Wait… Y’all are talking about X-Wing: Rogue Squadron and Star Wars Episode 1: Battle for Naboo, right?
I owned those windows ports!
They worked great back in the day - I had such a blast with them that I begged my parents to get me a shitty Logitech joystick! If you want to check them out, it looks like Rogue Squadron is only $10 on Steam; and Battle for Naboo seems to be abandonware, but it seems to be hosted on a lot of “better spread than dead” game sites.
I think there may have been a tragic misunderstanding… It looks like they were using X as a placeholder, rather than the noun that Elon wants it to be; but the sentence construction could have been clearer.
Something like “I think X is wrong, but I want it to be legal for me to do wrong things Y and Z” might be a bit closer to what they were going for.
Actually… Yeah, that’s a really good point.
I had a nerf football as a kid that had fins on the back end - no matter how badly you threw it, the fins would help straighten it out and make it fly a bit better. Something like that would have probably fixed a lot of the “unpredictability” issues with this.
"…And this is the fire selector lever. It changes fire modes between ‘ouch,’ ‘owwww,’ and “AAAAAAAAAAAGH.'”
That makes a lot of sense, actually. I also saw “fully electric” and immediately thought of electric/hybrid/ICE cars, and my brain went straight to “hold up, did I miss the fully functional diesel-powered humanoid robot?”
Nah, it looks like it was sarcasm. “Unalive” and “commit sodoku” are both sort of combination meme/euphemisms, in the same way that we might have said that someone “an heroed” a little over a decade ago.
I don’t want to be a downer, but… The rats probably aren’t high if they’re just eating weed. Buckle up, y’all, time for a stoner science lesson:
THC is present in cannabis in two main forms: THCA and Delta-9 THC. Throwing around those delta numbers can seem scary given all of the unregulated Delta-8 in illegal states, but it’s really not. THCA breaks down into Delta-9 THC naturally with time and heat, through a process called decarboxylization… Which is great, because THCA isn’t psychoactive, while Delta-9 THC is. Because of this, smoking a joint or eating a properly made edible will get you high, but eating an entire ounce is just having a terrible salad.
You’re fine - I grew up in a rural state, and I thought they were super rare until I lived in a city where the public transit system gave them as change.
…You’re sure that’s not a prototype Dyson V8?
I can only imagine what’s going through his head…
“Twice - twice now, we’ve just given up and switched sides. A few weeks ago, we were shooting at these guys; and now we’re buddies? Shit, this war is as much of a mess as the last one. Just six more months until I can retire… Six more months.”
That’s actually a really good analogy. Mind if I throw some numbers on it to flesh things out?
Let’s set that moving walkway going at 5mph, and we’ll put ourselves on that walkway, on a turned-off rascal scooter. The scooter is stationary on the belt, but it’s still moving at 5mph - that’s your tailwind pushing the air around the plane forward.
Now, let’s turn that scooter on and throttle it up to 5mph. The scooter is plugging along comfortably at 5mph, but it’s actually moving at 10mph. This is your plane flying with a tailwind, performing normally for its indicated air speed, while having a much higher ground speed.
Curiously, this does make the phrase “supersonic speeds” somewhat debatable. While they were traveling over the ground faster than sound would, they weren’t moving faster than sound would in the air around them.
I ended up going down a wikipedia hole because I was curious about the inventor also making a car muffler, and it looks like it might be a regional thing. Sort of. Like, we’re trying to make it one.
Originally, everyone called them silencers, but apparently “suppressor” started to gain traction in the US in the late '80s. Since then, most American firearms groups have picked up the newer term, including the ASA (formerly American Silencer Association, now American Suppressor Association); meanwhile Britain is starting to adopt the term “sound moderator.” Neither term is really wrong, per se, it’s mainly a matter of preference.
As a side note, it turns out that Maxim’s company is still around! It looks like they only make the boring kind of silencer, though.
I feel like I would use it voluntarily if it put the sponsors in the “add a destination” menu. I tend to use Google maps for longer trips, and I try to add any stops on the way to my route so I don’t miss them - if I hit “add destination” and it offered, for example, Citgo stations, 7-11s, and Dunkin Donuts on my route, then I would probably get gas and snacks at sponsored locations almost every time.
As it is, though… Well, just having a Dunks on the way to the laundromat doesn’t make me want to stop in and buy a coffee. Driving by ten of them “randomly” on my way to another state isn’t going to make me any more likely to stop at one.
It really bugs me when people do stuff like that… I grew up in VT, where laws are lax, tons of people have guns, and nothing ever happens. Responsibly handled and in the hands of a stable person, guns can be pretty safe - but, if you remove either one of those things, they’re incredibly dangerous.
In light of that, I wouldn’t mind if access were restricted somewhat. I’m totally fine with my neighbor having a rifle to kill varmints on their property, but way less fine with folks like my paranoid uncle having a safe full of assault rifles and thousands of rounds of ammo in a densely populated suburb.
it’s like building stuff with Legos.
I got Minecraft when it was still in beta, for exactly that reason. I was in college, I had some free time, and I liked messing around with the demo - it reminded me of all of the fun I had playing with Legos as a kid. I think it cost me maybe $15?
Now, a decade later, I still play it fairly often, and given all of the content that’s come out since then, it might be the most worthwhile $15 I’ve ever spent.
It’s pretty easy to break water down, but it’s also super easy to make it - just burn anything organic.
Usually you can’t see the water being formed, but there’s actually a really common example: car exhausts on a cold day. If you notice a bit of water dripping out of the tailpipe of the car in front of you at a red light, that’s actually the moisture in the exhaust fumes condensing on the cold tailpipe.
That’s… Actually probably exactly how Star Trek would handle modern Earth. Part of the prime directive is that any species that gets contacted by the Federation has to achieve a certain level of technological and societal advancement first, and we’re close, but I’m pretty sure we’d get put on the “check back in a century” list.
So, if they’re nice aliens and they just watch us for a while and leave, maybe our first contact just got waitlisted?
It a bit surprising given that he mentioned being catholic, too - the catholic church has generally taken a pretty firm stance on abortion.
That said, I grew up in the UCC, and it resonates perfectly with the way that they emphasized tolerance. If somebody wants to do something that you don’t like, that’s absolutely fine as long as they don’t force you to participate - in this case, the tolerant, “christian” take on abortion should be “I don’t want one, but if you do, go for it.”
You nailed just about everything that I’ve been enjoying about Lemmy, too!
To me, it’s definitely reminiscent of reddit circa 2011-2012. There aren’t any bots yet, so discussions feel more grounded; and it has a similar air of wonder to it, like people are still excited for both what the community is and what it can be.
…Except for the sorting. Sorting by Subscribed or Local feel reddit-ish, with the former being a self-curated feed and the latter being a broader discovery feed of whatever going on in your chosen instance. Sorting by All, though, feels a bit like stepping back to my old high-school 4chan days, but with less sharpies in buttholes.
I let out a long sigh.
This has to be a joke. Something they tell the new guys to jerk them around. “Collect taxes from cryptids” my ass, this is straight up workplace hazing. They even sent Jim along to keep me company - he’s probably going to film this for the office christmas party or something. Well… I guess I may as well play along. “So, how am I supposed to contact Bigfoot? Just shout into the woods?”
“Yes, actually. This is where we’ve found him the past few years, so he’s probably still living here. And he prefers ‘Mister Squatch.’” Jim’s advice doesn’t make this feel any less like a prank.
“Mister Squatch? You have to be kidding me… EXCUSE ME? MISTER SQUATCH?” I bellow, “WE’VE BEEN SENT TO CONTACT YOU ON BEHALF OF THE IRS!” I can’t believe I’m out here making a complete fool of myself.
And then it happens.
A rustle in the bushes, followed by snapping twigs and shaking branches moving fast through the underbrush. Jim bends down and opens his briefcase - why? Why did he even bring a briefcase to the middle of the woods? Suddenly, the movement in the bushes stops as it reaches a clearing, and I see something massive race towards the trees on the far side. Suddenly, it stumbles, tripping and tumbling as it falls, wrapped in a net.
A net? Where did a net come from in the middle of the woods? And then I see Jim’s empty briefcase, and the empty net gun in his hand. Laying in the middle of the clearing is the Bigfoot, and now I have to treat this like it’s normal and actually collect his taxes. Before I can even react, though, Jim is starting to untangle Bigfoot. “Look, Mister Squatch, I keep telling you, if you just pay your taxes, we won’t have to keep hunting you down like this. You know the drill, pay up or we’ll start telling the tabloids about where you live. You remember how annoying that was last time, right?”
“Yeah…” Bigfoot talks!? I’m not even sure if I’m at work right now, or if the CIA guys in the next office over slipped LSD into our coffee again. “I still keep it in the cave by the creek, just take what I owe you and leave me alone.”
“Glad we could settle this easily.” Jim cuts him free, and turns to me. “Let’s go get the money. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover… Our next stop is in West Virginia. Say, how do you feel about bridges?”
I feel like I need a new job.