Consumer electronics not serving my needs.

I just want an RC car that has a USB controller and some sort of scripting, so I can set it to turn on at intervals and wander around at random to entertain my hyperactive cat.

I do not want to learn how many ways I can fuck up an Arduino to accomplish this! I don't have the energy for that right now. I just want to get the thing and set it up and watch my cat pacing suspiciously around a robot that's stuck in the corner.

Using science for [good|evil|frugality].

( Cut for boring. )

My subconscious puts a lot of effort into its bullshit.

I dreamed that there had been some sort of deal made that Andrew Hussie had to finish Homestuck by the end of the year or all the apocalypses would happen. All possible apocalypses.

Since the apocalypse needs prep time, things had been going subtly wrong all year, but in June everything went pretty much to shit. List of problems I observed Homestuck to have caused:

* Everything’s genetic structure is janked up, and a lot of people are like, part-bear, or can only eat this specific ambiguously-sentient parasitic flower or they die of allergic reaction, but the flowers don’t fill all their nutritional needs so they eventually starve anyway. The flowers are very pretty.

* Sea level is rising dramatically in some places and dropping in others; the English Channel is dry.

* The passage of time is fucked up, so while in some places this has all only been going on for a month, in some it’s been apocalypsing for eons.

For example, the English Channel has been dry for long enough that new intelligent species have evolved there, formed a peaceful civilization, and barred all outsiders from entry using their advanced magitechnology. This civilization... is Redwall.

* Agriculture and weather are glitching out and there’s widespread famine and drought.

Annnnd bunch of competing sets of aliens of varying levels of hostility have invaded, including:

* the ones from The Screwfly Solution

* Homeworld gems

* elves (???)

* Team Rocket (fine, I guess we're doing this)

* the cast of Disgaea

* angels (unaffiliated with Disgaea or Homestuck)

* horrorterrors

* no trolls, conspicuously!

I had a small RV, and had formed a temporary alliance with Lapis and Jasper. I would not ordinarily have allowed Jasper inside my small RV, but her gem had been worn down by the sand at the sea-bottom, making her smaller - she was now only seven feet tall - and also extremely passive, gentle, and depressed.

So the relationship just wasn't working for Lapis anymore, and when their body of water had dried up due to a non-gem-related apocalypse, they'd unfused, and were on their way to Beach City to ask Steven to heal Jasper. I was taking them as far as the southwestern edge of Screwfly territory, which I wasn't prepared to enter.

(Since they're on their way east, I guess Malachite made her way to the Pacific Ocean eventually.)

We'd been travelling with a caravan of Homestuck Cultists, who had stopped in a roofless abandoned town overgrown with beautiful but creepy mutant plants. They were very sure that Homestuck would end by the end of the year - however long a year lasts - and that the world would be saved. I had doubts and was planning to move to outer space pretty soon.

( Read more... )