Infrapink

joined 1 year ago
[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 1 points 16 minutes ago

Pinterest has always been more popular than Twitter.

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 2 points 5 hours ago

"I gave the AI's advice the exact same consideration and credence you give to advice from your subordinates"

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 6 points 5 hours ago

Yeah, The Lord of the Rings isn't an allegory, but it does have themes, and Tolkien definitely drew on his experiences in WWI when writing it.

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 7 points 2 days ago

There's a whole history there!

In short: swearing on the Bible doesn't stop you from lying, it makes God angry at you if you do.

Long answer: When you swear or solemnly affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, you are making a legal commitment not to lie; if you lie under those circumstances, you are committing the crime of perjury.

But what if somebody was to deny they swore an oath? That's why we have witnesses, and there is no better witness than a god. (Actually, the difference between an oath and a pledge is that an oath is formally witnessed by at least one god. A vow, meanwhile, is a promise made to a god).

So when a Roman swore an oath, he announced his name and the god he was swearing by; that got the god's attention, and since gods see everything, the swearer will be punished if he violates the terms if the oath. You know how in movies a character will tell an obvious lie and declare "and may God strike me down if I lie", whereupon something immediately hits them on the head? That's how oaths actually work.

Likewise, swearing an oath while touching something related to the witnessing god makes the oath even more powerful and binding. Thus, you don't want to break an oath sworn by Jupiter, and you really don't want to break an oath sworn in a temple to Jupiter with your hand on a statue of Jupiter.

Instead of swearing by Jupiter (or Odin, or Ra, or Enlil, or whoever), Christians swear by God, and touch a Bible to make their oath stricter. Muslims use the Qu'ran to the same effect.

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 3 points 2 days ago

Who you calling a snollygoster, you wangdoodle?!

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 9 points 3 days ago

"The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more, no less"

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 2 points 3 days ago

I was a big Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan in the 1990s, so I really started with h2g2. For those who don't remember, it was an early attempt to make a crowdsourced online encyclopedia, but unlike Wikipedia, a given page could only be edited by its original creator or admins. I learned quite a bit of HTML from there.

Every page on h2g2 had an attached comment section, and because anybody could make a page, most of us used it primarily as a message board. There was a lot of roleplaying.

From there I branched out into forums. The big one I posted on was TotalGames.net, the joint forum for a bunch of video game magazines, because I read Cube in secondary school and they regularly posted stuff from it to get more people to join. One of the regular members, Android18a, set up her own website at SilentDream.co.uk and had an attached forum which had six, maybe seven posters. That was a nice, intimate community, and we broke the rules of the forum software by regularly posting porn.

I signed up to a few other forums but never stayed long. In college, I joined TVTropes and actively contributed for a bit over 20 years; I just stopped this week because the new owners seem intent on turning it into another Wikia. TVTropes' forum software is quite good, really solid, and the community is probably the most thoughtful, rational group I've ever encountered online (except for that one moderator. If you're a regular on the TVTropes forum, you know the one).

I was almost one of the first people in Ireland to join Facebook. During college, I did a work placement where I shared a house with two American girls (also a Polish boy, a Romanian girl, and an Irish girl who moved out because she didn't get along with anybody). The Yanks told me about this great website called Facebook, which I had also seen mentioned on College Humor a lot. It seemed great, but I kept saying "Oh, I'll join tomorrow" until everybody else was on it, at which point I decided not to join it because it was too popular (yeah). That turned out to be the right decision.

I made a Twitter account after college because I was a fan of Channel Awesome and they all seemed to be on it, and so was apparently every other famous person. I could keep up with Twitter somewhat for a few years because I was unemployed and had little else to do, but actually keeping up with that site is a full-time job. I tried getting back into it on and off, and eventually deleted my account just before COVID when I figured out I have clinical depression and just reading Twitter aggravates it.

I started using Reddit at some point and I liked it, but stepped back when I realised it was addictive and toxic. I look in once in a while, and every time I do, it seems to be getting worse.

Then when Elon Musk took over Twitter, I started hearing about this thing called Mastodon. I made myself an account which I use daily, but I learned the lesson from Twitter not to bother trying to keep on top of everything. Mastodon led me to Lemmy, which led me to kbin, which is now mbin, which is where this account lives.

I also have a Discord account, but Discord confuses and overwhelms me.

Oh, and I also used UseNet a little bit, but its heyday was long past by the time I got online.

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Because current (amps) has nothing to do with energy. Formally, an ampere is the current of 10^19^ electrons moving through a given point in 1.6 seconds; in more reasonable terms, it's 1 coulomb per second. The amount of energy in those electrons doesn't matter to the amount of current, but energy is very relevant to making machines do things.

Potential (volts) does include energy; specifically, 1 volt is 1 joule per coulomb. Add more energy and you get more volts, but the current remains the same. So volts are more relevant to how much use you can get out of your electrons.

Power (watts), meanwhile, tells you how effective your machine is at extracting that energy. 1 watt is 1 joule per second. Suppose you are running a 6W heater. Every second, that heater converts 6J of electrical energy into heat energy, while the current remains the same.

Thus, knowing current is important for electrical engineering, but potential and power matter more for operation.

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 3 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I'm doing my part to genericise Google®'s trademark.

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, Trump is just a blowhard who can't accept losing. (He's also a liar, but I'm not sure he doesn't genuinely believe the election was rigged).

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 1 points 4 days ago

They're not all snagging at the same time

 

I see this come up a lot in discussions about voting in America. Postal votes disproportionately go to Democrats, hence the Democrats want to expand postal voting while Republicans want to restrict it (and insist there is totally a bunch of fraud going on).

I've googled with a few search engines and haven't found a convincing reason. Lots of evidence that the skew is real, but no explanation as to why. Indeed, if one just looks at demographics, one would expect postal voting to benefit Republicans by facilitating votes from people in the countryside who live far away from voting centers.

So what actually gives?

 

‘It is rule 62 of the Olympic Charter that we have to have a condoms story,’ says IOC spokesman Mark Adams

 

Venice is being invaded by cannibalistic jellyfish from the Atlantic that are threatening the delicate balance of the lagoon's ecosystem.

 

A man who worked an AI watchdog reveals how OpenAI representatives suddenly showed up at his door step, demanding documents.

 

Hello fellow cephalopods! This might sound crazy, but I reckon there will be a new Super Smash Bros game on the Switch 2 at some point. And since Splatoon is pretty popular, it's pretty reasonable to expect the series will get some more representation.

The obvious thing is to have a playable Octoling. The easiest way to do that would be to make Octoling an echo fighter of Inkling, but that's boring, so I decided to come up with a whole new moveset for Octoling. And since Inkling's moves all come from S1, I decided to restrict Octoling's to representing S2 and S3.

Costumes

Four of Octoling's costumes are the black suit they wear in Octo Expansion and the white suit they wear in Side Order. Their other costumes are made of clothes introduced in S2 and S3.

Stats

Octoling has the same stats as Inkling, uses the same ink mechanic, and like Inkling (and Sonic), drowns quickly.

Normal moves

A: Slash with splatana. This puts a little but of ink on the enemy. Mash A to slash repeatedly.

Side+A: Lunge forwward with splatana. Puts a little bit of ink on the enemy.

Down+A: Swing splatana in a short radius around Octoling's feet.

Up+A: Shoot stringer bolts overhead. They fly faster and do more damage the longer A is held down. Can be used to juggle.

Smash+A: Charge up a powerful splatana slash that sends a wave of ink forward ahead of Octoling. Any enemies that get hit by the splatana are covered in ink, coverage increasing with longer charge.

Aerial moves

A: Fire three stringer bolts in the direction Octoling is facing. One goes straight ahead, one goes a bit higher, one goes a bit lower.

Side+A: Like neutral A, but the bolts stay together. More damage, but narrower range.

Down+A: Lunge splatana-first towards the ground. (Basically the same as Links' down+A)

Up+A: Fire three stringer bolts overhead, one straight up, two at 45° either side. They are affected by gracity and will eventually fall to the ground if they don't fly off screen.

Special moves

B: Fire brella. If B is held down for a jiffy, a brella shield deploys. If it is held for two jiffies, they shield will detach and move forward, covering the ground in ink.

Side+B: Fire dualies. Fast rate of fire and moderate damage, continuous fire.

Smash+B: Side roll into firing dualies from a fixed position. This attack shoots faster, does more damage, and covers enemies in more ink, but Octoling can't move while doing it.

Down+B: Lay an ink mine. If an enemy walks on the space where the mine is placed, it will explode, covering them in ink.

Up+B: Inkjet. Octoling gains a jetpack which gives only a small height boost but allows them to cover significant horizontal distance. Ground directly underneath the ink jets gets inked.

Shield+B: Replenish ink.

Final smash: Octoling charges a booyah bomb which hits all enemies in its radius hard, and any who survive are covered in ink. While it's charging, Octoling and their teammates can increase its power and radius by taunting.

Grappling

Octoling has the same grapple moves as Inkling (look I don't really grapple OK).

Stage

Octoling's home stage is Bonerattle Arena. Over the course of a match, the water level rises and falls, changing the layout. Boss Salmonids occasionally appear as stage hazards.

  • Maws: Moves along under the floor and bites whoever steps on it. If it eats an explosive, it explodes, yielding food.
  • Scrapper: Charges across the arena, pushing players towards the edge.
  • Slammin' lid: Hovers over the ground. If someone goes directly underneath it, it slams down after a jiffy.

Assist trophies

  • Off the Hook: Pearl and Marina appear in the background and perform a song, during which they fire multicoloured lasers at the battlefield. These lasers damage and stun anybody they hit, similar to Master Hand's lasers.
  • Glowflies: A random enemy gets a cloud of glowflies, and after a jiffy, a stampede of lesser salmonids chases after them for a few seconds. The glowfly aura can be transferred to another player by hitting them with a melée attack.
 

‘Why let mere mortals decide CPU priorities when the cosmos can guide us?’ asks the developer.

Here's the GitHub repo. It is glorious.

This scheduler is 100% for educational and entertainment purposes. While the astronomical calculations are real and the scheduler actually works (it really does load into the kernel and schedule tasks!), using astrology to schedule CPU tasks is:

  • Scientifically dubious
  • Cosmically hilarious
  • Fully functional with real retrograde detection and lunar phase scheduling
  • Not recommended for production systems (but it boots and runs stably)
  • Perfect for conference talks, hackathons, and proving that anything is possible
 

‘Why let mere mortals decide CPU priorities when the cosmos can guide us?’ asks the developer.

To be clear, the point of this is to demonstrate the power and flexibility of a new Linux feature in a "haha only serious" way.

Zampieri is clear that this GPL-2.0 licensed project is a “scientifically dubious, cosmically hilarious” work. It definitely isn’t recommended for use in production systems - not because of bugs, but because it works as intended… The dev is still looking to add “more cosmic chaos” to scx_horoscope, so contributors are welcome.

 

An early contender for the news article most on the nose.

 

Kuwait has withdrawn the citizenship of its ambassador to the United Kingdom, Badr Mohammed Al-Awadhi, in a rare decision that leaves a serving diplomat without the nationality of the state he was accredited to represent.

 

Dutch police arrested two teenage boys as they investigated the death of a 60-year-old man they believe was possibly assaulted after a row over snowballs.

 

AI chatbots are generating fake titles that people insist are real.

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