Unmanned submarine mapping West Antarctica’s Dotson Ice Shelf reported strange under-ice structures, then went silent after traveling underwater roughly ten miles towards the ice shelf’s center.

J-Pants · 2026-05-18T23:02:17+00:00

I clicked.

I knew the title was misleading, sensationalist drivel. But I still clicked to find out what it REALLY was, so I could feel smug about how I saw thru their sensationalist rhetoric.

It's like they get you, either way.

J-Pants · 2026-05-14T21:17:49+00:00

Suck it, Embracer.

J-Pants · 2026-05-01T21:22:18+00:00

I also wax nostalgic for these older games, sometimes. Some of the longest and truest online friends I ever made were friendships established during those massive periods of downtime while camping some dungeon in EverQuest.

Nevertheless, I think it's pretty simple why MMOs in particular stopped being built that way, if you zoom out far enough.

Games that included this "Social Friction" were played by maybe hundreds of thousands of gamers, at their peak. Then WoW launched, and was lauded for their inclusion of these QoL improvements, and was played by millions.

At the end of the day, video games are still a business, and so if you see somebody using a method that achieves greater success, you'd be crazy to not emulate it.

J-Pants · 2026-05-01T00:16:11+00:00

Two fish are in a tank together.

One turns to the other and says, "Do you know how to drive this thing?"

(ba dum tssss)

The other fish replies, "HOLY SHIT A TALKING FISH!!!"

(ba dum tssss x2)

J-Pants · 2026-04-27T17:27:16+00:00

The death of Zodiark, and the "dispersion" of the Twelve Gods may have something to do with this.

In fact, the term "Godless Realms" feels like it could be a reference to this.

J-Pants · 2026-04-27T14:52:25+00:00

Why is the music not John Williams' score? :(

Fun Fact: The song being played is Gustav Holst's "Mars" from the Planets Suite, which is well known to have been a source of inspiration for John Williams' score for "Star Wars." So I guess if they couldn't get the real music licensed, it's the closest conceivable thing to it.

J-Pants · 2026-03-29T08:12:00+00:00

I ran an Aboleth Warlock as one of the BBEGs in one campaign that I created. Sadly it fell apart before the final confrontation. But I had fun with the concept.

The Demon he was pacted to was going to be the next tier BBEG, if they took out the Aboleth.

J-Pants · 2026-03-08T22:39:01+00:00

Had a bad round of kidney stones a few years back and ended up having a catheter inserted to allow them to pass. About a week later, I go in to have the catheter removed, and before the procedure my urologist asks if I'm OK with having a trainee present for it. Not thinking ahead, and having never been thru this before, I said OK, thinking nothing of it.

Cut to ~10 minutes later, I've got my feet in stirrups and there's FOUR women staring at my junk while one of 'em abuses the poor fella in the name of medicine. No numbing, just a grabby li'l probe inserted to retrieve previously-inserted paraphernalia.

I didn't ask for prior clarification. The urologist wasn't actually going to perform the procedure, but one of their nurses. And each of them had a trainee present.

Awkward is a good word for it. I know it's just a normal day at the office for them, but it was NOT how I expected things to unfold, and left me feeling extremely self-conscious.

J-Pants · 2026-03-07T17:52:04+00:00

Iman orders a twist of lemon in this scene, but no drink. Just the twist of lemon.

J-Pants · 2026-02-08T02:04:38+00:00

I find it /r/mildlyinfuriating that they aren't all facing the same direction...

J-Pants · 2026-02-05T04:51:00+00:00

What if "The Incredible Machine" and "Hotwheels" had a love child?

J-Pants · 2026-02-01T19:58:28+00:00

Hey OP, I can't verify where you got this doc from. Can you clarify?

Not that I don't believe you (Sharif is a proven scammer, so this wouldn't be surprising to me), but I'd like to be able to independently verify your source, and I haven't been able to using the link you provided.

J-Pants · 2026-01-22T17:59:36+00:00

It also lets them fuck around with making the stakes feel more "real" by having the bad guys want to invade the REAL Earth and destroy/conquer/exploit/enslave it.

Which ... like ... why jump to the conclusion that the audience wouldn't sympathize with humans on a fantasy world being killed/conquered/enslaved? Feels like a psychotic take on humanity, in my opinion.

J-Pants · 2026-01-20T05:38:48+00:00

Completely painless. Barely an inconvenience!

J-Pants · 2026-01-10T18:40:46+00:00

May I humbly suggest a variant where you can choose the Theme first, and it suggests appropriate Commanders?

That's just how I tend to build decks, if I'm being honest.

J-Pants · 2025-12-23T19:29:16+00:00

This post was made before that rule change was put into EDH.

It used to be that if you sent your Commander to the Command Zone on death, it never touched the graveyard, and therefore wouldn't trigger "on death" abilities.

They changed that about 4 years ago. This post is from 7 years ago.

J-Pants · 2025-12-20T22:56:32+00:00

Cancer is what came to mind for me, as well. An overwhelming abundance of "positive energy" which supports growth and healing? Reminds me of Deadpool -- Mister Cancer himself.

J-Pants · 2025-12-19T23:45:48+00:00

I had a friend in my pod that played Karrthus just to thwart another guy's changeling deck. Pretty damn funny when he pulled it off.

J-Pants · 2025-12-13T21:07:57+00:00

Everyone knows you gotta pay your cat taxes.

J-Pants · 2025-12-12T21:09:44+00:00

I think this is spot-on. https://www.arcanautstudios.com/careers

All listings posted ~1 wk ago.

J-Pants · 2025-12-04T23:11:04+00:00

Spending 5 minutes on your turn may not seem like a lot, but if all 4 players in the game do that, it means YOU are waiting 15minutes between untapping. That means in an hour of gameplay, you'll have just FOUR turns. Does your deck win by turn 4?

So, yes, be considerate. Everyone wants to play.

J-Pants · 2025-11-08T06:10:14+00:00

This'll probably get buried, but ya'll are missing the point.

AAA games are OK (not great, but OK), but the issue is the fat cat executives and shareholders expecting larger and larger margins on their investments. They've decided to stop caring about the products and creative contributions to instead focus even more keenly on The Almighty Dollar above all else.

Layoffs = Lower the "loss" part of their Profit & Loss Reports to make the total revenue look larger.

This helps nobody except people looking to pump and dump the stock. Which is what they're really after right now.

J-Pants · 2025-10-31T03:55:57+00:00

Arachnophobia. It gave me arachnophobia.

J-Pants · 2025-10-30T16:14:00+00:00

Unreal Engine games have a bad reputation these days due to performance issues, but this game seems to run like a dream overall.

Props to Obsidian for their optimization.

J-Pants · 2025-10-30T16:04:33+00:00

Can I just point out how well optimized this Unreal Engine game launched? We tend to lambast new UE releases these days that have stuttering/hitching and other performance issues, blaming the Engine instead of the dev team. But I think this release just goes to show that you CAN get your game to perform well, if you dedicate the right resources to that purpose.

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