mic_check_one_two
@mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- Comment on Do you think that Trump is the most hated U.S. president? 1 day ago:
Depends who you ask. He was the single most vilified president among conservatives.
- Comment on O hi 1 day ago:
Yeah, it’s that old “Cleopatra lived closer to modern day than the building of the pyramids. Ancient Egypt had archeologists who studied ancient Egypt” thing.
- Comment on This needs to stöp 2 days ago:
I guess I’m out of the lööp on this one. Does Stardew have collectible rings or something?
- Comment on 'We Need to Change Course' — Bethesda Boss Tells Staff the Company Must Focus on 'Our Strongest Franchises' as Xbox Layoffs Hit Hard 2 days ago:
I couldn’t take Oblivion Remastered seriously because of the goofy sprint animation. Every single time I zoomed out to third person, the goofy sprint had me cackling. The character runs like you’re out of lockpicks and trying to bash doors down with your skull.
- Comment on More chickens! 3 days ago:
I’ve snuck knives through security multiple times, and it has always been an accident. I’ll usually get through security and then as I’m putting everything back in my pockets, I realize that there is a keychain knife on my keys, or that I forgot about a folding blade in my wallet.
I work in an industry where I sometimes have to cut a lot of rope. And I don’t want to waste time tracking down a knife every time I need one. So I’m in the habit of always keeping a knife (honestly, multiple knives) somewhere on my person. Even if I left my regular knife, and my multitool, and my keys (with my keychain knife) at my desk, I still probably have a knife somewhere weird like in my wallet. But that means I also have a bunch of random blades that I tend to forget about until I actively need them.
- Comment on The end of civilization costs $5 6 days ago:
That does exactly what I said in the second method. It insulates everything except the top, so it freezes in one direction. So I guess thanks for proving my point?
- Comment on The end of civilization costs $5 6 days ago:
If you’re into making fancy ice, then you can get into making your own purified water using complete combustion. If you’re into making purified water with complete combustion then can get into making your own hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. If you’re into making your own hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen then you can get into making your own universe.
- Comment on The end of civilization costs $5 6 days ago:
That may help slightly, as it lowers the water’s ability to hold dissolved gasses. So boiling it beforehand will force out a lot of the gas that would have become air bubbles. But it’s not perfect, and results vary a lot. There are two main ways to get clear ice:
- Keep it moving while it freezes, so the air bubbles can escape
- Insulate it so it only freezes from one direction.
Basically, the air bubbles cause foggy ice. And air bubbles tend to get trapped because water freezes from the outside (where the cold air is touching it) first. This forms a hard shell, which then traps the gas and causes foggy ice. By agitating the water, you ensure that it doesn’t start freezing until all of the water is ready to freeze. It prevents the shell from forming first, meaning gas can escape the center of the cubes as it freezes.
For the second method, by insulating it, you ensure that the water freezes from one direction. For instance, if you fill an ice chest/cooler with water (effectively insulating it from the sides and bottom) and throw it in the freezer without a lid, the top half of the cooler will be clear ice and the bottom will be foggy. Because as the top freezes, the gas is able to escape down towards the bottom of the cooler. So your ice doesn’t get murky until the gas runs out of room at the bottom of the cooler.
- Comment on When will the all white home with grey floors trend be over? 1 week ago:
The other element is imitation of wealth. Wealthy people have ‘clean’ (can be read lifeless) space as a show of wealth.
This is a large part of it, TBH. Completely clear spaces mean you have space. Lots of large houses have kitchens that are almost barren with cooking tools, because they actually have space to properly store everything. And that means they have a large kitchen. It’s not that they have fewer things; they just have more places to put the things they have.
Also, proper minimalism is actually fairly expensive. Minimalism is usually focused on having high quality items that can last and long time, work well, and can do multiple tasks. And it also means you’re okay re-buying things that you may only occasionally need.
They’d never dream of using the rusty hand-crank can opener that is older than your grandparents. Instead, they’ll use an automatic can opener, jar opener, jar re-sealer, soda can crusher, vacuum sealer, and sous vide cooker, all in one. It is an essential part of every minimalist kitchen, and you can have it for the low low price of only $5000. Oh, all of those things can be independently purchased for a fraction of that cost? Well now your kitchen is full of single-use tools that all take up space. Not very clean and tidy, is it? Now all of your storage space is full, and your kitchen is messy.
- Comment on 1 week ago:
I have a few dozen GB of my own spank-bank saved… But that’s mostly an old habit from when I was a teen trying to beat off with awful WiFi reception in my bedroom. Admittedly, it is very nice being able to curate a collection that I know I like. It eliminates a lot of the “digging through five pages of things I’m not interested in, to find the one thing I like” decision paralysis.
- Comment on 1 week ago:
This was the original draw of Sirius Radio. The satellite thing was mostly for broadcasting range (meaning you could reliably get stations regardless of where you were physically located). The whole original point was that you paid a subscription so you didn’t have to listen to ads. You just got continuous radio.
But it’s also worth noting that was the original point of cable TV too. You paid a subscription so you didn’t need to watch commercials. Broadcast TV was supported by ads, but cable was supported by subscribers. But once they had enough users, they started changing their messaging. It shifted from “ad-free TV” to “better quality, more channels”. And once people got used to that (and forgot about the no ads thing) they quietly started slipping commercials into cable TV. Because they realized they could just double-dip, and not running ads was essentially leaving money on the table. But the initial draw of cable was that you didn’t spend ~16 minutes watching commercials every hour.
- Comment on 1 week ago:
They said internet blackout. Which really wouldn’t be too bad in the long term. The world functioned fine without the internet for millennia’s before. The short term would be difficult, but lots of my industry would be relatively unaffected. Things would just take a lot longer, efficiency would be reduced, and there would be a lot more phone calls and hard copy files. Just like in the 70’s and 80’s, before computers were truly common.
- Comment on I feel like this could have been a smaller package 1 week ago:
Same brand. Same price. Suddenly there’s only 200 pills in the bottle AND it’s in a larger bottle now?
AKA Shrinkflation. Retail is full of it, and it is usually done in a way that leaves the original package size alone. The goal is to reduce the amount of product inside of the package, without changing the package noticeably. The linked Wiki page uses Toblerone as an example, but here is another good example: Image
The package dimensions for the peanut butter appear to stay the same, (at least when it is sitting on a shelf) so customers don’t immediately notice the smaller size. They just think “my last jar was this same size, so I’m getting the same amount.” It feels like the same amount, even though it is much less for the same price.
My personal favorite example is the Terry’s Chocolate Orange, which slightly reduced the thickness of each individual wedge. By adding that air gap between wedges, they were able to reduce the amount of chocolate in each orange by like 15%, while still maintaining the overall size and shape.
- Comment on Niche meme alert 🚨🚨🚨 1 week ago:
Gate keeping art is as old as art itself.
- Comment on Niche meme alert 🚨🚨🚨 1 week ago:
This is exactly how I tend to think about it. It’s like the plot in fighting games. It’s just used to ferry the audience from one fight to the next. The actual pretext doesn’t really matter that much, because that’s not why the audience is there. The amount of sheer athleticism that gets displayed on a weekly basis is honestly astounding.
Sure, pro wrestling is fake. But there is no way to fake a hit like this. The fact that those men didn’t leave on stretchers puts them on par with stuntmen.
- Comment on Surviving a heatwave : Prison Edition 1 week ago:
Swamp coolers unfortunately only work in arid places. Where I live, it is often too humid for a swamp cooler to effectively cool anything.
- Comment on Surviving a heatwave : Prison Edition 1 week ago:
I’d use a piece of insulation foam board, cut to fit the window. Lighter than something like plywood, way more insulating, and can be easily squished into place once it is cut to size. Just hole the board up to the window, mark where your cuts need to be made, line one side with shiny foil, tape it along the back, and you’re done. Now you have an insulating reflective panel that can easily be popped in during the daytime heat, then pulled out at night.
- Comment on Kingdom Hearts AI art accusations hit Square Enix, and that sure looks like slop to me 2 weeks ago:
Weren’t there suspicions that Wish (a major Disney movie that flopped hard) was largely AI generated? I don’t think Disney has too many objections to AI use…
- Comment on Kingdom Hearts AI art accusations hit Square Enix, and that sure looks like slop to me 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, this actually looks similar to the early concept sketches that Nomura cooked up. Back before Disney noticed he was trying to put a chainsaw-wielding character next to Donald and Goofy, and told him to chill out.
The original concept was that the keyblade was going to be an end-game weapon that you worked towards, while the primary weapon was going to be a chainsaw. Then Disney went “hey-… Uhh… We noticed you’re going to put a chainsaw-wielding psychopath next to Donald and Goofy. Maybe fucking don’t do that?? Take it down like two notches.” So Nomura pivoted and just gave Sora the keyblade right at the start of the game.
- Comment on Kingdom Hearts AI art accusations hit Square Enix, and that sure looks like slop to me 2 weeks ago:
Looks like Castle Oblivion, which was a major plot point in several games. It has a very Escher vibe.
- Comment on 2 weeks ago:
As someone who had (and was) a work wife: I completely agree. Hell, I was in the wedding party (on her now-husband’s side) when my work wife got married.
- Comment on 2 weeks ago:
I’m reminded of the “I Am Rich” app. The app cost (IIRC) $1000, and all it did was display a floating diamond on the screen. When you tapped the diamond, it displayed the text “I am rich, I deserve it, I am good, healthy, and successful.” That was it. That was the entire app. It was just a way for rich people to waste their money and show off to their other rich friends that they could afford it.
- Comment on Steam Machine pricing announced (from $1049-$1428 USD), reservation lists open 2 weeks ago:
It’s also a fundamentally different user experience. Sure you could load SteamOS onto a machine you built. But the point is that this targets the couch players, instead of the desktop players. And very few PC players will build a new PC just for their couch.
I love my Steam Deck, because it has caused my wife’s complaints about gaming to dry up almost completely. When I’m at my computer desk, she can’t snuggle with me. But by moving to the couch, we can snuggle while I play. Her complaints weren’t really about my gaming; they were about my physical unavailability. And the Steam Deck allows me to access the vast majority of my PC games on the couch, so we can both be happy.
- Comment on Steam Machine pricing announced (from $1049-$1428 USD), reservation lists open 2 weeks ago:
OH NO brother they’re RAFFLING IT!? hahahaha that’s fucked
I’m actually glad to see it. A raffle is one of the only realistic ways to deter scalpers while still leaving the console eventually accessible to people who actually want to play on it. Fuck scalpers; anything that hurts them is a win in my book.
- Comment on Steam Machine pricing announced (from $1049-$1428 USD), reservation lists open 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, I’m hoping we see game devs actually focus on optimization again. Early game consoles forced devs to really focus on things like memory usage, pixel map storage, texture sizes, etc… Super Mario Bros reused pixel maps for clouds in the background and bushes in the foreground, and simply changed the colors.
Hell, the second gen Pokémon games actually pioneered brand new data compression methods, to the point that the devs managed to fit the entire first gen region in as a post-game Easter egg. So they managed to compress the entire first and second regions into a small enough space to fit both regions on a similarly sized card as the first game alone. They literally fit two games into a card that was only originally expected to hold one. It originally started because one dev was focused on eking out small performance improvements, by compressing the game code and assets more efficiently. And eventually they got it so well optimized that they realized they could fit the entire Kanto region on the game card too. And so they rebuilt the entire Kanto region and added a secret superboss at the end. All for an Easter egg that most casual players would never see, because reaching Kanto required completing the Johto Pokédex.
The first Crash Bandicoot game brought major innovations to classic game model design, because the character didn’t have a “skeleton” in the traditional sense. They wanted the character to be cartoony, and be able to squish or flex as he interacted with the environment. If he gets rolled over by a boulder, they wanted him to pancake like a cartoon would. And traditional skeleton models (where the character model is built around a rigid skeleton, then simply follows along as the skeleton is posed) wouldn’t allow for the flexibility that they needed. So they pioneered new modeling techniques where they tracked each individual facet of the character’s model, to be able to fit within the PS1’s hardware limitations.
Early game devs had a very specific target. They couldn’t just send it out the door and let the hardware catch up later. Imagine moving an entire 5 bedroom household across the country. Modern game devs will look at the amount they need to move, and go “eh, we’ll just get a bigger truck.” There will be lots of wasted space, because they’re not even bothering to stack boxes or furniture in the truck. But early game devs were forced to make everything fit into a single 20’ box truck, so they focused on what was truly essential, and packed everything as efficiently as possible.
- Comment on magic 2 weeks ago:
Wearing your shoes actually helps prevent this. Basically every sneaker collector has (or knows someone who has) a story like this. The soles get brittle over time, and will fall apart if they have sat for too long. But if you wear them, it helps avoid that from happening. The natural flexing when you walk helps the sole stay flexible. If it has sat for years, it will shatter into dust as soon as you try to flex it.
Sort of like how cast metal is more brittle than forged metal. Because when you cast metal, it hardens in random or crystalline molecular patterns. So there is very little actually holding the individual molecules together, because every join where two crystals meet is a potential fracture point. But forging it into shape with a hammer will create a more sturdy piece, because the hot hammering forces the molecules out of those natural crystal patterns. By moving the metal around, the molecules are able to form much stronger bonds with their neighbors.
Anyone who has accidentally shattered a cast iron skillet by dropping it knows what I’m talking about. People expect metal to bend, because they’re used to thinking of forged metals that have been mechanically shaped while it was hot. But cast iron will shatter like glass, because it is just poured into a mold and the molecules stay wherever they were when the molten metal cooled, even if they don’t have strong bonds with their neighbors.
- Comment on Scan to Verify You're Human 2 weeks ago:
It’s a fairly common phrase. Language can change and have regional differences. This isn’t Quebec defending their weird version of French as the only “correct” way to speak.
- Comment on I'm doing my part 2 weeks ago:
UPD: Be wary that recycling is not a panacea. There’s multiple videos about how recycling plastic isn’t actually a thing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=68zjxTTl5Ik for example.
Yeah, there’s a reason “recycle” is only number three on the “reduce, reuse, recycle” list. Recycling is the last (and worst) option, and only really makes the list because it’s hopefully not contributing to landfill issues. It’s not the very first thing people should rely on.
- Comment on To cosmic shreds, I say! 2 weeks ago:
That’s exactly my point. A base pi system would have pi equal to 1. In a base pi number system, a circle with a radius of 1 would have a circumference of 10. A radius of 10 would be a circumference of 100. Pi (and the relationship between a circle’s radius and circumference) only normally requires complex math because base 10 is a rational number base.
- Comment on To cosmic shreds, I say! 3 weeks ago:
Pi can be equal to whatever you want, as long as you’re using a number base that accounts for it. Pi is only an irrational number because base-10 is a rational base. You could create a number base that sets pi equal to 1, if you wanted.
