Spring in Burbank

[tealin]

For two mounths out of the year there are actually green growing things in this parched valley. Rejoice! Frolic! Take pictures!

There's a field between the studio and the freeway – I don't know who owns it, but it's used by people exercising their horses. Every time I'd park my bike in the morning I'd see how much bigger the little green shoots had grown, taking advantage of the four or five rainstorms we've had this winter. Only just last week I actually rode my bike through the field and was surprised how much was out there. I thought I should take pictures before they mow it all down in a couple weeks for fire safety.

        
    

I don't know what the weed-that-looks-like-geraniums is called, but it's grown in some form nearly everywhere I've lived. I've never seen it grow as tall as me before, though, not even in lush green Canada. Must be all the horse poo.

Look, trees!

    

This is an overview of the field from the second floor of the studio:


And look, the hill! THERE IS GREEN ON IT!


We're on the wrong side of it to get foggy mornings most of the time, but it makes for a neat effect anyway:


I walked towards it every day two summers ago, and lived at its base for a couple months before I learned that the world-famous Hollywood sign is just on the other side of that flat bit with the antennae. It's just the hill in my backyard! Mind asplodey.

If you catch the right light and crop it cleverly, Burbank doesn't look half bad, sometimes...

Hey Mac users! Do you ever find that if it's been running for a while (like over 24 hours) Firefox gets, for lack of a better term, tired? Like, it'll stop loading images or page formatting and sometimes you'll get to a page and just ... none of the links work. If I quit and restart it works fine, but I don't like quitting Firefox because I am not a quitter I have stuff loaded that I need to refer to and if I close it I have to reload it all, which is a waste of time and server brainpower. Is this a Mac thing or is it just my own personal MacBook McBuggy over here?

Comments

[theatreotter.livejournal.com]

The picture from the second floor overlooking the field? Breathtaking. Lucky!

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, it only looks like that at the bloody crack of dawn ... I guess that's one upside to the crazy hours. :)

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

P.S. Most of the year it's a dustbowl with depressing dead grass stubble in it, so ... yeah.

[hobbitnat.livejournal.com]

wow, so pretty! i love California! i never been to Burbank before, so i love Burbank California now cause these pictures are beautiful!

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

The camera lies! THE CAMERA LIES!! Or at least, omits certain truths.

[dejablue7.livejournal.com]

How pretty :) The commentary on the photos is very entertaining too ;)

[packy.livejournal.com]

Canada is lush and green? I thought it was all frozen tundra!</stupid-american>

[lunylucy.livejournal.com]

Oh so you're at the Animation studio? Right by the abc building? It's not that bad ;D At least this area doesn't catch fires as much. Driving by hills that are all black and naked after fires is really depressing :(

I like the transparency of the green in the very first picture.

[packy.livejournal.com]

As for Firefox on a Mac, you're not alone in your frustration. Firefox for Mac is somewhat notoriously resource hoggy, and I've read that they're working on this in FF 3.5.

However, while Firefox munches resources on OS X like there's no tomorrow, there's another Mozilla browser that doesn't: Camino (http://caminobrowser.org/). It's got a lot of Firefox's goodness (no extensions, though) but none of the memory issues. Try it out--you might like it.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I appear to be operating on Firefox 2.0.0.16 still ... while the IT guys are religious about updating iTunes they are somewhat lax about Firefox, it seems. And I don't have administrative privileges here so I can't update it myself, or install a new browser. :P Good to know about Camino, I shall keep it under my hat ... though the world is a sad, sad place without Adblock.

[packy.livejournal.com]

True, but Camino has a built-in Flashblock option that's effectively the same, since most annoying ads are done in Flash these days. All Flash is replaced with a comparably sized Flash icon, and clicking on the icon runs the Flash. I have to put up the with extra minor annoyance of an extra mouse click when I go to sites like YouTube, but it's so nice to be able to have 30 tabs with Flash ads on them open at the same time and not have my poor G4 Powerbook brought to its knees.

Anyway, I'd at least send a request to IT to see if they could update Firefox to the latest 3.0 build. I did notice a marked improvement from 2.0 to 3.0, so it'll be better for you. Include a quick sketch of an aged Firefox as well--if they're anything like me, they'll be suckers for personalized art (though, working at an animation studio, they may be inured to that tactic).

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

This is a good idea ... after all I'm on fairly good terms with the IT guys as they keep having to come figure out weird things McBuggy gets up to, and I take an interest in what they're doing ... dunno how much artwork they get, usually they're fixing things so people can do artwork for other people. They do have a 'HELPER CAT IS HELPING' macro on their job request page so they must have a sense of humour. :)

[iseepurplehair.livejournal.com]

Ooh, pretty. I'm used to being surrounded by evergreens, but that still looks nice and green.

[trutitipudlian.livejournal.com]

Pretty much a Mac thing. All three of mine do that with any browser, and just about any application left on for a long time becomes sluggish. Mind, I find this true of all computers, though somewhat less with other PCs. As if to make up for this they come with their own very, very . . . remarkable problems.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

...just about any application left on for a long time becomes sluggish.

Why? Whyyy?? It doesn't make any sense!

[trutitipudlian.livejournal.com]

In my expert opinion it is because they hate us, and we are really only a few years away from the machine uprising. My own troubleshooting advice would be to be very nice to one's computer. Name it a nice name like Fritz or Gerald, not something like Hal (it will only annoy them, and give them ideas). Greet them when you first turn them on with a cheery hello, and a goodnight when you turn them off. While it not very effective with the speed of the computer, common courtesy to it might just save one from coming doom of the revolution.

However, the interest of complete fairness I will allow the other side's opinion to be heard. My favorite English teacher disagreed with my advanced theory and opted for a more traditional viewpoint. "It is," he said staring at the screen trying to pull up a helpful website on why (contrary to my point of view) Emily Dickinson did not write insane dribble, "demonically possessed." The learned professor recommends dancing withershins about the desk of said computer while chanting "NaNaNaNa Hey Hey Goodbye," and flinging herbs about with a chicken foot. Its apprently drives out the demons placed there by Bill Gates The Lord of Hell.

I would not recommend that because a lot of behaviors can be ignored with the person in question has tenure, and are less tolerated in ordinary folks. Besides, the lack success he had with the method (and my own experiments in the name of science) would suggest that it is merely Old Professors tales. I have not yet experimented with bell, book and candle but perhaps you could try that method.

(I have heard it talked about by older, wiser, and geeker Mac fans about computers overheating with time. I am no expert on real things related to computers, so I've really no idea. But I generally say with some authority that there seems to be a correlation between the sluggishness of a computer, and upon touching the computer you pull your hand away screaming for a bucket of ice.)

[kyprincess.livejournal.com]

Yeah horse poop is great for greenifying things haha. There is actually nice green (or blue) grass for said horses to eat these days. I was driving to school this morning and the babies were playing in the fields. New born racehorses= sure sign that spring has sprung.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

I know that path! I use it for late-night dogwalks: no horses or cars and you can off-leash them for miles. Only the occasional horse-pie or uncrossable puddle in the tunnel when it rains hard.

What version of Firefox and Mac OS are you using? I used to have that problem with an earlier version of Firefox: if I left it running, after a day you'd notice how laggy it would get. After several days, it would sometimes take seconds for each typed letter to appear...

Newer versions of Firefox and MacOS fixed this (but I don't know what fixed what: technotard here).

EDIT: At the time I used a program that showed you how much processor power each open program was using (Memory Usage Getter) and when Firefox slowed down, the MUG was showing Firefox using 160% of total CPU! Not sure how that was possible, but it explained why it was running so slowly (and how other programs tended to crash).

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

NO WAY! The little kitchen nook that has the microwave and coffee machine overlooks the field, and I spend quite a while staring at it when heating things up or getting my fix; I might possibly have seen you! There are lots of dog walkers ... granted, most of the ones I actually see are in the daytime. :) Where does the tunnel go (besides under the freeway)? Is there a way to cross the river near there? I keep looking up at the hill and Forest Lawn and thinking 'hmm, hiking would be nice,' but there are so many barriers.

I'm running Firefox 2.0.0.16 on a Tiger MacBook (a.k.a. MacBook McBuggy because hello problems) ... oddly enough, even though Firefox gets lazy when it comes to loading things, it doesn't seem to run slower, necessarily, and it doesn't seem to affect any other program that's running. Anyway there's little I can do about it even if I did know what was wrong; IT doesn't trust us meddling artists and we don't have administrative privileges.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I recognized the view! I have friends who used to live and work in the area and kept artist-hours: we'd meet for dinner and then do a late-night dogwalk. You probably haven't seen me, though: we'd walk late so as not to run into horses (who get spooked by dogs and murderers and paper cups). There are places to cross over (at the end of Mariposa, I think), but I would usually just walk on the north side up to the entrance to the equestrian center and back.

The tunnel going west goes past Johnny Carson Park and continues along the north side of the L.A. River. Going east, the riding trail goes along the river, past the equestrian center and at least up to the park off of Victory just before I-5.

If you cross the river at Mariposa, I believe you can walk all the way to the zoo, as well as miles and miles of hiking paths in and around Griffith Park.

Very safe during the day, but have a partner or a big dog after dark. The Cursing Bush is a good reason for at least a big dog: at the east end of Johnny Carson Park is a big bush that curses at dogs that investigate it. It's probably just a cranky homeless guy living there, but could be monsters.

Re: processor leak-- Try clearing your cache (both the Mac DNS cache and the Firefox cache). I think I also finally cleared out my Firefox history cache: I had it set to some ungodly amount and that slowed it down for certain functions. Oh, and re-start your computer after you do this.

If none of those improve the situation, try upgrading to at least Leopard. I'll ask my Mac guru what he told me to do when I still had Tiger.

[fani.livejournal.com]

HEY IT LOOKS SORT OF LIKE THE OLD COUNTRY!

...sort of. I'll take what I can^^

[amyofcanada.livejournal.com]

Ooo, flower identification! (I've been a geek about wildflowers ever since I started a hummingbird garden last year)
Might those purple flowers be fireweed? http://www.thomaslaupstad.com/bilder/fireweed_800.jpg
I know they're pretty prevalent.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

The actual purple blossoms I would not doubt are fireweed, though they're paler than any fireweed I've seen. I think I did know the name of the geranium-leafed stuff once upon a time, or at least a dwarf variety of it ... it has little pale green flowers that are more or less petal-less and sit at the joint between leaf and central stem, if I recall.

[amyofcanada.livejournal.com]

Oh, oops. No idea about those!

[ardys-the-ghoul.livejournal.com]

The hills remind me a bit of Arizona, or at least the area of Arizona around Tucson, which is surprisingly green for that part of the country--or at least it was when I was there late last summer. It also rained every single day we were there, which I also wasn't expecting--who knew Arizona had a "monsoon season"?

[tony-cliff.livejournal.com]

Holy crap! LA isn't a total hellhole?

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Amazingly enough, there are some places, here and there, that are almost nice (some of the year).

[odogoddess.livejournal.com]

Oh, no! *points to icon* (which changes seasonally, I might add)

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I'm not an expert but I think you could be getting bitten by memory fragmentation. If you worked in any kind of graphics field it used to be a big problem on all computers, all the time, but that was back in the days that a computer on average ran on something around 32 MB of RAM or less.

What would happen is that you'd boot up and open a program which would grab a piece of RAM, and then when you were finished you would open up another, which would grab what it needed, but the first program wouldn't turn loose of all that it had grabbed because it was still open. So after a couple of hours and 3-4 programs, all still running, you would switch back to one of the ones you started with and try to do something and it would try to grab some more RAM to deal with the new commands you were giving it, and either there wouldn't be any, or what it got would be in two bits and they didn't necessarily work together very smoothly.

OSX has a *much* better internal memory management which generally smooths over the gaps and makes things work far better, but memory in bits is probably still memory in bits, and doesn't work as smoothly as memory in one big chunk.

[http://users.livejournal.com/__lys_fleurx__/]

When I used to use Firefox on my PC it did that, and I would get so very very mad now I just use safari.