notnotmike

My friend and I routinely have conversations about factory design.

His ideal factory ships every ore in its raw state to a single building, which can then move the ore to different floors/sections for processing. He goes further than most and separates each product into its own "room", so all steel bars are made in one room then shipped to the steel beam and steel pipe rooms. Importantly the factory should be designed so that you can "infinitely" expand a room if you need more of that resource.

I prefer what I call "microfactories", where each component is created in a small, independent factory and the result is shipped to a main repository for builder use and for the space elevator construction. If you need modular frames, for example, you would find a group of ores and build a small factory on it and build every sub-component you can in it. Ideally, it would not rely on any other microfactory's outputs, but sometimes that's easier said than done. Often I will have a small cluster of microfactories all dedicated to shipping their output to a final microfactory for processing.

So what do you all use?

Note: He claims his design is more analogous to microservices (from software architecture) than mine, and that mine is something apparently called "pirate architecture". I think he's out of his mind on that one.

For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don't want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That's ludicrous!

That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use "less" when they should use "fewer"

I love the idea of supporting small business and quality, handcrafted items. But Etsy seems to be more focused on drop shipping and it becomes a hassle to investigate every item I purchase to determine whether it ships from China or not.

Does anyone know of any alternatives with a good reputation?

I've recently started digitizing my mother-in-law's collection of home movies. What I would love is some recommendations or tweaks I can do to improve the quality and remove any combing or minimize static. I am not particularly concerned with audio quality, but I'll list it below as well.

And so far I'm enjoying the processes. It's really fun to see old videos and to learn a bit about video formats and encoding. I'm an amateur when it comes to these kinds of things so I'm learning as I go along. Each tape I make the picture clearer and the file size smaller!

Recording

• Sony Handycam (DCR-TRV27)
• Various DV 60/90 cassette tapes
• Seemingly ran in standard recording mode (tapes are 60 minutes)

VCR

• Elgato USB Analog Video Capture Device
• Handycam's VCR mode connected via S-Video Cable and 3.5mm audio jack*

* I have ordered a A/V to RCA cable which is the manufacturer's recommended connection, but unsure about the effects on quality

Software

• OBS for recording the VCR feed
  • Downscale Filter: Bicubic (Sharpened scaling, 16 samples)
  • Deinterlace - Linear 2x
  • 720x540 @ 29.97 FPS (NTSC) (upscaled from 720x480)
  • "Indistinguishable Quality, Large File Size"
    • .mkv format with H.264 encoder
  • Audio Encoder AAC
  • Audio 48khz steroe
• Handbrake for re-encoding
  • 720x480 @ 29.97 FPS
  • H.264 (x264) MKV format
  • No additional deinterlacing
  • "Constant Quality" set to 20
  • Audio Encoder AAC

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/14695422

Hey all, I've created a catio (cat patio) for my two cats in a window well next to my desk. They absolutely love it, but I would like to make it even better for them by using real grass. Currently, I have a pretty good artificial grass in there that they love to lay in and stays green year 'round, which is fine enough. But I would really love to give them some real grass (or moss) to lay on and maybe even munch on.

So, with that backstory, I would love to find a grass that has the following traits.

1. Comfortable and safe for cats (both internally and externally)
2. Stays relatively short since I can't exactly get a lawn mower
3. Doesn't require a lot of sun

It would also be a bonus if it were okay with more arid climates, because I would prefer to minimize watering as much as possible.

My mind goes to something like Spanish Moss since it stays relatively short and is pretty comfy, but I'm not sure if that's the best option, so I wanted to ask people more experience than me.

Picture of the window well in its current state and one of its occupants for reference below.

And for anyone concerned, the well is closed in with a grate and some chicken wire so they can't slip out. They are not outdoor cats, but we do take them out on harnesses for walks. They are treated for pests like tics and mites as a precaution.

Thanks anyone who answers!

Reached 30 and the wheels started falling off. Gained 20 pounds and back pain out of nowhere, it's like a damn sitcom. I feel uncomfortable in clothes I've worn for a decade so its time to put in effort. Better late than never I guess.

I want advice on good beginner resources. I'm talking really beginner, like how many reps to do, how long between reps, what machines to hit, etc. I've been to gyms before but just kinda rode the reclined bike them made shit up when I got to the weight machines. I also am terrible at not doing too much with my back, which is almost certainly where my back pain originates from, so extra instruction on how to properly engage my core is a bonus.

The one advantage I have is that I'm very good at tracking calories. I've just gotten lazy since Covid. So I've downloaded MacroFactor to try out some new technology. I've used Waistline recently but it's just too cumbersome to add food, and I lose motivation.

Appreciate the help in advance!

P.S. the one upside to turning 30 is that I can grow a beard now. So at least I've got that going for me

Around two years ago I was on a really small team, just two or three developers, and the other developer decided they wanted us to use Rider. Because I didn't have a preference, I used Rider and rather enjoyed it. However, that developer has since moved teams and now it is just me (for the time being).

So I was considering moving back to Visual Studio or even switching to Visual Studio Code, but I wanted to see some arguments against this.

Here is my list so far, but it's probably out of date since I haven't used Visual Studio in a long time.

Pros of Rider:

• Much faster than using ReSharper
• Less sharp interface with a better font
• I'm used to it at this point
• I have a Nyan cat loading bar which is kind of fun

Cons of Rider:

• Enterprise license is expensive (probably)
• New versions of C# aren't immediately supported
• Refactorings are becoming less necessary with the rise of AI assistants
• Don't really like their source control manager

Wanted to hear what other users think. What keeps you using Rider?