Reach for the Stars @antares@qoto.org

Happy New Years Western Europe and Central Africa.

@reverendref All Glory to the Hypnotoad

This is why we need to build more above ground storage folks. That's almost 50,000 acre ft a day we are dumping into the ocean instead of drinking and growing crops. It is enough water wasted each day to supply 150 homes for a full year - every day. All because we don't want to invest in storing more water.

Just a gentle reminder that the world is not all on EST. https://www.timeanddate.com/counters/newyearmap.html

@Popehat Look, All I'm saying is it would be best if you didn't try to visit MSG properties for a little bit.

Compared to right now, in the next 3 to 5 years the #Covid #pandemic will...

@HMinchin I mean I can summarize the best practices as a few pieces of new content every week, and fresh photos after every major season. No out of date information, and no retrospective stuff on the front page.

The trick is how to make that happen. I found I needed to block out 2 hours a week for dealing with web and social media, and I needed to spend another 2-3 hours a week bothering people for content if I wanted to not have a static site that slipped off search as stale.

@SusanPotter because there will always be a new piece of hardware that it would be cool for the Linux kernel to support. I personally cannot wait for the day I can control my Boston Dynamic robot from the command prompt. :)

@PhotonEmpress @MartianDays please avoid MECO while flying a commercial airliner. 😜

@marcbrooker The recloser in the small town I grew up in tried 3 times with about 60 seconds between each try. It got to the point in our family when the power went out we'd start counting the tries. If it didn't stay on after the third try we got out the candles and the camp stove.

@jblxdesign Please support California's High Speed Rail. That is where the future of rail is. Dedicated grade separated high speed lines. That and intercity urban rail.

@jblxdesign O Lord no! Amtrak is often hours or days late. There rolling stock is catastrophically bad and their viability as a form of public transport on anything but the NE corridor is non-existant. The Government has run them in to the ground far worse then even the USPS. But the Engineer that goes from Sacramento to Reno knows that there will be a train scheduled for that route every day and there will be one going back eventually.

The freight guy out of Roseville might go haul a slow freight to Winnamucca one week and cotton up the central valley the next. Someone has to keep them current on all that rail, know where they are and god-forbid they get sick, scramble to make the entire schedule over again because no two engineers are current and qualified on the same lines any more.

@jblxdesign Passenger rail is fine vis-a-vie staffing levels. Amtrak run very predictable trains over a very limited amount of rail on a daily bases. Its problem is that is doesn't own any significant rail lines and so is at the mercy of the freight traffic. It is the freight railroads that are understaffed. They have to run trains based on ever changing cargo demands over the huge networks.

@jblxdesign Will those regulations come with financial backing for economic downturns or will significant additional costs need to be added to the price of transportation?

In the case of airlines will they be able to raise the price enough to continue to offer service at low volume class C and D airports? If not then that line about if you can't run the business profitably and treat your employees right you should just shut down will come true in quite a dramatic way when airports in all those states over-represented in the Senate no longer have any flights. Heck the only thing you would need to kill that bill in the Senate would be to explain that if it passes there will no longer be commercial service to Charleston WV.