backing the wrong horse

I have a long history of “backing the wrong horse,” as it were, when faced with decisions between two competing products. I’m one of the idiots who bought an HD-DVD player, back when it wasn’t clear whether HD-DVD or Blu-ray would win out. I have a boxed copy of OS/2 around here somewhere. And so on.

And, when deciding between git and Github vs Mercurial and Bitbucket, I chose the latter. I had good reasons for doing so, of course. In the early days, the tooling for hg (Mercurial) on Windows was much better than the tooling for git. And, for a small company looking to host a handful of private repos (my situation at the time), Bitbucket was a better deal. (And also, for personal use, Bitbucket allowed private repos under their free accounts, while Github only allowed public repos for free.)

Well, of course, git won the git vs. hg battle some time ago. Bitbucket added support for git several years ago, which was inevitable. And Microsoft added git support to Visual Studio, and even to TFS. Then, they bought Github. But Mercurial has hung on as an alternative, and is still actively maintained.

But now, Bitbucket is dropping support for Mercurial. As of June 1, 2020 “users will not be able to use Mercurial features in Bitbucket or via its API and all Mercurial repositories will be removed.” So, I’ve got some time, but I’m going to have to convert my old hg repos to git eventually. And if I’m going to do that, I might as well move them to Github too, since Github now allows unlimited private repos under free accounts. It might even make sense to make a few of them public, if they’re not too embarrassing. There’s been a lot of talk over the last few years about how valuable it is to have some public code up on Github when looking for a new job. (Not that I’m looking, but I assume I will again, at some point.)

The thread about this on Hacker News has some interesting discussion on the history and evolution of version control, along with a fair number of pro-Mercurial comments. (And of course a lot of the usual stuff you’d expect in a Hacker News discussion thread…)

The Bitbucket announcement of this change includes links to a couple of tools that can (theoretically) help you migrate from hg to git. Hg-Git will probably be the easiest for me, since it says it’s included in TortoiseHg, which has always been my favorite tool for managing hg repos. (Which reminds me that I need to try TortoiseGit again.)

At work, I’m hosting some of my current code in Azure DevOps, under git repos. But a lot of my code is still in on-prem TFS servers, under TFVC. I kind of wish I could convert all of that stuff to git and get it in Azure DevOps, but some of it still needs to stay in TFS for various reasons. Sigh.

pulling together some anime and manga threads

There are a few stray threads rattling around in my head that I’ve been meaning to gather together into a blog post. I got one or two into this morning’s post about Full Metal Panic, but it didn’t make sense to pull any of the other threads into that particular post.

First thing: I’ve been relying on my Sony PS3 as a DVD/Blu-ray player for, let’s see… eleven years now, apparently. It has always been pretty noisy, and has gotten more so as it has gotten older. (And it’s particularly bad on hot days.) One of my rationales for buying an Xbox One was that it would probably be a better, quieter, DVD/Blu-ray player than the PS3. I still haven’t gotten around to buying a media remote for the Xbox though, so I’ve continued to use the PS3 for playing discs. But I think I may have finally driven it over the edge this weekend. After watching an hour or so of the first disc of FMP: TSR, I took a break, then when I came back and tried to pick up where I’d left off, I found that the PS3 wouldn’t recognize the disc anymore. I didn’t try to do much troubleshooting. I just switched over to the Xbox, and it worked fine. (And there’s no fan noise on the Xbox!) The regular Xbox controller doesn’t make a very good media remote, but it’s workable, once you’ve read the support article telling you what all the buttons do. I’m probably still going to want to buy a media remote at some point, but I’m not in a hurry.

As for the PS3, I’ll give the drive another try at some point and see if it’s fried or if it just overheated yesterday. I’m not sure what I’ll do if it’s fried. Maybe it’s time to give up on the PS3. (But I have so many games I haven’t gotten around to playing yet, and the PS4 isn’t backward compatible with PS3 discs. Oh well.)

Second thread: I mentioned the “hedgehog’s dilemma” in my post about Neon Genesis Evangelion a couple of months ago. I saw this week that Felicity Ward has a comedy show about the hedgehog’s dilemma that is available for download here. I haven’t listened to it yet, but I’ve liked her appearances on The Bugle, so I’m curious about it.

Third thread: I just finished reading the Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series. I’ve had the original black & white books in my reading pile since 2010, and just decided to read them now, as a break from War and Peace. I liked them a lot. I saw an article about a fifteenth anniversary party for the Scott Pilgrim books on Twitter yesterday, so that’s another (slightly) weird coincidence. I think you could probably get a decent essay out of the idea of applying the hedgehog’s dilemma to Scott Pilgrim. Out of curiosity, I searched for “Scott Pilgrim hedgehog” and found an academic paper that matched those terms, but the reference was to Sonic the Hedgehog.

Fourth thread: I’ve now succeeded in selling off all of my Ai Yori Aoshi manga and most of my Rurouni Kenshin manga on eBay. I still have nine items listed on eBay that haven’t sold. I’m just letting them automatically relist every week, with lower prices. I guess if they don’t sell, then at some point I’ll give up and put them aside for a library sale donation or something. I have more books I’d like to put up on eBay, but I don’t really want to do the work right now.

And I’m resisting the urge to buy more manga on eBay. I noticed somebody selling the Full Metal Panic manga, all nine volumes, for $36. That’s kind of tempting. And it’s out of print in the US, so I can’t get it digitally. That’s the problem with selling stuff on eBay; I always start straying off into looking at other people’s auctions, then I wind up buying more stuff!

Anyway, I think my next manga series might have to be Oh My Goddess. I’ve read three of those, and have nine that I haven’t read yet. Of course, there are another 6 or 7 that I don’t own, so I’ll eventually end up back on eBay… And now that I’m looking at it on Wikipedia and Goodreads, I realize that there are a lot more volumes of OMG than I thought there were. I was only looking at the first twenty volumes, but there are actually 48 total. Well, I assume I’ll get tired of it after twenty, but who knows? At least OMG is available digitally.

Full Metal Panic

I found myself in the mood for anime again recently, so I picked something out of my anime DVD pile and started watching. I started with Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, about a week ago. I finished that up yesterday, and started into Full Metal Panic!: The Second Raid. I’d watched the original Full Metal Panic series quite some time ago, and liked it enough to buy Fumoffu and TSR, but then never got around to watching them. I’m not sure when I bought Fumoffu, but I know I bought the first TSR DVD in 2008, since I left the receipt in the DVD case.

After watching a bit of Fumoffu, I took a look at the Wikipedia page for it, and realized that it was produced by Kyoto Animation, the studio where that arson attack happened last month. From the Wikipedia page, it appears that Fumoffu might have actually been the very first series they produced.

I wasn’t really familiar with Kyoto Animation, prior to reading about the arson. It looks like they’d been around since the 80s, but only started acting as the “main producer” on stuff in 2003. Reading up on them, it sounds like they’re a pretty cool company, which only makes the arson thing all the more heartbreaking.

Both Fumoffu and TSR were directed by Yasuhiro Takemoto, who died in that attack. The first DVD of the TSR series has a couple of special features on it, showing a few of the creators of the series, including Takemoto, doing some background research for it, going to a demonstration of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, and on a trip to Hong Kong. Those were fun to watch, but now that I know what happened to Takemoto, I’m feeling pretty melancholy about it.

I started out watching this stuff purely as goofy escapism, but now it all seems a lot heavier. I’m still going to finish watching TSR, and I’m sure it’ll still make me laugh, but lately it doesn’t seem like I can enjoy anything as pure escapism anymore. The real world always intrudes somehow.

As an aside, Fumoffu and TSR are both available to watch for free on YouTube, as is the first series. These appear to be legitimately posted by Funimation. I’m not sure why they’re available for free. Maybe they put older stuff on YouTube to get people interested enough to pay for newer stuff? Regardless, it’s cool that you can watch this stuff for free if you want to.

Updates

The is going to be a general update post, with bits of news related to a few of my other recent posts.

eBay

It looks like I’ve made a little more than $100 from the comics I listed on eBay in July. I have the auto-relisting option turned on for most of my listings, so the stuff that hasn’t sold keeps getting relisted. We’ll see if the rest of my stuff sells or if I have to give up and donate it to Goodwill or something. I’ve only had one problem with shipping so far; there’s one package that made it as far as Dallas, TX, but somehow seems to have gotten stuck there, and hasn’t made it to its intended recipient in Austin, TX. I’m hoping it shows up this week, otherwise I’m going to have to give the guy a refund. Media Mail isn’t insured or guaranteed in any way, so if it’s lost, there’s not much I can do.

Equifax

According to the FTC, it’ll probably be possible to switch from the cash payment to the free credit monitoring option at some point:

For those who have already submitted claims for this cash payment, look for an email from the settlement administrator. They’ll be asking you for the name of the credit monitoring service you already have. Or, if you want to change your mind, you’ll have a chance to switch to the free credit monitoring.

I initially chose the cash, before realizing that it wasn’t actually going to be anywhere near $125.

Warren Ellis

I mentioned some of Ellis’ upcoming work in a post on Saturday. His weekly newsletter comes out on Sundays, and the most recent one contained some updates. It kind of sounds like the new WildCATs book might not come out at all, which would be a bummer. Batman’s Grave is still on the schedule, as is the new Trees series. So he’s got some comics work coming out, but it sounds like this might be the last new comics stuff we’ll see from him for a while.

Related to the WildCATs thing, I’m a little worried about where DC is going in general. This piece by Rob Salkowitz has been getting a lot of attention. I’m not sure I think things are that bad for DC, but who knows.

SDCC

After SDCC, I ordered a copy of the program book on eBay, as I’ve typically done in recent years. It finally showed up yesterday, so now I can spend some time reading it and fantasizing about what it would have been like to be there. On a related note, Maggie Thompson has a column up on the SDCC blog reminiscing about 50 years of SDCC. I always like reading her columns.

Saturday reading

It’s another way-too-hot day in NJ, so, after I got my usual Saturday chores done this morning, I proceeded to spend the rest of the day re-reading the first twelve issues of Warren Ellis’ The Wild Storm series. The final issue (#24) was in my last Westfield order, so now I’m ready to read 13-24 and finish the series. I may do that tomorrow. I’ve really enjoyed this series, and I’m hoping the last 12 issues are as good as the first 12.

Meanwhile, I’m about 60% of the way through War and Peace. I started reading that in June, for my Great American Read group. We’ve normally been reading one standalone novel each month, but this one has stretched through June, July, and now August. I’m kind of hoping to get done with it by Labor Day, but I’m not sure I will. (I’ve actually really been enjoying it, and it’s a much easier read than I thought it would be. But, yes, it is a long one.)

My GAR group has also been doing a series read concurrent with the standalone read. I skipped the most recent one, the Dollanganger series, which just didn’t interest me. But that just finished up, so I ran a new poll, and now we’re going to read the Gilead series by Marilynne Robinson. I’m actually interested in that one, so I should try to read the first book in that series this month too.

Back on the subject of Warren Ellis, he’s been very busy lately. He’s got a new Batman series coming out soon, and a new WildCATs series (which has been delayed, but hopefully not for too long). And a new Trees series from Image. And he’s working on Castlevania season 3. So I don’t think I’ll run out of Ellis material to read/watch any time soon.

 

Equifax settlement decisions

After first seeing the news about the big Equifax settlement, I kind of breezed past it, assuming that it was one of those things that would mostly just enrich some lawyers and not result in any real money trickling down to consumers. But this morning, a friend posted a link to this article on Facebook, so I decided to go ahead and file for the $125. First, $125 is enough to make it worth spending five minutes filling out a web form. And, second, their argument that it’s the right thing to do, to make sure that Equifax pays for their mistake, is a good one.

Of course, a little later in the morning, I found this article, indicating that the free credit monitoring might be a better choice than the $125. And this one, pointing out that I probably won’t get anywhere near $125. So, yeah, my initial impulse to ignore the whole thing was probably the right one. I’ll probably wind up getting a check for 37¢.

My time on the internet is probably better spent watching Patrick McGoohan drum solos on YouTube. (OK, so McGoohan wasn’t actually playing drums in that clip, but it’s still a good drum solo.)

Cory Booker at SDCC

One more bit of San Diego Comic-Con news: Cory Booker Goes to Comic-Con.

I’m pretty darn jaded at this point, especially with politics, but this is kind of a nice thing. Cory Booker isn’t perfect, and I’m not sure he’s ready to be president, but, hey, wouldn’t it be nice to have a legitimate Star Trek fan in the Oval Office?

The last time I remember an important politician showing up at the con, it was John Lewis, cosplaying as himself, in 2015. (That was also hard to view in my usual ironic, detached, jaded perspective…)

 

more on SDCC and eBay

It’s been a very hot day here in New Jersey. I’d much rather be in San Diego today, but I’m doing my best to entertain myself and maybe even get a few useful things done here at home. Some of my eBay auctions ended, and I actually sold a reasonable amount of stuff, at almost reasonable prices. I had one TPB sell for $1, which was weird, since I thought I’d set the minimum bid on everything at no lower than $3, but I guess I screwed up on that one.

The highest prices I got were on the Akira TPBs, which all went for slightly more than my $12 “buy it now” price. It’s always a bit funny when auctions end up going higher than the “buy it now” price, but it can happen. One guy bought all three books, so now I’m faced with the problem of finding a box that can fit all three. I found a Priority Mail flat rate box that’s the right size, but I only planned on using Media Mail. I don’t seem to have any other boxes that are the right size. So I might go out and buy a plain box in the right size tomorrow, or I might just punt and use the Priority Mail box and take a hit on the shipping.

If I was trying to make a living at this stuff, I’d be doing a horrible job. Selling stuff for $1, shipping Priority Mail because I’m too lazy to buy a plain box, and so on. But since I’m in it just for the sake of clearing up space in my apartment, it’s fine.

I haven’t spent too much time today looking at SDCC news, but I did look at the list of Eisner winners. Tom King won in several categories, and his work is honestly about the only stuff on the list (both winners and nominees) that I’ve read. I’ve read the Ed Piskor X-Men stuff, and that was good. I have Sean Murphy’s Batman: White Knight, but haven’t read it yet. I’d like to read some of Jeff Lemire’s Black Hammer stuff someday. And I’ve read a lot of the Brubaker/Phillips stuff, but not My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies. So there’s plenty of stuff there that I’d like to read eventually.

This short NPR story covers a bit about the history of the con, which is now 50 years old. And there’s some other mildly amusing coverage of the con up at the NPR site. There’s a playlist of videos from KPBS up on YouTube, including interviews with Scott Shaw! and Mark Evanier. (Though they call Scott “Stan” and omit the exclamation point he uses at the end of his name.)

not at SDCC 2019, day one

Once again, I’m not at SDCC. Instead, I’m suffering through a heat wave with the rest of the unfortunate souls stuck in New Jersey this weekend. It’ll only be in the 80s today, with some rain, but it’ll be back into the mid 90s tomorrow through Sunday.  Getting out of New Jersey’s summer heat and humidity for a few days has always been one of my favorite things about the San Diego con. (And the weather in San Diego looks pretty good this year: low 70s every day.)

I realized yesterday that my eBay auctions will be ending during the con, on Saturday and Sunday. I’m not sure if that helps or hinders things. On the one hand, anyone at the con probably won’t be looking at eBay. On the other hand, everyone not at the con (a much larger group) might be seeing more comics coverage in the news than usual, and might be more likely to check eBay for comics-related stuff. I have bids now on 6 out of the 31 books I’ve listed, and (assuming everyone who wins pays up), I’m guaranteed to make at least $20. So, that’s not great, but it’s not horrible either. It’s enough to buy a couple of sandwiches, I guess.

All three volumes of Akira that I’ve listed have gotten bids, and were the first items to get bids. I just noticed that I finished reading those volumes four years ago today, and blogged about it. Akira remains popular, possibly because of the upcoming live-action film. That’s apparently on hold now, but it’s still likely to happen, maybe in 2021 or 2022.

I haven’t had much time to look at today’s news out of the con, but I did read a bit about the DC Meet the Publishers panel. Most of the current stuff I’m buying and reading right now is DC, so it’s always interesting to see what’s going on with them.

selling some more manga on eBay

After yesterday’s work, posting a bunch of graphic novels to eBay, I decided to dig out some old manga and set up some more listings today. I started with the last nine volumes of the Rurouni Kenshin manga. (I’d already sold or given away the first 19 volumes. I posted about reading the last few volumes in 2017.)

This time, I decided to try eBay’s “multiple listing tool.” That worked out fairly well, but with a few bumps. The tool is fairly hard to find. It’s available from eBay’s Bulk Listing Tools page, along with a bunch of other tools. But you really have to look for it. They don’t really advertise its existence. It lets you set up a template listing, then duplicate it a bunch of times, then edit the copies. So I used it to create a “Rurouni Kenshin Vol xx” listing, then went through and replaced “xx” with 20 through 28, and uploaded photos for each listing. The main issue I had with the tool is that, if you accidentally navigate away from the page, you lose all your work and have to start over. It doesn’t seem to save your work at all. Nor is there any obvious ability to save the listings as drafts rather than posting them right away. Aside from some obvious problems like that, it was definitely easier than if I’d had to set up nine listings from scratch through the default interface.

I have a bunch of other manga volumes I might also post, including a complete run of Ai Yori Aoshi. I’m not sure if I’ll do that today, or wait for next weekend. Maybe I should do it today, while I’m still motivated.