Zonetrooper

@Zonetrooper@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What programs do you wish a good FOSS alternative existed, but doesn't or most of the FOSS alternatives simply aren't good?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m in a similar boat right now - I use the Student Edition ($60-100 a year, depending on sales, locally installed vs. using the cloud-based 3Dexperience).

  It’s not a bad deal by any means, but I do wish I didn’t have to deal with annual reinstalls and perpetually worrying Dassault is going to decide to take it away.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What programs do you wish a good FOSS alternative existed, but doesn't or most of the FOSS alternatives simply aren't good?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  3D CAD software. There are a few options out there (FreeCAD, LibreCAD, etc) and Blender is a thing that exists for more artistic 3D modeling. But they simply don’t hold a candle to the features and capabilities of the paid packages, which typically have costs in the 4-to-5-digit range. And I’m not talking the crazy high-end simulation options - those I understand, they’re hard - but basic modeling features.

  Hell, I’d even settle for a CAD package that had some solid basic features and had a reasonable purchase cost. Unfortunately the few providers have the industry by the throat, and so your options are “free but terrible” and “you need a mortgage to use this”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some of the most realistic fictional movies ever made?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s a submarine comedy called Down Periscope from the 90s. The story is, of course, absolute ridiculousness (albeit highly entertaining ridiculousness).

  I’ve repeatedly been told by navy veterans, however, that it comes closest to portraying actual life in the navy - in particular, that virtually every character in the film is someone you can actually encounter in the navy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do people really think setting up domestic manufacturing in the USA is easy?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  "But you just like… screw stuff together, right? Cut the basic materials to make the parts, put it together, box it up, ship it out, right?"

  • Someone I legitimately spoke to once. We were talking about assembling TVs.

  I find that people who’ve never assembled anything more complex than Ikea furniture or something more technical than changed a pipe or switch in their home, tend to think production exists in exactly two levels: Low-tech, hand-tools-at-most labor which can be easily spun up because “anyone can do it”, and ultra-high-tech stuff like computer chips which need highly specialized factories, but where a few factories can mostly satisfy nationwide demand.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm looking for a no frills, physical key EV. Am I looking for something that no longer exists?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, Low (gear). The 5 “standard” positions the standard shifter levers could be set to. Versus the weird stuff like dials or push-buttons that are incredibly hard to operate by muscle-memory if you aren’t looking right at them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why did/do sites such as the pyramids in Egypt or the Roman colosseum end up in an abandoned state, only to be "rediscovered" later?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Similarly, the Great Pyramid of Khafre (the tallest of the 3 greats at Giza) was once clad in a smooth exterior. The outermost cladding was taken by locals needing stone over the years, leaving only its peak still holding the original cladding.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube cracks down (again) on ad blockers, frustrating users.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  For what it’s worth, Ublock Origin seems the most unaffected by this latest attempt. A lot of people I’m seeing are finding success just by switching from other blockers to UO.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨FCC chair says we’re too dependent on GPS and wants to explore ‘alternatives’.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not as dumb as you make it out. The issue isn’t that GPS is really, really good at what it does; it’s that it’s also incredibly vulnerable to disruption and spoofing. And due to the particulars of how GPS works, we can’t entirely fix that. We can do some things to ameliorate it, but a lot of those aren’t suitable for smaller things that use GPS today.

  The other thing is that GPS largely replaced a tremendous number of other navigation aides and techniques, including other radio-navigation systems like LORAN-C.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's easier to shoot, a bow or a firearm?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Bows are actually incredibly hard to use. When you see a “draw weight” of the bow, this is the force you need to exert to pull it back to its full draw. 40-50lbs is considered normal, I believe, while the English Longbow - famous for its use in the Hundred Years’ War - had a draw weigh of at least 80 pounds, with some scholars suggesting even 50% greater numbers than that. Imagine lifting a weight that heavy each time you wanted to loose an arrow!

  Bows, then, require extended training to use properly. Not just strength training, although professional archers were jacked, but in how to properly employ the weapon. The dominance of early firearms had much to do with not just their absolute performance - at times, they were actually outperformed by bows in absolute terms - but by that their effective use could be broken down into simple actions which could be easily drilled into new recruits.

  If we’re talking about modern guns, this effect is much exaggerated. Guns can take some getting use to, sure, and modern bows have added features for ease of use. But guns are, honestly, shockingly easy to use for what they can accomplish.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Question about gaming mouse (Logitech G502 Hero)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  On the G502, the first button directly beneath the scroll wheel should lock and unlock its free-spinning mode.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The New York City Subway Is Using Google Pixels to Listen for Track Defects⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This. I think people are way, way underestimating the integration costs for all of this. It’s not as simple as “buy the pieces, plug them into each other, instant sensor system!”

  Especially for riding around in a rough environment, a Pixel is sensors, communication, storage, power, all wrapped up in a reasonably robust case and featuring premade software to run the whole mess when you purchase it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it a pattern that every time a movie, show or animation that doesn't have a white person as the protagonist is attacked by right-wingers?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  TDP has two main leads, one white and one black.

  I’m not walled off from Star Wars’ controversies, merely pointing out that “every time” isn’t accurate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it a pattern that every time a movie, show or animation that doesn't have a white person as the protagonist is attacked by right-wingers?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Every time” is certainly an exaggeration. Just off the top of my head in a minute:

  • The Dragon Prince - nobody gave a damn.
  • Star Wars [pick any of several releases] - we’ve had various people of color, both human and alien, as protagonists. I don’t remember much of a fuss over that in particular.
  • Various MCU things - Brave New World just came out, again featuring Mackie as Wilson - taking the place of the stereotypically WASP Steve Rogers, no less.
  • Hazbin Hotel: Vaggie is heavily coded as latina.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch From Mercury - okay, not a non-white lead, but the first Gundam series with a female lead, and a lesbian romance front and center. Once again, no attack.

  If I looked around further, I’m sure I could find more. All of these have variously been critiqued for writing, characterization, or pacing, but failed to draw attacks based on the ethnicity (or orientation) of their protagonists.

  Is this kind of attack a thing that happens? Absolutely. Is it “every time”? No. I’d suggest it’s more often when a series goes out of its way to bludgeon the audience with a message related to it, or tries to sell a newcomer as a superior replacement for a legacy character, that people can get riled up.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Some examples of video games with an UI layout ripped off of another game?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh absolutely. OP only asked about UI, so I focused on that. But Generals had a lot of WC3 flavor in it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Some examples of video games with an UI layout ripped off of another game?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Command and Conquer had traditionally used a “right-pillar” control interface, with your map at the top. utility controls like “sell building” or “power down”, followed by a unit build selection screen. There you had 4 panels you could select between - “main base” buildings, defensive buildings, infantry, and vehicles - and you could scroll up and down a given panel. So long as you had the right production building, you could select things to build from anywhere on the map. If a unit had a “special ability”, it would be triggered by double-clicking on the unit.

  Come 2003’s Command and Conquer: Generals, the UI had been totally redone to resemble the layout of Blizzard’s wildly popular Warcraft 3: The control panel now sat at the bottom of the screen, with the map on the left. Building a particular kind of unit required you to select the building or unit that produced it. Selecting an individual unit gave you a list of magic spells special abilities it could take, such as using an alternative weapon or purchasing a particular upgrade.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So, uh… explain to me why we can’t just use invite codes without having the servers closed off? Like yeah, sure, that does make the invite technically redundant, but psychologically it’s still there while retaining openness.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New thermoelectric generator converts vehicle exhaust heat into electricity, boosting fuel efficiency⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, I do apologize - I’m somewhat simplifying my explanation because when you start going into the full detail, it just brings up more questions.

  So yes, like the other comment says, the particles are constantly bouncing into other things.

  • If they’re bounded in by something - walls of a container, or even just more gas surrounding the specific sample you’re looking at - they’ll bump into that, and transfer some of their energy to that.
  • If they don’t have something to bump off of and the particles are free-floating, they’ll take off in any given direction. If they only have something to bump off of in a limited number of directions, they’ll take off in the other direction. (For instance, in a rocket engine, we make a lot of molecules really, really hot and then surround them with barriers in every direction except the one we want them to zoom out in.)
  • In some cases, the molecules have electromagnetic bonds with each other, which take more energy to break than the energy contained in their “bouncing around”. So they’ll stay stuck, just bouncing off each other, even in a vacuum, (Or at least, until they radiate away their heat via electromagnetic energy… another whole story.)
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New thermoelectric generator converts vehicle exhaust heat into electricity, boosting fuel efficiency⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, and no. Heat and kinetic energy are fundamentally all just energy. What we call heat is, technically, the kinetic energy of molecules vibrating around.

  When exhaust gas passes through a turbocharger, it is both slowed and reduced in pressure, resulting in it being slightly cooler than when it entered. This device is using a different method of getting energy out of the exhaust gas, but it’s fundamentally still the kinetic energy of those very energetic exhaust gas molecules bouncing against one side of the thermoelectric generator and giving up their energy into it. I would still expect the exhaust gas to come out of it slightly cooler and slower.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are character templates based on fictional characters "probably" fair use?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Obligatory IANAL, etc.

  If the template is being used for non-commercial services and does not closely replicate any of the material the characters is based on, then it probably falls under Fair Use - similar to how many rulings have affirmed that fan fiction is broadly legally permitted. Conversely, if the chat service owner is charging for the use, then it would probably be forbidden under the grounds that the service host is financially benefiting from another’s copyright.

  Between that, is a murky zone.

  • Content creators and owners have at times made legal demands that pornographic or other obscene, shocking, or other fan content which could reflect poorly on the original owners be removed, on the basis it damages their value. If I remember correctly, rulings on this have gone both ways and the issue remains largely unsolved.
  • If the bot hoster makes small changes to the identity represented to the bot, it could likewise become iffy. It’d likely depend on the court ruling whether the identity was “substantially changed” enough.
  • A new course would be to argue that - given some of the issues regarding how bots have become abusive or encouraging of harmful behavior - a content owner could argue that any chatbot usage represents an intolerable danger to their brand value. I actually expect to see this litigated fairly soon.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If a leftist ran for president, would liberals support him?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, at least for me, the question is “Who?”

  In more ways than one. It’s quite evident to me now that a candidate needs to be charismatic, not just have some good ideas, to motivate voters to take their side. But “leftism” and “leftist” are still pretty vague labels. Just personally, some of the left-wing figures in the US today would earn my vote and some would not. More broadly, and I think there’d be a big difference between voters-at-large’s willingness to accept Bernie-esque proposals and some of the more out-there stuff I’ve seen.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are the inside parts of toilets universal?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  While the kits may use standardized plumbing connector, they are not all guaranteed to use the same standard sizes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do you like/dislike about lemmy?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Like:

  • It has that small-community feel still. I don’t see (perhaps because I stay out of a lot of the more tech-ey communities?) the kind of farming, low-effort, generally mediocre content I saw on Reddit.
  • Lack of the sense of a hyper-corporatized, “You’re only allowed to do things that make us money” sense that’s enshittified much of the internet lately. I’m not even sure if Lemmy can be monetized.

  Dislike:

  • Not yet large enough either. I don’t want millions of users, but I still miss a lot of the more niche hobby/discussion communities I used to be able to participate in. Even communities for fairly large hobbies or interests can be dead on Lemmy.
  • The awful political takes. Everything from typical dumbness up to advocating violence (but it’s okay because it’s my point). And it’s everywhere.