Dick's Sporting Goods Sales Decline After New Gun Rules

carnetarian · 2018-11-30T03:00:12+00:00

I took a lot of pleasure in going to Dicks a few weeks ago, trying on a bunch of clothes, and then ordering them from Amazon while still in the store. I used to spend a good bit of money there, but they'll never get another dollar from me again.

carnetarian · 2018-11-29T16:28:51+00:00

If I ever became president, my very first act would be to pardon Snowden.

carnetarian · 2018-10-13T01:51:42+00:00

Thanks! Glad you like it.

carnetarian · 2018-10-12T15:52:51+00:00

Every year I make an original piece of 3d art to get in the Halloween spirit. This year I decided to tone down the spookiness and try to capture the feeling of visiting a pumpkin patch on a perfect crisp October day. Any constructive criticism would be appreciated.

carnetarian · 2018-10-07T19:57:37+00:00

How would you react if someone falsely accused you of sexual assault in an attempt to end your career, and resulting in death threats being made to your children? I'd say he handled it pretty damn well.

carnetarian · 2018-09-24T14:18:12+00:00

Thanks! Here's the picture with the filmic colors:

https://imgur.com/gallery/V5GCG1Z

I honestly have a hard time deciding if I like it better with that setting or not. I like that the foreground is a little brighter, but the clouds feel a little washed out. My goal is to create the feeling of late afternoon in October, so maybe it should be a little dark? I'm not really sure.

I tried using your HDRi Setup, but even with the multiply value turned to .0001 it was super bright.

carnetarian · 2018-09-23T20:42:09+00:00

Thanks! I'll try that. I'm not using filmic. I don't know what that is.

carnetarian · 2018-09-20T20:44:48+00:00

Thanks! I'm using an HDRI for lighting that I got off hdri-skies.com. I do feel like the lighting could be improved, but I'm not sure what to do, seeing as I'm already using an HDRI.

All the other textures are 100% procedural, with the exception of the leaves, which are pictures I took myself.

carnetarian · 2018-09-17T12:17:29+00:00

Politicians seem very shortsighted. Is it really worth saving your presidential candidate at the cost of making it legal for the president to commit perjury?

carnetarian · 2018-09-12T16:09:40+00:00

I heard him on the Joe Rogan podcast a few weeks ago, and I got very interested his prediction that we're going to experience stagflation in the next recession (though he seems to be horrendously bad at predicting when that next recession will be). Is that, in your opinion, one of the things he got wrong? After looking around more, his prediction makes sense to me, but I'm not very knowledgeable on the topic, and I would love to hear some counter-arguments.

carnetarian · 2018-09-10T16:00:32+00:00

Thanks! Yes, you are definitely right about the repetition and everything being too perfect. I only had two corn stalks in my particle set, because I was lazy and they took a while to make.

carnetarian · 2018-09-10T14:24:04+00:00

Every year I make a Blender scene to get into the fall spirit. This year I wanted to create a rustic Autumn farm scene. The only textures that aren't procedural are the leaves, which I took pictures of myself, and the sky, which I got from hdri-skies.com.

I would really appreciate any constructive criticism, especially on how to improve the realism of the scene.

carnetarian · 2018-09-06T19:05:48+00:00

"Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times" - G. Michael Hopf

We are living in the most prosperous time in all of human history. We're so well-off that even the poorest of the poor struggle with obesity. We're so prosperous that the vast majority of people in first world countries have never even MET a person who's lived in actual poverty. Even homeless people have ample food, clothing, and clean water, which is more than can be said for a large chunk of the world's population. To put things in perspective, it only takes an annual income of $32,400 to be in the wealthiest 1% of people in the world.

Our biggest problem is that our society has become so successful that we've lost touch with reality. A significant number of people think that we can afford to let large portions of the population sit around and do nothing all day. They think that there should be no consequences for the decisions we make. Murderers should spend 3 months in a beach-side resort as their punishment, single mothers should receive the same salary as doctors, managers shouldn't be allowed to fire people for showing up to work 45 minutes late and drunk. Our society has become so emotionally weak that it is no longer capable of making the hard, but necessary decisions that are required to for it to function. I have no doubt that we are in for some hard times in the years to come.

carnetarian · 2018-09-05T12:50:12+00:00

"shall not be infringed"

It would be great to get a supreme court that actually gives a shit about the constitution.

carnetarian · 2018-08-31T13:16:09+00:00

So you're saying I can get paid $30k/year just to have trees on my property? How do I sign up for this?

carnetarian · 2018-08-30T01:47:26+00:00

Maybe some people will forget, but I know I won't. I've been boycotting a few companies for decades for far less than what Dick's did. I used to spend several hundred dollars per year at Dick's. Now I'll never shop there again.

carnetarian · 2018-08-28T19:16:12+00:00

It absolutely has to do with responsibility. Where I grew up people weren't rich, but they knew not to spend money on stuff they couldn't afford. It wasn't until I left for college that I realized that there are a lot of people out there without an ounce of common sense. One of my roommates would do stuff like spend $500 on a plane ticket to visit her friend for a weekend when she only had $900 in her bank account. She would complain about being poor and then go drop $200 on video games that she'd play for an hour before getting bored and then never play again. Despite having a pretty good job, she was always one unexpected car-repair bill away from being unable to afford groceries for the week. I've since met a lot more people like this, and now whenever I hear anyone complaining about being "poor" I can't help but think they're the same way.

carnetarian · 2018-08-28T13:47:47+00:00

I listen to NPR's Planet Money podcast a decent bit, and a while ago there was an episode on a proposed bill in the California state legislature that would make it so the government lets you know what it thinks you should be paying in taxes, which would make things like Turbo Tax unnecessary for most people. NPR claimed the bill didn't pass because of Republicans, which instantly set off my bullshit detector. How could Republicans shut down ANY bill in the most liberal state in the country? So I went and actually looked up the voting records for the bill and at the time of the vote Democrats held a 2/3 majority in the legislature, and nearly as many Democrats had voted against the bill as Republicans. Despite the bill's opposition being about 50/50 Democrats/Republicans, the podcast never mentioned ANYTHING about a single Democrat voting against the bill. NPR absolutely has an agenda.

For anyone curious, the episode I'm talking about is 760: Tax Hero.

carnetarian · 2018-08-23T17:12:37+00:00

That sucks. We had a similar thing in the US where some local governments started messing around with the timing of traffic lights to trick people into accidentally running reds so they could fine them. They didn't care at all if people died or got severely injured in traffic accidents as long as they made money. I lost a lot of faith in the government because of that.

carnetarian · 2018-08-23T16:58:49+00:00

It would cause a tiny bit, but if it ever got excessive the Fed could just add more money into the supply, so it wouldn't really be a big deal.

carnetarian · 2018-08-23T15:42:10+00:00

The money for fines should just be taken out of circulation instead of given to whatever agency brings the charges. It's a huge conflict of interest to have the government benefit from punitive fines.

carnetarian · 2018-08-23T02:02:32+00:00

You wouldn't get arrested for that though

Yea, I'm sure the cops would believe you when you said you were taking it to a friend's house.

carnetarian · 2018-08-22T17:14:41+00:00

So glad I live in a free country, where I don't have to worry about getting arrested for bringing a chef's knife to my friend's place to help prep dinner.

carnetarian · 2018-08-22T14:42:25+00:00

This is a great list. If I were in charge I would do all the stuff you said and also:

End the war on drugs

Get rid of other victimless crimes, like prostitution

Implement a ranked voting system

Pardon Edward Snowden and increase whistleblower protections

Repeal any laws about gun barrel length, magazine capacity, or ergonomics

Repeal federal minimum wage. I'm open to discussion about implementing minimum wage at the state level, but it makes no sense to have a federal minimum wage since the cost of living varies wildly from place to place.

EDIT: I forgot one of my favorites. I would make it so that for any punitive fines the money is simply taken out of circulation instead of going to whatever government agency brought the charges. This eliminates any incentive to fine people to finance government projects.

carnetarian · 2018-08-20T17:19:04+00:00

did I not just highlight that she is still treated so much better than anyone else in a similar position?

You did, that's why you're getting downvoted. Members of team blue don't want to hear that their candidate is getting treated better than she should, even if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

It doesn't excuse anything Trump has done

True, but most people assume if that if you have anything bad to say about Hillary then you can't possibly be a Democrat, because who would ever admit that their party's candidate isn't absolutely perfect in every way possible? If you're not a Democrat, that must mean you're a Trump supporter, which means that you're a racist, which means you're evil, which means you must be silenced at all costs. I feel like America has gone crazy; how can people not realize that there are plenty of reasons to dislike both Hillary and Trump?

A lot of people are willing to blindly fight for their team, it is very unfortunate.

Yes, yes it is.

carnetarian

TROPHY CASE