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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  • I’d doubt this is a thing that’s unique to Lemmy, but A) moderatorship in general attracts a certain kind of individual and B) Lemmy as a whole seems to attract a user base with a fairly consistent mindset which tends to be overall left leaning and a little bit radical. A lot of the normies are probably still on reddit, or wherever the fuck.

    …Says the chump who moderates three communities (one of which is dead), so everything I say on the matter may be bullshit.

    There are exceptions, like the various infamous tankie instances. The thing about Lemmy instances is anyone with thumbs and a credit card to pay for hosting can create one and then make it their own ideological hobby-horse.




  • That’s only partially true. The evaporator is located on the indoor unit, and that’s the part that gets cold and generates all the condensation. There is a drain hose on the indoor unit that has to be directed outside, and the condensate water will only flow downhill. Up is not an option. This is what makes installing a mini split on an interior wall such a hassle.

    So that’s why I’m wondering why the lineset cover goes up in that picture. I guess it’s possible there is another hole punched in the wall behind the unit for the condensate line, which is the normal way to do it. But I have absolutely no idea why, if there is exterior access like that, anyone would not also run the rest of the lineset through the same hole…












  • German censorship laws are both kind of weird and very strict. Thus, the versions of the various Wolfenstein games released in Germany have a lot of changes, starting with of course removing all reference to Nazi imagery. It at times baffling, and at other times highly amusing. So you’re right, in the Wolfenstein games you fight various Nazi like guys who are never actually depicted specifically as Nazis. You can’t say Nazi. You can’t even depict Nazis in a clearly unfavorable light, cast unambiguously as evil people getting slaughtered left, right, and center. There are no Nazis in Germany. There were never any Nazis in Germany…

    All the swastikas and SS logos are replaced with other emblems like eagles or black triangles or similar. Blood is reduced or removed. IIRC in the original Wolf3D the dogs were replaced with giant rats. And, most hilarious of all, the portraits of Hitler on the walls in the first are still clearly Hitler, but his mustache has been removed so now he’s just “some guy.” Same with his in game sprite. This change made it to the SNES version, too. His organization gets some generic name like “The Order,” or “The Wolves,” or whatever. Notwithstanding that the original game was just outright banned in Germany for like 30 years.

    Violence against humans is frowned upon or outright prohibited depending on the era in question, so enemies may have ham-fisted changes made to make them actually “robots,” by either bleeding oil or sparks or something.

    For a deep dive into this sort of thing, check out the GermanPeter channel on Youtube which has a series of videos detailing all the censorship and other changes made to the Wolfenstein series, Doom, Quake, Half Life, and a other popular games.


  • I find it immensely hilarious that out of all the crazy shit in FF6 like suplexing the train that takes people to the afterlife, abducting a feral kid from the Veldt, plots with mind control tiaras, Moogle genocide, Kefka poisoning an entire castle full of people, and a globe-trotting homocidal octopus, it was the Three Dream Stooges that were the last straw for your friend.

    …That game actually comes off sounding really weird if you try to describe it in a single paragraph.



  • Retailer who offers one of those 0% financing schemes, here. TL;DR: It’s from processing fees paid by the retailer and punitive interest after the 0% promotional period lapses.

    The lender makes money in two ways. One, a percentage fee is charged on the financed amount, but it’s not paid by the customer. It’s paid by the retailer. For us it is a little under 2%, similar to the fees most credit card processors charge. So as soon as you make your purchase, the bank instantly skims 1-point-whatever percent off the top. You don’t see this, though. It affects the retailer’s bottom line, not yours.

    Two, the 0% interest rate is a promotion which provides specified limited time in which to pay off the balance. If you do not pay the outstanding balance in full by the end of the promotional term, the bank whacks you for a monstrous interest rate on the entire original transaction amount – not just the remaining outstanding balance. In our case this is damn near 30%. Look carefully at the promotional signage and literature. It will always say “0% INTEREST FINANCING!!! for 12 months.” That 12 months is important. That’s the end of the promotional terms, after which you pay aforementioned buttload of interest.

    And then, the minimum payments on the bills they send you are obviously deliberately structured to trick you into failing to pay the entirety of the balance by the deadline at the end of the promotional period.

    If you’re talking 0% introductory rates for general purpose credit cards, the answer is right there in the name. Those are introductory rates designed to entice you into signing up and using the card, but they’re never permanent. Eventually that introductory rate will expire and you will be left with an interest bearing credit card. Possibly a lot of interest. Even if you pay your bill 100% on time every month without fail, the bank still makes money in percentages and processing fees taken on every transaction from every single retailer where you’ve swiped that card. The bank issuing the credit card can continue to comfortably make money even if no one pays any interest, ever.