Z Nation - Mt. Weather - Recap

The guys are heading to Mt. Weather to get the thumbprint from the president. After mercying several service agent zombies, Congress zombies, they are stopped by Johnson and Johnson, two living agents, and the acting president. She explains although she is US President now they need the thumbprint from the president who was in power when the Z outbreak started. First they watch a cold war video about the 4th strike AKA Black Rainbow, which turns out to be flesh eating bacteria, on an 80s style TV with built-in VCR. This video explains why Russia would look better than the USA after a nuclear war. Then using an elevator to go down to the Z level. After finding the President who is also a zombie the acting president explains she doesn't want to stop Black Rainbow. And also successfully orders Seargent Lilley to turn against the guys.

Not want to spoil it in case you haven't seen it so I stop here. I liked this episode with some funny nods to the cold war era. And because this time they did not spend so much time showing the guys moving slowly through underground tunnels, wielding their weapons and flash lights. Even Doc complaint if it cannot be some upper level room with a window instead for a showdown.

AIM AOL chat 1997 - 2017

Started May 20th 1997 AOL shut it down on December 15th 2017. The yellow running man had 20 years on the clock.

It was one of the first chat messenger drawing the masses due to that all AOL customers got it, wanted or not. Little later the "chat war" started with Microsoft's MSN. Around 2011 AIM rapidly started to lose popularity in part due to the rise of Google with its Gmail and built in chat (now (2017) converted into "Hangouts" I believe). Losing the sinking ship AOL announced in October 2017 to retire the chat client.

AOL seems to have no interest in chat anymore, stating on their web page something like there is not currently a replacement product available. And some annoying empty marketing phrase

We’re more excited than ever to focus on building the next generation of iconic brands and life-changing products.

without saying what.

Although I haven't used AIM for years (I might have had one chat in the past 10 years, so technically "a decade" would be wrong ;-) another internet era ends. While AOL wasn't the first to shut down their messenger, and won't be the last, it's kind of sad to see this go.

Z Nation - Return to Mercy Labs - Recap

Warren follows her dreams to find out what the Black Rainbow is all about. They go back to Mercy Labs where they encountered Dr. Teller before. Everybody has flashbacks of the happenings from the last encounter. They are trying to get their radio working by finding batteries, but also find the kid of Dr. Teller Andrew in a glass container with a bullet hole in the head. But Murphy believes he is not dead.

Meanwhile at Camp Northern Lights Citizen Z and Kaya go through old floppy disks from after 1982, to find out that Black Rainbow is a biological weapon program of mass destruction, a fourth strike weapon to kill everything left on the planet. So that the guys from Zona can "repopulate.", called RESET.

Well this episode was slow paced again. Not much happened while it was again tried to stretch it to some 45 minutes. There is a gain a lot of walking trough dark rooms, pointing flashlights and guns at things for a long part of this episode. I hoped Z Nation could go back to the pace of the first and second season, if there is a season 5.

The Orville - Mad Idolatry - Recap

In this season finale Kelly accidentally makes contact to an underdeveloped society, what Ed calls "cultural contamination". In the Star Trek Enterprise episode Civilization Captain Jonathan Archer coined this term too. This is clearly a nod to The Prime Directive of Star Trek. Kelly ends up being worshipped as God, after she healed a young child with a skin regenerator.

The idea taken that time on a different planet passes faster then normal is likely taken from Star Trek. In both series an immortal observer is sent to witness some hundreds of years in development, then returns. In The Orville it was Isaac, in the Star Trek Voyager episode "Blink Of An Eye" it was the holographic Doctor. Not to steal the idea completely it is explained that the planet goes into another universe, where time progresses 700 years, while in our universe only 21 days have passed, called a "multi phasic orbit".

So when the planet reappears after 21 days they realize 700 years have passed. And that everybody worships Kelly. She tries to make it right proving that she is no God. It became apparent that it failed after they scan the planet again after 21 days, which has evolved another 700 years, comparable with our time now.

The episode starts with Ed being bored and trying to socialize with different members of the senior staff, going to get a drink. But all are busy, or play games with items where suddenly blades come out, and drinks, which seem to have been predigested. So he winds up with Kelly, hoping that her cheating was due to the pheromones of the alien male. At the end Kelly has doubts if a new relationship would be a good idea. Jeopardizing everything.

I found it a bold move by Seth MacFarlane to show religion in a bad light. Future people even call it "growing pains" and apparently got rid of it.

Interestingly there was no cliffhanger for the upcoming season. I am so used that today pretty much every show's season finale ends with a cliffhanger.

South Park - Splatty Tomato - Recap

For the season finale this episode ties up some, but not all, lose ends. After previous episodes were more carefully about attacking Donald Trump, this hits it right in the face.

The overall plot evolves around searching for Ike after a city of his country (Toronto) has been nukes by US President Garrison, seeking revenge.

After visiting many places where Cartman and Heidi previously faced to make decisions Cartman "forced" her to make. Like Heidi tossing here smartphone to get rid of Twitter. At the end she realizes the person she has become is Cartman's fault, and breaks up the relationship, spanning for too many episodes in my opinion.

Another plot is that the President has the lowest approval ratings and roams through the town, scaring children. Thus it's decided to get rid of the President, and a man hunt is organized. While only the White family opposes it, wanting to save the President, arguing "but who cares what the Whites want?". In the end it's Ike capturing the President, wearing a Royal Canadian Mounties uniform.

The third plot evolves around PC Principal and Vice Principal Strong Woman, who can't help but want to have a relationship but keep it secret. So they go to an Italian restaurant, with Butters as distraction that other guests might not think they go on a date. Later at the hunt for Garrison a tent is found by Randy where PC Principal and Strong Woman are making out. After some rounds of vomiting by anyone who witnessed it or been told (Randy's wife pukes Randy right into the face after he told her), Garrison is toed back to town.

I give it a 4/5, the best episode after a more "meh" season for me. While still leaving topics open for the next season, like what will happen to the US-Canada relationship, the kids were playing "kick ass" 80s music, like Gloria by Laura Brannigon and a song by Richard Marx when walking through the woods. How can you not like that?!

The M.A.M.E. emulator

M.A.M.E. (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), or short MAME, is a software emulator, allowing to play original video games from the arcades, starting from 1975 to today and tomorrow. Its main purpose though is to preserve decades of software history. Besides the emulator itself you also need roms from the game you want to play.

An emulator in general is creating a hardware environment (called "driver" in MAME), like chips in a video game (CPU, RAM, I/O and other support chips) by software. Thus you can "have" what ever video game hardware you want in your PC or smartphone. Then you can load up the original code, usually dumped from the original chips of a video game, into the emulator, and play them. Since it's all original you can even experience bugs and glitches which came with the original game. But you also have the option to activate cheats, speed up or slow down the game and more.

Since 2015 MAME's sister project M.E.S.S. (Multi Emulator Super System), or short MESS, was merged into MAME. MESS allows to also emulate any computer, if somebody wrote a driver for it and the BIOS rom was dumped. You could run an Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, (Super) Nintendo Entertainment System, SONY Playstation, XBOX, SEGA... Well anything existing. In theory you could play on a Playstation or other which would only exist in say three years - if someone would get hold of it specification. But that's just theoretically. And even if, no actual of today's PC hardware is powerful enough to run it in a decent speed. Even on older systems or video games modern PCs cannot run the emulation in a speed to match the original speed of the emulated machine. There are also prototypes or hard to come by systems you can emulate. Like the Apple I or Commodore 65 you can run.

If you want to bring back some fond memories you had when you had your first game console, first home computer or video games you played as kid in the arcade back in the day, the MAME emulator brings back nostalgia.

Legal mention: Obey the ROMs copyright!

Stop bed bugs

How to stop bed bugs, and possibly for good

Do you have bed bugs? Don't be ashamed, bedbugs are everywhere. I had them too when I moved into a new apartment. They don't care if the place is spotless. They don't care if you live in an apartment, house or villa, or for holiday in a hotel. They don't care if you are rich or poor. They only want your blood. Although it's suggested they prefer alcohol free blood. Not that I want to suggest everybody should become an alcoholic to fight them.

The good news is that bed bugs do not transmit diseases. Besides some, possibly nasty, itching there should be no health concerns. Unless you scratch the spots open and accidentally let something enter the blood stream. It's also known that a few people are allergic to bed bug bites.

Some people call an exterminator to stop bed bugs. While that might work for a while, it can be inconvenient having the place gassed. And they will be back after some time if areas outside your apartment and thus out of your control also have them. This, and an attempt to spray the rooms by oneself or apply heat to the spots where they are suspected to hide, are active approaches which may only be of temporary relief.

Keeping that in mind I was looking for a permanent - or close to permanent - solution to tackle the problem, which then must be a passive attempt. A solution which once put into place stop bed bugs without further action. And something cheap if possible. So I did some research.

I read about Diatomaceous Earth (I will use DE later), a powder killing bed bugs and prevent re-infestation. It is available in any home improvement store, usually found where the other insecticides, like RAID, are located. And fairly cheap ($20) compared to other, less promising means of stopping bed bugs. If you cannot find it, ask the staff. Again, don't be ashamed, you won't be the first asking them.

Now a warning. Although DE doesn't harm - you could even eat it - it's a powder and while applying it or when accidentally stepping into it one could inhale it. People with asthma, people with young children or pets should take extra caution or not do this at all!

My idea was to have two zones in each room where there is a bed. The bed bug free zone, which is the bed, and the "well there may be bugs but doesn't really matter" zone, so everything else. The border between these zones is a layer of DE. Bed bugs coming in contact with DE ingest it. The powder will then bind their inner body fluids and they dry out from within and die. It's not instantly but will take between 24-48 hours. Every bed bug coming to your bed will die, assuming the layer has no gaps. Since it also takes some days (thus longer than 48 hours) for a new born bed bug to mature and be able to reproduce, this also will never happen. And the population in your environment will soon be gone. Give it three or four weeks after DE is applied.

Another good thing is the DE layer works for a long time. Months or even years before it should be re-applied. The bad new is that when you step into it you carry it around. Not that it causes stains, but think about how you would handle wheat.

To work with this you have to embrace that ever so often a new bed bug might come from the outside of your apartment, walk through the DE and bite you. But will die soon after. So there might still a few bites. But you might not even notice them at all.

I could now go on explaining how to apply, what to also take care of. But I already did this on a web page where I explain all of this and more in detail.

I hope you can also get rid of your bed bugs. Although this advice is free I'd appreciate a small donation on this web page if you were successful. Would also be nice to put your comments on the Facebook form there.