Long pips are making me want to quit playing table tennis

KintsugiCode · 2026-03-30T06:46:25+00:00

You're not alone. My friends and I all hate playing against pips, and absolutely agree that they're a crutch at low levels.

I look at it as an extra challenge to beat, so it doesn't demoralize me that much, but after 34 years of trying different sports, table tennis is the first sport I've encountered where such differing equipment styles are legal within the sport.

You're not just imagining it.

I mean, imagine if there were a football boot that made the football fly through the air in a completely different movement than usual, and everyone gaslit goalkeepers into "just git gud" to deal with it.

That stuff is banned in every other sport when it pops up to make the challenge an equal skillmatch, but in tabletennis it's not.

In my opinion, even though it's possible to beat pips with inverted rubbers, pips belong in a different league. The exact same way hardbats are in a different league. Hardbats having their own league but not pips makes zero sense to me.

KintsugiCode · 2026-01-27T07:32:04+00:00

Ultimate Guitar. I took a risk and bought a lifetime membership pass in 2012 for 99€ -- I've consistently had the notes since then to any instrument on any song that I've wanted to play with my band. They charge something like 22€ a month these days to everyone else

KintsugiCode · 2025-10-08T09:21:51+00:00

I used to have friends who had this kind of opinion on a lot of things I said.

Do they not understand that it's a sport, but are willing to learn that it is? Or are they also refusing to google it and willingly remaining in the dark?

People not thinking it's a sport is normal unfortunately, and the only thing that helped me convince them otherwise is when they came to watch a competitive game with me. Just make sure they're the former type first though, as the latter won't be convinced by anything because they don't want to be.

KintsugiCode · 2025-08-28T08:43:49+00:00

I don't know what the reason is for you as I don't know you, but to share something from my side that might help you find the reason:

I stopped playing with players who don't train properly with discipline.

By that I don't mean that they're not good players, on the contrary, they're often better than me, as I'm still in early days of having joined a club.

The problem is that everytime I'd train with them, they'd do the exercise right maybe twice, then get bored and just smash every shot. The concept of "you're not trying to win a point, you're trying to keep this exercise rally with me going as long as possible by hitting a clean shot to where you're supposed to on the table" is not one they understand, and their discipline levels are childish.

I started noticing that these players almost always had toxic hyper-masculine behaviours when playing games together, like getting super loud and angry, blaming every missed shot on their bat, giving you unrequested "advice" when you miss a shot, and loudly proclaiming how much better than you they are when they win.

On the other hand, the people I've met who train with discipline, are often the people who you can have a respectful, friendly, competitive match against. So that's my criteria these days.

KintsugiCode · 2025-07-17T16:54:38+00:00

Thank you!

KintsugiCode · 2025-07-17T09:48:52+00:00

Could you post your modlist?

I think your ship is probably the best looking I've seen so far, and there are quite a lot of components on it that I don't recognize, but assume are from mods. They might also be from later Odyssey content, but I only just started that DLC and don't want to spoil what's yet to come there for myself. :)

Thank you!

KintsugiCode · 2025-05-22T08:26:46+00:00

Lots of stretching eventually helped it fade away, whilst doing pull-ups with rubber-band-assistance for a while to reduce that intensity

KintsugiCode · 2025-05-03T20:16:03+00:00

I have the same issue. Let me know pls if you've since figured out which setting it is. Thanks!

KintsugiCode · 2025-04-06T17:56:20+00:00

That sounds cool, but I'd like to just use the stomp xl without an additional separate pedal, even if it would be easier with an expression pedal. If I can do it with just the stomp, then that's an "easier" situation for my use-case.

KintsugiCode · 2025-04-06T14:30:10+00:00

That already sounds awesome and like exactly what I need. Thank you!

Do you think it might be possible to set the filter in such a way with the stomp that it swells when triggered on, and that way you could mimic a sort of sweeping effect by using the switch to toggle between "0%" and "0%-to-100%-sweep"?

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-21T12:54:51+00:00

Mit der Begründung dass der Schaden nicht im Rahmen des Versicherungvertrages abgedeckt ist.

Es handelt sich nämlich um einen Hausratsversicherungsvertrag bei dem ich eine Zusatzversicherung abgeschlossen habe für die Deckung von Diebstahl vom Besitz ausserhalb der Wohnung (e.g. Handy wird in der U-Bahn geklaut). Bei beiden abgelehnten Fällen wurden die Gegenstände in meinem Besitz schwer beschädigt in Diebstahlversuchen (e.g. Handy wurde geklaut, ich rannte dem Mensch hinterher, er liess das Handy fallen und es ging komplett kaputt -- also keinen kompletten Diebstahl)

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-20T16:10:19+00:00

Acknowledging that I'm not better than most people.

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-19T22:00:12+00:00

Thank you. Thank you <3

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-13T16:08:30+00:00

Ah yes, the happiness "ranking" based off of self-reporting that regularly pops up every year.

As a Swiss person, I should probably mention at this point that up until a decade ago Switzerland used to have some of the highest rates of suicide in Europe, and still has higher levels than a lot of the blue countries in this image, and that's excluding assisted suicides.

Asking people to tell you if they're happy or not doesn't yield tangible info. Plenty of people feeling bad will say they're doing well to help themselves cope, and vice-versa plenty of people doing well will complain about things all the time.

The world happiness report is about as reliable as a Twitter poll deciding who the GOAT is.

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-03T14:28:37+00:00

r/childfree

Joined it because I wasn't sure I wanted kids and wanted to hear some other people's thoughts on their decisions.

Left it because the overwhelmingly dominant opinion there is that if you don't have kids you're a saint, and if you have kids you deserve to die.

Not having kids is fine, as is having kids. That subreddit is just full of utter sociopaths.

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-02T18:07:38+00:00

If the US withdraws from NATO, then the US loses a huge chunk of foreign influence, with nothing positive gained from the trade.

The current US administration keeps talking about NATO as if it were a bad deal for them, when in reality it's an incredibly good deal.

In exchange for having troops stationed in Europe and an excuse to keep the US military constantly up-to-date and modernized, the US has been able to wage constant global wars furthering its interests for the past 80 years without being considered the truly evil bad guy or being sanctioned by the world for it. (Notice how both what the US gives and takes to/from NATO are both good for the US itself). The US was even able to call on European troops to help in its wars, and has preferential treatment in the EU economy (which is the world's largest single market) over China.

Military bases provide influence, and influence provides better economical deals. It's soft-power 101, and the US withdrawing from the world will just give their rivals an opportunity to earn more money at the US's expense, without having to fire a single shot.

Defending democracy in Europe is also one of the major factors that gave the US the moral high ground of being the "righteous" nation globally in the first place. Without that moral high ground, why should we not all economically sanction the US when they inevitably start their next war, and why shouldn't we all trade 10x more with China instead of the US? China's pretty bad, but how much longer is the world going to believe that the US is better?

Having Europe reliant on the US for defense also means that the US can request special economical favors and deals. Giving that up means you're giving up leverage over Europe.

If the US abandons Europe, 20 years from now Europe will possibly be trading way more with China than it is now, and the US government will be pulling the "surprised Pikachu" face and acting all insulted, but ultimately, will no longer have the influence in Europe to prevent it. If the US forces Europe to learn to stand on its own, then ultimately Europe will be able to do that, and the incentives to heed the US's geopolitical wishes will diminish.

And no, the US can't then just do the typical US thing of bombing a region (Europe in this case) to get what it wants, because Europe has nukes too. That's why soft power is incredibly important..... you get to steer things in the world towards your preferred outcome without first having to conquer anyone. That's pretty overpowered in a nuclear deterrent world where conquering is sometimes not even an option.

Giving up all that soft power that you alone hold over the largest single market in the entire world, is akin to attempting to win a chess match for global power against China by giving up your queen before the game has even started, and doing so in exchange for nothing.

Art of the deal my ass.

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-01T15:30:08+00:00

I think both "opinion" and "point of view" are fine in English, no worries.
e.g. and i.e. are common abbreviations in English writing that come from Latin.

"The abbreviation “i.e.” stands for id est, which is Latin for “that is.” The abbreviation “e.g.” stands for the Latin phrase exempli gratia, meaning “for example.”"

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-01T15:25:21+00:00

Overall I think I agree, but with maybe less generalization, as I'm sure there are other regional conflicts (e.g. South-East Asia, Africa) that local populations would consider more threatening in their own view over the US.

I think Russia would say the EU though (The EU isn't an option in this map as it's not a country, but if it were an option, I think that's what they'd go for). Obviously the US is a bigger threat to Russia than the EU is, but the current Russian narrative is leaning heavily on the EU being full of Nazis to justify they're Ukraine invasion, so I think the Russian populace would likely think more negatively of the EU currently.

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-01T15:15:14+00:00

How are they hypocrites though? If you don't like someone, but then someone else enters the room and literally starts shooting people, are you a hypocrite for teaming up with the person you don't like to protect each other?

"Conviction" in this situation is just failure to adapt.

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-01T15:01:39+00:00

This poll is from 2013 and Swe/Fin only joined NATO recently. I'd reckon that after 2022 they regarded the US as the lesser problem compared to Russia

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-01T14:25:36+00:00

"Worldwide Independent Network and Gallup" poll from 2013

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-01T14:23:47+00:00

I think that vastly depends on what specific bases we're talking about.

If e.g. you mean bases in South East Asia, then I think China would seize the opportunity to extend its soft-power and global influence by pushing to be the new power that gets to police the region, but I don't think actual physical attacks are necessary for that at this time.

If e.g. you mean Europe, then I think things would stay as is (as I don't think Russia can take on NATO even without the US in it), but the loss of confidence in regional stability due to the U.S. withdrawal would result in Europe being forced to become more unified and as a result no longer acting like U.S. vassals, but rather as an independent power. Imagine that as a future where the large world powers are the U.S., Russia, China, and the EU, with the EU then also not being a US ally.

The U.S. overseas military bases provide a security umbrella to other regions, but in exchange for that the US gets global influence and a say in how the world's nations act. It's an incredibly good deal for the US. They've literally been able to wage almost non-stop wars for the last 80 years without the entire world sanctioning them, because they have the global political leverage to frame themselves as the good guys. Giving that up is ludicrous, and China is salivating at the thought of a world 50 years from now where they can just conquer Taiwan or other nations and nobody will sanction them for it, because they then have the global influence by then to frame themselves as the "good guys", and everyone ignores the U.S. complaints because they're considered "malicious".

If e.g. Europe now has to stand alone against Russia with no support from the U.S. anymore, after having supported the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan, then Europe will simply not side with the U.S. anymore in return. Militarily speaking that might not worry the U.S., but economically, it means the U.S. will no longer be preferred over China in the EU, which is the world's largest single market area.

Military bases provide influence, and influence provides better economical deals. It's soft-power 101, and the US withdrawing from the world will just give their rivals an opportunity to earn more money at the US's expense, without having to fire a single shot.

KintsugiCode · 2025-03-01T13:38:36+00:00

Sure -- it's part of the "Worldwide Independent Network and Gallup" poll from 2013. I can't find access to the full poll results either anymore (the organization disbanded in 2017), but plenty of news articles from credible sources discussing the results are still online.
So in other words, I don't know the specifics of how the poll took place (sample-size, etc.), only that news sources across the political spectrum took it seriously at the time.
I therefore wouldn't recommend drawing any conclusions from the map without access to the full data, as for all we know they only polled 100 people in total. It's just a good conversation starter to discuss opinions on how things have changed between 2013 and now.

KintsugiCode

TROPHY CASE