I rewatched it in recent weeks and enjoyed all the bits that I enjoyed years ago during the first watch. The stories I found a bit tedious first time (High Sparrow plotline, Arya and faceless men) weren't as miserable; I think I was expecting them to drag on even more. My biggest grievance on the rewatch was just how poorly it's all tied up. I again enjoyed The Long Night through the lens of 'spectacle over military documentary'. The last season just felt like they wrote themselves into a corner and didn't have time and patience to see it through. By that point, actors were ready to move on, etc.

I don't really view this as the show runners fault. GRRM was unable to complete his own work. The show worked best when it drew from the authors own material (GRRM was a screenwriter himself and knew how to write great dialog/scenes).

It's absolutely the producer's fault. They actively choose to release the product they did instead of making more episodes, taking long, bringing other people in to help, etc.

Martin has claimed he flew to HBO to convince them to do 10 seasons of 10 episodes instead of the 8 seasons with just 8 episodes in the final one [1]. It was straight up just D.B. Weiss and David Benioff call how the series ended.

[1]: https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/george-rr-martin-shut-out-g...

Not the actors, the showrunners.

Maybe a bit like an ultimate funnel directing the broader effort of the company. That, plus brand/figurehead.

Just started watching this, but if anyone has seen similar material used for some form of retaining wall (even 1-4' high), I'd be happy to hear about it. Got a lot of slope to deal with, and materials for attractive retaining walls add up.

I've been there several times including one memorable time after the fires, and like you said, the colour of the new undergrowth was remarkable - quite lurid and alien even. The fire prompted the grass trees to almost all throw up their flower spikes simultaneously which was stunning.

I threw a few of my photos on Imgur in case anyone is interested. https://imgur.com/a/hERMF9O

Great photos! Thanks for posting this.

"The measure does not allocate any initial city dollars, a move that may have helped secure support from the board's moderates after repeated years of city budget shortfalls. Instead, the ordinance establishes a framework to receive future contributions - whether through city appropriations or private donations."

"Walton acknowledged funding remains the central challenge, but expressed optimism about tapping foundations, corporations, and individuals to support the effort."

Is the $5m an upper limit?

A friend has a robot vac and just puts it in a room, closes the door, and leaves it for a couple of hours. Avoids the issue of worrying about which areas don't have kids' toys around, Lego, cords, etc. Higher touch than is ideal, but if you're already working from home and the kids are at school, it can work.

I guess. If I need to vac a room, that's probably 5 minutes work to pull out a broom vac and do it.

You can typically select certain rooms to clean rather than “clean all” on decent brands like roborock or Dreame. You can put it on a schedule too.

I'll defend them too. We've used them when in the US as a side dish when camping, or in hiking meals in backcountry. Handy enough that we bring a few packets back to Australia as a lazy option.

Didn't Slashdot have something like the second point with their meta-moderation, many many years ago?

Sorta.

IIRC, when comment moderation and scoring came to Slashdot, only a random (and changing) selection of users were able to moderate.

Meta-moderation came a bit later. It allowed people to review prior moderation actions and evaluate the worth of those actions.

Those users who made good moderations were more likely to become a mod again in the future than those who made bad moderations.

The meta-mods had no idea whose actions they were evaluating, and previous/potential mods had no idea what their score was. That anonymity helped keep it honest and harder to game.

It's still that way today: if you're active, you'll be randomly given 5 moderation points occasionally, and they expire after a few days. So you have to decide which threads and comments are worth spending a "moderation point" on

How does meta-moderation work these days? I remember it being called Chips and Dip instead of /., but it's been many years since I've hung out there.

More info on Australia from a quick search.

  - Public hospital birth is about $0-1k USD.
  - Private hospital with health insurance: $2-3k USD
  - Private without insurance: typically up to $13k USD

Private health insurance is nowhere near $40k here. Can be down around US$100/mo for a single or US$300ish/mo for a family, depending on inclusions.

(Hello, fellow South Australian!)

The painpoint for me has been the loss of information density. 99% of my use of the old BoM was the 7 day forecast showing rain and cloud: former for working outside, latter for photography jobs. Now, at about 800px or narrower the 7 day forecast loses the rain estimate, and all they manage to fit in is day, icon, min and max. The day name could be abbreviated, and the other elements are typically 30px wide. Having to expand each or all days to look for the rain estimate is thoroughly tedious.

Among the highlights of vertical space wastage are 130px for a cookie warning, 50px for "No warnings for this location" and then another 110px for heading a table with "7 day forecast" and "expand all". On a large phone screen, it leaves only about a third of the vertical spacing for starting content; the rest is site header and browser chrome!