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| Throw money at problems! | Aug 31, 2021 8:53 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:The somewhat stiff, excessively over-engineered and expensive HDMI cable I ordered is working so far to prevent this silly laptop's video-out from cutting off its WiFi signal, so I can actually post the webcomic and stuff. : ) The old Sony cable I'd dug up was working *mostly* as well, with just one temporary outage; I guess the real test of the new cable will be the next heat wave, which hopefully won't be for uhh a good nine months or so!
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| $50/month US Emergency Broadband Benefit | Aug 30, 2021 9:45 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:In the US, during the pandemic, low-income and other households may be eligible for an up to $50 federal discount off their broadband internet service through the Emergency Broadband Benefit.
I learned about this because a large, enterprising ISP sent a representative around to my college student neighborhood today offering to get us kids (or poor-ish old people like me who came here for the cheap rent) free internet through them and what would normally be their $45/month plan, but discounted to nothing through the EBB.
Now, the EBB program will expire when its $3.2 billion appropriation is exhausted, or six months after the end of the public health emergency. So you might not want to get yourself signed up for a year-long plan, like this company was trying to get me to do, if you're relying on the $50 EBB discount, because it could go away whenever. But if you're already getting broadband and paying for it, it might be worth checking if you can get that $50 discount while it lasts.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| I suppose long-term cooking my fingers is bad | Aug 27, 2021 9:38 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Finally found the fan control program on this laptop I've switched to, so now my fingertips are only slightly irritated rather than broiled from heat radiating up through the keyboard from the 100 degrees F+ video card. ... May have to increase the fan boost further. = P
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| HDMI can disrupt WiFi--break out the tin foil | Aug 26, 2021 9:41 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I migrated my A* workflow over to my faster laptop this weekend, and in doing so encountered a small host of fun technical issues—most boringly Windows-related, but one based in actual science: turns out that if the WiFi receiver is too close to the HDMI port, radiation from the active HDMI cable—if you're running video out to a monitor, for instance—can cut off your WiFi reception!
I was using a generic 3' HDMI cable when the WiFi went out (unplug HDMI, WiFi's back! Plug HDMI back in, WiFi signal is lost! : P); after that I tried a 3' Amazon Basics cable, just for the heck of it, which was even lighter than the generic and of course also resulted in signal loss. Then I dug up an old, white 6' Sony cable—and WiFi was okay with it!
Well until a few days later when it went out again. There was some heat in the area back behind the laptop (one of the laptop's vents is *right next to the HDMI port*, and shoots hot air back there...), and after that dispersed, WiFi was back again. Haven't had a problem since—and it's been a little cooler here—but I wanted to see if I could find a cable that wouldn't have any problems in whatever conditions.
I ordered a $7 3' "triple-shielded" cable off of Amazon—instant WiFi signal loss. : P So now I'm up to ordering a $90 5' unidirectional cable with silver-coated solid copper conductors, all of which supposedly cuts interference (for the purpose of preserving the HDMI signal from this audiophile cable, but I figure it should also block interference going outward from the cable...), so we'll see how that does. That same company makes increasingly heavily shielded cables that easily run up into the four-digit price range; I think this one is about the best I can afford.
Backing this all up: aluminum foil! Well, that's what some sites on the internet advise trying in a pinch for shielding, at least. I did try a little wrap of some old standard foil I found in a long-forgotten kitchen drawer (to be clear: I'd put it there years ago, then forgot about the drawer : P) on one of the lesser cables, and it did not stop the WiFi from being blocked. Now I've got some fresh "heavy duty" foil from the grocery store though, so... Well hopefully it won't come to that. : PPP
(I'd never noticed HDMI-out interfering with the WiFi signal on my slower laptop, which has 'em (I'm assuming here that the Ethernet port position corresponds roughly to the wireless receiver location...) on opposite sides of the machine. However, this whole saga got me thinking, and I remembered that on that machine, when I was running HDMI video out, sometimes right after I woke the laptop up and the screen came on, I would find the WiFi signal had been lost; I always thought this due to the WiFi receiver shutting down when the laptop went sleep or something, but now I'm thinking maybe it was more likely a burst of interference from the waking-up HDMI cable. On that machine, though, toggling the WiFi off and back on in Windows would almost always get the signal reconnected.)
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| No page tomorrow (Wednesday)! | Aug 24, 2021 10:52 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:No page tomorrow (Wednesday)! Yes it's silly since I just took Monday off (found and went to new dentist, the first one to accept my dental insurance since I stopped working for The Man! : D), but my only friend in these hinterlands got back to town after the summer adventures and we need to do some catching up while visiting some horses and cows. Then it's nose back to the drawing table for autumn!
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| No page today! Got a new dentist : DD | Aug 23, 2021 11:42 AM PDT | url |
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No page today (Monday, August 23rd)! I got a same-day dental appointment with my new dentist—they're a new office and they actually accept my WA state health insurance, unlike everyone else. Miracle! : DD But it's a long walk in the middle of the evening so I'll be doing that instead of drawing!
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| Thunder and lightning, very very frightening! | Aug 20, 2021 8:54 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:It's been pouring rain tonight. Hurrah! Maybe that long term climate outlook I read some time back for the Pacific Northwest, saying we were actually going to be getting stormier, wetter weather over the long term, wasn't totally wrong? Hm... Oh ah for instance here's some on that from the University of Washington's Climate Impact Group (down near the bottom): less summer rain but more the rest of the year, and more "heavy rainfall events": "Specifically, the number of days with more than 1 inch of rain is projected to increase by +13% (±7%) for the 2050s (relative to 1971-2000) for a high greenhouse gas scenario."
So maybe we'll end up as a jungle instead of a desert. : o
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Bonus points to whoever remembers his name | Aug 19, 2021 7:07 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:We'll see a few familiar faces this episode, visit some new places, and tear some stuff up.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| New Horizons - backlit mountains of Pluto | Aug 18, 2021 8:11 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
(image by NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)
^That's from a batch of photos NASA recently posted of the dramatically backlit surface of Pluto, taken by the New Horizons probe. You can see there 11,000-foot-high mountains, and layers of hazes in the dwarf planet's "tenuous but distended" atmosphere. Other photos appear to show "hints of a nitrogen-based glacial cycle."
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Episode 43 begins! Episode 42 e-book out! | Aug 17, 2021 8:52 PM PDT | url |
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Added 2 new A* pages:The episode 42 e-book is now available on the episodes & e-books page! Contributors to the A* Patreon campaign at the e-book level and higher will have their complimentary download links emailed to them early next month. : )
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| End of ep 42! Ep 43 starts Tue/Wed! | Aug 12, 2021 9:02 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:That's the end of episode 42! Episode 43 will start on prrrrobably Tuesday, but maybe not until Wednesday, depending on how long it takes me to get the old files backed up, e-book out, and the new episode ready to go.
Young Selenis has had things kind of peaceful and quiet as she's settled into her new home in this new city. That's been fun and all, but maybe it's time to shake things up a bit. ^_^
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| This is the thing, yeah | Aug 11, 2021 9:26 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:It's this page!
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Tech support were really nice about it though | Aug 10, 2021 8:39 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I gotta not stay up late trying to write Perl scripts and being so out of it that I type my Telnet password wrong like eight times and have to call tech support to unlock my account. : P
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Just let the lines sort themselves out, yeah | Aug 09, 2021 8:56 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Like I always say, bird nest eyes are the best eyes. @_@
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Fighting games play me | Aug 06, 2021 9:45 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Each night before bed I talk into a mic while an AI avatar beats up my avatar; I put the resulting videos on my fighting game YouTube channel, and now over 800 people are supporting my weird nightly therapy sessions there. Thanks everyone for your enablement! : D
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| UH PAINT | Aug 05, 2021 9:29 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Painting weird.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Where's a good pipe wrench when you need one? | Aug 04, 2021 9:01 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:The plumber showed up today! And couldn't fix the problem. Might need the whole, weirdly hand-tiled shower ("whoever tiled this over was an idiot" — the plumber) knocked out and replaced. Meanwhile maybe I can turn the hot water on/off with a pipe wrench? I only have a regular wrench though. Maybe I can get the building managers to loan me one. ; )
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| All the comforts of space | Aug 03, 2021 9:18 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:No plumber materialized from the haze of EPA-rated "Unhealthy" air around my apartment today to fix the shower, so, after lugging the groceries the mile back from the store in my N95 mask, I taught myself to sponge-bathe! It's probably just like being on the ISS!
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Plumbing tomorrow : P | Aug 02, 2021 7:51 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:There will hopefully be some plumbing action going on in my shower tomorrow, which could potentially disrupt my getting a page done.
We're due for 97 degrees F tomorrow with smoky air, and it'll sure be nice if my shower head isn't constantly dripping hot water in my unventilated bathroom. : P
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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