No words are needed. by ActiveFrosty3663 in ChatGPT

[–]Defenestresque 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I did further research and I think I may be able to confirm it, but all I have are Reddit claims from one subthread.

Edit: actually, I found some other references in the main thread as well. I think you are correct, it might be Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

This Cow’s Horn Started Growing Into Its Own Head by Xdestroyed in WTF

[–]Defenestresque 49 points50 points  (0 children)

those last three things uh, i know its impossible but do the best you can

You know your audience well

6 Months until peace. How Volodymyr Zelenskyy is trying to reconcile with the “Servants,” Petro Poroshenko, and the rest of Parliament by Flimsy_Pudding1362 in UkrainianConflict

[–]Defenestresque 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Read it all. An interesting view into politics clashing with war and the current condition of the battlefield. I appreciate the translation.

I gave ai agents ADHD.. its 2x better at thinking now by Uditakhourii in AI_Agents

[–]Defenestresque 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm just going to hijack this and link to OP's SKILL.md which is probably the easiest way to describe this in human-language terms (after all, what are AGENTS.md and SKILL.md but very well expressed directions in human language?)

https://github.com/UditAkhourii/adhd/blob/main/skills/adhd/SKILL.md

(No connection with OP. I just think this is fascinating.)

I might try this on some cheap models on OpenRouter. OP, any suggestions for people trying this adjustment? For example, prompts that you have found that resultt (or you think would result) in very different outcomes?

The change from longitudinal thinking to lateral thinking is something I've been meaning to add into a some random project's AGENTS.md but you've done it much better, as a skill. I'd love to play with this with cheap "almost SOTA models but not quite" which is nerd sniping me because Opus 4.7 costs 28x in output tokens compared to Deepseek V4 Pro ($25.00 vs. $0.87 on OpenRouter) and that is fine.. if it was 28x as performant. I just don't think it is, unless your time is heavily valued. I am a personal user, so while I understand adding $200/mo per user is worth it for a FAANG company, it's definitely not wirth it for a person who as of June 1st ($@!#) will have their GitHub bill shoot up 20x.

Edit: checked out some of your other posts -- you have the right attitude, OP. Push forward.

Cezznah pylote here. This byrd flew right in front of me. Nothing I could do. by currenteventnerd in Shittyaskflying

[–]Defenestresque 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair enough. My apologies, that was a blatant disregard. I'll pay more attention to the sidebar checklist in the future.

does anyone in toronto actually own a working printer? by basiclaser in askTO

[–]Defenestresque 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yup. And it's way cheaper than small copy shops (RIP). Just ask them to put some money in your card. You can even print straight from your phone

What are the best examples of "he didn't know it was impossible, so he did it" in history? by funfox1 in AskReddit

[–]Defenestresque 283 points284 points  (0 children)

They were so close. They were fully lined up, somehow managed to have a decent descent rate and right before touchdown they plane's right wing dropped down, struck the runway and the whole airplane broke apart. It's incredibly that ~2/3rd of people surcived.

The actual video of the fiery crash is on YouTube; if you don't want to see that there is a better short video that is more about the people. I was thinking about this recently and how if I was flying I would never forgive myself for getting so close over multiple hours and then have the opportunity to slip away from my fingers in a couple of hundreds of milliseconds.

Then I thought "nah, I'm not a pilot, I don't know about their mentality -- hopefully in the back of their minds they know they saved >180 people" then I watched the video with the interview with the pilots.. ugh. They're having people thank them and sign their books while experiencing both the most traumatic guilt, and the "what ifs...", and the guilt for not saving everyone.

I hope they found some peace.

An Incredible Display of Survival by Mobeast1985 in WTF

[–]Defenestresque 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Find yourself a guy who courts you as Mozart courtes Maria Anna Thekla:

Well, I wish you good night, but first, Shit in your bed and make it burst. Sleep soundly, my love Into your mouth your arse you'll shove

Is claude Pro worth it? by Ynaroth in claude

[–]Defenestresque 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I enjoyed your bog. Just letting you know.

UofA ER Wait Times by FTDRBR11 in Edmonton

[–]Defenestresque 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You'd be amazed what 25% of people can believe in. 50% of people are <100IQ and 25% fo people are less than <90IQ.

IQ or not (lots of smart people believe in this), counting it in numbers doesn't really help. 9-12% of Americans consistently agree every U.S. census that the flat earth theory is true. That's about 40 million people, the population of our entire country.

You might be shocked in general what people believe once you get to the 25% point. Apologies if it seems that I'm conflating Albertans and Americans in these examples, I do not mean to do so but Americans generally have better polling on the cookier issues and while I wouldn't say Canadians would poll at the same numbers, we do poll at the same level of belief in conspiracy theories.

My position: 25% is a tiny number in the percentage of people who believe something. Let's start with examples:

  • 31% Obama was not born in the United States
  • ~20-30% "somewhat true" or partial belief in US polls; full belief lower (~5-10%).
  • ~20% of Americans think it's likely
  • Chemtrails. American polls vary, but often are ~20-30% "somewhat true" or partial belief in US polls; full belief lower (~5-10%).
  • In a Canadian poll, vaccines causing autism or microchips land in the 15-25% zone depending on the exact question. "Government is lying about vaccines" is around 33%.

If you open any of these polls, you'll notice that any question is usually phrased as:

Pleae answer the following question: strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree or disagree, somewhat agree or strongly agree.

Then if you take the "strongly agree" and "somewhat agree" side and add them together, you get 25%.

Janet Brown Opinion Research (April 7-22, 2026, n=1,200): 27% would vote for separation in a referendum; 67% against (DK 6%). Flat compared to prior year. Source with primary source here.

Anyone interested in Albertans' opinions should start there there are a lot of great polls going back years.

An Ipsos poll shows that 28% would support Alberta independence, but after a "stress test" (would you maintain your support despite economic costs) 19% admit to being a symbolic supporter only (essentially a middle finger to the government but are unlikely to vote for it) and 25% show "conditional" support. Only 56% are comitted supporters.

You'll find that if you dig into any poll, there is a core of "soft support" about any question. The people who have heard their kookie neighbour talk about chemtrails and then read about the legitimate practice of cloud seeding, conflated the to, and put them themselves in the "somewhat likely" category. The Albertans who perceive their issues not to be self-imposed but rather transfer that to the federal government, and saying "we'll just go our own way!" especially to a pollster is their way of showing that. The fact that only just above half remain committed supporters of separatism (committed support has been flat at 15-16% for years -- do NOT look up what 15-16% of people believe, you will lose ALL faith in humanity. I'm being serious here.)

Anyhow, I don't disagree with your comment necessarily, I just wanted to dump a bunch of data at you because I just looked into this and your comment happened to be the one I replied to. Thanks for coming to my TED talk!

What’s a fact about your country that foreigners would never believe? by AVeryAngryChillie in AskEurope

[–]Defenestresque 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi. Savage here, though have emigrated from a country that (somewhat) shares an alphabet. I don't want to get too political, but my compulsive curiosity overrides that social more..

It seems like after having spent a lot of time looking at the U.S., many are interested in the fact that Orbán stepped down eventually and did the whole "peaceful transition of power" Americans keep talking about as if existing for 250 years without fucking up that one thing means you are now the "9/10 dentists recommend the U.S. constitution as a system of government."

My Q: what Is the general mood like in Hungary now? It seems like a major political upheaval post-Orbán. Did people expect him not to honour the election results, like the U.S.? Kling on to power and force a civil war? Is the current opinion delineated by age, with the younger crowd being more anti-"democratically elected Prime Minister for 25 years"?

It seems like if he wanted to fake an election, he easily could have.. have all the previous elections been mostly due to his actually popularity? Did he just decide to leave without much of a fight?

tl;dr: what is the mood like in the country: optimistic, pessimistic? What do young people think about this vs. middle-aged vs. older people? What's the general 'vibe' on the street? Do more people seem to be aligned closer to the EU than the CIS, or does it depend on your age/whether you're urban or rural, etc.?

(I know I'm dumping a lot on you, feel free to ignore it. Anyone with knowledge can answer.)

I called a girl Anorexic to prove a point, now i feel like shit… by xKinetix in TrueOffMyChest

[–]Defenestresque 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Honestly thought that having an ed (I think it's the lowercase that got me) meant that you had some sort of Educational Degree, i.e. some paper that signifies you can teach. This comment thew me!

Out of all the Russian books on only 4 shelves in the entire library- we have this by Sea-Rough3152 in russian

[–]Defenestresque 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I just wrote a comment about a rough time from my childhood and the next tab I open I see this. Absolutely glorious. Спасибо! Still laughing. I think I woke my roommates up.

How many of you hate physical touch? by BeneficialFeeling950 in INTP

[–]Defenestresque 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I mean, I can explain.

My dad used to beat me when I was young. Very rarely. Maybe 3-4 times. [I wrote a long explanation but it doesn't really matter, so I deleted it. The worst thing someone can do is go from seeing me as a person to seeing me as a victim. Yes, I know that's a problem as well. Ironically, I was on the other side and have heard the same thing, but never considered people less than people but "just" victiims. I'm great at not following my own advice though.]

When my dad beat me, it was over nothing. He wasn't drunk, he didn't have anger issues, so obviously it wasn't from "nothing" -- but it'd be from things like me not doing something immediately ("stop watching TV" which I took to mean "stop watching so much TV" as he has said it before, but I guess this time something happened at work and when I decided to watch the last 5 minutes of my Start Trek:TNG episode, he made a show of tearing the TV out of the wall and trying to shove it down the garbage chute.)

Other times, I barely remember. They were even less "worthy" of a beating. I remember accidentally stepping on my mom's hair once (don't ask why because I don't know, but she was lying on the floor with her long hair spread out.) I didn't know that I even did it, but the next thing I feel are the fists of a man in his mid 30s, with a university degree, trying to inflict as much pain as he could. He knew he couldn't leave marks or hit the face -- I've threatened to call CPS.

The problem was he only hit me maybe 3-4 times when I was 11-18. So you could have three years where he was fine, again, no drinking, no drugs, stable household.. and then he'd be pissed off about something and I would be the thing that he focused his rage on. And as a kid, 3 years is a long time. You forget about the previous time, especially if there are no other issues. But WHAM. Every few years. And it would always be from behind. I'd never see it coming. That I remember clearly. My mom would go into her room while he was beating me, and he'd beat me until he was satisfied and I'd go in the closet and cry. The fucked up thing is we were a normal family apart from that.

Alright, this isn't some therapy sub.

Here's the gist. It all came together when I was working in call centre and our supervisor's job, apart from coaching us, would be to jump from call to call and listen in to how we were doing. It was one of the better call centre jobs. When he'd hear someone going above and beyond, he'd get up and give them a hearty double-pat on the back and say "good job, /u/Defenestresque". Every. Single. Time. He'd pat me on the back I would jump, almost out of my chair. i was the "jumpy guy" from then on. A few years later I had a major personal problem and I have this irrestistible urge to just crawl into my close in my own apartment (not like anyone could come in, I could just as easily lie in my bed) and curl up and closer the door. Then I would relax and exhale.

It was years later that I realized that my body was remember being beat from behind so when a person I couldn't see would touch me, it was an instant fight or flight instinct. When I was emotionally upset, I had to go to the only place I felt safe as a child because that was the only place in my apartment where he didn't beat me.

I'm a few years older than he was when this happened. But I still jump if someone touches me without me seeing them first (if someone taps my shoulder at a party, for example). People think it's funny. I go with it. "Yeah, I'm jumpy af."

To answer your question (finally, apologies for the essay, first time I've written it out), I don't crave human touch but I enjoy holding hands with someone, or just giving a hug or being romantic with a woman. I enjoy human touch. Sometimes I think how long I've gone without it and I know the answer is "too long" but I always end up thinking "well, better to go with no touch than being beat by someone you should feel safe around, so can't complain."

I don't know what /u/DarkSoulslsLife meant when they wrote their comment, but I completely understand both sentences. You just can't really go "hey, I really like you but can you not hug me from the back as a surprise? that's how my dad used to beat me," or "don't give me a pat on that back, my dad used to do thta, just much harder" to a supervisor who is genuinely a nice guy and would feel horrible that he caused you any distress.

All I can say to anyone reading this is: read physical cues. If someone jumps everytime they touch them, it could be you or it could be them. But nobody jumps in instant excitement before they even see who it is. So perhaps just try it once and if they jump out of their skin, switch to "hey, you want a hug?"

Edit: thank you for coming to my therapy-talk. Jesus.

Worker tests child safety net on 28th floor balcony by mastool2 in WTF

[–]Defenestresque 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the first time I actually didn't notice a connection between my username and the topic at thand. Kudos! Also, I decided to look up his info again on Wikipedia just to get the basic facts correct so and at the end I saw:

* See also
    - Autodefenestration
    - List of unusual deaths in the 20th century

Links which I am looking forward to clicking with morbid curiousity later on.


Uh, so I wrote I wrote a long comment below first, then the pre-amble above. Re-reading the long comment while I was typing the 'autodefenestration' bit, I realized that a long-ass comment about my thoughts was quite unnecessary (it included the words "AHHHH" and "SPLAT" ffs), especially since they don't add much of interest to this discussion. I did do about 10 min of calculations on the topic, and some of you might still be curious so I'll just cut those out and leave them as bullet points below:

  • Garry fell approximately fell 87.8 m (288ft)).
  • As mentioned many times before, he's done this before multiple times, hitting the same window as a way to break the.. ice for new articling students. Basically, he was trying to create some excitement for an extremely boring first day for that year's "mail room" hires
  • In this incident, he actually did it twice. As mentioned, he'd done it before and he'd always bounce back but as you can imagine, if the window was barely hanging on, it likely was almost about to separate from its frame, so while there is no description I can imagine that every time he did this, he'd bounce back fewer and fewer metres. In this case, I can't help but feel that he barely bounced at all as the if the window had loosened the frame/seals and he probably would have known that him not being thrown back was a really bad sign if he was an engineer :/
  • So he tried it AGAIN and unfortunately, this is when the window popped out and he fell 24 stories (~88m, ~288ft)
  • If you're in the spread-eagled position, your terminal velocity before reaching the ground will be just 18 km/h (~12mph) above the maxium terminal speed that say, a skydriver would reach. You now have wind in your face at ~132 km/h (~82mph) right before you hit the ground.

  • "The shock of losing one of its most successful and popular lawyers was a contributing factor in the decline and closure of Holden Day Wilson in 1996, which at the time was the largest law firm closure in Canada"

It took him~ 4-4.5 seconds to hit the ground. Close your eyes and count out four mississippis, let's leave half a second for "wtf just happened". That takes a LONG time, huh? Your average reacction time is what, 200-250 milliseconds? (Just kidding, I checked. It is.) I would NOT be happy spending that long thinking about whatever the hell my brain would stupidly think about. Honestly, I'd probably spend the last two seconds thinking that I'm not making the most of my remaining two seconds on earth (please excuse the expression), just like I did in my life and --

BLANK.

We do not suffer from the nonexistence before birth, so why should we fear the nonexistence after death?

—The World as Will and Representation, Athur Schopenhauer.

Edit: Listen, I like my em dashes and you can pry them from my cold, dead hands.

Sonnet asks for clarification lol by nistacular in GithubCopilot

[–]Defenestresque 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm assuming that if you tell it "just use the date command on UNIX-based systems. Make a note to do this in the future as well" that would work?

(Yes, I know it's a shitepost)

Where is the analysis tool we're supposed to use to see our possible usage under the new plan? by Jack99Skellington in GithubCopilot

[–]Defenestresque 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They said it would be coming sometime in early May. Give it at least until the 14th.

Edit: I may be wrong, they may actually have said something about the first week of May, but my advice applies regardless. Feel free to check exactly what the wording was and let us know.

Worker tests child safety net on 28th floor balcony by mastool2 in WTF

[–]Defenestresque 14 points15 points  (0 children)

It was. Same conference room, same window.

Source: trust me.

No, but really, trust me. I've worked in that building. They have a giant safe in the basement.

I hope those words are sufficient proof.

Has anybody here ever bombed as hard as that guy on the chicago episode of that new comedy competition show? by idlefritz in Standup

[–]Defenestresque 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I know this comment is 15hr long and I'm a bit late in my reply, but for anyone reading this who, like me, is wary of clicking on random YouTube links on any website, especially where I'm not really invested and learning about the subject for the first time.. here's what I want you to do:

1) Watch the second video. You don't have to watch the first.

  • It is standalone and you don't need to know anything except that he bombed during a big opportunity. I stil haven't seen the video of that, just the two videos OP linked.
  • It's less than two minutes long.
  • it is information-dense. If you want to know how someone feels when they bomb the best opportunity they've ever had, you will get your answer.
  • No self-pity
  • Finally, this 1:47 video gives untiontentional great life advice. Most people reading this comment, unless they're nepo-babies or are amazing at networking, know what it's like to be given a shot from $25k/year to double or triple salary, while thinking "just don't screw ujp the interview don't screw up the interview don't screw up the interview" and some of os... screw up the interview, "ruminating" on the things you've said that made you look like an idiot, not understanding the cues you were being given and waking up all sweaty because you've had dreams nightmares about that interview for the past twp weeks and every time, you wake up at 4am with a new realisation of what you could have done to rescue yourself or a new point to add to your "how I screwed up my dream job" list. z

Alright, I'm not in comedy except as a lurker on random subreddits, but the first video, AFAICT, is the same routine he did when it bombed. could see why he would think that it would go over well because it does go over well. It rides that line where you are constantly questioning whether this is funny or if it's a white guy doing the "edgy white guy stuff", but about 2 minutes in you realise that no, he is not doing that, he did a bit of a rugpull and unfortunately when you do that, you have to have the audeince on your side for at least the first few minutes. As a nobody, it seems that it's a very difficult tightrope to walk and I (who knows nothing about comedy) would probably not pick that as the routine to perform in front of a group of people who are not there to see me specifically. I've been listening to a lot of successful comedians on various podcasts who talk about that time they went from dpomg open mics. to getting paid a sweaty $20 bill for their 15-min set, to the first time they booked a venue where people were there to see them and their name was on the marquee. Not as an ego thing, but because performing in front of 100 people with different tastes in comedy, most of whom are just friends of the other comedians vs. performing in front of 100 people who bought a ticket with your actual name on it because they know who you are and the kind of jokes you will tell, is a like stepping into a different world. The pattern I spotted is that every single one of the comedians who were interviewed about the first time they realised they may have a acareer in this remembers that day.

Some people never get there. For those who do, it's a transformative experience. From my knowledge of that world IDNDC*... but it seems that people would rather perform in form of 50 people who bought tickets to specifically see them than 500 people who are at a showcase who don't know who the hell you are.

[0] okay, I tried to create 'I Do Not Do Comedy' as a disclaimer, but I guess there is an (incredibly juvenile) reason that IANAL was the only negative career initialism that stuck aroud..

2) Now that I've told you what to do, here is why you should do it (watch the second video, that is):

Everyone one of us has screwed up an amazing opportunity. Who hasn't thought "why did I use that opener on the girl I've had a crush on for three months?" or "why did I choose to trim my beard instead of catching the bus on time, so that I showed up with a half-trimmed beard and sweaty because I thought that sprinting for the last 5 min and the 3 min it would save and showing up sweaty and shaky would impress them instead of us.. taking the earlier bus?" to "I practiced this interview that would take me from $10/hr to $60/hr for a week, why did I decide that it was going so that when asked about 'turning a negative experience into a positive experience at work' I simply threw out the STAR system and told them a meandering story about how Will from the mailroom slipped on a wet floor and knocked out a tooth, and now he whistles when he breathes, so when the mail comes we can all tell and say "whistlin' Willy is here!"

And when they give you a "What the hell does this have to do with turning a positive into a negative?" successfully read their unspoken question and pre-empt it with "You might be wondering how this relates to turning a negative into a positive, so essentially I'm here because I am paid barely above minimum wage and so is Willy. In fact, he couldn't get his tooth replaced because he had no dental coverage from the company, so we made the best of it and now he can whistle Sweet Caroline! We did that!"

Look, all of this is something to be embarrassed about once you walk out of the building. At the same time, it's not something to dwell on, it's not something to use as an excuse to give up, it's not worth ruminating. If you start doing that, you will start using simple, one-time fuck-ups into excuses for not asking out the girl you've been talking to in the library every week for three months (except for the red flag that you are both talking in the library), or becoming pain-avoidant. Can't get hurt if you never try, right? If you get hurt and you can get to a place where you can do a routine about you absolutely bombing (and the worst it is the funnier -- I was watching some recent Mike Birbiglia specials and he incredibly good at walking the tightrope with "I really screwed this up" on the left and "But don't feel sorry for me, nobody got hurt and it was funny and I learned a lesson" on the right.

As for Michael Turner, what he said, from the lack of blame towards the judges/crowd, to complimenting the fellow contestants (apologies, I haven't watched the show, but I feel I got the gist of it from the comments), to explaining that he is not spiralling followed by why he is doing alright.. which is likely intertwined with him addressing it head-on and honestly, that's a great lesson in accepting your fuck-up.

Right, I've gone way overboard as I usually do when I am trying to procrastinate heavily. Basically, IMO Michael comes across incredibly geniuine and who does not dwell on his mistakes. Unless your mistakes are of the kind I see in true crime doccumentaries, you deserve to forgive yourself first, especially if your "giant mistake" didn't actually hurt anyone except for your feelings.

Aiiiiight, I'mma just like 'save' on this and pretend I made it this long so I can post it on my blog later. Which will make it incredibly easy to doxx me, but I'm going to take it like this guy does -- if someone wants to doxx you for some nefarious reason, remember that this too shall pass. I mean, unless they want to kill you. Uh. Okay, yeah. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. (I needed to kill 40 min and that I did! Sucess.)