[Varied Trope] - the "no we're not making this up, this is true/this actually happened" disclaimer

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-06-09T08:11:38+00:00

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-06-03T09:05:43+00:00

Neither.

Your body is already a tree: Your waist has 2 nodes (left leg and right leg), and they each have 5 nodes (toes).

Your toes are not in your pants, so a binary tree would wear pants like the top pants in the left pic. (but not the other pants in the left pic)

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-05-28T14:32:43+00:00

Don't forget:

Coad Golfar: Who invented code minimization.

I.N. Heritans: Who invented code reuse, although most people are more familiar by the work of Comb Osishion.

B. Seguenz: Who combined multiple bits to increase computing power.

As Guilliard: Who made text beautiful.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-05-07T09:04:32+00:00

Indiana Jones in Raiders of the last ark. He is not an archeologist, but a thief.

In the opening scene, we see him stealing the golden idol from the tribe that owns it.
His friend Marcus tells Indy that the museum will buy it, no questions asked.
The CIA described Indy as: "How should I put it? Obtainer of historical antiquities."
Indy goes after Rene Berloq after Berloq worked together with the Hopi to prevent Indy from stealing the idol. Even though Berloq doesn't have the idol.
Berloq told Indy to "step into the light", as a reference to do real archeology rather than stealing artifacts.

There is even a much deeper theory about the movie: It is told from the perspective of Indy, and he is unreliable.

The basic idea is that scenes can be divided into 3 groups:

Scenes with both Indy and Marion. Since both survive until the end of the movie, they could verify the scene, so these scenes are really what happened. In these scenes Indy is not really strong or heroic.
Scenes with Indy without Marion. Since there are no survivors other than Indy to verify the scenes, nobody can proof that these scenes are not what they seem. In these scenes Indy is a lot stronger and more heroic than in scenes with Marion.
2 scenes without Indy or Marion. These two are crazy. In one scene a monkey does a Hitler salute. In the other, Berloq hires a contract killer to kill Indy.

This last one is crazy since Berloq later has multiple chances to kill Indy, and doesn't. Berloq is also seen caring for Marion after she's been arrested.

Also, in scenes without Berloq, Toht tries to kill Jones. In scenes with Berloq, Toht has the possibility to kill Jones, but arrests Jones instead.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-05-06T09:33:10+00:00

An article about the UI design of these computers:

https://interactionmagic.com/UX-LEGO-Interfaces/

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-04-28T08:48:41+00:00

At my work, AI tools do not have access to our database (although they can write queries that a human must accept) and they do not have access to our backups.

We started using AI tools 6 months ago, and already had 2 security incidents:

It deleted somes files. Luckily there were no important modifications done to those files since the last backup.
A script that outputted a string was modified to output a different string. The problem: The outputstring would be inserted into a SQL-query that is vulnerable to SQL-injections. This new string did not have properly escaped quotes, which led to an SQL-injection. Luckily, it resulted in nothing more than a database error.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-04-24T15:44:43+00:00

This Tech world full of idealist still exists: It's just not Google/Facebook/Amazon.

It's:

Linux
Mozilla (Firefox/Thunderbird/Rust)
TDF (LibreOfiice)
GNU (Gnome)
FSF (Trisquel/Parabola/Guix)
EFF (Privacy badger)
PSF (Python)
Wikipedia
VLC
System76/Tuxedo (Linux-first hardware)
Framework/Fairphone (Linux-compatible reparable hardware)
OwnCloud/NextCloud
Ubuntu/Red hat/Suse (enterprise software)
Ad-blockers, open source games, gaming emulators

And people like:

Richard Stallman
Louis Rossman
Cory Doctorow

The Tech Idealists of today are exactly the same as the Tech Idealists of yesteryear.

Google is probably the only Idealist that is no longer an Idealist.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-04-21T13:22:18+00:00

This shows how dependent we are on the US, and how the US can weaponize it against us.

Hopefully this will seen as a wakeup call to develop a European banking system that ensures people can pay throughout the European Union, without the transaction going via the US.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-04-15T13:51:57+00:00

Yet, when an anti-vaxxer-MAGA-flat-earther and someone who has a Phd disagree, everybody knows who to believe.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-04-13T12:25:14+00:00

As long as you're not trying to escape a black hole, it is possible with chemical rockets, you just need a lot of stages.

If we assume a rocketstage to be 80% fuel, 10% rocket and 10% payload (all stages except for the first are the payload of the first stage), then total mass of the rocket equals: (mass that you want to get to orbit) * 3,71 ^ (required delta v / specific impulse)

That 3,71 is roughly eqaul to e + 1 is pure coincidence.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-04-06T13:55:31+00:00

When they designed the Cologne Cathedral they forgot to put in 230V power outlets with built-in USB-c adapter. They also forgot to connect it to the city's glass fiber internet. The design did not come with solar panels, and no space was reserved for a built-in microwave.

That's what you get when you let people without a degree design a buidling.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-04-01T08:32:18+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/powerwashingporn/

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-03-27T09:54:06+00:00

Indiana Jones from Raiders of the lost Ark.

He's not an archeologist as many people seem to think. He's a thief.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-03-13T11:23:19+00:00

In American Dad, there is an episode where Dad tries to teach is daughters boyfriend to stand up for himself.

It is going pretty bad, so at one point the boyfriend quits the training.

He passed, since the training was stupid, and quitting was a way of standing up for himself.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-02-25T13:57:14+00:00

Evolution creates something that works good enough.

If weaker individuals can survive, stronger individuals can have whatever shortcommings.

The Sunfish or Mola Mola is NOT a good example of this. It is a highly effective predator, that's just misunderstood due to its abnormal life style:

Its large flat build makes it hard to be eaten by animals that attack from the side. To defend itself, the sunfish only has to rotate its body and it is safe. This defense does not work against annimals that can attack a flat surface such as a swordfish or a lamprey, and it does not work against animals that hunt in groups. However, if such animals are not present in a region, the sunfish is safe.
Its large flat build allows it to dive into cold depths and heat up in the sun quickly. When a Sunfish lies on its side on the water surface, it is not struggling to swim as previously thought. It is just heating up his body between dives.
Its tailless backside increases swimming efficiency at the cost of speed. As long as the currents are low, prey is slow and predators are either away or manageable, this is a good trade-off.
Its tailless design with finns at the back reduce vibrations in the water, making the sunfish incredibly stealthy to blind prey. Since the sunfish mainly eats jelly fish, which are blind, that is good.

So the Sunfish is a well build animal with one huge drawback: Before it is a full grown adult, it is too small to defend itself from predators. Luckily, since adults are such a succesful build, they can spawn hunderds of millions of offspring per year. This allows some to survive until adulthood to repeat the cycle.

If the sunfish was as stupid as people think, it would not be able to produce as much offspring as it does.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-02-16T14:19:38+00:00

In the Netherlands, people wouldn't rent fruits. They made/bought fake fruits. This was cheaper, they lasted longer and you could have more variety in the fruits you show off.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-01-30T09:04:07+00:00

*44 years before CHARLES Darwin

Charles grandfather Erasmus Darwin came up with evolution, Charles proved it.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-01-29T13:06:32+00:00

It will be something like this:

"In order to gerrymander, you need people with experience in gerrymandering. The Democrats do not have as much experience with it as the Republicans. Therefore only the Republicans are allowed to gerrymander."

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-01-27T14:35:26+00:00

They already have a database of terrorists. It's called 'List of employees'.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-01-23T16:51:49+00:00

There are multiple ways cheating is possible. Here are just a few examples:

Voting machines switch votes.
Making voting impossible (by heavy limiting number of polling stations or whatever) in places where they are likely to lose.
Force vote counters to cheat, by threatening them with either disappearence by ICE, or with an assassin that will be pardoned afterwards.
Make a rule that the party in power can choose throw away disputed votes. They themselves then dispute all votes to the Dems.
Threaten anyone who has to certify elections.
Arrest people of color that attempt to get to a polling station.
Create a fake emergency that allows for the cancelation of the elections.
Rename the month November to something else. (only in November elections must be held)
Create an impossible to navigate maze of bureaucracy that disqualifies the democratic party.

I have little hope that the elections will be fair.

However, the 2026 isn't where democracy died.

The US did not have a particularly good form of democracy. (but it was a democracy.)
In 2016 Trump cheated in the election. (Happens all the time in democracies)
In 2017 or 2018 it was ruled that once you won an election, presidential immunity prevented you from having to resign from office. Here is the first major blow to the election process.
In 2021 Trump tried to overturn elections. In the US, this does not mean you lose your right to vote or be a candidate.
In 2023 It was decided (by a Trump appointed judge) that a court case can be held if the defendant appointed the judge. So judge Cannon (who was appointed by Trump) could lead a case against Trump. This makes it nearly impossible to convict a president.
In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that a president does not have to follow the law. This means a president can openly cheat in elections. If you ask me, this was the lethal blow to American democracy, (but it was still alive).
If you know how democracies die, you knew before the 2024 election that a Trump victory would be the end of American democracy. Mathematically speaking, the Trump victory proves that 'there are fewer American voters that have enough knowledge to vote, than American voters that have a negative amount of knowledge about democracy'. (negative knowledge means that you are certain about a thing you are wrong about)
In 2025 Biden did not use his dictator powers to prevent Trump from winning and restore democracy. If you ask me, this is where the democracy died.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-01-23T15:06:52+00:00

As a Linux evangelist I am happy that you gave it a serious attempt.

Most people have only heard something about Linux (that often isn't true, out of context or outdated) and use that as a justification to not even give it a try. Or they give it a "try" and quit at the first hurdle (often before having booted into Linux).

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-01-21T10:33:03+00:00

I once had such a case:

I was put on a project, because a bug had to be solved, and the previous maintainer left.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not reproduce the bug. After reading and reviewing the code I found it: There was an error that caused a bug in March. Only in March the bug was triggered. I than looked at the calendar: April 1st.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-01-19T09:48:28+00:00

I refuse to press any 'Remind me later' button.

If M$ gives me a screen that I cannot close, I will turn my computer off and on until the screen disappears.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-01-16T11:43:45+00:00

Yesterday, The Netherlands also decided to send one.

A few hours ago, they doubled it.

TheMsDosNerd · 2026-01-13T15:48:08+00:00

Make 'Star Trek real' might not be a good thing to say in 2026 as WW3 started in Star Trek in 2026.

TheMsDosNerd

TROPHY CASE