this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2026
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Okay, so my airing of grievances post had some issues.

So, lets swap it up:

What events are you looking forward to in 2026?

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[–] mikenurre@lemmy.world 44 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Finally switching to Linux!

[–] porcoesphino@mander.xyz 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Nice. Have you chosen a distro?

[–] mikenurre@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago (5 children)

All of them! I have Ubuntu 24LTS on my desktop, prepping Mint for a utility machine, testing Manjaro and Endeavor in VMs, not sure what distro I will move my laptop to yet.

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Either way, another soul saved. Great to have you on board!

[–] mikenurre@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I still have Azure certs, and Microsoft is still my job. But... if I can make my job moving others off Microsoft, many souls can be saved.

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

US midterm elections: November 3, 2026. The most-likely outcome is that the Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives, though they won't actually take office until January 3, 2027.

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Most likely outcome is a rigged election

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[–] porcoesphino@mander.xyz 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. It might not launch in the year but after it does launch we should see some new exoplanets and we might get some new information about dark energy. Since it's scanning the sky we might see some interesting transient events

[–] Asafum@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm always looking forward to new telescopes! With the way this disgusting excuse of an administration is going though I'm always afraid for the future of all remaining telescopes....

Gotta free up that budget to cut more billionaires taxes and throw more money at the military ya know?

...

[–] porcoesphino@mander.xyz 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Like the VIPER moon rover? Completely built but cancelled. And a bit hard to square with wanting to put boots on the moon since the mission according to Wikipedia was:

The rover would be tasked with prospecting for lunar resources in permanently shadowed areas of lunar south pole region, especially by mapping the distribution and concentration of water ice.

I guess that's pretty small compared to things like the National Center for Atmospheric Research being dismantled. Actually, its a pretty long list

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 week ago

Spring. Because it's fucking cold here atm.

[–] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Not really an event, but I installed a small trial solar setup (800W with 1 kWh battery) this past autumn that I am quite pleased with (despite the utter lack of sun since November).

In the spring, I'm planning to expand that to something like a ~7 KW solar array, 10 KW inverter/charger, and hopefully around 16 kWh of battery.

Screw you, AEP and my rate nearly doubling year over year

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Where did you buy the equipment? In my local area theres a ton of scammers for solar. But the tech is VERY good and outside my local area, I know it works. Still looking for a good supplier.

[–] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Locally, there's nothing (not even scammers). I got 4x200 watt panels from Amazon and am using those with an Anker Solix C1000.

For the expansion in the spring, I'm probably going to order more of the same PV panels. For the combo inverter/charger, I'm looking at the ones from SungoldPower currently as well as a few others. Battery is still in the research phase, but the inverter can auto switch between solar and utility without the battery.

The wiring I can handle but will probably have an electrician do the wiring from my main breaker to the subpanel that's fed from the solar inverter (grid tie is too caught up in expensive red tape to bother with here).

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[–] porcoesphino@mander.xyz 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It looks like there is an eclipse for anyone in Spain, Greenland and Iceland:

https://nso.edu/for-public/eclipse-map-2026/

[–] remon@ani.social 4 points 1 week ago

Probably will be overshadowed by the Greenland War ....

[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago (4 children)
[–] porcoesphino@mander.xyz 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is that sex reassignment surgery? I had to search and figure others might not know either

[–] toomanypancakes@piefed.world 9 points 1 week ago

Hell yeah, that's exciting! I hope you're lucky :)

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[–] mrdown@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Hopefully trump death

[–] toomanypancakes@piefed.world 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'm just looking forward to summer, I wanna get away with wearing short shorts and sundresses again

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

AMEN! Cannot wait for it to be bright past 4 flippin' PM.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

considers

You know, not really a problem that I've thought about, but outerwear is gonna limit what people can show from a fashion standpoint.

I'm not aware of any effort by clothing designers to really work on the problem, but I wonder if it's possible to make outerwear that thermally-insulates, but is transparent.

I don't know if it would run into problems like fogging up on the inner surface and that messing with transparency. If so, it might be possible to mitigate that via use of forced ventilation coupled with an inverse-flow heat exchanger, or maybe using some kind of hydrophilic insert to absorb moisture.

goes searching

What I get for "transparent jackets" is mostly raincoat-type things, thin sheet of plastic.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/661392917/long-womans-transparent-trench-coat

The problem with those is that those can't do much to insulate.

There's also this:

https://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2024/10/transparent-down-jacket-keeps-you-warm-sans-feathers-uses-near-infrared-rays-from-sunlight-to-do-so/Transparent-down-jacket-by-Kosuke-Tsumura-2.jpg

Which probably will do something to insulate, since air insulates pretty well, but the bending plastic on the sides of the air pockets are going to do a number on the aesthetic, since one can't see clearly through it.

What I guess one would want would be a substance that thermally-insulates, is transparent, and also doesn't act like a lens to distort what's on the other side.

Aerogel is one of the best thermal insulators we have, so you'd need very little thickness to provide a very great amount of thermal insulation.

It can be at least somewhat-transparent; most shots I've seen look kind of like a cloud:

And it looks like people are looking into using a thin layer on windows, as effectively-transparent insulation:

https://tokyo-smes.com/en/productservice/transparent-glass-film/

It's also extremely strong.

However:

  • It's rigid, which isn't ideal for clothing; the human body moves, and if you want it to fit to form, it has to be able to contour to it. That being said, we have made human clothing out of rigid substances before, like chain mail

you just need to segment the stuff into small pieces. To some extent, outerwear doesn't need to contour to form; hoop skirts, for example, didn't. We have made clothing out of joined, rigid metal plates before; it's clearly at least possible, though outside of armor and sheer novelty of aesthetic, I don't think that we've ever really had a practical reason to actually do so:

![](https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/d14b97ac-1771-4ffc-aecd-f548e2bbdc4c.jpeg)
  • I understand that it's also damaged by contact with water. This can be dealt with by coating it with something that protects against water, but that stuff has to be able to resist being punctured. Need a transparent coating, maybe some kind of plastic, maybe Gorilla Glass or something.

  • It's presently (relatively) expensive to make. My guess is that that can probably be overcome; industrial diamonds used to once be pretty expensive too.

    searches

    It looks like these people have a flexible, composite blanket partly made out of aerogel and billed for use in apparel, though they're not trying to make something that's transparent (and their composite is even more expensive).

[–] gigastasio@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 week ago
[–] BaraCoded@literature.cafe 9 points 1 week ago

Waking up from the Nightmare.

[–] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

More personal I suppose then anything large. But I'm getting solar installed! Was supposed to be installed last fall but due to weather it was pushed back. I'll be glad to see lower, if not negative power bills (especially since the price recently jumped). Having 39 panels installed. So that'll be nice.

[–] MuttMutt@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I've got 7.2KW waiting to go on the roof. 400W bifacial panels with Enphase IQ8A'S. I have 3 panels running now and they generally shave 3kwh per day of my bill right now. In the summer peak the same 3 panels shave twice that off. Just have to get the racking materials and a few other things so I can get started.

I'm lucky that I can DIY the whole system where I am at. Hopefully the battery systems will start to drop in price before long.

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[–] habitualcynic@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

US: hopefully trump’s death of old age

World: hoping for a fusion achievement

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

As much as I hope for both, I think only one of the two have a reasonable probability of happening.

In 2025 China installed over 500GW of solar power. That is an insane amount it's over 1.3 gigawatts a day or a large power plant per day. Sodium batteries have gone into production and gonna be sold at like 50$/kwh. These price points and scales are where it's cheaper to build 2 times your power needed in solar and have like a week of battery backup so you can power everything off solar and wind. Right now it's 60/40 fossil fuels/low carbon sources for electricity production, 2026 will be the year it flips to 49/51 in actuality, it might take a year or two before analysts actually realize it has happened.

[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 week ago

Pierre Pollievre getting the fuck out of office, or at least stepping down. he's fucking pathetic and only seeks to divide the country.

goddamn I wish we had proper vote reform for ranked ballots or whatever, and didn't get stuck with the Liberals

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Getting my backup situation under control so I can be less stressed...finishing my basement studio and maybe starting on my gaming room finishing. Id love to have more people over for playing some old console games and ps1/2 (which are a new console btw).

The state of the world I choose to ignore

[–] Jumbie@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

The Headline.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I don't "look forward" to it per se, but I honestly am very curious what happens with Google's "Sideloading Ban"

I wonder if there'd be any bypasses.

Or if someone would make a usable Linux Phone by then.

Like I really want an all in one device that you can unlock and relock bootloader at any time and the bootloader is lockable to a custom user password that locks out any evil-maid attacks by anyone other than the device owner. I want such a device that can work both as a phone and as a computer.

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[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Im going to get an Arduboy fx and Diptyx ebook reader at some point. Looking forward to playing around with both.

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[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 week ago

Trumps suicide

[–] porcoesphino@mander.xyz 4 points 1 week ago

Oh, I'm not sure how I missed this:

I had been really looking forward to the World Cup

[–] adhd_traco@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Specific things:

Zach Bryan hopefully finally releasing the full version of his song Bad News: wikipedia, youtube.

Second season of the night manager

US midterms, though whatever the outcome, it won't be enough by itself.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago

Furry convention! Had to miss last year’s cuz my partner and I got COVID a week beforehand D:

[–] MuttMutt@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

April 1st I travel to Cozumel Mexico for a couple weeks of diving. Another 30 hours in my happy place (up to 100 feet under water) will be amazing.

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[–] snoons@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Deep Rock Galactic has a new season coming out by the end of January.

Maybe I'll finally be able to fix my espresso machine once the company I ordered parts from gets their shit together... :Λ

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