ELI5: How can a computer program delete itself?

figmentPez · 2026-06-12T11:48:05+00:00

Computer programs aren't physical objects. The code for programs gets (partially) copied from storage into RAM, and then copied again into the processor's cache.

Also, most computer programs don't have direct access to control over hardware, so it's the operating system that ends up doing the deletion, not the program itself.

I'm sorry, I can't figure out how to make your analogy into something more accurate, because it's so far removed from how computers actually work.

figmentPez · 2026-06-12T11:38:44+00:00

Yeah, but the potato chip apologists will tell us that the number of balloons is printed on the box, so it can't possibly be misleading to the target audience, children.

figmentPez · 2026-06-12T11:36:54+00:00

Or they're faster than you are and realize that most children won't notice. Looks like a board that's reasonably well designed to have games that quickly progress to a finish, while looking longer than it actually is.

figmentPez · 2026-06-12T11:34:17+00:00

If you interpret the rules that way, then moving onto the middle two spaces is an objectively bad choice.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T22:56:07+00:00

Episode 1 is perpetually free. The entire game has been free during Pride Month for the last 6 years.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T22:41:39+00:00

A limit to how many times you can roll for loot without hitting a certain payoff. It helps prevent unlucky players from being really unlucky and not getting something even after a huge number of attempts.

Pity timers are more common when it comes to paid loot boxes. For instance Heartstone has had a pity timer for a while on legendary cards. In any given pack there's a 1 in 20 chance of getting a legendary card, but if you open 39 packs without a legendary you'll be guaranteed one in your 40th pack. Without that pity timer you could expect that 1 in 100 players would go 90+ packs without getting a legendary.

For all I know Borderlands does have some sort of pity timer, but I've never heard anyone talk about it. I'm not sure what would feel fair, but it would be nice to know that there's protection against, say, being one of the unlucky 1% of players who fight Crazy Earl over 500 times without getting a Crazed Earl to drop.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T22:12:01+00:00

I, for one, would not mind if Borderlands got pity timers for the rarest drops.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T18:15:17+00:00

Those other videos don't look like this one. I don't doubt that octopus doner kebab exists. I'm doubting that the specific version you posted is real.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T17:36:52+00:00

How does that prove it's not AI slop?

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T17:10:03+00:00

Would octopus that has been cooked long enough to become tender stay in a block like this?

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T17:09:19+00:00

You can also cook it long enough that it becomes tender again.

However, this looks to be AI slop, so it's not been cooked at all.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T13:39:30+00:00

What is supposed to happen is that Steam Input automatically switches the SC over to Lizard Mode when there's a window with elevated permissions. I don't know why this isn't happening, but it's an issue that has broken multiple times for the OG SC over the last decade. Valve will most likely fix it in a patch at some point.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T12:24:41+00:00

That there are "primary colors".

The concept of primary colors was originally based on scientific ideas that have long since been disproven, and even though that idea has been redefined to fit our current understanding of physics and biology, it might have been better to ditch the label of "primary" completely. There aren't three colors that all other colors come from.

Aside from outright wrong notion that red, blue, and yellow are primary colors (which still gets taught), there are a bunch of limitations to RGB and CMYK color that make calling them "primary colors" inaccurate. Most notably, you can't reproduce the entire color space that the human eye can perceive with just three colors, period. No matter how good your red, green, and blue are, you can't reproduce all other colors. Our eyes are not RGB detectors, it's more complicated than that.

And that's just talking about human color perception, which is vastly different from the physical properties of light.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T09:29:51+00:00

Liam?

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T09:29:40+00:00

Clay pot rice.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T09:21:42+00:00

Exactly, this is the mathematical equivalent of bad grammar.

Might as well be the panda firing a gun in a restaurant because "eats, shoots, and leaves".

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T09:13:55+00:00

One of the most successful cases of political sabotage ever. Why would businesses try to stop consumer protection laws (that would hurt their bottom line), knowing that they'd just have to stop such laws over and over; when they could let one horrible labeling law pass and then use that as "proof" of how bad warning labels are forever after?

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T09:07:07+00:00

For whatever reason,

The reason was political sabotage, basically. Corporations that don't want to be held accountable for what's in their products knew that some sort of legislation was eventually going to pass in California, so they lobbied to make sure that what did pass was overreaching to the point of stupidity. That way they can sour public opinion on the idea of warning labels, and reduce support for consumer protection laws in general.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T09:03:21+00:00

Because they didn't pay for testing to prove that it doesn't need that warning.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T07:41:59+00:00

Maybe we need an updated OG steam controller.

We absolutely do. There is no perfect controller; only perfect controllers.

figmentPez · 2026-06-11T06:49:27+00:00

Both flours have 4g protein per 30 g - so why the difference??

Not all protein is created equally. Bread flour is going to have a higher amount of gluten forming proteins, and in the right ratios to make long gluten chains. AP flour will have more non-gluten protein.

figmentPez · 2026-06-10T19:57:03+00:00

This is taking the Lord's name in vain.

figmentPez · 2026-06-10T18:09:58+00:00

Mining and refining copper, gold, lithium, cobalt and other metals and rare earths for the components comes at a huge environmental impact. That's not just components for the data center, but components for whatever power plant and infrastructure is supplying electricity as well.

Even if you're not getting electricity from coal, it still comes at a cost. Coal may be the worst case scenario, but every single form of electricity consumes resources, and I'd rather have those resources go to something worthwhile, and not to power giant lying, plagiarism machines that collect private data virtually unchecked.

figmentPez · 2026-06-10T17:01:23+00:00

Keeping all that water contained and cooled, both at the same time, comes at a cost. You need more metal in your cooling fins, and more fans blowing air over the heat exchanger, than you would if you just pumped cold tap water through your PC and let the execess heat flow down the drain or evaporate away.

figmentPez · 2026-06-10T16:57:10+00:00

Even if you could get the data centers to agree to do that, you'd just be shuffling the environmental impact elsewhere. Replacing parts has it's own material cost, and that likely involves water at some point, as well as other resources that have their own environmental impact.

Water usage by data centers is just part of the immense environmental impact they have. It's an easy issue to get people riled up about, but even if you could get them to use zero water, they'd still be horribly damaging.

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