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m_‮f

@ m_f @discuss.online

Posts
1927
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345
Joined
1 yr. ago

  • Removed

    What do you think the red, green, and blue potions in Zelda would be if they were irl? What would they "restore"

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  • 2025-07-21

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  • I'm not sure if it's a specific reference to this, but I think it's supposed to be wiener dogs:

  • Something something history is a flat circle

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  • Relevant comment

    I don't use Rust much, but I agree with the thrust of the article. However, I do think that the borrowchecker is the only reason Rust actually caught on. In my opinion, it's really hard for a new language to succeed unless you can point to something and say "You literally can't do this in your language"

    Without something like that, I think it just would have been impossible for Rust to gain enough momentum, and also attract the sort of people that made its culture what it is.

    Otherwise, IMO Rust would have ended up just like D, a language that few people have ever used, but most people who have heard of it will say "apparently it's a better safer C++, but I'm not going to switch because I can technically do all that stuff in C++"

  • Mouse recommendations

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  • Blue ball model (also comes with gray ball option)

    Gray ball model

    I've got both and the gray ball model is definitely nicer. It's got a wedge and a magnetic plate for picking an angle for ergonomic reasons. It generally feels nicer and has some neat things like a button for switching connections which is handy if you watch to use it with multiple computers. It also uses USB-C to charge (specifically the "MX Ergo S", not the "MX Ergo" which is the older version and used micro usb).

    If you're new to trackballs though and just want to try them out, the cheaper model is perfect serviceable.

  • 2025-07-08

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  • Some context on this comic:

    Transcript:

    As I've indicated, before the public sees any syndicated cartoons, they're first screened by an editor or two for potential problems. And editors, I'm convinced, have saved my career many times by their decision not to publish certain cartoons. Of course, that doesn't mean it's any less frustrating when their decisions seem strangely arcane or capricious.

    My editor didn't want to publish this cartoon. I can't recall his exact words on the subject, but basically he felt that not many people would understand the reference to the Wizard of Oz. Eventually, I was able to convince him to let it go through, and, when all was said and done, I doubt there were really many people who didn't understand it. (Strange, when you think of the weird, confusing cartoons they never hesitate to print.) Nevertheless, I can't be critical of these events; my editor's scorecard is still way ahead.

  • 2025-07-16

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  • Some background on this comic:

    Transcript (sketch):

    Well, of course I did it in cold-blood, you nerd!.. I'm a reptile!"

    Transcript (commentary):

    This idea didn't change much between the sketch and the final drawing, except I decided the attorney in this case was definitely an idiot, not a nerd. (These are important considerations.)

    I once referred to a character in one of my cartoons as a "dork" (a popular insult when I was growing up), but my editor called me up and said that "dork" couldn't be used because it meant "penis." I couldn't believe it. I ran to my New Dictionary of American Slang and, sure enough, he was right. All those years of saying or being called a "dork" and I had never really known what it mean. What a nerd.

  • 2025-07-16

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  • Some background on this comic:

    Transcript:

    When I originally wrote this caption, it read (in part): "...the coconut-like sound of their heads hitting secretly delighted the bird." That's the way it was first published.

    Then I got a letter from some fellow who suggested, in this case, the word "colliding" would be a better substitute for the word "hitting."

    This was quite strange to me. First of all, I had struggled with this caption and never felt comfortable with the final outcome. And secondly, he was right. "Colliding" was a much better word, giving the caption an improved rhythm. So I changed it.

  • 2025-07-09

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  • 2025-07-06

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  • Some background on this comic:

    Transcript:

    A friend and I were walking across the zoo grounds one day when another friend, an employee of the zoo, began to scream at us from afar, "Riffraff in the zoo! Riffraff in the zoo!"

    Voila!

  • 17 September, 2020 - "Noah: Bad Animals"

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  • This is one of the newer comics that he drew digitally, for posting on the site. I see what you're saying with the edits, but not sure what's going in since it wasn't intended for printing in newspapers 🤷

  • 2025-07-01

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  • Some background on this comic:

    Transcript:

    I submitted this for publication several years before it actually ran. My editor worried about its impact on some readers, although he personally loved it so much he kept the original on his office wall.

    And then one day there was a mix-up over the number of backlogged cartoons, producing a shortage, and this one had to be pulled off the wall and used.

  • 2025-07-02

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  • If you're wondering about the term itself, wiktionary has some background:

    Not known with certainty. Two long-held hypotheses are as follows: One describes combat soldiers wistfully wishing to go back home, buy a farm, and live peacefully there; later, after they had been killed in combat, their fellow soldiers would say that they had bought the farm (compare the established metaphor pattern of having gone to that big [whatever sort of nice place] in the sky). Another links the phrase to the idea that governments compensate farmers whose land is damaged by a military aircraft crash; a deceased pilot was thus said to have bought the farm, and the term eventually entered wider use.

    (idiomatic, US, informal, euphemistic) To die; generally, to die in battle or in a plane crash.

    This idiom is most often found in its past tense and past participle form bought the farm.

  • Done for the day

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  • 2025-06-28

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  • I WANT TO BELIEVE

  • 2025-06-28

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  • ENHANCE

  • Deleted

    Permanently Deleted

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  • Neat, looks like the author got a publishing deal and has a new version of it coming out later this year:

    https://qntm.org/antimemetics

    Here's the author's blurb about it, if it piques anyone else's interest that hasn't read it yet:

    An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it.

    Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you tried: complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams...

    But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war?

    Welcome to the Antimemetics Division.

    No, this is not your first day.

  • 2025-06-27

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  • The first sketch vs final version of this comic:

    Transcript (sketch):

    Primitive humor

  • 2025-06-25

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  • Some background on this comic:

    Transcript (top left):

    "Uh-oh...He's using the thingy."

    Transcript (top right):

    "So! Still won't talk?..I guess it's time to use a little device we like to call around there 'the thingy.'"

    Transcript (bottom left):

    This cartoon developed as shown, and I was satisfied with the final—except to say I'm always worried some people will try to figure out what exactly it is that the "Mr. Thingy" does. (I'm sure this is a residual paranoia from the "Cow tools" cartoon, see page 156.)

  • 2025-06-17

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  • I copy it from the site, and I have no idea where they get it from. I doubt it's AI though, they all read as outsourced human transcription.