Macrowave

This building was a fire station, and bunker gear is the protective clothing that firefighters wear. I guess they didn’t want you bringing dirty/smoky clothes into the break room

Ah, that makes a lot of sense.

The concept of having interchangeable, standardized parts is actually kind of a new idea from the Industrial Revolution. Before then, everything was custom-made to fit. The example that comes to mind is firearms. All of the muskets and rifles used in the revolutionary war, for example, were hand-made and hand-fitted. The lock from one rifle wouldn’t necessarily fit on another. If your stock broke, you couldn’t just go get a new stock and slap it on - you had to bust out the woodworking tools and make a new one.

In photography, there’s a saying: “Anything for the shot”

I don’t know if I’d go as far as this guy, but props to him for risking himself and his equipment, I guess

My first camera was a Voigtländer Vito 2, don’t know the exact age but it’s from the 1950s. My grandmother gave it to me when I expressed interest in film photography, she said she hadn’t touched it in decades so I might as well have it. As soon as I put a roll through it and got the photos back, I was hooked. Even though most of the pictures were underexposed, I knew I wanted to keep shooting film.

After talking to my uncle about this, he rooted around in his closet and gave me my second camera: a Pentax K1000. Super chunky and heavy compared to the Voigtländer, so I felt more confident taking it with me places without breaking it.

I just picked up a third, a Nikon FE along with some telephoto lenses. I haven’t put a roll through it yet, but I’m excited to try.

I live in Washington state, most of my electricity is from hydro or nuclear. My bill is usually about $80 a month, but it can go over $100 in the summer if I’m running the AC a lot.

I bought one of these toasters because of this video

I watch long videos on my TV (45 min - 1 hr) and YouTube has the audacity to shove minute+ long ad reels in my face every 15 minuets, claiming “fewer ads for this long video.” Bullshit. I have learned however that if you go to give feedback on the ad and flag it as inappropriate, it skips all the ads in that reel and sends you right back to the video! I can get past unskippable ads in a few seconds this way.

I generally prefer to start series from the very beginning so I don’t miss anything, but I think I’ll go pick up that second book and give the series another try.

After the Dark Tower movie came out, I heard a whole bunch of people on the internet saying that the movie was awful and the books are so much better. I didn’t see the movie, but if the books are so well-liked I thought I’d give them a try.

I tried my best, I really did. But I just couldn’t finish the first book. It was just way too surreal and abstract for me.

There was a period where I regularly got to go inside Boeing’s Everett factory for work (I didn’t work for Boeing though). For those who don’t know, it’s one of the largest buildings in the world, built in the 60s to manufacture 747s. Now they build all kinds of aircraft there.

“Big” is an understatement. Even “cavernous” falls short. It’s easy for your brain to forget you’re in an indoor space until you look up and see a roof over your head. It’s like a miniature city in there. It’s got its own road network, fire department, cafeterias, and I heard it can even have its own weather.

My route to and from the job site every day took me through alleyways and around sites where workers were actively putting airplanes together. I got to watch an entire fuselage be moved from one side of the factory to the other by the overhead cranes. But my favorite part of the whole place were the underground tunnels that you could use to get around. You could still see old civil defense fallout shelter signs in the stairwells, and even though I wasn’t supposed to take pictures in the facility I did anyway:

Perhaps we should let nature take its course /s

I hate myself, let’s talk!

I think this is my issue as well. You always hear about how women hate being approached, and I really don’t want to come across as a creep who hits on women in public.

Joyeux Noel. It’s a French/German/English language film about the Christmas Truce during WW1. Very moving film in my opinion.

THE AUDIENCE IS NOW DEAF

I would recommend Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Madoka Magica, as well as Planetes if you’re into sci-fi. Girls Und Panzer is super fun as well.

In 2021, I was riding an Amtrak train when it derailed at 80 mph. Several of the cars, including the one I was in, fell onto their sides and slid a significant distance along the ground. Three people were killed.

After spending the night in a hotel, they arranged for me and several other passengers to get on another train to get us home. I didn’t think much of it, I just wanted to get home, but the moment the train got up to speed I realized I had made a mistake. I spent the entire journey in a state of extreme stress, on the verge of crying. This train (the Empire Builder) is timed so that you get to sit in the diner car and eat dinner while passing through the most scenic part of the trip, the Rocky Mountains of western Montana and northern Idaho. But I didn’t enjoy any of it. I remember staring at my dinner, desperately trying to hold myself together, wincing every time there was a bang or jolt (and for those who’ve never been on an Amtrak train - there are a lot of those).

I had never experienced an anxiety attack before, and based on this experience I never want to have one again. The train got to my home station at about six in the morning, and I didn’t sleep at all.

ow