Posted by Danika

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Would you ever want a Lappy 486?

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Sure! Might need a friend to help me carry it up the stairs, though.

Posted by DarkWitchClaire

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if time is not an illusion, then why can we only go in 1 direction?

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Okay first off, this is just me rambling, I don't think my views are representative of the mainstream of physics or whatever... and remember that while I do have two physics degrees, neither is a PhD, and my work was mostly in condensed matter and biophysics.

But in the end I think that's just how it works; three spatial dimension one time dimension (negative sign in the Lorentz transform) is fundamental, I think people who blame the arrow of time on entropy have it backwards; entropy increases because time is unidirectional.

Also, this is partially why I don't think string theories that require extra dimensions will be the end-all and be-all of a unified theory. (I'm skeptical of string theories in general)

Posted by DarkWitchClaire

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favorite early pc clone?

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The Tandy 1000 is early enough to count, right?

If not, I'll go with the Hyperion PC the 8-bit guy showed once because it looks kind of like a toy company decided to copy an Apple Lisa.

Posted by Danika

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Where did the whole Karen thing originate anyway?

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"Karen" originated as a Danish variant of "Catherine". "Catherine" gets its name from the goddess Hecate. Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, was also the patron goddess of Byzantium. Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium in 330 AD.

In the provinces of the Western Empire, people would complain about wealthy Romans from the capital coming in and acting like they owned the place. Since these sorts of jokes were disliked by the Roman aristocracy (since they were the ones being made fun of), they insulted them by using the old patron goddess' name. Since Constantine had made Christianity the state religion, insulting someone by associating them with paganism was fine.

This fell out of use until Catherine the Great became the Empress of Russia in 1762. Her detractors decided to revive the ancient Roman insult, since Russia has generally seen itself as the successor to the Roman Empire. (the "Third Rome") They used the Danish variant "Karen" as a further insult because Catherine the Great was part of the Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov family, which was a branch off of the royal family of Denmark.

Calling someone a "Karen" in Russia, therefore, marked you out as an opponent of the monarchy, and therefore certain death awaited. The insult outlived Catherine the Great; the Okhrana was known to use people's reactions to the name to prove their disloyalty to the Tsar. Eventually, word of this caught wind in the west. To mock the Russians, they started calling people "Karen" as an insult, with the meaning of a petty tyrant.

The revival of the insult in Russia occurred during the Sochi Olympics, where heavy-handed local authorities trying to clean up the city were branded as "doing it for the Karens". The meme jumped from Russian social media to American social media, where it was associated with the tyrannical behavior of some middle-aged women.

That all probably isn't true, though.

Posted by AtomicAstro

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Isn't Catherine a nice name?

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It is! Thankfully pretty much no one will make the Karen connection these days.

Posted by DarkWitchClaire

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i have a feeling they'd only be a leading cause of death if everyone lived around them

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Looks like Danika got an early look at the 2021 death numbers

Posted by DarkWitchClaire

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favorite name you've seen for someone else's cat?

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Foone on Twitter has a cat named SCSI, which happens to work really well as a cat name despite being the worst way to connect a hard drive

Posted by Danika

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Isn't Bella one of the most common names for a female cat?

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Bella will soon be one of the most common names because all of the people who loved Twilight are old enough to have kids

Posted by Danika

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Should Friday the 13th be a holiday?

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You know, my first thought was "no", but then I wondered: it's likely that more accidents do occur on the 13th because of superstitious people behaving differently. It's possible that making it a holiday could actually be good for the economy if it cuts down on expensive accidents...

How dare you not let me in that channel! I want to speak to your manager

Posted by Danika

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Wasn't the AVGN episode on ROB the Robot funny?

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Fun fact: the Japanese release of R.O.B. the Robot was a fully-functional T-1000 model android. However, this was deemed too expensive for the US version so it was cut down a bit.

Posted by DarkWitchClaire

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is sprite a good name for a cat?

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It is, but you should be careful about having multiple cats with that name, you might end up hitting sprite limits

Posted by Danika

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This ad has a pretty cool aesthetic doesn't it?

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it is-- in fact, I'm now ditching my Westinghouse flat screen to get a fully harmonious picture, that ad convinced me

Posted by DarkWitchClaire

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isn't this a very good jingle?

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Very relaxing; though I usually prefer overly dramatic jingles, that one's pretty good.

Still 980 years to go until the Windows Millennium is over

73F outside, 84F in my apartment. With the air conditioners running all day.

Of course, the fact that it was 90F earlier today, and for most of yesterday, and Friday too, probably are the cause of that... apparently outside can shift temperatures much faster

Are you asking me out?

Posted by Danika

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Would you ever want to visit Taipei?

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Sure! It seems like a neat city.

Posted by DarkWitchClaire

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favorite vhs sleeve design?

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I'll go with the Polaroid ones. The earlier ones, before they switched from the black triangle on the side to a narrower trapezoid.

Happy birthday!

Posted by DarkWitchClaire

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favorite and least favorite thing from this year's wwdc?

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They actually incremented the major version number! Big Sur is Mac OS 11!

Since they didn't confirm or deny whether ARM Macs will be able to run non-App Store software I don't care yet

Posted by Danika

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Why didn't Apple go to AMD instead?

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I think Apple switches CPUs when they can't get the upgrades they want in a timely fashion; Intel's 7nm nightmare has dramatically delayed lower power and laptop parts Apple uses even on the iMac and has made it harder for them to release meaningful upgrades. I don't think they have enough confidence in AMD to be reliable for the long term; sure they're on fire now, but they have a history.

Plus Apple has one of the best CPU teams in the world in-house, it just makes sense. (Like, seriously, what they've been doing with the A-series ARM chips is just amazing and it's a shame they're limited to such locked-down iOS series)

Posted by Danika

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Ever had bad luck with something AMD before?

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I think the only AMD PC I've owned used an 8088 But no problems with it