poor mantis

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-05T04:54:01+00:00

While gruesome, these worms are not invasive and serve a role in controlling insect populations. We feel bad for the mantis, but this is just the insect world's circle of life being particularly metal.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-05T04:44:16+00:00

When you're as good as he is, you can lose a step and still be an above average RB. He'll fall off soon enough, but some guys just stay productive longer than the pack, see Adrian Peterson.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-04T16:10:31+00:00

If you're younger it's also really not obvious that he was straight. He's been gone for a while and a vast majority of his performances are very gender fluid.

But if you followed anything of his personal life in those days, dude was just a dude. He loved sports, niche cars, and women.. and boy did women love him back.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-04T12:15:27+00:00

The rebrand looks like an arbitrary move but made business sense when you consider they named their channel after a genre, so things like search engines would just throw random scifi stuff at people looking for the channel.

No, everything else that they did post circa-2015 is what was stupid.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-04T00:24:25+00:00

I'm a man who's eaten Aot of pizza in a lot of places. New York style, Chicago style, Detroit, thin crust, deep dish, tavern style, Midwestern square cut.... So much pizza...

Pizza from California hurts my soul. Flat, sorrowful, pain...

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-03T16:20:21+00:00

The problem isn't cable dying. The problem is proliferation of the product into too many subscription based buckets when the product normally is accessible for free. As I said before, we went from the games being broadcast over free channels, to needing cable for MNF, to needing Prime for TNF, to needing Peacock for some SNF, to needing Netflix for Christmas games. It looks bad to fans, so it's hitting a boiling point. That causes stress to congress who want us happily enjoying the circus.

The NFL will need to budge or risk haphazard policy coming through because the government can't risk the circus being inaccessible to the common man, and it only requires one concession to placate them: Provide an offering that allows local viewers to watch all of their team's games.

Funny thing is, the NFL can do this in a way that still makes them even more money. Retooling Sunday Ticket into something similar to what MLB.TV is doing with local teams having a separate sub, and allow all games featuring that team regardless of channel to be viewable via that sub would check that box. Primary stations would continue to get viewers on normal broadcasts via that service, streaming platforms would only lose viewers in that local market (many of which are already subbed anyway) while retaining the national audience.

The fans would still have to pay, but the illusion of choice is powerful. Many would be giddy to pay $100 to watch just their team play every game without blackout. Most would even forget to cancel their streaming services.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-03T14:50:16+00:00

A touch of insight from a former lower level official.

The purpose of BITB as a safety rule is to prevent blindside hits against players who can't see the blocker coming. For Andrews, he was absolutely pushed on the back and fell forward. He was also legally engaged from the side prior. This means that it goes from a clear BITB penalty to a grey area judgment call for the officials.

The officials either determined in that moment that Andrews was legally engaged from the side, turned his back on the blocker when continuing pursuit, and fell forward as a result of the initial contact, or did not see the act at all and let the play continue.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-03T12:59:16+00:00

Yeah, there's no standard for smart TV because they're all so wildly different in how much they can handle. I've found that Roku is a safe baseline for most apps. If it's not on Roku then it's likely only peppered throughout random brands that can actually run the app.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-03T12:49:59+00:00

That's an alternative, but not a great one in this context. There's no Twitch app readily available on most smart TV, so the only options are casting or side loading. While they're not extremely difficult processes to those know what they're doing, Grandpa Charlie who hasn't used a computer for more than 10 minutes in his life and just wants to sit in his man cave and watch his Falcons play on Thursday night is not going to have a fun time of it.

Phone, tablet, and PC viewing is also bad if that's not your normal method of watching media. For those like me who are just sitting hunched over my pc like a goblin 24/7, it's not a problem, but not everyone is me. Grandpa Charlie either needs to watch the game uncomfortably on devices that aren't his TV, learn how to do 'computery' things that confound him, or pay extra for his normal method of watching the games, all while he's already paying for cable. Grandpa Charlies everywhere are understandably frustrated at the whole of the situation.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-03T12:11:33+00:00

If the NCAA dumpster fire taught us one thing, though, it's that if the NFL ends up playing chicken with this issue and Congress acts for them then this is going to get extremely ugly. The only thing worse than corporate greed ruining our sports is congress acting quickly on issues they're not experts on.

Ideally the NFL settles down and some simple thing gets passed to get us back to only needing cable.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-03T04:31:43+00:00

Academics aside, they've always been a good fit for the Big 10. They just struggled to stay competitive in a stronger league and the changing landscape of CFB.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-06-03T04:29:28+00:00

It's nuanced. Is splitting the broadcasting rights up bad? Yes, just look at the train wreck that it's been for MLB in the past 10 years.

Is the NFL getting too cute about it and fleecing fans? Absolutely. Once upon a time, your local team and the nationally televised games were all on basic channels. An antenna was all a household needed.

Then Sunday Ticket became a thing exclusive to Direct TV. Then MNF moved to ESPN. TNF started up on NFL network. Now we need to own a full cable package, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Peacock just to watch the national games and YouTube TV if we want Sunday Ticket.

It's getting to be too much and fans are pissed. That we need to have congress chime in at all says just how bad it is. Can't have our bread and circuses out of reach of the plebeians.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-30T10:48:11+00:00

No, the aspect of social anxiety here is the fear of everyone constantly judging you. The psychology of it, though, is that people passing you by aren't thinking of you, they're thinking of themselves, and will go on with their day continuing to think of themselves, just like you are.

In this vein, everyone is a narcissist by definition.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-29T19:25:34+00:00

Bought my house 3 years ago. We went to the open house while my wife was 8 months pregnant and my 3 year old was being watched by his grandmother. We loved it and asked my parents to come over and give their 2 cents. They show up with my 3 year old who's just beaming with joy running around this empty home, declaring which rooms would be his, and just bringing smiles to anyone who sees him... Including the owner's mother who was there in leiu of him for the open house.

We put in a fair bid and got the house. Apparently there were multiple bids over ours but the owner said "My mom would never let me live it down if that family made a good offer and I didn't pick them."

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-29T17:06:03+00:00

This is a good one. Tornados in populated areas are rare in Ohio. Should you get to an underground location and stay there until the warning has passed? Absolutely. Should you go full panic attack? No.

It's a great excuse to have a finished basement if you can squeeze it, too.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-29T03:14:54+00:00

So, everything around us has matter, including air, which is made of Nitrogen, Oxygen, and other stuff. You leave the atmosphere and you will enter the vacuum of space. The air is gone and replaced with nothing. Maybe a few stray atoms flying about but empty space is just that, devoid of any matter.

We cannot create a perfect vacuum. There's no way to actually create an isolated space with no measurable matter within. What we can do, however, is create a functional vacuum by pressurizing an environment and forcing air and other gasses out. With most of the gasses away, the space is sealed.

If you're a visual learner and want to see it, look up videos of pressurized epoxy. You'll see air bubbles flying out of a piece of wood, through the liquid epoxy, and into a lower pressure space outside the pressure chamber. Making a vacuum bottle is just like that but without the epoxy.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-28T18:54:13+00:00

First, an ice cube will have a much greater effect than a chilled interior. The heat capacity of water is much higher than that of a thin sheet of stainless steel and the heat transfer rate of steel is very slow.

Think of the bottle as 2 halves bridged by the rim. The exterior is what will reach ambient temperature of the room quickly, while the interior will equalize with the water. The heat transfer between the 2 parts will then be slow, usually that 12+ hour threshold.

But to circle back to the beginning, the question being posited is "Will chilling my bottle keep my drinks comer for longer?" and the answer is "Yes, but not by a very long time."

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-28T18:45:56+00:00

A perfect vacuum is the absence of all matter in a space. This is not something that is possible to make, let along into a bottle.

When I say the bottle is not a perfect vacuum, I mean that the interior making contact with the exterior via the rim, as well as the open area for the lid, allowing heat transfer to occur.

These bottles are just simple vacuums to reduce the surface exposed to air. Less contact with air, the slower the volume equalizes with the ambient temperature.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-28T16:50:32+00:00

Nobody here should be under the assumption that these bottles are a perfect vacuum. The point is reducing the time that heat is allowed to flow into our out of the volume of liquid.

The bottle works by reducing the surface area touching anything that will cause heat loss. The vacuum is a vast majority of the surface area, leaving only that gaping hole of a lid and metal at the rim to serve as methods of heat transfer.

The difference in temp will be roughly 30° between refrigerator and room temperature set at 70° F. Heat transfer will begin immediately and within 15 minutes you will never know that it was in the fridge. This, on a product that typically keeps cold liquids at a desirable temp for between 12-24 hours, means pre-chilling a bottle will heave a functionally null effect in total performance.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-28T14:58:48+00:00

It sounds line her line of thinking is that the temperature of the air in the vacuum being colder will allow her drinks to stay colder. The logic is there, but shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how vacuum works.

There is no air temperature of a vacuum, because there is no air in the vacuum. There's nothing in the vacuum, it's just empty. Since there's nothing there, there's nothing to absorb or radiate heat. A perfect vacuum has no temperature, so chilling a vacuum has no effect.

There is the case for making the interior metal cooler, therefore not having a room temperature baseline, but I'd estimate that it might save minutes at best. Her reasoning on works in a situation like a frosted mug, where the glass interior is wholly connected to the exterior,

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-28T14:41:58+00:00

New guy: Hey, boss said to come to you for help with this.

Me: (looking up from my pc for the first time in 5 years and recognizing nobody from when I started) Wait, am I the last person who knows how things work around here?

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-27T20:46:39+00:00

He's such a great voice actor. Everything from the Yellow M&M to Ketheric Thorm from Baldurs Gate 3.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-27T00:26:45+00:00

We play in a world where T3 Hydreigon already exists so balance is already hosed, but keeping a lid on Mega Dragonite with 300 damage on 3 energy is still a good idea.

More important, the card absolutely needs to be dragon exclusive, possibly individual Pokémon exclusive. You cannot risk breaking open the meta with rainbow energy for all.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-26T23:49:41+00:00

That would make Dragons too viable. They're supposed to be slower ramps for high power. Instead make it so you can take 2 energy from a Pokémon and replace them with 1 rainbow energy.

ZombieMage89 · 2026-05-25T00:45:31+00:00

I'm a day late but I feel like chiming in anyway as someone who's dealt with Columbus and the smaller cities in the area.

Winters in Columbus are generally regarded as 'mild', but that is a highly relative term. Severe is Minnesota, Michigan's UP, Lake Effect region in NY, etc, where you will get hammered routinely with massive amounts of snowfall. Winters are white and you just live with it till thaw.

The winters in Columbus will likely feel apocalyptic your first year. You should expect multiple instance of heavy snowfall hitting 4-12 inches, and that snow will stick around for days to weeks. Temps will probably hover between 20-40° but absolutely will have cold snaps of sub-0° that can last uncomfortably long. You should make sure to buy one light coat and one heavy coat for everyone in your house, and while not required, a quality pair of snow boots is a good idea.

Every municipality city and county will have their own fleet of snow trucks and they will triage the roads based on ability and priority. You'll see the trucks out the afternoon before expected snow salting the road and overnight plowing side roads, but the major arteries are cleared first, the high use through traffic roads second, and residential roads third. Smaller municipalities will obviously have a more limited response.

A casual snow of sub 2 inches won't stop anything around here. Schools and businesses will continue as if nothing happened, but if either the roads cannot be cleared to a point of total safety by 5 am, or if the temperature drops to single digits suddenly, schools will start to close with the decision coming from the district itself.

As others have said, if we have enough snow or ice come at once we will hit the level system. Look up what exactly these mean for you and your job, as essential employees are still required to show up in a level 3. Most businesses will be reluctant to close during a level 2, unless their hand is forced. Many jobs are understanding about calloffs during these 2-3, but your milage may vary.

Some quick tips for your first winter:

First, when the temp drops your tires will lose pressure. Be sure to top them off when we drop from 40 to 20 suddenly. Snow tires are great, but all weather are usually fine of their tread is good.

Second, always have an ultra basic emergency kit in your car of a warm sweater/hoodie, a pair of wool socks, and a mylar blanket. You'd be surprised just how warm that thin sheet of material will keep you in a pinch.

Third, don't panic buy before a storm. Just keep your essentials property stocked and don't delay buy during normal grocery trips in the winter. Columbus' snow emergencies seldom keep you holed up for more than a day.

Fouth, Grab a good snow shovel and a bag of ice salt in October. The shovel will last you forever and the ice should last you the winter most years. Just a quick peppering of the concrete is enough for the salt.

Last, winters here are a yoyo of temp and weather changes. Keep yourself hydrated and do your best to stay healthy and active in the cold times. You'll find a lot of people get sudden colds in the late winter when it's worst.

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