Infrapink

@Infrapink@thebrainbin.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨World's Best-selling Video Game Consoles⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The NES was the best selling of those, at ~60 million. The PS1 completely changed the curve.

  It's funny. People remember the PS3 as a failure because it's the worst-selling PlayStation, but it still crushed NES numbers

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨World's Video Game Companies⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Because Sony and Microsoft make most of their money from other sources. That isn't to says their game studios aren't big, just that they don't make 90% of revenue.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How long until we can start shorting years to 2 numbers again?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  What the fuck kind of calendar has at least 22 months in it?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do other languages use for "magic" words; or names and titles in fantasy and sci-fi novels or cinema?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Apparently the Hindi translations of tge Harry Potter books translate the Latin into Sanskrit, but that's more of a cultural thing, since Sanskrit has a similar cachet among South Asian Hindus and Buddhists as Latin has among European Christians.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is gold investing a scam?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Bad news for the Libertarians: silver was historically way more common for money than gold was, to the point that languages like Irish and French use the same word for money as for silver.

  This is because there was (and is) way less gold than silver, so gold is way more valuable. As such, gold coins were only used to buy things like houses, horses, and suits of armour. Silver coins were much more practical; the linked article mentions that Ptolemaic Egypt had to export large quantities of grain to bring in enough silver to pay their army despite there being gold in Egypt.

  But more than that, if there is a complete societal collapse, the metal you'll want is iron. Societal collapse doesn't mean things continue as they have been except there are no safety or food quality laws. It means everybody goes back to peasant agriculture using tools made of wood and iron (well, steel, which is iron with extra stuff in it). If money is used, it might well be something where no coins actually change hands; everybody just remembers how much they owe their neighbours, and how much their neighbours owe them. That, if course, assumes that in the event of complete societal collapse, we don't decide to give local communism a try.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why don't compasses have just two Cardinal directions (North, East, -North, -East)?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That's actually how it works in Irish. The word for good is deas, while the word for bad is deas prefixed with the negating particle mí, so mídheas.

  (There are still separate words for tge cardinal directions).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can I make a Bluetooth button to skip YouTube ads on the computer?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I use a dedicated video player instead of a browser. Quite a few desktop and mobile video players can directly play YT videos if you just feed them a URL.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gaming Pet Peeves⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Needing to log into an online account to play a single-player game.

  When a single-player game keeps pausing to tell me it can't connect to the server.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are physical mail generally not under surveillance? If everyone suddently ditched electronic communications and start writing letters, would governments be able to practically surveil everyone?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah I'm in Ireland and I can, and do, pay for stamps with cash.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ye were in the Let Them Eat Cake phase in the 1980s. This is the Storming The Bastille phase

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If "James Bond" is a codename, would a hypothetical female operative filling the same role receive the same codename?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It's actually standard practice for secret agents to use their real names, as accidentally failing to respond to a pseudonym is one if the easiest ways to blow their cover.

  Furthermore, Bond is a secret agent. The fact that he's a spy who has tons if amazing adventures is not public knowledge, let alone well-known. We the audience know James Bond as a super-popular action hero from a long series of movies, but in his own universe there is nothing particularly special or noteworthy about the name James Bond.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do you call the beleif that gods are just higher beings on other planes of existence?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In European polytheism, there isn't a clear division between the mundane and the divine, like you see in Christianity.

  There are gods all over the place. Your house has a couple of gods in it. They aren't powerful enough to kill you with lightning on a clear day, but they will still annoy you unless you leave out a little food for them.

  Specifically in the Greek context, Protogenoi, Titans, Olympians, Gigantes, Nereids, Gorgons, Furies, Fates, Muses, and Nymphs are all gods of varying strength and prominence. Everybody worshipped Zeus, but only your family worships the house gods.

  Likewise, in Scandinavia, you have your Aesir, Vanir, Jötunn, Dwarves, Elves, and so on. Gaels have the Sídhe, Fomoire, Tuatha Dé Dannann, Leprecháns, and whatever else. To an Arab pagan, djinn were a form of minor deity. The kami of Shinto continue to encompass everything from local spirits to the supreme creator, to the point that Japanese Christians and Muslims refer to God as Kami-sama.

  [Much more info here]https://acoup.blog/2019/10/25/collections-practical-polytheism-part-i-knowledge/)

  When Christianity caught on, other gods were out, but that didn't stop people honoring their local house gods. Small gods were reïmagined as fairies; Christian clergy denied their reality, but belief in fairies was mostly seen as a harmless superstition, like not stepping on a crack in the road. Belief in fairies persists in Ireland; ironically, those who genuinely believe in the old gods are the most devout Catholics.

  We see a similar phenomenon across history and culture. When Christianity met Vodún, people didn't stop believing in their indigenous gods; instead, those gods became spirits who God put in charge of particular aspects of the cosmos, which is how we get Vodou.

  Likewise, Zarathustra was a polytheist, but by the time Islam rose, Zoroastrians were down to two gods, with the others recast as basically angels. This concept in turn influenced Judaism and Samaritanism; Yahweh, the Hebrews' patron deity, merged with El, the Semitic supreme deity, and the other gods became angels.

  Because Christianity caught on as the Western Roman Empire was disintegrating, people felt like they were living through an apocalypse. Clergy said that, while the physical world was collapsing, the world to come was brilliant, and thus a sharp division was drawn between the mundane and the divine. Modern Euramericans are raised with this division; whatever our beliefs or lack thereof, we see it as fundamental, and thus retroactively and anachronistically apply it to pre-Christian paganism, whereas the pagans saw the divine as simply part of the world.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why did Thanos, with the power of all the infinity stones, never think to try doubling the amount of resources in the world?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  They don't call him the Sane Titan.

  And he's purple because he's an alien who Jim Starlin gave purple skin.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Introverts of our era spend their time on their computers, but what did introverts do before? Like when literacy rates were lower (pre-1950s)? Or before the printing press?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Before the printing press, introverted men worked the farm, while introverted women spun thread, made and repaired clothes, cooked, cleaned, nursed babies, and also worked the farm.

  this is the same as what extroverts did, because back then, you contributed to the farm and the household whether you liked it or not.

  At a celebration or festival, the introverts might gather in a corner to tell stories, but there was no way to avoid being part of the community back then.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I can't say I am going to kill the president. But can the president specify me a civ saying he is going to kill me? And it be legal?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Civilian

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GOG: We’re thrilled to announce that the Crysis Remastered Trilogy has joined our catalog, and the original Crysis is now part of the GOG Preservation Program!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So weird to think that Crysis is retro now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Doug Bowser Retiring From Nintendo, Successor Announced⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Point of order: Wii Sports was not free. The price of the game was added to the price of the Wii, but since you couldn't get a Wii without Wii Sports, people just assumed that was the base price.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Comparing network utilization of Lemmy, Kbin and PieFed - PieFed (2024)⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hello fellow mbinauts!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mastodon is bringing quote posts to the fediverse⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sharkey already has quote posts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Favorite Modded Console?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In my experience, it's actually a little easier; Wii hacks sometimes need multiple attempts, but the Wii U hack works first time.

  Alas, there is much less Wii U homebrew, but you can hack the vWii just like a Wii to get all that goodness.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Favorite Modded Console?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wii U for me. It has all the Wii stuff, plus Wii U games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some franchises with characters that personify countries?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It even has two Frances!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Activity Pub: Can I join a PeerTube or Mastodon server using a Lemmy account?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Also, mbin allows you to follow individual users as well as groups.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the first electronic device kids get these days? (Desktop, Laptop, Tablet, Phone, Game consoles?)⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Mine was a NES. My dad had a 286 running DOS. I remember when my primary school got a PC with Windows 95, and I was gobsmacked that it booted to Windows directly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hypothetically, if you have memory problems and need to write down events, is there a system which you can verify that its not tampered with? (Like a digital checksum, but for a journal)⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Write your journal by hand, with a pen or pencil on paper. You'll know you wrote it because it's your handwriting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4chan and Kiwi Farms Sue the UK Over its Age Verification Law⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The enemy of your enemy is your enemy's enemy. No more, no less.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is This Social Media?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I use it to follow several ladies who post to multiple communities on lemmynsfw.com.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is This Social Media?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Depends on how you define social media.

  Some people say it refers to any online social interaction platform, including forums, Usenet, IRC, and even email; the logical conclusion of this point of view is that the phone network is social media, and one can make the case that so is the postal service. This definition strikes me as too broad; I feel like it was dreamt up by people who have never known a world without facebook.com and try to force predecessors into a bucket where they don't belong.

  Personally, I would define social media as online communication systems which are account-oriented rather than conversation-oriented. Forums and pre-web communication systems are conversation-oriented. Yes, you have an account on a forum, but the forum is structured around threads. You can get notified of replies to a thread, and you might be able to follow individual threads, but you don't follow individual accounts. Same with Usenet; there are some workarounds to follow individual people, but the entire network is based around threads. IRC doesn't even need an account.

  Social media is all about accounts; the whole idea is that you follow individual people rather than threads. I would further divide social media into post-based and file-based. Post-based social media is built around text posts. Replies to posts are the same as the post they reply to. Posts can have other media attached, but are still text posts with pictures, videos, or sound files stuck on. This includes MySpace, Facebook, the website formerly known as Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, BlueSky, Mastodon, Sharkey, Akkoma, Friendica, Threads.net, and so forth.

  In file-based social media, posts consist of non-text files; responses and replies to posts are not the same as the posts themselves. This is things like YouTube, PeerTube (video), Instagram, Pixelfed (pictures), and Castopod (audio files).

  ActivityPub allows post-based and file-based social media to interact with each other. Somebody can post a video with PeerTube, and get replies with Mastodon and Sharkey.

  Then there's what might be called the Slashdot model, which covers Slashdot, Fark, Digg, Reddit, Lemmy, Mbin, Piefed, and Substrings. Reddit is an interesting case of something which was not originally social media, but became social media when the people in charge added the ability to follow individual accounts, and have been trying their darndest to add in more and more features from traditional social media.

  And that brings us to the threadiverse. Threadiverse programmes are built on ActivityPub, the same protocol that powers Mastodon, Sharkey, Akkoma, Friendica, PeerTube, and Pixelfed, all of which are social media. You use Lemmy, specifically, lemmy.world, and posted this question to a community on the same instance. Lemmy does not currently allow users to follow individual accounts, and thus under my definition, it does not qualify as social media.

  However. I use Mbin, and thus I would refer to @NoStupidQuestions as a magazine rather than a community. (Actually, I mostly use Mastodon, but I'm posting this with my Mbin account). Mbin does allow users to follow individual accounts; in fact, I follow several Lemmy accounts, and I can directly follow your account as well, right from the web interface. I could also follow your account with my Mastodon account. This means that even if Lemmy fails the definition of social media, it looks and acts just like social media to a bunch of things that do.

  So is Lemmy social media? Honestly, yeah, I'd say so. Maybe it isn't social media to Lemmy users, but it is to most of the rest of the Fediverse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there any social media without memes and US politics?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The whole point of the Internet has always been to spread memes.

  Because the Internet is a communication medium, and communication is made of memes. I'm not joking. Words, language, music, and art are all memes. (The concept of memes is also a meme). Before the Internet, there was ARPAnet, email, IRC, and BBS boards; all about communication, and thus memes.

  Before that, there was the phone network. Before that, the post office. Before that, books, pamphlets, and people telling stories down the pub or around the campfire. All memes.

  In fact, this very post is made of memes. The previous sentence contains at least nine memes – the words In, fact, this, very, post, is, made, of, and memes. But there are more memes in there. The phrase in fact combines the words in and fact to make a new meme – in this case, when those two words combine, it asserts more forcefully that the overall statement is true. There's also the spaces between the words, which makes reading the sentence much easier. Yes, believe it or not, spaces between words is a meme. Before the 8th century AD, WORDSWEREWRITTENINALLCAPSWITHNOSPACESBETWEENTHEM. Alcuin of York, a scribe and poet at the court of Emperor Charlemagne, came up with the ideas of lowercase letters and spaces between words to make reading easier, and his ideas were so popular that they spread across most of Christendom. Those memes were so successful that people think of them as natural and obvious parts of (alphabetic) writing, but they aren't. They aren't even a millennium old.

  Writing is another meme, going way back to the Stone Age, and it has evolved and developed into numerous other memes, such as the Roman alphabet (which I am using right now), Arabic script, Chinese characters, the Cyrillic alphabet, Brahmic script, Ge'ez alphabet, the Greek alphabet, Cherokee script, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and many others.

  Asking for social media without memes is like asking for food without proteins, fats, or carbohydrates. It's like asking for sunlight without electromagnetic radiation.