Why yes, my fusion reactor does work in the fridge.

[andrewducker]

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Andrew,

If you're going to spoiler XKCD every time, do you think you could use an lj-cut tag?

/me: annoyed

[andrewducker]

I'm curious - what am I spoilering about it? I present the entirety of it, complete with alt text and title attributes. What am I missing?

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Maybe some people enjoy the ritual of going to xkcd.com on a (1,3,5) weekday morning?

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I don't really care though. Some days I forget :)

[andrewducker]

People still visit sites? Have they not heard of RSS??????

I visit LJ (people and a chunk of RSS feeds for people and comics) and Google Reader (the rest of my RSS).

That's pretty much it for my daily trawl.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I've never got the RSS habit. I've got several RSS reader apps and somehow it's never really gelled with me.

[andrewducker]

Have you tried Google Reader? I find that having something online is very handy, because it means that I can use it from anywhere without having to keep different "read" lists in sync. And it has keyboard shortcuts.

I'd be lost if I had to check 50-odd sites by hand.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Yes, and yes. But if someone's doing the RSS thing they'll have seen it, so you don't need to post it. And if someone's not doing the RSS thing it's because they want to take a look at the site themselves later on, sydntpi.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Is that an abbreviation for something, or did a cat walk over your keyboard?

[akicif.livejournal.com]

I guess I could've cut'npasted.... sydntpi = so you don't need to post it...

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Have I mentioned how supercool I think incredibly long and obscure abbreviations are? You're, like, the king of the internets to me right now. :-P

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Also, what about all the people who don't read xkcd as a general rule but appreciate their friends posting the good ones now and then?

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Arg. You're quite right of course. I was only thinking of regular readers....

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Y'know, you just made a concession about something twice in one post. On the internet. I take back my earlier sarcasm, you are king.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

You're too kind: I should really learn to think things through first and only then post....

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Yes: Me.

[andrewducker]

Aha! Now I understand what the problem is. As your routine is clearly important to you, would it make things better if I held off from my reposting until (at least) the evening of the day it comes out on? That way you can just sigh at having to page-down past something you've already seen, rather than having the joy of discovering xkcd in your preferred manner taken away from you.

If so, just say, and I'll try to remember to do that in future.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Me too.
And then Penny Arcade later that evening.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Are you serious? The whole thing is there in entirety, and being an image it would be very easy to just not read it (indeed, any web-writing course will tell you not to put actual content in images because people will only process them if they make a conscious decision to) I fail to understand how this is a 'spoiler'. That's like channel hopping and noting a few seconds of a Doctor Who ep is on, and stopping at the channel and watching the whole thing, then getting furious with the broadcaster after the fact because you wanted to watch it later.

FWIW Andy, I like that you post the more amusing xkcds, saves me having to go to the site/have the RSS feed that would also show me the mediocre ones.

[daisyflip.livejournal.com]

I like it too. I like having the best bits of the internet drip-fed to me so I have more time to nap. Also, was the spoiler thing serious? Can you spoiler a picture? Don't put it behind a cut - they decorate the screen.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I like having the best bits of the internet drip-fed to me

Me too! I don't even have to read news feeds!

[lizzie-and-ari.livejournal.com]

iawtp and also ittgfr?

Lxxx

[marrog.livejournal.com]

idkwtm. ym.

(ittgfr ti. ikwiawtp m.)

[lizzie-and-ari.livejournal.com]

IDC.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

idkwyaoaiisslc?

[marrog.livejournal.com]

mysstop?

[andrewducker]

ystopnow?

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

aargh ;)

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I was surprised as how quick the power charging mat thing has happened as a thing you can buy.

[andrewducker]

Well, it was invented by Tesla...

[akicif.livejournal.com]

It's not as good as all that. Too many gadgets need their adaptor.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

But I guess the plan is that newer gadgets will come with support built-in?

[akicif.livejournal.com]

[smacks head]Duh, of course.... Am eejit.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Yes ... obviously there either has to be a single standard (so you're either tied into a single company's charging mats, or they licence it to others), or every one could be incompatible and lead to a plethora of charging mats ... just like mobile phone chargers!

Going to mobile phone shows I know that at least one major manufacturer of mobile phones has been demonstrating prototypes ... which would be seriously cool! Though I don't know what the efficiency is, how much power is used when there's no phone on the mat, and whether it will erase your credit cards if you put your phone and wallet on the mat next to each other!

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Presumably one would switch off the mat when nothing is sitting on it?

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

The same way people *could* switch off (fully) phone chargers and LCD monitor power supplies, and set top boxes, dvd players, TVs, and every other remote controlled device ... but so many people don't. (I know I'm guilty ... I hit the power button on the LCD monitor, but the power brick is still plugged into the wall socket and staying warm because it's keeping a small amount of electricity going through it waiting for me to press the on switch), similarly there's a red LED on the kitchen radio that is on when the power is off, another on the DVD player, a blue one on the cable TV box, and the wireless access point is on and acting as a four port router as well as a hotspot, even though only one computer is plugged into it when I'm at work (and nothing wireless). Something to work on in the new year ...

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Yup. People, especially geeks, are allergic to switching things off.

[andrewducker]

It also doesn't help that charging wirelessly is less efficient than transmitting the electricity down a wire. And you have to put it on a pad in the first place, which makes it not much easier than just using a wire.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Well what do you want, magic charging from the elves in the ether?

The thing with the pad is that you wouldn't need faffy adapters of all shapes and sizes. But an easier fix to that would be for damn manufacturers to stick to a standard (at least 3 types of mini-USB for phones and camera, WTF?). Since the mat requires them to stick to a standard too... it's just moving the same problem along to a shinier place. So sort of pointless really.

[andrewducker]

Well, all smartphones will be on micro-USB as of this year, so that's a step in the right direction. If cameras also move to that then cables will be a solved problem :->

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Yep ... I've seen the ones for iPods and iPhones and basically you end up having to buy a new case for each with the receiver in it, and then having some sort of connector to go from the sleeve to the power socket on the iPod/iPhone.