About MarkJFine

@Jay wrote: I don't typically listen to traditional AM/FM radio anymore, I know. There's a lot of competition for listenership now, including streaming live broadcasts, music services, podcasts, etc.   Even shortwave radio really took a turn for the worst when international broadcasters saw that live streams were a more cost effective means than maintaining massive tunable antenna arrays, worldwide broadcasting facilities and equipment.   The BBC's relay statio in Antigua used to be legendary on 5975 in the evening. They no longer target the Americas anymore, but you can still hear some of their feeds to Africa in the afternoon.   The technical advances like digital radio (ubiquity, et. al.) and the availability of alternate subcarriers on FM, as well as DRM on shortwave isn't really making as much of a dent in listenership as it was designed. It's mostly something for hobbyists and hipsters to play with, which isn't going to make money for anyone. ... View more

Dunno... but those holly berries are extremely poisonous. I'm not a fan of black pudding or baked beans for breakfast, either. ... View more

I just wonder why just having Mon Day, Tues Day, Wednes Day... et. al. was never special enough. Every day has to have some kind of commercial marketing, product, or other concept promoted as a gimmick and it's gotten to the point where there are more gimmicks than days in the year.   Edit: Don't mind me, I've been in an especially cynical way this week. ... View more

I wouldn't turn down anything, but I'm more of a Wintergreen Lifesavers kinda guy, myself. And yes, I'd take Olive Garden or hotel mints first. ... View more

And it's relative: Pasta Primavera ... View more

Yeah, it was pretty vile. ... View more

Always our Xmas Eve dinner tradition. ... View more

I believe this particular area is intended to be social. And, as tis the subject of this thread, there haven’t been many support posts of late (with the exception of yesterday’s completely inappropriate ranter - there was no call for that). Based on that, your observation could very well be warranted. ... View more

@maratsade wrote: Not quite accurate...  indeed ... View more

Haymarket is probably a mere fraction of what it would have been had Disney gotten their way and put the "America" theme park there. As bad as the infrastructure was back in the 90s (and the disaster I66 still is), can you imagine what that would have done to the area? ... View more

Oh... you haven't seen Gainesville in quite a looooong time. Atlas is long gone and the entire facility has been razed and replaced by a massive, massive shopping area. There's even a cheeky Nando's in there. ... View more

“ There are Pinkberries on the East Coast too...” Must be fairly recent. I used to go to LA (mostly SaMo) when my daughter lived out there (pre-‘12-ish). Pinkberry’s were all over the place there, but had not seen any in the NoVa area. Certainly not anywhere between Warrenton and Charlottesville. ... View more

@Amanda wrote: FroYo always reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where they think they're eating fat-free froyo but each end up gaining a bunch of weight!! Related: Curb Your Enthusiasm's Pinkberry's episodes (it's a west coast thing) ... View more

I used to go to Augsburg a lot back in the 90s. We didn’t have Nutella here, but they sure had it there. Was talked into buying some to bring home. Didn’t care for it then, but now I could spoon out a whole container over the course of a day... and have. ... View more

@C0RR0SIVE wrote: Hmm, have you thought about trying to pull the BeamID and Satellite ID from the modem it self, then add a field to request "real" latency from a webservice? Thought about it, but it does restrict you to acutally be on the network to do that.   Also, mind if I either jack your script and put it on my site, or link to that script from my site? Either way is fine, but a link would be easier.   Also, just found out that the geocoder that determines your location only works in a secure environment. So the link should be https:// not http://. Then all you need to do is pop in J2 and your beam# and click the Calculate button.   Bear in mind mine was waaaaay off. Said the accuaracy was within 1900m, but it's more like 50 klicks off, if that.   Edit: Now you don't even have to enter J2. It's an option box that defaults to it. I also Bootstrapped it (look and feel) and added my standard header and footer to pretty it up some. ... View more

I may work on it some more, like adding drop-downs for the top two lines, and maybe splitting out the gateway and beam instead of using the same input box. I'd really like the location thing to work too. ... View more

I wouldn't get hung up on technique. I still think I should take some proper lessons to get rid of the bad habits and shortcuts I've picked up - mostly because I'm left handed, but trying to play like a righty (aka Joe Strummer style). Bottom line: Left hand is too quick for the right, which has trouble some times even finding the correct strings. Leads to a lot of hammer on/offs when I should be picking (I cheat).   Some days you're on, some days not so much... lol ... View more

Overdid the chili and paying for it. I make my own, which takes 2 hours to prepare, then 6 hours in a slow cooker. It's good, but you have to be real careful not to overdo it. ... View more

Yeah, was gonna say, you need pretty strng fingers to play bass. I'd be double covering for sure. ... View more

For me: Mostly Classic Rock and Punk. Although, when I played in high school in the early/mid 70's there was no 'classic' to it: Zepplin, Bad Company... In fact, my current finger exercise is bascially the beginning to Over the Hills and Far Away. ... View more

Either Firefox or Chrome are fine for every day use. Some browsers provide pseudo-vpn privacy (like Opera), but it would just slow you down because you're basically going through the browser's gateway server. Not real sure of the privacy you're getting when a third party (i.e., the browser's gateway) can track you just fine. ... View more

Modem can't reach the gateway. If there's not bad weather by you then there must be bad weather by the gateway. Not familiar with E17 satellite gateway IDs, but if you know where it is you can check the weather there and see when it might clear up. ... View more

From a user's persepctive, it's good to have choices.   From a web security perspective, it's a nightmare. Hackers have taken the approach of using valid browser strings in an attempt to pass themselves off as valid users. Except the scripts they use them are often old, and therefore the browser version is also old. So I've taken the bold approach of blocking versions of Chrome, Firefox, etc. that are a few versions old (sidenote: Google has apparently halted Firefox, now up to v72 to get past v69 on Android phones in order to play favorites with Chrome... #evil).   Honestly, I think it's a security approach that eventually will catch on as more and more sites get hacked to become botnet and spam servers. So depending upon how Brave and Edge can keep up... it will either kill the internet by making it a cesspool of bots, or kill Brave or Edge as my security approach catches on.   As for Kaspersky... How's it feel to providing intel to the Kremlin? lol... I stopped using that long ago. ... View more

The Studio has a minor quirk where you have to be careful about winding the G string. Over time the bend where the string goes in the tuning peg breaks, so you end up retuning 50 million times as it just slips around the peg. At that point you just restring all of it with a new set. Unsure if it's due to the string thickness and how many times you bend it, but it's one of two longest strings on that kind of headstock so there's more tension. Plus, I know I bend a G more often than a D (don't think I ever bent a D, actually). ... View more

A budding Jim Lee.... that looks like his style of shading, etc.   And while we're talking guitars... I'll humble brag about my American Standard Strat and Studio Les Paul... ... View more

I have dozens on my Xbox that I've never even tried.   With me, I need to be able to invest a good 1-2 weeks for any game. Once I start one I have a tendency for it taking over my life until I complete it, ignoring almost everything else. After it's completed, I then go back and clean up the battlefield, trying to get all the accomplishments I missed, etc., which can take a couple of more days. ... View more

NYT's puzzles are super easy on Monday and get gradually harder up thru Saturday, though I've had some Thus ones that were absolute nightmares. The Sunday ones are just large, Weds-level hard with a theme that's fun to figure out... just enjoyable. ... View more