The West Edmonton Mall used to have more submarines than the Canadian navy. I think that was before the dolphins though.

I’m a big fan of Day of the Dead (1985)

On the surface, it’s a bunker zombie movie. But like truly good zombie movies, it’s not about the zombies. It’s more about humanity’s response to existential dread and how groups can fail to cooperate with each other.

The movie’s been remade a few times, but imo the original is the most thought provoking.

I don’t remember where I heard it, but I do remember hearing that one of the signs you’re in a dream is that your phone doesn’t work properly. Which leads me into this dream I had recently:

I was asleep, when my phone wakes me up. I don’t remember it actually ringing, just thinking “someone is trying to call me,” so I answer it and do my best to pretend I wasn’t just sleeping. We don’t have an actual conversation, like no words are exchanged, but through the inscrutable logic of dreams I ascertain that the caller is an old acquaintance setting me up for a job interview. We hang up and I go back to sleep.

Next thing I know I’m at the mall wondering if this was where my interview was supposed to be. I try to think back on the conversation but I don’t remember anything other than being really sleepy. For a moment I suspect that I must have imagined the conversation, maybe it was all just a dream. I don’t remember who I’m supposed to meet, where I’m supposed to meet them, or what job I’m supposed to be interviewing for. Then I reason that I wouldn’t have come to the mall unless I was supposed to, so I decide to fake it til I make it.

Sure enough, I find my old acquaintance who introduces me to someone I’ve never met about the job. We start chatting for a bit, and then the job interview turns into a scavenger hunt and I’m sent off into the mall with my prospective employer’s shopping list. I wake up before I find out if I got the job.

There’s this ad I keep seeing that I really despise. It’s for teeth-whitening toothpaste. The actress is wearing a white coat then holds up a tissue to her teeth, lamenting that her sparkling white teeth are ‘still yellow’

They cut away to teach you how toothpaste works, because surely you’ve never heard of this newfangled thing, and when they cut back she’s no longer wearing her white coat and says how much whiter her teeth are.

It’s transparently obvious that the wardrobe and tissue are just to give you something whiter to look at. But like… your teeth aren’t supposed to be freakishly white. It’s just something that Big Toothpaste wants you to feel bad about the way your body is. Also, using whitening toothpaste when you don’t need it can damage your enamel and cause you long term problems.

Well as long as Bill says it’s cool, I guess I don’t have to form my own opinion

Fucking hell, this damn shit-ass is making us read this bitch-dick piss /s

Maybe it’s because I listen to some pretty dystopian stuff, but I’m surprised Hell isn’t more popular. Then again, I suppose the billboard hits are usually a bit more bubbly than all that.

This feels relevant:

I am not a biologist, but the way I was taught was that monkeys have tails and apes do not.

As far as the spelling, “monkeys” is correct.

You may be thinking that you want the plural of monkey, but because it ends in y the ending should become -ies. For example: berry -> berries

However, that rule is a little more complicated, and the ending of monkey is -ey. Because there is a vowel before the y the ending you don’t have to change the -y to -ie and instead simply add -s

English is stupid.

Looks like the author forgot the header for number 3: Snowpiercer.

Anybody here subscribe to the theory that Snowpiercer is a sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Once heard I can’t unsee it.

My understanding is that no amount of anti-virus software replaces common sense. As long as you’re not downloading sketchy programs and giving them permission to run, you’re pretty well set.

Some people might tell you that there’s no viruses on Linux, but that isn’t exactly true. Linux has something like 2% of the desktop market, which makes it less attractive to develop malware for - but 2% of a few billion computers is still millions of potential targets. Not to mention that Linux dominates the server market, and arguably that’s where malware is more valuable. To think that there’s no malware targeting Linux is naive.

Many anti-virus suites are effectively malware though. If you decide you do need AV software make sure to do your research before installing any.

Anyway, long story, I don’t personally use an anti-virus, and for your stated uses I’m not sure I’d recommend one.

If you’re mostly using it as a web browser then I would definitely recommend a solid ad blocker. UBlock Origin is free, highly esteemed, and can be installed as an extension to whatever browser you’re currently using.

I used to have really bad chicken-scratch printing and I wanted to improve.

The exercise that really stuck out for me was to find a font I liked in a book on calligraphy and started practicing the alphabet.

Before I started practicing, I didn’t pay much attention to how I was forming a letter, I’d just draw it - and it would look messy. Once you start looking at each letter as a discrete number of strokes you start paying attention to the small parts and the whole looks much better.

If you’re really lucky, you’ll find a guide with arrows showing which way to draw each stroke. Super helpful. Note that this font uses a fountain pen, so it’ll look different with a standard ballpoint:

So does this mean that the “Second Breakfast” contingent of the Fellowship can be stored in one Hobnibble? Seems apt.

I suppose if you’re going to die of the beetus it might as well be in your sleep

Gotta get me one of them oonamaguys

In this economy!?

Aw man, in the tenth grade we had to do a music recital and this was the song I chose. Specifically because I knew thirty kids would have to play some music whether they were interested in the course or not, and I thought the whole sleepy thing was a funny bit.

All the cool stories really are made up :(

The cure for gender dysphoria is gender-affirming care, which includes treating human beings like human beings and allowing them a place in society.

Surely you’ve thoroughly thought this through though?

I’m afraid I don’t have a specific example in GDScript, but I have written enterprise software where this was the case.

When talking about the speed of languages we often focus on the runtime speed. But another important factor is development speed. In my experience, an interpreted language such as GDScript or Python has a much faster development speed than a compiled language. This is really great for prototyping, especially when you don’t know exactly what changes you might have to make on the fly.

The philosophy that I have is to avoid premature optimization. And what I mean by this is that I’m going to write the program the simplest way I can think of the first time. Of course, the first draft isn’t always the best solution, and if there are issues they’ll make themselves apparent. Once they make themselves known, then we can address resolving them.

So now that you’ve identified an issue you can work on optimizing it. You’ll want to do some profiling to find the problem areas, but generally the issues will make themselves known. Some portion of the program will need a rewrite and you can begin working on that. There might be bad control flow or an unhandled error, and those are easily fixed. But sometimes it boils down to a computationally expensive algorithm.

If you encounter a problematic algorithm, you might have to write it several different ways to figure out what’s fastest. After all, most problems can be solved in many different ways. But eventually, you’re going to find your fastest solution. And if that solution still isn’t fast enough, then it could be time to look at switching to a compiled language.

I guess what I’m getting at is that out of all the tools in the toolbox, rewriting to another language is the last one I reach for. However, it is still sometimes the correct solution.

Thank you for reading this far. As for some Godot stuff, they have this cross-language scripting feature. Basically, you can fairly easily interface some C# into your GDScript when and where you need it, instead of deciding on one specific language at the start of your project.

I prefer to think of a regular size bee with a giant cowboy hat