutal to watch it. I did read that it was not occupied. It does not appear on a lot of maps. The second home though that went up was occupied. This was someone’s home, someone’s place of solace. Children were raised here. Memories were rooted here. It was a total loss. I read that (3) homes in total were destroyed by fire due to the 100km southern fissure’s lava output, though I only saw (2). I am unsure about the third. I am unsure where the third one was.

Numerous other homes are going to be severely damaged though. Hot water is actually quite abundant I hear due to the geothermal power plant. The lavaflow from the 900km main fissure was mostly deflected by the berm away from Grindavik, but the berm untimately guided it to the pipeline. Geographically speaking and considering the timeframe they had to work in, I don’t think it could be helped.

I understand that hot water is a primary source of heat since it’s a cheap and abundant byproduct of the powerplant. It’s what you’re also bathing in at the Blue Lagoon Hot Springs. Now devoid of heat, I would suspect that many homes are now going to suffer damage from frozen/busted pipes.

My heart still goes out to the incredible people of Iceland. I’d like to think I could cope with an event like this, but I’m fairly certain I would puss out. Icelanders are far more metal than I.

Either a third fissure has opened (there is a mini-cluster of larger magnitude quakes in his area), the second fissure has extended into town, or more homes are catching on fire. It’s getting hard to tell which due to the volcanic gasses (White), smoke (Black) and just the darkness of winter.

There was a another mini-cluster of earthquakes further to the south edge of town as well. With it’s proximity to the sea it will cause a severe amount of damage.

I feel this is a historic event. I’m also a refractory designer, which places this squarely in my realm of interest, but it’s heartbreaking to have to watch in slow motion. This would be very cool if it were not for the human element present in these conditions.

A closer view of the initial damage. This could very well be the beginning of the end for Grindavik.

It noteworthy to mention that the town has been evacuated and the people are not in harms way, but this was likely someones home. My heart breaks for you folk.

A close up view frown Professor Shawn Willsey’s livestream showing just how close the southern fissure is to town. This was taken a few hours ago via ariel drone. The vent opened in real time while the drone was flying and observing the northern rift.

A few hours later, a structure in northern Grindavik closest to the southern fissure appears to have caught on fire.

If there is any good news to be found, the eruption appears to have lost a bit of its initial thunder.

An updated map of the fissure. Additionally, a new vent has opened in town. This is not good

Live coverage from an actual geologist Shawn Wilsey

A map of land elevation for the Svartsengi region during the campaign of this particular magma intrusion event.

A map plotting the 569 earthquakes (and still counting over the last 24 hours). These are mostly centered around the magma intrusion.

If you are looking at camera 4 (yellow), the camera is situated atop porbjorn looking west and a bit south. The red lines are an approximation of the rift. The building near center frame becoming surrounded by lava is their greenhouse. Town is at the right.

Edit: My line is drawn incorrectly. It is a bit more west on the other side of Hagafell.

At 7:57am, the fissure opened. Whereas last time the fissure opened up far to the north and east of Grindavik, they were not so lucky this time. The fissure has now spread much more south in the Hagafell region. It seemed to me as though it erupted at the southern end of the fissure that erupted in December. At the time of this post (11:00am), magma is only a few hundred feet from the greenhouse and maybe a mile from Grindavik.

A considerable portion of the rift spread under the protective berm they created over the last few weeks. While the berm was effective (Think sandbags stacked up to stop flood waters, but with dirt and stone), It could only ever stop a certain amount of liquid flow. This spreading of the fissure effectively circumvented it’s protection for areas of the fissure inside the berm. The best case scenario now is that the southern end of the fissure ceases and cools before it can eject enough matter to overwhelm the town, which is now downhill.

Send hope that Grindavik and it’s populace are spared. This is close to a worst case scenario.

CDs are still king with me. 1,957 and still counting. I feel cheated if I don’t get to enjoy that romance of flipping through the liner notes while listening to the CD that first time. I rip the songs I like after a few days of listening to it. I suspect the day will come when MP3’s will not be free.

DVD’s too. Almost 1,400 of them as well.

I did have to let the cassette tapes go. I kept some of the rarer ones, but they weren’t meant to last 40 years and would not likely survive another rewind.

I use Brave Browser (with Ublock Origin and AdBlock) and rarely have any issues. I do have Freetube downloaded, installed and ready to go for when they escalate their game (and they will). For certain other applications, a youtube downloader can be quite handy.

Ads truly are the most annoying, counterproductive and least creative way of putting yourself out there. Even worse, they can never seem to match an ad with the content it gets forced upon, and this serves only to train people to associate their brand with uselessness and irrelevance. Even if you have a product that is good, you’ve just presented yourself as an obstructing pair of clown shoes and that becomes your first and long-lasting impression. When the time comes that they may need it, most people will not remember your product from that ad, only that your brand is a pair of clown shoes.

The simple truth is, if you have a good product, you do not need advertising. You only need advertising if you have a bad product and you are worried that negative word of mouth will spread faster than you can dupe your share of people into buying it.

Edit: Replaced a word that may be taken as a slur.

You’re one of them, aren’t you?

Oh, I’d get the entire barrel of salt, but it feels right this time, unlike the others.

I find it encouraging nonetheless. I’m excited for Russia. They may soon get a chance to rebuild their nation.

Wow, very cool.

As a refractory designer, nearly every day of my life for the last seventeen years has been spent createing linings or shapes for large complex industrial vessels, mostly steel, glass or cement, and this hits me where I live.

I also find the math and geometry of my work quite soothing. You haven’t lived until you’ve calculated a brick dome manually. The math is so pure.

Congratulations on all your hard work India. Ride the wave. It’s a great accomplishment.

Well there is supposed to be a 4-sided pyramid (similar to Gaza but bigger) and also some kind of large underground base for UAP.

What is there? I dunno. Sometime after Operation Highjump, It was decided that folks like us are no longer permitted to go there. It could be an intergalactic puppy farm for all I know.

But I do like the mystery.

There’s supposed to be quite a few things down in that ice. Some encased. Some not so much. Some natural. Some not so much.