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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3404 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 5, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I guess this is a fun thread. Has Becky Quick slept with Warren Buffet? Watching the meeting on cnbc. I feel like every market guy has at one point wondered about that, a friend said many times.

Other interesting thing watching it is it’s very interesting how lucid those guys are in the 90’s. I hope all of you get that same gift.

My vote is yes, on the Buffett Quick pairing.

I think Warren Buffet's greatest achievement is running a giant multinational corporation out of Omaha, Nebraska.

I'm also impressed by the restraint shown by CNBC in putting together a large roster of attractive female personalities without including a single airhead (as far as I can tell).

I'm also impressed by the restraint shown by CNBC in putting together a large roster of attractive female personalities without including a single airhead (as far as I can tell).

Why would they do that? It's not like humans have a point-buy character system where being born both pretty and smart is a rare suboptimal build. They are a large national corporation, they can afford to just double-sift all the applicants.

Other news networks can’t seem to figure out the formula. Try watching Fox News on the weekend sometime.

Fox News has a triple-selection barrier. They need to find a right-wing PMC that is smart and attractive.

I've long heard that Thailand is famous for its ladyboys, but today, I ended up watching a cabaret show in Pattaya myself. Due to a lack of internet connection when I was out of the hotel, I was actually unable to confirm my suspicions that all the dancers were trans until the show actually began.

Lo and behold, I spent 20 minutes peering intently at cleavage, ass and throats in an attempt to figure out if they were guys in dresses, to little avail. To add to my confusion, their were normal male dancers present too, making me wonder whether I was wrong and the ones who looked like women, moved like women and had booties like women were actual women.

Eventually, I achieved nirvana by meditating on the wise words of a sage from 4chan:

"I'm straight, so whatever makes my dick hard is a woman."

Enlightened, I simply laid back and enjoyed the show, trying not to get too embarrassed when a performer in clear drag went around giving the gents in the front row a cop of her tig ol bitties. After all, I was with my elderly Indian parents (they did know what they were in for!).

Once outside, there was an opportunity to gawk at the dancers from up close, and even take photos with them if you had more money than sense. I stared like a hawk, but I genuinely couldn't differentiate them from women all the way up close. The usual suggestions, like checking for bulges, Adam's apples and the like, all failed me.

So I simply shrugged and went back to the hotel, where I finally managed to access Google and found out all the feminine dancers were women after all.

Huh, I guess you need to be a thin Thai boy with a boobjob and thicc thighs to pass convincingly, all the lanky ass MTFs from the West take note, you'd get much more support from red-blooded conservatives if you could pull that off!

This makes me wonder of the potential missed opportunities from guys thinking some of the Thai women being a potential ladyboy. Honestly, I could see it happening to myself.

Tears of the Kingdom has leaked, so who else has been playing it? I wasted many valuable hours of my life fucking around with the various systems in BOTW, so I am in heaven with TOTK, which goes full garrys mod, letting you build all sorts of ridiculous contraptions to fly or sail or trundle about the place, and with a very intuitive control set up. I been playing the game all week but still haven't beat the first boss, I've spent so much time jerry rigging airships out of camp-fires and balloons, and building go carts out of refuse. I have beat a heap of hinox and lynels though, and some of the new mini bosses like the constructs and shadow ganon.

The new weapon system is quite inventive too - the new evil decays all weapons in the land somehow, making even something like the royal broadsword ineffective trash. It's mitigated however, by the fusion system, with which you can fuse almost any item to your weapon, augmenting its effect. At first this seems to be a compelling reason to chase down tough enemies - fusing the horn of a black moblin to your weapon makes it much more powerful than a regular moblin horn as you'd expect. But as you play around with it you find you can do much more impressive stuff with other items than just up the attack power. Attach a ruby to your weapon and it becomes a wand, or attach an electric lizfalos claw and it will shock enemies. Same with your shield, attach a rock for extra durability, or a flame emitter for a flamethrower shield, or get more creative and attach a spring that pushes enemies away when they attack, or a dazzle bud to blind them. There are some much cooler effects you can set up too, but I don't want to spoil them all.

There's also a new underground area, sitting beneath the main map. It's a lot more sparse than above ground, but there's still quite a bit to do, and some interesting puzzles. There are caves all over the place too - and the presentation of it reminds me a lot of elden ring. Only superficially of course, things like how the caves are tracked and the way the underground area looks, but I appreciate it all the same.

There's still a lot of the trivial annoyances only Nintendo gets away with, like that old 'bad actor' style of cut scenes where people act and talk separately, but overall I'm having a blast. If you have played it, what were your impressions? Just nobody mention the goatse shrines.

That's correct, or an emulator (apparently ryujinx is better at the moment, but yuzu was better earlier in the week so if you go this route grab both). This is probably the best guide out there, a good balance of informative and easy to use - https://rentry.co/SwitchHackingIsEasy - note that you can't hack an oled or lite without hardware mods though (for which you want to go check aliexpress).

Maybe I'm weird but I find it really hard to go back to 30 fps gaming. It looks like a slideshow to me after spending years playing at 60+. Emulating TOTK as yet has a lot of issues with reaching 60 fps, so I'll wait a few weeks/months before jumping in.

You're not alone, 40ish the lowest I can take, especially since my pc is where the bulk of my discretionary income went. 30 looks profoundly terrible and choppy in comparison, and I genuinely don't know how people are so enamored with 24 fps in film, panning shots and action just looks outright juddery.

Goes to show that people will praise a shit sandwich for its distinguished aroma if indoctrinated since birth.

As someone who can't stand 30fps gaming but loves 24fps film, let me just (imprecisely) defend it here.

I'm pretty sure there are ways to mitigate the choppiness from pans, I'm not sure on the specifics. But generally I think it's a limitation that should be worked around as one of the weak points.

The strengths of 24fps film is how the natural blurring of movement in each frame creates the beautiful and subtle impressionistic quality movies have, and that's something that would have to be painstakingly simulated to do in games (and blurring effects in games are pretty bad so I feel like that is a ways away)

Without meaning any disrespect, I genuinely think this counts as cope.

Think of it this way, in a world where 24 fps wasn't the standard, and people without prior exposure to it were suddenly allowed to pick any arbitrary frame rate, how many do you think would choose that value? Not even 24 specifically, but a low frame rate, defined as anything below like 60-100 if it came with little other tradeoff.

Such arguments ring hollow to me, for the same reason as claims that burqas should be encouraged because they're a form of female expression and protection from sunlight also should prompt a raised eyebrow. You don't see the men claiming the latter wearing them themselves, for all the vaunted merits they possess.

I hold it in the same tier as claims that analog audio sounds "warmer" and is thus better (convincingly shown to be entirely the result of noise and scratches introduced from vinyl), or for a hypothetical example, someone arguing that black and white cinema should be the norm because it minimizes distracting colors, and allows the audience to focus solely on the performance.

24 fps is a historical artifact of the fact that film was once expensive, and 24 fps is near abouts the lowest you can go before it becomes outright unwatchable; similar to the reason that hand drawn animation was done at 12 fps, to save costs; with people ending up Stockholm syndromed when the original concerns became moot.

These days, it might be more expensive to shoot heavy CGI at high frames, but interpolation makes that much less of a hassle, especially if done in actual production instead of on a consumer device.

When I saw The Hobbit, I found the 48 fps jarring for about 30 seconds before I happily acclimatized and preferred it, leaving aside the movie itself was crap.

Further, motion blur is a function of anything moving fast, even an object at super high frames can appear subjectively blurred. You don't need the jank of low fps to get it, not that I consider it a worthy tradeoff in the first place.

Cope is far from the most likely explanation. What I have to work with is:

  1. An intense revulsion towards high FPS film and television every time I have encountered it outside a nature documentary, that I share broadly with the film industry and enthusiasts.

  2. Things I have noticed that I like about 24 FPS that appear degrade at 30 and even further degraded at 48 FPS, but also degraded in a different way at 12 FPS.

  3. Finding 60 FPS games vastly preferable to 30 FPS games, despite growing up with games at a low FPS, which I also happen to share broadly with the games industry and enthusiasts (although it's only been more prioritized recently). Also, finding no degradation in 120 FPS or higher.

Empirically I don't think your analogies hold up well. The average record enjoyer does not feel revulsion towards digital audio outside of memes, the black-and-white movie enjoyers, as much as they even exist, don't feel revulsion towards color film. If this is Stockholm syndrome, it's on a far more massive scale than any other phenomena like it that I can think of.

When considering mass psychosis we should at least be curious towards what actually changes with different FPS choices. You say blur is in everything, but I was describing the amount and qualities of the blur, not just from fast movements but practically all movement because it's so low. There's also the ways even TV at 30 looks different from film. Watch Run Lola Run which mixes the two, and try to observe the different effects each have in how you process the scenes. I really think if collectively we act incurious, and if film goes to 48 or higher, film is dead. I watched the Hobbit at 48, I watched an interpolated Game of Thrones episode. Both were just absolutely revolting.

That argument probably is cope on their part. I don’t particularly care about motion blur except where it impacts CGI and 2D animation. I’ll also always take gaming at the highest framerate the hardware can handle — up to a point. One Must Fall 2097 from Epic used slowdown artistically when delivering massive blows.

I sometimes pay attention to my eyes’ super-high “frame rate,” usually when deliberately perceiving a road I’m about to turn onto with a 180 degree span I have to watch for cars. That’s when I realize it’s my brain’s “capture software” that limits me, not my wonderful eyes.

After seeing The Hobbit and Avatar 2, I have also concluded my brain is not wired for >24fps video. It feels like someone left a DVD on fast-forward. I grew up watching cartoons animated on the 2’s and sometimes on the 4’s, and I knew it was done poorly, but that's what was available. South Park hearkens back to that era where the audio was more important than the video. The only sequence in Hobbit which didn’t feel like my eyes were being deliberately insulted was the goblin cave sequence, and that’s because I subconsciously connected it to Fraggle Rock, which was high framerate and set in underground caverns.

However, I would love to watch a re-cut of Hobbit and LOTR with 48-60fps only while someone is wearing the One Ring. It would add to the otherworldliness of seeing the world through Sauron’s tool.

It's not cope, but I agree that would make a cool cut. In my other response I fleshed out my argument a bit and mentioned Run Lola Run which did something similar with FPS switches. It's just worth analyzing why the different FPS makes you feel things differently and the possibility that there are actual reasons 24 has remained the standard and is vastly preferred by enthusiast in a way that hasn't happened for other tech advances, like digital film, CG, etc beyond the incurious "cope" argument.

Goes to show that people will praise a shit sandwich for its distinguished aroma if indoctrinated since birth.

Eh. I genuinely cannot tell the difference between anything above 20 FPS or so. I've played games with as little as 15 FPS back in the day (on a shitty PC), that was noticeable but anything else is all the same to my eyes. Which is quite nice for me, as I don't have to worry about framerates ever.

I don't have it, but as someone who really disliked BOTW I'm curious if you can answer a few questions.

  • Are there actual dungeons this time?

  • Are there more than 4 items in this one?

  • Is there normal music in the game, not just ambient stuff?

  • Is weapon durability still a thing?

  • Is the world a bit more pleasant to go through? In BOTW it was just so boring to traverse, there was nothing interesting between point A and point B - but there was a lot of ground to cover between point A and point B.

To be honest I don't have high hopes that Nintendo did a good job on this game given how bad I felt BOTW was, but I am hopeful to be wrong. I generally love Zelda games, would like to be able to enjoy this one too.

Oh man you are not going to enjoy TOTK. In order it's no, no, there's a little, yes, and sort of? There's more variety and more things to find about the place - the caves in particular, but there's also the underground map so in effect the amount of empty space has doubled. There are a lot more people around though, I've run into way more random strangers who aren't yiga than by this point in BOTW.

And there are a shitload of additional traversal options now - the jerry rigged airships and go karts and so on are available from the start, and the ubisoft towers now launch you into the air so you can use that to travel much further much quicker. And one of your powers this time lets you swim up through the ground if there's a platform above you so you don't have to do nearly as much climbing.

Also, and I know this is battered housewife material but it's true - the durability isn't that much of a bother in TOTK. After Zelda got a haircut and caused the upheaval weapons decayed, but they also apparently bred like rabbits - they are everywhere. I went digging in a cave just before and the sediment appears to be comprised of about 40% rusty claymores, I had 8 lying around me by the time my rock hammer broke. The other thing is that because of the fusion system the weapons themselves don't matter as much as how you use them - even the best botw weapons are shit compared to fused weapons.

As for the LOZ qualities its still shrines and guardians whatever they're called now. I have beaten the wind temple boss now (astel the naturalborn looking antlion creature, cool if trivial fight) and once you do that it's hard to even call the sky gardens pseudo dungeons, they might as well just hand you the blessing.

Disappointing, but not surprising. Thanks for the answers! It sounds like this is another case of "it is a good game but a bad Zelda", just like with BOTW.

I wish there were some more good zeldas out there though. There have been a few released recently, like Death's Door was alright, but it feels very lifeless, no pun intended.

Tunic looked promising.

Have you played it? I grabbed it when it first hit gamepass but stopped playing after about five minutes because it bugged out and I couldn't attack. I've heard that now they've squashed those bugs it's a outstanding game, but it isn't on gamepass any longer and it is too expensive for me to buy sight unseen.

Although I did forget a couple of alright ones - Prodigal and the Blossom Tales games are ok, and if you like Zelda 2, Cathedral and Infernax are fantastic (although Infernax strays closer to metroidvania.)

Nope, just watched a bit of playthrough and thought it was too good to spoil.

DAE make a habit of collecting funny 4chan screencaps? I've accumulated about 240,000 karma from posting them on /r/4chan over the past years.

Examples: 1 2 3

TRIAL by wager of WILDERNESS.

I have been thinking about something: in ages past, men went to war to prove themselves. They still do, today, and the survivors I have seen return more attractive, although they pay an immense price, and that is only counting those that return more or less in one piece. Now, war is more destructive than it once was, and we don't think highly of war in general, for good reason.

Therefore: I have been training for this for the past year or so. I plan to have myself dumped into the Alaskan wilderness in late February, 50 miles from the nearest road or civilization. I'll walk out, and if I make it out alive, I'll have been hardened by my experience. I'll have stared my own death in the goddamn face, braving temperatures of 40 below 0 just to walk out alive.

Do you think that this will make my ugly, autistic ass any more attractive? I've heard it said that you have never lived until you have almost died, and that tough, masculine men are attractive AF. This seems like something that would harden someone...either permanently, as a rock-solid corpse, or permanently, as a wilderness-hardened man.

TL;DR Is dumping myself in the middle of the woods in Alaska in winter gonna make me more attractive, if I survive?

No it won't. Not unless you spend several years out there. Any behavioral changes caused by a brief period of exceptional activity will be undone by your subsequent resumption of normalcy.

Huh - 'almost dying' doesn't make you more attractive? Thought it did: I've seen PTSD-afflicted combat vets that were goddamn near dead of alcohol-induced liver failure with girlfriends. Guys that were addicted to (and dealing) heroin and Xanax that were full of shame about what they did in Iraq...that had girlfriends. If being a battle-hardened combat veteran is that powerful...I suspect that being in the woods would be a less powerful and less damaging version.

Has it occurred to you that having gone to war, gotten PTSD and started drinking is downstream of whatever the source of their attractiveness is? They are different people from you, and you cannot become them by emulating their feats, not even to a reduced extent.

Perhaps: significantly, these guys more or less signed up for it. That is probably fairly significant. They weren't (as in Vietnam, or Korea, or WWII) ordinary Joes that got a draft notice in the mail one day.

Still: does it sound at all cool? Man vs. wild, trying to freeze the weakness off your soul in the Alaskan bush.

Not when it's your autistic ass trying to do it to score chicks, man.

Some say Chris McCandless was a hero.

I don't know who that is.

I am one of those people. That doesn't change the fact that the world would have been a better place if he had lived longer in it.

Behold:

The First Woodsmaxxer

Sure it sounds cool, but I doubt it works.

No, it won't make you more attractive, at least not to most women. It's my experience that most things men think will impress women will only impress other men. I'm an avid outdoorsman myself and was high adventure director for my local BSA council for four years, and I occasionally had male staff who wouldn't shut up about how great they were at everything and everyone else just found them to be insufferable pricks. These were usually my best employees but they'd often get bad reviews from groups that came through just because they didn't know when to tone it down. Also keep in mind that unless you write a bestselling memoir about your experience or are profiled on national TV, you'll have to actually get a date before any woman will know about this, and if you can get a date then you're already halfway there without the ridiculous notion that the deciding factor is going to be your fifty mile trek of idiocy.

And I'm too tired to mention all the ways that you've already demonstrated so little knowledge of what you're suggesting that you'd almost certainly die if you were to attempt this undertaking, but it's not logistically possible anyway so, luckily, you'll be around a while.

Also keep in mind that unless you write a bestselling memoir about your experience or are profiled on national TV

I suppose that this might be an interesting memoir, assuming I survive: guy dumps himself into wilderness, walks out.

I think the most attractive thing to be is the martial aristocrat: the man that is strong, tall, powerful...but most of all has the ability to lead men into battle. Men he's grown up with, who trust him with their lives and whom he has the personal loyalty of.

Of course, this doesn't work if you're short; I knew a Special Forces colonel that didn't do well at all dating because he was only 5'4".

And I'm too tired to mention all the ways that you've already demonstrated so little knowledge of what you're suggesting that you'd almost certainly die if you were to attempt this undertaking

I've camped in the woods in winter several times before. Once down to 0 degrees F.

Your solution to being an autistic shut in is to send yourself even further away from civilization and become a hermit.

This has "desperately avoiding facing your actual problems" written all over.

Maybe try working up the courage to join a casual sports team before killing yourself.

Fifty miles isn't that far? If you are wearing proper clothing and have snowshoes/skis + trail food, you should be able to just, like -- keep walking until you get to civilization?

If you want to do some winter camping that can be fun too, but I'd choose somewhere more interesting than a northern forest -- they're kind of featureless in many ways.

Maybe you should get into mountaineering? Those guys risk death in ridiculous ways all the time ( here's an 'interesting' story I read recently ), but at least they end up with a more interesting story than "one time I walked around Alaska for a couple of days for no good reason".

(The first two paragraphs of that article, for flavour:

MOUNT THOR is located 16 miles above the Arctic Circle in the Weasel Valley on Baffin Island. Our goal was to climb the 4,500-foot west face, tackling the 1,600-foot overhanging headwall.

Previous attempts on Mount Thor’s west face had ended at the base of the headwall. In 1979, a large Japanese expedition attempted the face, but retreated after the death of a climber. Later that summer, after 32 days on the face, three American climbers were driven from the wall by winds in excess of 100 miles per hour. In 1984, a second Japanese team reached the summit via the west face and north ridge. Their climb avoided the headwall, but unfortunately ended with the tragic death of a climber during a stream crossing.

)

I will most definitely be wearing proper clothing and carrying food with me as well. The plan is to make a sled by reshaping the plastic from 55 gallon barrels. I have seen canoes made this way. I’ve got a winter jacket that’s damn near Everest grade, down pants, merino wool base layers. I’ll grab some skis, some expedition weight mittens and boots that can handle 40 below, test it in the mountains next winter when it’s like 0 or 20 below, then have myself dumped in the Alaskan forest north of the Arctic Circle and see if I can make it out alive. I’ll take a map, compass, and perhaps a rescue beacon.

You have never lived, ‘till you have almost died, and after life has a flavor that the protected will never know.

The thing here is the extreme remoteness plus the fact that temperatures can dip as low as 40, even 50 below zero. This is cold as fuck and is something I feel might harden the hell out of my soft ass.

What do you need a sled for? Just pack a bunch of beef jerky and trail mix, you'll be fine.

I don't see the mechanism by which it would make you more physically attractive. If your intention is to tell women you did this, I expect it would only make you less attractive. They would think you are either crazy or lying.

Having faced mortal danger after training and preparing, and come back in one piece.

I’ve never seen combat vets have trouble finding dates…no matter how alcoholic or fucked up they are.

Will "mortal danger" change how you look in a way that makes it obvious to women what you went through? Will it change something else about you so that women will be able to perceive it and therefore be more attracted to you?

Or is your plan to tell women that you did this? Because I expect women's reactions to someone saying they're a combat veteran and someone saying they deliberately got lost in the Alaskan wilderness would be very different. The former is hot, the latter is just weird. If you already come off as autistic in conversations, this won't help.

Hmm. I don't know if 'being a combat veteran' allows you to have a girlfriend while acutely dying from alcoholism-induced liver failure. I don't know. I suspect that that sort of thing does change a person for life; I think it makes them more attractive, but it is expensive: you might die. You might get maimed. This is the point.

I'd call it a 'winter backpacking trip' or something like that.

I can hear it now: "And this crazy dumb fuck dumped himself in fuckin' Alaska for some reason. Dude survived, but he's fucking nuts." Some might respect it. Others might think it was idiotic. I've spoken to people that admired Chris McCandless (RIP).

The Hock will fix everything

Does it grant you the spirit and soul of the true Chad?

In the way that a sculptor discovers the statue, the Hock will break you until only Strength remains

I'm gonna say: you're unlikely to survive and if you survive you're unlikely to be any more attractive.

Don't forget to write a will and agree upon a trigger so that people can start looking for your body.

And no, this won't make you more attractive.

Confidence will make you more attractive. I'd suggest diet, sleep schedule, a bodybuilding routine, dance and improv classes, getting your clothes altered to fit, talking with career consultant and possibly a stylist, joining a religious community or volunteer organization before extreme hobbies.

I too want to do really intense shit in Alaska, but more Alone in the Wilderness style cabin build, hunting and gardening.

Man, you went in my head from being merely severely autistic to now being the star of the next hit 4chan greentext.

At this point solve two problems with one stone, and move to Greenland to shack up with an Eskimo chick.

So: if I live, I’m now a 4chan-tier autist.

If I die, I’m Chris McCandless 2.0.

Plenty of Natives in Alaska, though…why Greenland?

Honestly, I'm having trouble taking your posts seriously, this stuff is pretty out there even by rdrama lolcow standards.

Taking the not-super-plausible premise seriously: If you take whatever gear and do whatever prep is necessary to survive, you'll make it - and if you don't (e.g. no layers / warmth in cold winter), you won't. And is a woman going to sense, or be attracted to, 'you didn't freeze or starve to death'? How will they be able to tell?

That said, if you read and prepare appropriately, and don't intentionally take too little food/water/protection to 'make it risky', you'll be fine. I'd strongly recommend telling your plan, in detail, to someone who's experienced with the outdoors, and letting them tell you if it sounds too risky / you sound too inexperienced - and if they say so, don't do it. (edit: you say below you're experienced - maybe, idk, the general ridiculousness of the comments make it hard to entirely believe statements like that). I'd also recommend both doing smaller-scale excursions before the big event. But something like that could be worth doing, and it would be something interesting to talk about. It probably won't make a difference with women specifically.

I have a friend who was raised in Alaska and knows Alaska Natives that have lots of experience with the outdoors.

I definitely plan on doing shakedown runs in the mountains when it’s 0 degrees to 20 below.

How will they be able to tell? I’ve heard that both studying martial arts (enough to get good) changes someone indelibly, and surviving combat does so even more. So I figure that surviving being chucked in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness and knowing all the way that a fuckup could mean I’m a human-meat popsicle for wolves or something is gonna change me. Ideally? It’d have a similar effect to war, but without the moral injury and shame.

I’ve been running and carrying rock-filled backpacks in the woods to train, as well as camping in cold weather. I’ve always wanted to see if I had what it took in a survival situation since 12 or 13, to be honest.

I plan to attempt the transition from crazy motherfucker in chat to crazy motherfucker in real life. My dad always said that wackos always seemed to survive better than you expected ‘em to…

Is the alternative dating women who are morbidly obese?

While touching grass is good for everybody, I think this is probably a step in the wrong direction for you. Your weakness is having relationships with other humans. This plan is you running away from your fears. You're rationalizing literally going away to live by yourself in the woods.

I’m not going to live in the woods. I should be out of the woods in a week, two at most.

Isn't the standard walking distance per say something like 20 miles? You should be back to civilizwtion in 3 days unless there's a mountain range forcing you to travel much further.

Do it. Write about it. Post it.

It outrages me that this isn't the only post aside from people agreeing.

Do you think that it'll work, or has a chance of working?

It's strictly less likely to work than taking less drastic and more sensible steps you're refusing to consider. I won't repeat them, there's like 10 people here who told you already.

Yeah. OP is either a troll, or so far gone in mental health that nothing any of us says will reach him. Either way, best not to bother.

Idk, I've never done anything close, but when we have these threads about romantically hopeless men one of the peanut gallery suggestions is often to do something radical with one's life.

You've professed repeatedly to being romantically hopeless, so why not do something radical?

Lately I've been seeing a lot of things happen in life that are the result of probabilities, in the "The harder you work the luckier you get" kind of way. Do something crazy and see what happens.

You sound completely unhinged, and while I agree that getting off the internet will do you a lot of good (as in, getting out of your own head, getting away from the hope-crushing discourse around dating/relationships/attractiveness, etc), getting that far off the internet will probably kill you. Find something directionally similiar but maybe 1/10,000th the magnitude and do that first.

I mean...I'm no stranger to the outdoors or wilderness. I've been camping in freezing weather several times; once it even got down to 0 degrees F. So...I guess I've already done something "directionally similar but maybe 1/10,000th the magnitude".

My cats clearly don't understand how doors work.

They don't even understand that I open doors. One has learned that if she stands with paws on the door and looks at me and meows then the door opens sometimes, but I'm really not sure that she understands that it's I who opens the door, she just knows that "the door's open" tends to happen after "meow near the door". She doesn't understand "push on the door" leads to "door opens", I checked.

How would something like that work for humans? I mean, is it possible to imagine beings that are so above us as we are above cats and who affect our lives in meaningful (open doors etc) but incomprehensible ways? Like I have a literal guardian angel, I pray to it (like my cat meows to me), and then somehow things work out better for me, in an incomprehensible way. How could that work? How could an angel "opening a door" for you appear to a human?

I think it looks like someone complaining on the internet that something is BROKEN and BAD and they want it to be GOOD INSTEAD, and then having someone else fixes it through means they don't understand.

Anyway, on a completely unrelated note when I click "reply" on a comment that is at or past the depth limit (e.g. 8+ comments deep in the CW thread), and I click the button that says "comment", the button gets disabled but it never shows that it successfully posted (though it did successfully post). This is BROKEN and BAD and I want it to be GOOD INSTEAD.

Meow.

I have seen cats leap and grab onto doorknobs in a way that clearly indicates they understand their function. Can't speak for all of them of course.

As for the human example, I imagine it would be something like a cargo cult or old pagan religion. "If we build a runway/shrine and make the proper sacrifices the planes/gods will shower us with treasure."

cf:

When we were living in Colorado there was snowfall. Our cat—I'm a cat man—wanted to get out of the house so I opened a door for him but he wouldn't leave. Just kept on crying. He'd seen snow before and I couldn't understand it. I kept opening other doors for him and he still wouldn't leave. Then Ginny said, "Oh, he's looking for a door into summer." I threw up my hands, told her not to say another word, and wrote the novel The Door into Summer in 13 days.

Dammit, that's where the phrase is from.

Are you sure your cat doesn’t understand? Mine, when wanting to enter or exit a room with a closed door, would paw at the doorknob in a way that suggest he was attempting to get it to turn like a human would. I think he understood the mechanics.

I'm not sure if you are deliberately hinting at something or not.

Is this about religion?

My first thought is that simply having a Jew with a big nose, the words "Goldman Sachs", and giant bags with dollar signs on them in the same cartoon will get you labeled antisemitic no matter what the logical relationship between the objects is. Putting on my critical theory glasses though, I can kind of see how making a cartoon about a disgraced media executive and pointing out his ties to Goldman Sachs could be seen as emphasizing his "Jewishness" in a negative way. State media control and investment banking experience? The script for the Nazi propaganda film simply jumps off the page.

Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup - 0.30 Tournament: The Motte Clan

I know there are some fans of classic roguelikes in this community; I've seen references to Cataclysm DDA and Dwarf Fortress both here and as a lurker during the reddit years. In my opinion, Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is one of the most enjoyable, user-friendly and well-polished examples of the genre, with enough depth and difficulty to challenge roguelike veterans but enough quality-of-life features to make it fun and rewarding for beginners. But one of the best and most unique features is the possibility of online play in your web browser through official servers, with semi-annual tournaments marking the release of new updates! You can spectate and chat in other players' games, fight "ghosts" of other players' slain characters, and--most importantly--compete for high scores or for a number of "challenge banners." I've played in tournaments in the past, and I strongly recommend it for anyone who likes this type of game. Instructions for how to play online

So I thought I would gauge the interest in forming a clan to compete in the upcoming tournament, which runs from 20:00 UTC today, May 5, through May 21. (But if you're interested, you can join a clan anytime between now and next Friday, May 12). Joining a clan is simple and fairly informal: instructions.

You don't have to be an advanced player, or even to have played at all; it's fun just to help each other learn the game, discuss strategy and tactics, etc. I also don't expect any particular time commitment (the great thing about roguelikes is you can play for a few minutes at a time, quit whenever you like, and when you come back the game will put you right back where you left off). If you're interested in playing and think you can manage a couple hours or more over the next two weeks, you're welcome to join. Even two or three players would make a viable clan, but more is merrier!

The tradition is to give the team a name with a terrible pun. Because quokkas are a type of enemy in this game (for some reason), and in honor of our mascot, I have chosen "QuokkaRoundTheClock" as the tentative clan name. (I realize it's awful, and I'm open to better suggestions!) You can join by adding "# TEAMCAPTAIN theCircusWeakman" to the top of your RC file. Let me know below (or in a DM) if you want to join and what your player name is, so I can add you as a team member!

I'll be checking this thread every few hours, in case anyone wants to join or has any questions!

Don’t worry about the name. No one will ever top Kiku’s Delivery Service.

edit: for those who haven’t played, Kikubaaqudgha is a god of necromancy whose signature ability summons a heap of biome-appropriate corpses around the player .

There's some clever ones this year. I like "Uncle Xom's Tabbin" and "Why did it have to be Snake."

Is there a way to see all the posts I've liked? I often want to revisit these to see if there are replies.

Don't think so, I use the save feature for that.

Thanks! never noticed save before

Minor annoyance Friday. I'd like to take a page from our European brothers and whinge about something that has crawled across the pond. This time, the direction of flow is reversed. A European custom is being imported to America.

I am talking about hotel bedding. Specifically, the trend of having a single, heavy duvet as my one and only bed covering at a hotel.

This bizarre bedding choice seems ideal only from the perspective of saving a few shekels on laundry. It is completely awful in every other way. Why must I choose between no covers and a giant heavy cover? There is no way to be comfortable if the room is above 60 °F (which is guaranteed because hotels also muck with the AC unit to save money). I find myself waking up, drenched in sweat, only to kick the heavy duvet off, then freeze, then compromise by having my torso covered with my arms and legs hanging out. It's not a nice way to spend the night.

I first discovered this awful arrangement in Germany in 2012 but it seems to be becoming more common in the United States as well.

It is time to scrap these monstrosities and replace them a sheet and two layers of washable, microfiber blankets. For the freaks, a heavy duvet may still be made available in the closet.

Fuck you Europe. Sincerely.

two layers of washable, microfiber blankets.

No no no no no no no. I hate polyester bedding so much that I refuse to travel without two 100% cotton sheets in my suitcase at all times in case I run into anything with more than 0% polyester. I sweat heavily, polyester against my skin feels like sleeping in a wet ziplock bag to me.

The best bedding I ever encountered was an airbnb in Thailand, where the mattress was very big and solid, with a very taut 100% cotton chambray bedspread and a very taut but high loft duvet with the same fabric as the bedspread on top and that was it. It was incredibly comfortable in the humid climate and hot weather there. The tautness of the whole thing made it very comfortable because it's all the extra wrinkles of fabric that trap heat and moisture and make beds miserable. I'm going to buy myself a bed and bedspread and duvet just like what I slept on once I buy a house.

Duvets are superior. If you don't like heavy down duvets, you can pick one stuffed with wool (sheep or camel) or even a synthetic alternative if you're crazy. And when it's in a cover, you are free to sleep under it in any way you like without worrying about unstacking your blankets and top sheet.

Complaining that duvets suck in general because American hotels don't provide a lighter one is like complaining that public transit and urban living suck because American cities can't manage their hobos and junkies.

I am.. ambivalent towards duvets. They're not a common sight in India outside fancy hotels. I don't find them offensive when I do encounter them, though I personally prefer a blanket since I can poke my feet out from the bottom for thermoregulation.

Why wouldn't you be able to do that with a duvet?

Aren't they tucked in on the other end? I suppose you can pull them out if you want to.

Not in Europe, they just throw them on top -- a proper duvet is too thick to really tuck anyways.

In North America there's often a topsheet tucked in -- but yes, it's pretty easy to pull that out if you want your feet free.

You can do whatever you want, although I never tuck. My impression is that very few people tuck but that you might have an oversized duvet that extends over the end of the bed, which has a similar effect but is less restraining.

A duvet is the superior bedding. It sports a number of desirable properties:

  • Puff - What you call giant and heavy, I call comfortable and reassuring. It's like a pillow for your whole body in just the right thickness. It neither restricts your movement (like a tight blanket), nor is too light to do hold you (like a sheet). It is the perfect middle ground. A big floofy hug from Duvet-chan!

  • Cleanliness - A duvet cover is always washed. You needn't worry about accidentally waking up to find your face has wandered from the safe haven of a clean sheet and found its way to uncharted territory of a scuzzy blanket. Hic sunt sordes

  • Simplicity - Just toss it on the bed in roughly the right orientation. What could be simpler? No tucking, no tensioning the corners or messing up the folds

Weird. At least here, having just a single blanket (whether it's heavy or not) in a two-person bed is associated precisely with America, probably because that's how married couples (or unmarried, these days) are depicted in TV series. Every actual couple here uses two blankets.

My wife and I don't use separate blankets, nor tbh have I known any couple who does.

Huh! As an European I have always assumed it was the same all over the western world – a down-filled duvet in a removable bag akin to a big pillow case, and nothing else. Americans have multiple layers? Weird. Does the top layer not slide off or bunch together during the night?

Not really. I lost my thin duvet after taking it out during summer, and have done with duvet cover topped with 1-2 fuzzy blankets since, depending on the temperature. (no blankets in summer, 1 in fall/spring, 2 in winter).

Sometimes there's a little bunching but I've never woken up due to cold. It probably helps that I roll myself in all three layers by using side to side movements to get the edges underneath my body, in effect making something like a sleeping bag.

What are some good transhumanist blogs that are focused on telling interesting stories or generally being more entertaining than number crunchy?

..few people seem to even be willing to use the name anymore.

It's been heavily associated with mentally unwell people who belong into cw threads...

The name? Of a blog or you mean transhumanism?

I know the fashionable term is “accelerationist” now but I tend to find a lot of politics thrown in around that circuit.

transhumanism

No, just transhumanism. From one side, WEF people like Harari are making it cringe with their powerpoint control-freak fantasies of perfect control.

From the other side, you have trads and anyone else disgusted with the WEF agenda using the word as a 'generic purpose slur' for anyone who has problems with human nature as it exists and hopes to be allowed to improve it.

accelerationist

That means someting quite different, no ?

I had my final exam yesterday and am now done with my undergrad exams. Today all of my classmates will be getting t shirts to commemorate 4 years at my uni and will scribble a bunch of things on them. It is a pretty common thing here in high schools and unis so since I could not attend mine at high school, I will finally attend it in my uni.

One more thing I have recently begun enjoying is walking around aimlessly at the end of a workday. So walking through my uni campus or my high school randomly was a very fun and relaxing experience. I got to meet a bunch of people from my past life and uni friends, walking around aimlessly is hard to do in most parts of the country but I was lucky enough to go to decent schools and it honestly is a fun experience, especially once you are done for the day.

Also I finally did give up watching cricket and other sports, sure I may watch a little bit here and there but the time these things can consume is a lot. 4-5 hours spent in front of the TV is not ideal, I find much more enjoyment in meeting people. Also I get why alcohol is so fun for most people. I do not drink but hanging out with more people my age does make me understand why. My entire batch will be going to a resort near our town next weekend to get shitfaced and honestly I cannot wait to try it at least once in my lifetime.

Do suggest tips on how to do it properly, what to do and what not do when getting shitfaced.

American unis can be scammy cash cows, fortunately state run tech schools here are great in this regard and are popular among those whose main aspirations are to move up the socio economic hierarchy.

I cannot imagine having student debt hope you are free of it now.

Also I wiil not have sex with any of the girls here. There is no kind way to put that I don't find any girls in the entirity of my uni attractive and that's not because I'm a spoilt for choice delusional brat.

Appreciate the advice!

All great advice so far. I want to drive home that getting super drunk is unbelievably not fun, and will only get less fun the older you get.

Shots of pure liqour should be almost a total no-go for you the first round. That 45 minute delay is significant when imbibing only takes a couple seconds. If you over-do it you'll remember the drink that put you over the edge and you'll hate yourself.

Hydration, Hydration, hydration. I disagree you should eat a whole pizza beforehand, but timing your food and alcohol is an art. If you eat too much you'll feel uncomfortably bloated and tired, not fun and tipsy. If you drink too little you'll outrun food and water's ability to soften the downsides of alcohol. A simple formula is a drink of water between each alcoholic drink.

If you're starting to drink around 7:00 PM a small dinner is the way to go. Better yet, anticipate your "Drunchies" and eat half of your dinner and save the lest to scarf once your inhibitions on eating a reasonable amount of food disappear. At college we had a nasty habit of stuffing a car with the DD and too many people before eating 2,000 calories of trash as a way to end the night, so you can save money and be more sensible in this regard.

I honestly think the best food situation for getting drunk is a party in which only "heavy appetizers" are served. If there's a dinner then it's too easy to overeat when you're expected to eat a full meal. Light appetizers like chips are too insubstantial to stand up to heavy drinking. Heavy appetizers like buffalo chicken dip, wings, gutbusters, pepperoni squares, etc. are best because they're as substantial as a full meal but meant to be consumed gradually over the course of several hours. Thus it's easier to maintain the optimal level of fullness. That being said, I only get drunk twice a year, and really don't enjoy the aftereffects. It's not even the physical symptoms of the hangover that bother me, it just makes me tired and depressed the next day in a way that I can't seem to get comfortable.

Start with beer, it won’t make you as sick. Also, have a good time, sounds like a blast.

Thanks man.

Make sure that you've eaten enough before. Drinking on an empty stomach has never ended well for me. Eating a large pizza an hour before serious drinking is my go to.

Good advice. Will work out and eat before I drink, also get plenty of sleep.

I will add to this: Drink water. Constantly, throughout the night. There is virtually no downside to being hydrated as long as you have somewhere to piss.

Before you go out, place a bottle of water by the bed you plan to sleep in. ((I normally use a hydroflask with a pouch of LiquidIV/Gatorade powder mixed in at half strength)) Drink it when you get back.

Start slow, don't assume that you know how alcohol will affect you based on heuristics other people use. A whole pile of factors impact how drunk you get, don't make assumptions.

Slow and steady wins the race. Your goal is to maintain the scientifically, psychiatrically, and historically proven Ideal BAC of .05% for as long as possible. You will have more fun getting and staying tipsy all night than you will getting really drunk and having to bow out early, or not remembering how you wound up in bed with this woman.

I have no idea where you'll be or what you'll be drinking in India, but for Americans at an event with a bar, you can always go to the bar by yourself and order a Ginger Ale in a rocks glass, it'll look like a Whiskey and Soda or a Seven and Seven. Sip it for half an hour and you've skipped a drink while blending in to the crowd. If you're really sheisty, you show up early to the event and tip the bartender well and tell him that when you order a Whiskey and Soda to give you a Ginger Ale in a Rocks Glass. I've done this at a good number of professional networking events/conferences/weddings/etc. where drunks want to bond, I'm not a strong/regular drinker so I need to cheat to "keep up" without ending up with my head in the toilet, and being less drunk is an advantage.

Good advice. I'll keep the bac levels and being slow to drink plus Gatorade thing in mind.

This is good advice.

For an estimation of how slow is slow, you can find the equilibrium estimated BAC rate by inverting the formula here. Which gives (beta * Wt * weight in kg) / (.014 kg/std drink * 100%) as the approximate standard alcohol units per hour you can clear without getting progressively more drunk. For an average 70 kg male it's about 1/2 a unit per hour.

For me this equates to a drink or two start the night, then switching to soda trying to average a bit under that rate for the night. I like to leave a bit of buffer as depending on drinking culture of the event there may be rounds of shots, games, or toasts at various points, which is usually enough to keep near the tipsy/buzzed but not drunk sweet spot. You can always add another alcoholic drink in if your buzz is wearing off, but if there is any chance of a round you would feel socially obligated to partake in coming up, I would delay a bit.

I have no idea where you'll be or what you'll be drinking in India, but for Americans at an event with a bar, you can always go to the bar by yourself and order a Ginger Ale in a rocks glass, it'll look like a Whiskey and Soda or a Seven and Seven.

Pulled this stunt at a wedding that I knew was going to get a little out of hand a couple weekends ago, but with Diet Coke to add a bit of caffeine while I was at it. The bride didn't want to see anyone without a drink, but a Coke looks the same as a Jack and Coke.

I would strongly recommend taking it slower than you expect on alcohol. If you're not accustomed to the timing of getting drunk, it's very easy to wind up surprised at how much drunker you'll continue to get after finish whatever was in front of you. I would even more strongly recommend avoiding cocktails, because you're unlikely to correctly guess how many standard drinks are in them and it's easy to drink way too much, way too quickly. If you stick with beers or hard seltzers that are canned at 5% ABV, you'll have an easier time being slowed down by volume and an easier time counting how much you've had, which are both good plans. I would also suggest having a water from time to time both for hydration reasons and to slow you down.

That said, if you're going to get absolutely hammered, buy some ZBiotics and drink them beforehand. Buy some Liquid IV or a similar hydration product and chug it before bed. Your body will thank you in the morning.

I would also strongly recommend a couple cigarettes, but to each their own on that front.

Cigarettes are awesome in moderation when taken with friends!

The main thing to remember is the 30-45 minute delay between drinking a drink and feeling its full effect. The risk is that you get drunk, the drunkenness makes it feel like drinking more is a brilliant idea, so you do, and then all the previous drinks catch up and you get so drunk that you start pretending to be a stuntman, a street fighter (sometimes literally), a master orator and god's gift to womankind. The proper thing to do when you get that feeling is to stop drinking for at least an hour, but that's the total opposite of what it feels like you should do, so you probably won't and then wish that you had. It's a lot easier to avoid the myriad of bad consequences if you can avoid reaching the level where bad decisions seemed sensible in the first place.

Definitely don't text anyone who you're not out drinking with. You know who.

Set your phone up with a phone tracking app and test it works before you lose it.

Yeah. With occasional cigarettes, you at least get immediate feeling of intoxication, alcohol takes longer to kick in and lasts a whole lot longer.

My entire batch will be going to a resort near our town next weekend to get shitfaced and honestly I cannot wait to try it at least once in my lifetime

This is your best opportunity to rack up 'I owe you' points.

Only be buzzed. Get them the buckets when they need to puke. Put them in bed. Help with the clean up of broken bottles. People remember, and the multiplier of good will you can accumulate here is incredible. Be the DD if you have to be. (don't drunk drive kids)

Also, I'd much rather remember the good times than be too shit faced to have any clue what happened. And drunk people are more fun to play with when you're sober.

We'll be at a resort so no driving fortunately but I'll keep your advice of being helpful in mind.

I'd recommend starting slow on the drinking, and getting used to the feeling of being drunk in a more relaxed setting and/or with close friends first. Getting drunk for the first time on a vacation may not turn out well. It could, but depends on how alcohol affects you.

Yeah. I don't drink as I've seen the ill effects and am not stable or on the right path for now so see alcohol as an escape from reality not very helpful currently. Next weekend is a good day off to try it once before life settles down.

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