This week's the anniversary of my dad's death so I've been nostalgic. Here are a some of his record collection that I can remember. No idea where they are now but he kept them at least until I was 18.

Yep.

I've suffered wrist pain for years which I narrowed down to overuse of the mouse - whatever I do to try and alleviate it.

I spent a long, long time training myself to maximise keyboard / minimise mouse use which doesn't cause me pain. Had to stop playing video games among another changes. Clicking over and over again would almost definitely be a trigger. I doubt one time would be a problem but it's not worth it.

I'm not looking for sympathy but to deliberately disable keyboard control in a browser feels egregious to me.

This looks great but a usability headache.

Ignoring the keyboard and forcing me to use a mouse to navigate is a big no sadly.

You'd think some verification would just be automatic.

At least for email addresses.

I receive emails from an Australian bank. I used to get emails meant for a very active church member in Alabama (Marcia's recovered now you'll be glad to hear.)

Also email alerts (raised by a car's management system sensors) about a Jeep someone in Texas bought a couple of years ago. Whoever it is constantly runs their left tyres underinflated but o far it hasn't reported anything in the serious category.

I lived in Singapore for a while as a kid and we went to the beach one day where a monitor lizard showed up. Not a komodo dragon but still.

I don't really remember details - it's one of those family stories. I just remember we saw a monster. I think it was about 1.5 - 2m long, which is big enough but as a 4 - 5 year old kid it was a real life monster. It's one of those family stories and I think there's a box in storage somewhere with a picture of a monitor lizard 20 or 30 metres away.

My parents said they were told they can bite so we cut that beach trip short.

I discovered a couple of tracks by Troum (who can do no wrong in my eyes) that are new to me during the last couple of years.

Troum ‎- Hóro-Skopeîon which sounds remarkably similar in style to the amazing Shutûn.

Droneuary LXIX - Bhere

Also I can speculate but if someone knows exactly what Droneuary 2019 is can you let me know, thanks.

If you're up for a challenge. Santa Sangre

"a pure surrealistic work.Symbols,insanity, Life and Death mix up the wild beauty of Ancient Greek Tragedy.In conclusion: this is not a film for everyone,but if you are open minded you will be able to make a step further,beyond the image itself and face the deep brutal truth of this movie.This is how it would look like a movie shot by Salvador Dali himself. "

I love things like this. How is it fractal though?

Who knew Javascript was the path to heaven?

A documentary about him is on youtube

The internet has taken the social influence people have on each other and magnified, intensified and filtered it so grotesquely.

Is it net evil? Does it need regulation? Is it salvageable? I'm so grateful there are still smaller places (like hubski!!) where that magnification is less apparent and influential.

On a lighter note,

A friend of mine worked as a flight attendant and told me to just treat the ground staff well and politely ask for an upgrade (rather than fraudulently demand one) but it hasn't paid off for me yet.

I did get an unrequested upgrade on a short haul flight to Hong Kong once. Business class was about 50% occupied and it was so pleasant to just get randomly bumped like that.

I'm so fascinated (as an uneducated layman) by space and cosmology but honestly most of it's way over my head because with questions like this I inevitably get bogged down in philosophy.

Like What is life? What is consciousness? What is intelligence?

That's before we even start talking about the practical hurdles like communicating, navigating or traversing the huge distances when we don't even know why our models are so out of touch with our observations (dark energy).

Two questions then.

1. From this side of the great filter.

How likely do you think it is that we could permanently escape earth and survive/flourish?

My guess given the current state of things is close to zero chance, but I'd love a more informed perspective.

2. From the other side of the great filter.

What do you think the difference in intelligence/capabilities would be if there was ever contact?

My gut feeling is it would be like an upside down bell curve or similar.

Probability close to 1 that Civilisation A is vastly, vastly ahead of Civilisation B curving down to close to 0 where both are about equal, then rising again to close to 1 where B is ahead of A.

Basically we are, aren't we?

I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

Ever had problems playing games or talking on skype (or whatever) due to lag?

I'm no space guy but what if the closest intelligent life is so far away that your conversations have 60,000 year lag.