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I was banned from r/soapmaking because I refused to accept that buying soap that someone else made, melting it and adding glitter and perfume, and putting it into moulds was making soap.
I raise the pigs, render the lard, and turn the lard into soap using lye. I make soap. They do arts and crafts using soap.
My son just got a soapmaking kit. He had a great time adding dye and glitter to his "homemade" soaps. And that's great... for a seven-year-old.
Yup. I have no issue with people doing arts and crafts with soap, especially 7 year olds.
Seriously?! I had no idea people did that, assumed they were doing like me, lye and fat. Saw an idiot woman on YouTube post:
"NOT using lye on MY skin!"
Replied:
"It's no longer lye after the chemical reactions. And this is why we need better science education for small children. You would have failed my 4th-grade science class."
Yes. Melt and pour soap uses glycerine soap that people buy in huge blocks at the craft store, like Michael's. They melt it, add colour, trinkets, glitter, and perfume, and pour it into moulds. Arts and crafts.
Actively adding glitter to our waterways really seems to be the dumbest thing about all of this.
I'm not even mildly part of the hobby, and even I am of the firm opinion that "soapmaking" involves the actual making of soap.
Nobody would call me a cook if I ran to the closest restaurant, grabbed some dish, added some spice and herbs on the way back, and "Voilla, steak de Neidu!"
Also, soap has a melting point?
As long as you're not saying you have to raise pigs to be a soap maker I agree with you.
A soap maker makes soap. I make soap. If you don't make the soap you are doing arts and crafts with soap that someone else made. Both are fine and fun but you're not a soap maker if you don't make the soap.
I mean like store bought lard and such not pre-made soap. I know a lot of people that "make" soap and a few people who do actually make soap and they usually do it for allergen reasons because even the fragrance free products irritate their skin.
As long as you're buying oil or fat and lye or potash and making soap that's soap making. You're making soap. Most of our soaps are lard based but use other oils to improve the texture. Some, like our shaving soap, have no lard in them. I'm just taking about the people who buy big blocks of soap at the craft store, melt it and pour it, and call themselves soap makers.
Is a tab four spaces or two?
A tab is not made of spaces, it goes to the next tab stop, which is as big as you set it to be.
Let's all compromise on three spaces
In Magic: the Gathering people are discussing "universe beyond" sets. Those are foreign IPs like Doctor Who, LoTR, Marvel, Fallout, Sonic etc injected into magic, which already had fucking good setting and lore.
It brings them lots of money, at least short term, while destroying the game we love.
MtG has become the Funko Pops of gaming.
LEGO enthusiasts ( !lego@piefed.social ) are usually split on the "non-LEGO" compatible sets, especially since the basic LEGO patent went to the free domain. Some people think they're "fake", some other people think it's a way to still afford the hobby when the prices have skyrocketed
My personal opinion is that if another brand can match LEGO's consistent quality I'd be open to it but as long as the quality of the individual pieces remains so freaking low it's not worth it (looking at you Mega Blocks!)
From what I heard there are quite a few brands now that reached Lego's quality (indeed, definitely not Mega Blocks)
Okay that's really cool actually! I remember back when I actually built with Legos there were some specialized pieces made by enthusiasts since Lego didn't have a good equivalent yet, such as steam locomotive wheels for example, or replacement 9V Lego Trains tracks, but those were all different than full on Lego competitors
I'm conflicted. I prided myself as a kid on having exclusively on-brand LEGOs and always considered Megablox and such inferior in quality, aesthetic, "cool factor", etc.
But on the other hand:
Plus I'm into 3D printing and like the "stick it to the man" aspect of 3D printing that might reduce people's dependence on serving some company's profit motive for things like shoes (Nike, etc), replacement parts (like parts for my washing machine, improving repairability), figurines (D&D miniatures, for instance), and, indeed, toys like LEGO-compatible pieces.
Maybe I should go 3D print me some Bionicles.
I’m more pissed about the proliferation of “non-standard” LEGO pieces showing up in actual LEGO sets. Things that aren’t standard windows, bricks, panels/slabs, wheels, and windshields. Kinda ruins the creativity of the set when there is some giant multibrick or custom curvature I’ve never seen before.
Mine is interest in retro gaming which oh boy, there's a lot:
Bonus points if that person happens to be Gen-Z and comments selection bitching about Gen-Z. I hate the weird elitism retro-gaming community have which as a Zoomer, it does put me off wanting to play older games if I be judge for being too stupid to not get it straight away.
Older millennial, grew up playing NES and after. Emulation is fine and allows everyone to play titles they otherwise might have missed. With you on the sbdke oil.
Mechanical keyboards have several (clicky/thocky/tactile/linear/etc switches, Cherry MX Browns, etc), but if I had to choose one, maybe ortholinear vs staggered.
A picture will probably illustrate it best:
Ortholinear evangelists contend that the staggered layout was invented for mechanical typewriters exclusively to reduce the incidence of typebar collisions and is detrimental to optimal ergonomics. I, as someone who prefers staggered keyboards, just don't want to be ruined for the majority of keyboards out there. (If my muscle memory "learns" that "m" is "here" because I use an ortholinear keyboard at home, I'm worried it'll be awkward to use a standard keyboard on a laptop or whatever and I'll be fat-fingering keys all over the place.) I might switch sides someday. Who knows. But for now, I'll stick with staggered.
Been on a tiny ortho KB for months now. Just now ketting the hana ow it. Kinsa.
Also, the delete key is above the backspace. I had no idea how either key worked because I've been working on reflex for 30 years.
Do Balrogs have wings according to JRR Tolkein?
Really? Why is that even a debate? It's been a little while since I've read the books, but I seem to remember Durin's Bane as being described as having the shape of a man, thus no wings.
Other Balrogs are perhaps less clearly described. Unless there's some line that explicitly describes a balrog with wings, I'd assume they don't have them, and even then I'd assume it applies to only the particular balrog in question.
A better Balrog related debate would be determining the exact number of them and whether or not any survived in Middle-Earth into the fourth age. It's possible there are two or more still kicking around.
Okay. First off, why would a creature that lives exclusively under a mountain have wings? Second, I'm now invested in this controversy I and want to know more.
They didn't start under the mountain. They are, effectively, the same creatures as the wizards but corrupted. What makes the scene epic is that Gandalf was facing his match.
One of my hobbies is the sport of weightlifting (the snatch and the clean & jerk). There is a rule called the Pressout Rule that keeps lifters from pressing the weight out overhead - basically you can't catch a weight overhead and then muscle it out to full extension. This rule is pretty unpopular with a lot of folks because the judges judging the lift may see your arm shake a bit and decide it was a pressout. I'm not a big fan of the rule.
After diving in and learning it this year, I fully believe learning Vim makes you a better developer and it should be commonly taught to developers. It has done far more for my dev skills than any single AI tool ever has, and I dont have to worry about it hallucinating.
Personally, I think Vim should be made into standard knowledge for anyone who consistently uses a keyboard for their work. A lot more software than I expected supports it, and it makes any form of text editting tremendously better.
So in rhythm games, chart reuse and "piracy" is... a surprisingly big issue that is related to copyright. This warrants a bit more explanation
For example, the IP of Dance Dance Revolution/DDR is owned solely by Bemani and Konami; both are Japanese companies which are not known for being generous with copyright, mind you. The DDR series produces lots of original music which are owned by the IP holders, and just about every chart (the thing you actually play) created for each piece of music in the game is also technically copyright protected
Problem is, DDR got wayyy too popular so there are a lot of clones out there; in fact most arcades in the US would have a "DDR" cabinet when it is actually a clone. Usually something like Stepmania (which is FOSS btw). Would it be considered piracy if someone else uses the official chart even though they are not running one of the officially licensed DDR cabs?
I don't know the details as to how it ended up like this, but it seems like a lot of games strictly ban such "piracy", whereas DDR is a bit of an outlier. Case in point, Beatmania series (one of the oldest rhythm game series) treats such acts as piracy, and the simulation community is onboard with this so all of the ripped official charts would be referred to as "illegal BMS"... but this is compensated by having a massive collection of community charts that have no affiliation with the IP holders of Beatmania whatsoever. DDR... seems to allow all of their charts to be released as simfiles, case in point.
There's also the funny case for Sound Voltex (SDVX). This game was also created by Konami, with lots of official songs/charts and a dedicated simulation community. Problem is that SDVX released a PC version of the game (don't buy their official controllers they are ass), and all of the official charts were reuploaded and became available to anyone playing the simulators. These charts are in a very weird legal limbo as far as I'm aware... but everyone knows that simulator users play the official charts
How to best learn from AI in the game of Go.
AI is an extraordinary tool for game analysis because you can set it to analyze every move in ever game you play, and it's stronger than any human teacher. It also overturned a lot of old school opening sequences and ushered in a new meta.
But there are limitations to it. AI can tell you that a move is bad and where it should be played, but it can't explain why. AI plays on a razor's edge, if it can find one specific line of play that works to live in an area, then it won't bother trying to strengthen it, while a human player couldn't read that far ahead. Human play depends on heuristics, like, "It's generally a good idea to place your stones into this shape" but the AI doesn't think in those terms at all, it tirelessly reads out a ton of variations every time.
Once, I was in a room at an event where a professional had flown in from Asia (I forget which country) to give reviews. One of the players getting a review started arguing about something he said, saying, "I ran this through AI and it said my move was good." People have a lot of opinions on that sort of thing, some people would say that the AI is the ultimate judge of whether a move is good or not and that the student was in the right to challenge the pro saying something wrong, while others might say that student should be more respectful and consider multiple perspectives, like, "If you just want to go off AI, then why even bring it to the pro?"
Some people try to focus on playing the "top engine move," seeing that as the best practice to reach optimal play. But others feel like that makes games too "same-y," and leaves gaps in your knowledge against unconventional play, along with the problem that humans can't match it's computational power which that style of play depends on. But, everyone uses it to some degree, it's just too useful.
Also, different online servers have implemented AI tools. The most controversial is Tygem, which introduced a feature where you can pay money to use AI analysis during a game, below a certain (relatively high) rank. Pretty much everyone hates this. Like, you could just run an AI locally, but that's called "cheating" and it doesn't stop being cheating just because you decided to pay microtransactions in a 4000 year old game.
Honestly, I could go on longer than anyone's interested in talking about go controversies, like not too long ago there was a controversy between a Chinese and Korean player where the Chinese player was penalized for not keeping his captures visible, which was a new and kind of obscure rule.
This one is starting to sway one direction more than the other but: Using AI for indie game development. (For music, voice work, art, code, writing, gameplay, etc)
You've probably seen many arguments for and against AI at this point so I won't harp on that too much. It is interesting/frustrating to see where some devs focuses are, and why this has contributed to an insane amount of AI art in games lately.
I'm an amateur gunsmith. How long you got to read stupid gun controversies? Check out the 9mm vs. .45ACP videos. The testing and talk never fucking ends. Colt .45 for me. :)
I got a take that never comes up. Single-shot/break-action rifles and shotguns are wildly effective. Crack it open, remove spent shell, feed a fresh one, snap it closed, aim, fire, repeat. Shotguns that eject the spent shell are the bomb and some people break that function on purpose!
No one argues that automatic weapons are effective, only good for giggles and suppressing fire in combat. You can't hold your aim point and just waste ammo. Single-shots are the opposite. You're forced to slow down and really make the shot. Once you get the hang of your gun, you get in a rhythm and can unload lead like hell. Got to where my 1950s 12-gauge kick shells over my shoulder!
If I had to hunt or defend myself, prosecute any sort of violence, and NOT have my AR-15, and NOT be half awake at 3AM, I think I'd rather have my single-shot rifles or shotguns. I'm certainly better at target practice with a single-shot.
Best part? <slight exaggeration> They're unbreakable, can't malfunction or jam, no magazine to fuck up. Got explosives in it? It will go bang.
I'm into bicycles and there are plenty. This one seems mostly settled now but "disc brakes vs rim brakes" gets some people worked up. Rim brake fans see disc brakes as needlessly expensive and complex. Disc brake fans will point out the better stopping power, especially in wet weather. And it doesn't slowly wear out your wheel rim.
Even a lot of the disc brake fans get heated at the mention of hydraulic disc brakes compared to cable-actuated. They see hydraulic brake-bleeding as the pinnacle of complexity. I used to do my own car maintenance. In that world, bleeding your brakes is considered a very beginner-friendly maintenance activity. I think cyclists are way too resistant to change.
A very common debate in basketball fandom is whether number of championships won is an important metric to judge how good a player is. Some of the greatest players of all time never won a championship (e.g. Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Steve Nash) and a lot of people automatically rate them below other top players who did win rings.
In Battletech (tabletop miniatures game, huge fiction universe, video games):