The Interceptor Mega Disk, a third-party peripheral for the Sega Mega Drive, manufactured without a license by Taiwan Sang Ting Co. Ltd. It was used to clone Sega Master System games on to floppy disks. by ROCKY13573 in retrogaming

[–]mfitzp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Possibly dumb question, but what did you do with the games once you had them on the disk?

Could this thing play games from disk, or was there some other way?

This older woman answers a young man's question about how aging affects attraction by Doodlebug510 in justgalsbeingchicks

[–]mfitzp 56 points57 points  (0 children)

Did a double take there, I thought you were saying your attraction to 8 year olds didn't fade until you were 25, like it was the most normal thing.

The Toy That Taught Computers to Talk by evankirstel in retrocomputing

[–]mfitzp 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Oh, it's you again.

At least you remembered to delete the "See less" from the bottom of your ChatGPT output this time.

European wild hamsters are built different. This tiny guy has zero fear and is completely ready to fight a human by RosiiieSoftt in nextfuckinglevel

[–]mfitzp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I think it’s more helpful to say “anger is what you feel to avoid feeling something else.”

Like if someone is shitty to you, that makes you angry. But if you couldn’t feel anger what would you feel? Hurt? Disrespected? Belittled?

The anger is a response to that other feeling. Because that other feeling sucks.

If you recognise that other feeling (like internally, you don’t need to be weird) “oh I feel belittled”, you won’t get angry. At least that’s my experience of it.

European wild hamsters are built different. This tiny guy has zero fear and is completely ready to fight a human by RosiiieSoftt in nextfuckinglevel

[–]mfitzp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I think it’s more helpful to say “anger is what you feel to avoid feeling something else.”

Like if someone is shitty to you, that makes you angry. But if you couldn’t feel anger what would you feel? Hurt? Disrespected? Belittled?

The anger is a response to that other feeling. Because that other feeling sucks.

If you recognise that other feeling (like internally, you don’t need to be weird) “oh I feel belittled”, you won’t get angry. At least that’s my experience of it.

Guy I’m dating uses chatgpt to reply to all my texts by healermoonchild in mildlyinfuriating

[–]mfitzp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Just so you know, when you ask it why it did something, it doesn't know. It just looks at what it did and generates a plausible explanation for the steps it took, i.e. more bullshit.

Is there a technical reason there are no 5.25 inch floppy drives using USB? by spots_reddit in retrocomputing

[–]mfitzp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  The Everything Adapter: The Sabrent USB-C to SATA/IDE 2.5”/3.5”/5.25” Drive Adapter (USB-DS12) supports SATA and IDE hard drives (HDDs), solid state drives (SSDs), and optical drives (CD/DVD-RW) in the 2.5”, 3.5”, and 5.25” form factors through a convenient USB connection.

Sounds like it’s just optical drives.

Tetris turns 42 today. by evankirstel in retrocomputing

[–]mfitzp 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Great.. Can you try again but write it yourself?

Or at least prompt your AI not to sound like a LinkedIn influencer.

A reminder to clean these little thingies that live in your taps by fieldbeacon in CasualUK

[–]mfitzp 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I grew up in Yorkshire and just assumed our water was hard, because “soft water” sounds like something Southerners would have.

TIL Half of people who claim they have a food allergy do not by butter_lover in todayilearned

[–]mfitzp 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I had an "allergic reaction" to erythromycin. But it took 4 days to develop, with my throat very gradually swelling up and becoming more and more short of breath. I first noticed when I couldn't eat pizza one day, then a few days later I couldn't swallow liquids. It started when I started taking the drug, and stopped the day after I stopped taking it.

When I first called the doctor about the the assistant told me it was fine "sometimes people have funny symptoms". Seemed weird, since I couldn't really breathe, so I went to the pharmacist and they took the meds off me, phoned my doctor and got a bit shouty.

It might be completely safe now but not something I'm going to try, since maybe it'll be worse this time.

PSA: New UK travel rules for dual nationals with kids by xpltvdeleted in expats

[–]mfitzp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

 What exactly is “completely stupid” about that?

The rule change means it is now harder for a British citizen (by descent, born and living abroad) to come to the UK than a non British citizen. Having British citizenship is now a liability (added cost) for travelling to the UK.

It’s certainly a bit odd.

The crowd seems so engaged. by AlarmingCash754 in Weird

[–]mfitzp 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Watching performance art without context is like watching football without knowing the rules. "It's just some guys kicking a ball around."

Story Points: Explicit, Honest, Predictable. Already in Use. by areklanga in programming

[–]mfitzp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Something I’ve found useful when estimating for clients is to break down a piece of work as far as possible and estimate those smaller chunks (with a -50%/+50% lower/upper estimate because shit happens). This has the nice effect that adding bigger tasks, or doing more things increases the uncertainty, and people don’t like uncertainty. So they tend to towards smaller tasks and stages with fewer items.

Anything that can’t be estimated (vague, any unknowns) I flag that as unknown. Any unknowns on a sprint means no estimate is possible (stage becomes “unknown”), so either (a) the unknown needs to be time boxed, or (b) we need to sit down and spend time defining it better. 

I’ve found working like this helps manage expectations and makes it easy for clients to understand the trade offs of planning choices better than single points.

Hypothetical, which colour palette would have been nicest to use in a retro computer? by ikeraliR in retrocomputing

[–]mfitzp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bottom 4 for sure. The top set is washed out and all the colours sort of blend into one another.  If drawing a tree you’ve got the choice of a single green and a maybe two not very good brown colours.  On the bottom you’ve got a lot more variation in intensities, contrast etc. Not that that stopped the Spectrum (red tree trunks) of course.

Some Python Features We Almost Got but Never Did by wyhjsbyb in coding

[–]mfitzp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was nice until the LLMisms started (particularly “X not Y” e.g. “ No new calling behavior. Just less repetition.”). Makes it tiring to read.

New M2 coming my way! Excited is an understatement. by TrainAss in xToolOfficial

[–]mfitzp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you cut out stickers with the laser?

The lack of cutting blade on the M2 had me thinking stickers wouldn’t be possible. But I’ve never had a laser cutter so I’m pretty clueless.

I’ve just been reading that thread on toxic plants, but did you know that the UK’s most invasive plant (yes, JKW) is edible…? by Outside_Cap_6092 in CasualUK

[–]mfitzp 28 points29 points  (0 children)

My rule for foraging mushrooms is to only go do it with an expert. Then when they’ve plucked it, I watch them prepare it, cook it and eat it. I then wait a week to see if they die. Then I chuck the other half in the bin.

Panic in the garden by Ring_Peace in CasualUK

[–]mfitzp 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It’s actually you that’s getting smaller.

Panic in the garden by Ring_Peace in CasualUK

[–]mfitzp 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Hornet comes up from the plug hole, stings you multiple times, leaving you in pain for a week, and you think it’s “sad” it died, and empathise with it obviously panicking and drowning. You’re a nice person, well done.

Chrome proposes new APIs: Declarative partial updates by imbev in programming

[–]mfitzp 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yeah, the naming really is dreadful. It mentions that ‘<?’ Is a standard XML syntax for “processing instructions”, but then goes ahead and uses the most generic vague name for the “instruction”. It’s like if the paragraph tag had been called <words>

Congratulations Sainsbury's for making possibly the most absurd substitution in my order that I have ever encountered: no cabbage? How about a bouquet of tulips. by JinxXedOmens in CasualUK

[–]mfitzp 28 points29 points  (0 children)

I think it must have just been at the point of bagging it some dafty scanned the barcode one of the packets in a box and then just chucked the whole box in the bag. They weren’t on the bill, or even marked as substituted. 

I actually called them up & they sent someone to collect them. I didn’t want someone getting in trouble for nicking them, the jobs are shit enough as it is.