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Progenitor of the Weird Knife Wednesday feature column. Is “column” the right word? Anyway, apparently I also coined the Very Specific Object nomenclature now sporadically used in the 3D printing community. Yeah, that was me. This must be how Cory Doctorow feels all the time these days.

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Cake day: July 20th, 2023

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  • There are retro revival consoles that aren’t deliberately made to looks like the original incarnations. I think the issue here was that the consoles being sold were deliberate counterfeits of otherwise valuable original retro machines.

    For instance, litigious as they are Nintendo has either been unable or unwilling to snuff out things like the RetroN machines which play original Nintendo and SNES cartridges (and Genesis, and some others) but don’t claim to be a Nintendo machine or look like one in any way.

    That said, I personally would totally buy a fake OG JDM Super Famicom just to have on the shelf, or even a shell just that looks like one.






  • And for those of you not in the know…

    Gradius, right? Konami’s many-sequeled, side scrolling shoot-'em-up game? They made a spin off series called Parodius (parody + Gradius, geddit?) and it was utterly bizarre.

    I’ll just leave this here as an example:

    This is the 2nd level boss from Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius, one of the SNES incarnations. You are a cat wielding a loaf of bread as a shield, fighting not just a kaiju sized schoolgirl wearing bunny ears, but two of them, one standing on the other’s shoulders. Who attack you by throwing angry Moai heads at you riding on paper airplanes and stuff. This is after you fought your way through a shmup stage that’s a Japanese high school based on Konami’s visual novel property, Tokimeki Memorial.

    In the first level you ultimately fight your way through a disco, blasting at, among other things, multicolored penguins who are wearing afro wigs. While a SNES chiptune rendition of KC & The Sunshine Band’s “That’s The Way I Like It” plays in the background. The boss of that stage is an opera singing panda. I promise you I am not making this up.

    Just… Just look at this.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDEl1-tuzc4



  • I can do you one better: My GPD laptop has a charging indicator on the center type-C port indicating that this is where the power supply goes, but it can actually be charged from either port regardless of the icon. Both ports are USB 3.0 or 3.2 or whatever the current fast standard is this week, but only the center one supports video out via an external GPU enclosure. So if you want to use it docked with an eGPU, it’s actually required to not plug the power supply into the port that says you should plug the power supply into it.

    So not only is the marking meaningless, it’s arguably worse than meaningless because in one of the headline hardware setups for the machine it is actually 100% incorrect to do what the marking is telling you to do. Wrap your head around that one…





  • When deciding what to do, the order of trumps is legal, then prudent, then right. Do what is legal unless what is prudent is illegal, then do what is prudent. If doing what is right is neither prudent or legal, do it anyway because it’s right.

    Never start fights with people. Always be prepared to finish a fight someone else starts with you, quickly, without posturing, hesitation, or mercy. Regardless of their size, shape, color, creed, or uniform, bullies can never be allowed to win.

    When solving a problem, always start with the simplest possibility first.

    Never lend anyone: Your truck, your pen, your chainsaw, or your wife. No matter what, they’re going to do something with them that you’re not going to like.

    You can never have too many pens, flashlights, knives, or bullets.




  • At its root this was originally a British vs. American English thing. However, the spelling of “disc” with a C has been used specifically as the trade name of various brands including both the throwable and optical media varieties, which have since become genericized trademarks.

    For the optical media side of things, the name was coined by Phillips while they were consorting with Sony to develop the standard and named it the “Compact Disc” to compliment their already existing “Compact Cassette” product. They developed an official logo for the format which spelled it “disc.” That’s been with us ever since.

    As a generalized descriptor of a flat circular object, either “disk” or “disc” is appropriate but which is preferred seems to be largely depending on which continent you’re from. The root of the word is indeed the Greek “discus,” as in the object yeeted across the playing field by Olympic contestants.




  • But you don’t understand, Mr… Sandbag Tiara, was it? Can I call you Sandbag?

    Sandbag, what we’re really looking for in this position is someone who’s really a people person, you know? Somebody who’s a team player, ready to go the extra mile, fit in with our company culture because we’re a “”“”“family”“”“” here. Really shine in our three pointless but mandatory department-wide meetings per day, smile on demand, have a very firm handshake, and really help us close those KPI numbers.

    The job in question is a backend software dev position, where the employee will theoretically never have to interact with anyone except their immediate boss, and has no reason whatsoever to emerge from their dungeon. But never mind that.