I gave this a go about 3 years ago when the hackday project[1] first got published, it turns out choosing the parameters is _very_ disc dependent, since every disc is a little bit different (possibly even between lots of the same type, not published anywhere, and quite sensitive. I got it working for the CD-R's I got, but it took ~50 experiments to get ok parameters (the image was pretty good, but still wobbly in some areas of the disc).
That said, the end result is pretty cool, if hard to photograph.
As much as it was a meme, I really did see a split in what folks enjoyed between Doom and Animal Crossing during covid, and they basically boiled down to the same thing: yeah, this game is so relaxing, I just turn my brain off and play.
Doom: all flow state, no thoughts, just execution.
Animal Crossing: cozy, comfortable, routine.
Funny how both accomplish similar things despite being so different on the surface.
makemkv->mkv->handbrake->mp4 is pretty straightforward for saving media, especially if you don't mess with handbrake much (I just use one settings profile for everything). _Playing_ bluray directly from disk is a PITA because of needing to set up the encryption keys and extra system libraries.
The part that eats my time is converting the subtitles from an image format (vosub/psg) to a text format (srt), since the image formats have never worked well for me on plex. SubtitleEdit is good but it still takes manual managing.
Edit: I forgot about the annoyance of finding a drive that works with ripping software, iirc there's only a couple that will without flashing firmware
Holding down one arrow key and only pressing the other makes directional changes much quicker, since the second press overrides but doesn't cancel the first.
Hitting a semester in college where I just couldn't keep up the way I was used to (A's and B's by default). It was the first time I had to manage my workload and purposefully do a worse job on things (so I had time for everything) to just get C's. It was definitely easier to learn those skills in college than in the workplace.
Low risk, but never say never. Hilary in 2023 caused a bunch of flooding in SoCal and the NHC sent out a tropical storm warning, but with the California Current keeping the water cold along the west coast there's a pretty big barrier in the way, plus the winds blow away from the coast on average in that region. Hilary is a good example: it was a Cat 4 until it hit the cold water, landed as a Tropical Storm, and lost steam fairly quickly as an organized system (though still had impact via rainfall). Storms might start stronger and get further north, but I don't think it's high on the list of risks.
And for some more in depth discussion on the models and weather patterns while still being accessible, tropical tidbits released an outlook video this week https://youtu.be/QFID_jfNId4
Stuff: toss it if you don't have a clear, exact reason to keep it. It's nice to have things, and if you have room for them and it doesn't cost much keep them, but otherwise it's _just_ reacquisition cost if you need it (I know that is a meaningful cost sometimes, but also sometimes it's cheaper to ditch things)
People: they come and go, and often dropping them is not great but ok. Don't feel beholden to an acquaintance just because. The real ones though, and you know who they are, never let go of them. you only get a few of those people in life, don't waste them.
Job: if you're in this headspace, it's a commodity, you need to live but don't let it own you. use the toothbrush rule: don't throw out your old one until you have a new one, because it sure feels dumb to fish your old one out of the trash when you got busy and didn't make it to the store. But don't be afraid to throw out the toothbrush for one that's not worn out.
For everything in general: find what the actual issue is. That's a simple to say but massively hard thing to do. But, blowing up your life is something that shouldn't happen every 2-3 months or years, and the urge to do that is a sign of deeper problems that's mere change won't help.
> includes an actual, physical, hardware Gameboy Advance CPU
That's an old trick (though no less cool). The GBA had a GBC cpu in it for backwards compatibility, and it used a physical switch to change modes, toggled by the cartridge itself. And iirc the PS2 reused the PS1 cpu as a component on the board for I/O, so it was available for backwards compatibility as well (though with emulation help for other components).
for taking a computational fluids approach, I think yes, you're largely correct. Hurricanes have a class of models that are parametric, where you can get a 2 dimensional wind footprint based on some initial conditions; primarily central pressure, size (radius of max wind), and location. These models rely on empirical measurements to get simpler. NWS 23 (0) is an old model, it's the one I've implemented before. But there's been more refined parametric models that have come out, and updates to older ones, for example the work by Holland (1) and Wiloughby (2). Take this with a grain of salt, since I'm no expert in this field.
Hurricanes specifically are pretty friendly to relatively simple 2 dimensional models, since for the most part people care about the wind impacting the surface. So for that I've used raster files - xy grid is lat/lon, and you can encode a values per rgba channel, usually windspeed and central pressure, storm surge value if you have one, maybe surface friction at a point as well, I just use windspeed in these files (0). And rasters over time gives you animations, similar to this NHC product(1).
GeoJSON and Shapefiles in something like PostGIS is also viable for relatively small and simple things, like tracks or single 2D events, but once you start covering enough area or need to model in 3 dimensional grid, those more specialized file formats become more powerful.
I'm in the same boat, good with be and infra, mediocre at best with fe (I've accepted that I just don't enjoy it much). I've taken to very minimal UIs in just vanilla js, html, and almost no css. Basically, punt on the ui until it's something worth doing; if the project turns real either you'll find someone to make a pretty UI quick since the functionality is there, or you'll learn yourself.
Bonus, using ai to write css is much quicker than combinatorially trying every css layout option like I usually do since I never remember that stuff.
I'd love to have this, but I see two near insurmountable problems for most teams:
- velocity metrics go down and timelines stretch, because effort is "wasted" on things that don't get finished.
- someone needs to do the boring hard work of laying out a whole project in advanced, fairly clearly if folks are allowed to jump around on the project.
Without those two, either the team looks bad to management or folks get stuck in a dead end even if they want to work on something (or spend their whole "20%" time just gathering requirements)
To pile on the examples, I had a Comcast connection in SF that was 1gbit down, 5mbit up during covid (based on regular speed tests and what little I could glean from the plans without being the account holder). With 6 people in the house juggling video calls there was definitely some audio only days when schedules clashed.