Notices by Mallory's Musings & Mischief (malcircuit@thingy.social), page 2

I'm sure some of you are like, "holy crap, I had no idea there was anything that bright and colorful in space!"

That's because it isn't lol. I use special light filters for narrowband, and it lets me have more fun with the colors.

Here's what a true color image of the Rosette Nebula would look like (this isn't the best capture I've done, so accuracy is probably off a bit).

#astronomy #astrophotography

I just realized I could write a description that applies equally well to either the vampires in What We Do In The Shadows or the current administration of the US government:

Out of touch monsters (who are fundamentally parasites on society) try to perpetrate evil but are often thwarted by their own ineptitude and interpersonal drama.

No person is safe until all people are safe. We will weather the storm together or not at all.

I don't say that as a sort of hope, or aspiration, or prayer. It's not even a statement of fact.

It is a promise; a curse. Ignore or defy it at your own peril.

Perhaps someone said this during the human population bottleneck event tens of thousands of years ago, when we were reduced to a few thousand people at most on the entire planet.

Maybe an eldritch god heard it and made it so — an ancient bargain to stave off the end of the world.

For anyone unaware of our genetic heritage as a species:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngest_Toba_eruption#Toba_catastrophe_theory

When people say "humans have been through worse" when talking about global warming, I don't think they realize just how little that reassures me.

@Floppy Exactly. The idea that *some* people will get through it doesn't make up for all the people who won't, especially when the entire situation can be avoided.

The fire in LA is a warning; a preview of future calamity.

You can either stand your ground now and fight Nazis, or run and try your luck with endless natural disasters, plagues, droughts, and famines.

Choose how you'd rather die.

Once you start running, you won't stop. There is no refuge, no place to hide from the brewing storm. Earth is our only haven, and we have set it alight.

Any force that works to alienate and divide us is anti-human and wants us all dead. Escapism is one of those forces. There is no escape from our fate, only denial of the terrifying truth:

No person is safe until all people are safe. We will weather the storm together or not at all.

I decided to do some more #solar #astrophotography today because it's been mostly clear with just some occasional high cirrus. It's less than ideal conditions, but at least the atmosphere is considerably more relaxed today and the seeing is better when it is clear.

The only trouble is that I've been recording the sun for the past few hours and it's been eerily quiet despite a ton of sunspots. I've usually seen at least one flare at this point, but there's been basically no activity. It's spooky

It's been so long since I've done any solar #astrophotography that I'm seriously considering taking the day off tomorrow because it's supposed to be sunny here

In other news, for some reason I'm feeling extremely weird right now and I don't know why. Almost feel kind of high/intoxicated? Very spacey and my thinking is fuzzy. It's the closest description I can give.

I haven't had any alcohol, cannabis, or other psychoactive compounds beyond my meds and a few sips of an energy drink.

But I've also slept very poorly the past 3 nights, so maybe related somehow.

It's very odd and mildly concerning.

It's not the job itself that tires me, it's the fact that going to work requires so much fighting against myself. Just getting up and going on time is a struggle, and that's only the beginning of a day filled with trying to keep myself on task and getting something —anything— done.

Very "I am Sisyphus" vibes in my head right now.

Thinking about having to work again tomorrow makes me feel exhausted

That feeling when you are reorganizing #astrophotography data and accidentally permanently delete an entire night's worth of images 🙃

Still trying to figure out if there's a copy of the data somewhere, but doesn't seem likely. Not the end of the world though (I can capture more data), but it's annoying as fuck and makes me feel like an idiot 😣

⚠️ AURORA ALERT ⚠️

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center is predicting the effects of recent CME will arrive Dec 30-31, likely triggering a G3-level storm.

If you are at a high latitude and lucky enough to have clear skies (not great odds in the N. Hemisphere), take a peak outside tonight!

Forecasted Timing:
Europe: Early morning Dec 31

North America: Early night Dec 30

Asia/Pacific: Early night Dec 31? (not favorable timing)

Reminder: These forecasts have a lot of uncertainty.

#aurora

Problem: I want to be able to access my desktop PC (Windows) from anywhere.

Is there a dead simple way to do this? What's the easiest (secure) way?

Right now, it's looking like I need to:
1) Setup dynamic DNS (Duck DNS?)
2) Setup dynamic DNS updating on my router (Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X)
3) Configure VPN access on my router
4) Setup VPN client

I think I've done 1 and 2. I tried doing 3 with L2TP, but I can't get anything to work. I don't know what's going on.

I want to die. I hate networking

After using my #Tangara for the first time, I have a lot of ideas for improvements, mainly of the UI. It's definitely a V1.0 thing, but that's not a surprise, nor a criticism. What they've managed to make so far is impressive. Delivering on an idea like this is far beyond anything I have done.

I might see if I can get a dev environment set up, to see if I can manage to fix some of the issues I see instead of merely playing "Monday morning quarterback" to the project.

The main issues I have with #Tangara right now:

- Playlist support?
- Lacking features for "now playing" queue
- I can apparently add music to the queue, but I have no idea what's actually in the queue, or have any ability to edit it
- Can't save the queue as a playlist
- The queue isn't persistent (gets lost if the system reboots or powers down)
- There is no repeat mode for the queue. As in, I can repeat a single track, but not an album.

1/

I'm also grateful for #Tangara for creating an opening to rediscover artists and albums from my past that I haven't listened to in years.