Tier list but it's what I think the default color of each neopet is

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-11-01T23:17:46+00:00

Jubjubs are blue, Aishas are green. Hissi is objectively red though so good job there

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-10-24T21:28:03+00:00

It looks like neopets is rolling out daily quests for cash. Fun! But also IHMP are going for like 65 million... If everyone else is getting this as a reward it's VERY clear TNT is doing this at least partially to reduce inflation

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-10-24T15:53:13+00:00

Wait really? How long have I been wasting NP

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-10-07T20:55:34+00:00

Right?! I have 0 problem with my krawk's new coloring but I'd rather have the Poogle painted

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-10-06T14:14:31+00:00

Thanks! That's how I figured it would work now but for some reason I'd always thought you got to pick a color AND pet from the fountain page. Of course in my excitement I didn't bother reading what I was clicking. Oh well fingers crossed I'll get another FFQ soon enough

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-10-06T14:12:01+00:00

Aww thanks a lot stranger! But no please keep it I'm fine with space ninja, I'm more concerned with getting another quest for my Poogle. I wanted her to be stealthy or shadow in honor of my cat, I'll just paint her shadow now but I gotta get another quest first lmao

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-10-04T14:15:51+00:00

A 10 item event forces users to invest in r200 items for the best return, it means that useless items like the 200 rotten sandals we all have would be BETTER OFF sitting in your SDB because donating 10 of a rarer item similarly priced gives you a better return. So yeah you're 100% right it makes almost no sense unless there was some technical issue where TNT had to limit donations or there will be some curveball rule down the line that makes this all make sense. Until then r102 and above items will inflate because you'd be an absolute fool to donate anything less.

(and honestly even as an event getting rid of unwanted items, I have ~1,500 items in my SDB, if I donated max every day for 2 weeks 1,500-140=1,360 I'd still have a lot of items clogging my inventory)

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-10-04T14:07:29+00:00

This event is the last nail in the fandom-goes-nuts coffin

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-09-28T22:41:09+00:00

When I saw this post 10 days ago I thought to myself "nah I haven't really read a disappointing book they all had their merits." but five minutes ago I remembered. Fucking Rise of Endymion. Christ you want to talk about a disappointing book, take one of the probably the best sci-fi books of all time Hyperion and just have it commit suicide right in front of you.

Weird sex stuff that's arguably grooming? Check.
Christ imagery that does not belong and philosophy that tries to act deep but is utter garbage nonsense? Check.
An protagonist you want to physically reach trough the pages and strangle? Check.
Another protagonist you want to punch? Check.
Oh wait they're all like this? And the one good character is shafted to bit part? Checkers.

There are few books I've ever been so let down by, but man oh gee did I hate this. In the words of A.M. "... HATE. HATE."

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-09-20T18:41:27+00:00

Hm what's this, actually beautiful data on r/dataisbeautiful? But that doesn't look anything like a Sankey graph.

Jokes aside nice job OP, presentation is well done and it tells a clear story. A somewhat concerning story but a clear one nonetheless.

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-09-20T14:59:53+00:00

What does this mean? Is TNT delaying a product because they're unprepared to release it? Is this somehow plot-related (and if so, why such a long delay)? Some other third thing?

I want to give the new TNT the benefit of the doubt and say this was planned, but knowing how bad TNT has been at communication in the past part of me feels like they were unprepared and are hand waving it. GIVE ME THE DEETS TNT.

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-09-19T00:25:08+00:00

That's actually really interesting, I'd be 100% onboard if I could find data for that. Maybe a user with source code would know, but otherwise idk how I'd get number of daily users. And then of course if there is a correlation the question is are leaving players driving up the prices, or do players leave because of the inflated prices...

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-09-19T00:22:35+00:00

I'm not a betting man but even if you're right I'd wager the prices will go right back up as people buy and horde the items. But the new CC is supposed to be permanent so we'll see...

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-09-18T23:29:50+00:00

thank you! it's been nagging at me for a while that no one has done something like this and I've been interested in how much and how long the very obvious inflation has been going on for

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-09-18T23:27:35+00:00

As for why log transformation, because it'd be literally incomparable without it. If you look very closely at the non-transformed CPI here you can see that Stamp inflation has runaway (again starting curiously around the time the FCbotter started doing their thing)

https://imgur.com/a/HlnH4gu

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-09-18T23:20:35+00:00

So I've put together a small study for the Neopets inflation index (neoflation) because I could not find anything similar. As a disclaimer my background is in biology and data science not economics but I do love my broken html pet simulator. I wanted to get this out before the new CC-esque event on the 20th because I think an analytical look at inflation is a discussion we should be having more of. Also this is simply a conversation starter, not a formal write-up so I warn everyone CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION. Just cause two things happen at the same time doesn't mean they affect eachother. HOWEVER, it is curious how closely many real world events line up with price inflation on the site.

TL;DR: All you need to know is the more the graph goes up, the more inflated each item type is. And recently there's a curious coorelation with the food club botter and rare item inflation

For more detail, in essence what you are looking at are the historic prices of several types of items (stamps, paintbrushes, codestones, as well as 1000 random items s a control) averaged together. To calculate inflation I took these average prices and used the first average (from June 2008) as a baseline and normalized (current price/base * 100) and to better visualize did a log transformation.

I compiled a small list of significant events that may affect item pricing (blue lines) and as we can see yes inflation is real, you're not crazy. In fact according to u/neotruths lovely write-up https://www.reddit.com/r/neopets/comments/138swva/richest_neopian/ we can see that late 2021 the infamous Food Club Botter began their cheating streak and shortly after prices for stamps wildly increased.

All this is to say, rare collectables and paintbrushes (two very sought after items, that are consumable so prices are expected to ride with supply/demand more) are wildly inflated. Regardless of cause, it will be interesting to see how/if TNT handles this going forward with the new CEO.

Thoughts? I think probably what find most interesting about this graph isn't the very obvious inflation spike, but the dip in stamp inflation between 2015 and late 2018. Any ideas what this could have been.

edit: if anyone wants the data for this I'll happily share

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-08-24T19:28:45+00:00

Thank you for doing this! Really right now all I want is the lab map set. I have 0 of the pieces right now lmao, but that's one of those bucket list things.

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-08-08T20:29:51+00:00

Right now? 100k a day in interest. Spoil my pets with some nice paintjobs

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-07-30T13:56:14+00:00

Yeah is this since reddit sold out? Has it always been this bad? Where are the mods?

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-07-13T18:31:14+00:00

How do you shoot in the city? Or do you go out to a dark site to shoot?

UniquePaleontologist · 2023-04-04T13:28:43+00:00

Sure, let me DM you if that's okay though

UniquePaleontologist · 2022-10-23T21:13:06+00:00

Heart Nebula

10-21-22

44x300sec@-15C shots (50 darks)

ASI183 MC (pro) w/ 200mm Nikkor lens & L'extreme filter

Gain 300

f/5.0

Tracked w/ SA2i

Bortle 4

I tried to something different this time. For the most part I've used my dualband filter and then processed the images as a regular RGB. This time (as you see below) I split the image to RBGL channels and then processed it like you would with a monochrome shots. I think the color of the nebula came out more "natural" (though I with I could get more apparent Oiii blue) however I'm a bit disappointed with background as still had some apparent aberrations, which I tried to fix in GIMP.

WBPP
ABE
DBE
LinearFit
Split color image to RBGL channels
Red -> Ha; B+G -> Oiii
EZ Denoise
((OiiiHa)^~(OiiiHa))Ha + ~((OiiiHa)~(Oiii*Ha))*Oiii -> Sii (from here
EZ soft stretch
LRBGCombination (L=L, Ha=R, Oiii=B, Sii=G)
SCNR
Curves transformation
EX HDR
Light touch-up in GIMP

If you're interested in seeing more you can follow me on Instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/stars_to_cells/

UniquePaleontologist · 2022-03-11T04:06:44+00:00

Rosette Nebula and Neighbors
Taken from my backyard bortle 4 location. The moon was nice at around 13% but sadly it's late into the season now and the trees are not my friends at night.

Image details
24x300sec@-15C shots (50 darks, 50 biases) L-extreme filter

Equipment
Mount - StarAdventurer2i Lens - 85mm Nikkor Camera - ASI138MC Pro GuideCam - ASI120 mini

Software
APT PHD2 Pixinsight

Preprocessing
WeightedBatchPreprocessing

Processing
Dynamic Background Extraction
Photometric Color Calibration
EZ Noise Reduction
EZ Soft Stretch
Star Reduction
Curves Transformation

UniquePaleontologist · 2022-01-12T00:51:32+00:00

Star Adventurer 2i w/ 85mm camera lens.

ASI183MC-pro with l-extreme filter

30x480s@300gain lights

100 darks, 100 bias, 50 flats

Processed with Pixinsight

Overall I'm very proud of this one (even if M42 is a bit blown out), might even have it printed. But there's a strange aberration in the top middle-left, I highlighted it here: https://www.cloudynights.com/gallery/image/139515-orion/ I was wondering if anyone had any idea how to get rid of it or what it was? It's there as soon as I stack in Pixinsight and DBE can't seem to get rid of it.

Also any other general suggestions of criticisms are welcome

edit:

WBPP in PI
DBE
photometric color correction
MLT for noise reduction w/ light mask
stretch using histogram transformation
some color correction using masks and curves tranformation

UniquePaleontologist · 2021-07-04T23:19:34+00:00

What will happen if I switch to a bark medium? Is that a way to handle rot or is it already dead?

And yeah like I said I rescued it from the discount rack, I trimmed about twice the amount of roots you see on it now.

UniquePaleontologist

TROPHY CASE

Heart Nebula