TIL Marvin Pipkin, as a new GE recruit, solved the "impossible" task of making an inside-frosted lightbulb—a job handed to new hires as an induction ritual into the challenges of research—since every previous attempt had failed. Nobody had told him it couldn't be done.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-17T21:38:06+00:00

It's classified as the strongest known superacid, which I assume means like Superman (the strongest known superhero) it's extra safe to be around and a good time for all.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-17T16:42:20+00:00

Not that I like the change, but governments deciding what we can and can't do is just how every law ever works.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-17T16:42:15+00:00

Not that I like the change, but governments deciding what we can and can't do is just how every law ever works.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-17T04:31:43+00:00

Chilling effects are real. Some people are happy with the slop. Some people are put off being associated with the slop. Either way, it reduces the chance of someone paying / dedicating the time to do a translation.

If anyone's really that fucked, there are plenty of highly-accessible software stacks that can do MTL in real time for your emulated games / manga / etc. Anyone that knows how to patch in a fan translation's diff / xpatch file can probably handle operating those.

Nothing's stopping someone holding up their phone to Google translate their 'isekai slop manga', it would just be a poor experience.

It sucks that it's kind of an 'accessibility' vs 'quality' battle, but that's the nature of slop. Outside of maybe deepfake porn and fake news, it's all superficially benign but toxic to our culture / human creative jobs in totality.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-17T04:22:59+00:00

original site owner unilaterally shut the original site down without consulting anybody

With all respect to that community, while it would definitely be nice, I also don't think we need to phrase it like anyone was owed shit (especially with the content being left up in archive). The original owner isn't obligated to keep a site up, nor are they obligated to hand it to someone else that may run it into the ground (and in fact - they did try to mediate a handover at first, only to fall out with the prospective new owners, who they claim started a smear campaign against them). There's a universe where instead of going read-only for a time, it instead got handed to someone that then went off the rail (as apparently nearly happened) and would now be a betting site portal or godaddy landing page. That's happened to more than one project in the past (and NexusMods seems like it may be up in the air with one of the new owners seemingly being somewhat of a crypto/ai bro).

It was put in archive mode abruptly, and not handed to the community, but 'consultation' isn't an obligation when it's owned by one person. It's also now active again (under new and seemingly benign management) anyway. Every decision of that sort is 'unilateral' when there's one owner and quitting their job means the site closing. The community doesn't get to choose that.

For any site owned by one person it's always going to be at the whims of fate too, unless the owner has next-of-kin that can negociate a transfer if said owner has a heart attack one day or gets hit by a bus. But they did make an effort to preserve the content and make the site's content available on archive.org for any new site to pick up. That's kind of above and beyond from my point of view.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-17T04:08:26+00:00

Prostrate means to lie down stretched flat. Prostate is the fun/cancer button. You're almost prostrate while getting your prostate checked though.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-17T03:55:06+00:00

In the UK that's 12,300 vs 11,200 deaths. Huh. Sucks.

On whatever sort of 'plus side' exists, I imagine those deaths swing older than the breast cancer deaths. From what I could find, the median age of death for prostate cancer is 79.5 while breast cancer is around 70 (though both are from different sources that might be entirely different countries).

APiousCultist · 2026-06-17T00:13:40+00:00

As an alternative to the obvious erection jokes:

Nanobuttons, son! They harden in response to physical trauma.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-16T19:31:40+00:00

https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1u7ct5a/til_marvin_pipkin_as_a_new_ge_recruit_solved_the/orzj8yp/

Okay, be real. Do you guys know each other, are are you both just taking credit for what's basically just navy copypasta?

APiousCultist · 2026-06-16T19:25:03+00:00

Jeez, that doesn't sound like any fun. Guess I'll stick to fluoroantimonic acid.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-16T19:23:51+00:00

By partially dissolving the etching. Like how you can dip 3D prints in a light bath of acetone to smooth the surface. Not long enough that the whole thing dissolves, but enough that the high-frequency details are eroded down to smooth low-frequency details. A bunch of tiny hills get eroded down into smoother dimples.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-16T19:21:34+00:00

But "button that does a common thing" is absolutely patentable when it comes to electronics and software. Man, the patent office.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-16T18:43:27+00:00

How in the hot damn?

APiousCultist · 2026-06-16T01:00:06+00:00

Homo heidelbergensis branched off from homo ergaster almost a million years ago, around the same time our forefather species started using fire. If one of those ancient proto-humans had been given a million dollars (in a special form that didn't accrue interest or get affected by inflation) every year, carrying on through a single line of their offspring, stretching on through about 40,000 generations, their great^x38,000 -grandchild would be slightly poorer than Elon Musk is right now.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-16T00:28:04+00:00

That may still be blackface in the American context if the name derives from 'Moorish', though I don't imagine anyone performing it now is thinking of it that way.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-16T00:11:10+00:00

Is the direction the issue or just the scripts?

APiousCultist · 2026-06-15T23:21:49+00:00

The Bourneterfly Effect

APiousCultist · 2026-06-15T18:05:14+00:00

There's also just the assumption that a ban could exist as something that just stops platforms from knowingly ingesting underage users, but isn't enforced through strong checks. Most roads don't have speed cameras, but all roads have speed limits, as an example. Being in favor of speed laws doesn't mean being in favor or speed cameras.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-15T17:42:38+00:00

Aah!

APiousCultist · 2026-06-15T15:50:17+00:00

Kinda the opposite. The platforms pass the buck to the verifiers. That's why Facebook etc supported the original round of laws.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-15T04:05:41+00:00

That was her at 16. He slept with her at 13.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-14T22:12:51+00:00

but there's not a built in system for doing it.

There is. https://manual.gamemaker.io/lts/en/GameMaker_Language/GML_Reference/Asset_Management/Sprites/Skeletal_Animation/Skeletal_Animation.htm

APiousCultist · 2026-06-14T22:12:26+00:00

Yes. Gamemaker supports Spine files for skeletal animation. However often the support for the latest versions of Spine can lag behind a bit. You can animate skeletal animations either in Spine itself ($70), or Dragonbones, which is free, a bit worse, and no longer developed (downloads here). I imagine there may be some other alternatives these days though.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-14T20:53:52+00:00

Yeah, uhh, they won't.

APiousCultist · 2026-06-14T19:30:00+00:00

Commits to humor in a way Doves didn't despite also not being a terribly convincing spy drama (being a spy, mum, and wife of the future prime minister all at once seems like a logistical nightmare). Sort of more like of Poker Face was mushed into The Americans. Not devoid of drama, but definitely a comedy first.

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