southsamurai

@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ice cream trucks still around?⁩ ⁨⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, we have one that covers this side of town during early spring until late fall.

  I’ve even seen them out in winter, but I suspect they’re selling warm products, not frozen, then.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Mexican food uniquely good with alcohol or have I just been conditioned?⁩ ⁨⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, part of it is the margaritas I specific. That tangy goodness is going to match well with the general range of spices used in Mexican foods. Fajitas in specific have that bold and spice forward flavor profile that goes well with anything citrusy. Tequila has a fairly distinct flavor that mixes well with that lime and orangey mix. Most people already put lime on fajitas to begin with.

  Stuff like guac is fatty enough to benefit from something like that to cut through it as well.

  So you’ve essentially got a mouthful of amazing flavors that are used in Mexican food because they go well together.

  Some alcoholic beverages are going to work with damn near anything. But if you tried a margarita with your meatloaf, you’d not be as impressed. Not until the fourth or fifth drink anyway.

  Something like a low hop beer goes with pretty much any non dessert foods, allowing for personal preference. But you can select bears or wines that would not do well with mexican. Or select for those that would be as good as a margarita. Same with a u cuisine; the right beverage enhances the food, and vice versa.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Eh, for a given value of good.

  It really depends on the tuna used, imo. You use shitty canned stuff, expect a shitty result. Use decent canned stuff, get decent result. You get the idea.

  Me? I’m not a fan of tuna mixed in with pastas. Doubly so if there’s cheese. It’s edible, but not enjoyable.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Gangster granny’ jailed for leading family gang dealing drugs worth £80m⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Had to be a Gallagher.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it sexist to say "I've never worn a wet dress before"⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m going to be blunt, this reads like reddit rage bait. As such, I’ll respond that way, then give a more neutral answer in case it’s real.

  The response to it as bait is that anyone saying that seriously is an idiot.

  More neutral, anyone saying that has an obligation to explain themselves because it makes no sense by itself. And it doesn’t.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Predators⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I had the Dying Fetus song “wrong one to fuck with” pop in my head as soon as I saw the image.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Blunthead Slug⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Ngl, while it is definitely weird as hell, it has a surreal beauty because of it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Muppet⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Damn… I missed that on first read. I had down voted for it being off topic until I saw this one.

  Which is both a sign of a great joke and a bad one lol. But excellent word play!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do movie actors or actress keep the skills they learned? Like no one would screw with Keanu after seeing all the John Wick films? And if they did would they just be fucked from the start?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, I’m not sure what level of familiarity you have with martial arts/combat training. Or with what goes into “stage” combat, or fifty choreography.

  But there’s no single answer here. It’s going to vary based on the production of the film/show/play, and the individual actor’s interest/ability.

  Let’s point to the stuff I’m familiar enough with to have done personally: stage combat. Someone does a play with a fight scene. Actors that do stage work tend to pick up the very specific skills involved in making a fight scene in stage look “real enough”. You don’t have to learn how to fence for real, you just have to look interesting while you clash fake swords together.

  That goes for hand to hand scenes as well. Matter of fact, in both cases, you’ll often be training how to miss and still look like you hit. This means that an actor that doesn’t train outside of stage combat is going to have trouble in a real fight because their reflexes and perception of range aren’t going to work right.

  Movie fighting can be exactly the same. The actors aren’t supposed to hit each other at all. Fight scenes are planned ahead of time, with camera angles set so that the shoot is reasonably safe, but the action looks good on screen.

  So, again, most movies or shows aren’t going to be training actors to actually fight. They may not even do amy marital arts training at all, even just to look a little more realistic, because it’s faster and cheaper to have an actor just memorize steps like in a dance. Which isn’t too far off from what kata are tbh. So an actor in that kind of production isn’t going to gain any practical skills at all.

  However, some productions do have the actors train to some degree or another because it allows for a little improv and for the actors to move like they know how to fight both within a fight scene and in other scenes.

  That productions sometimes end up with actors having a degree of real proficiency in what they’re taught. However, it’s very rare for a movie to have the budget for that. Even the Matrix and John Wick didn’t go super deep into it. They hired top end stunt performers and choreographers that prepped the actors extremely well. The Matrix in particular was a lot of wire work, really heavily influenced by Hong Kong style kung fu movies. So they didn’t teach the actors any significant fight skills, more how to look like they knew how to do stage/movie kung fu.

  Now, Keanu is actually a really great example to use. He’s got a reputation for putting his work in outside of what’s required. He’s done a shit ton of firearms work over the years on his own. And, supposedly, he has done some h2h training too, though I’ve heard conflicting stories about what kind.

  And there’s been plenty of actors that have a background in some variety of fighting art. Plenty of actors end up finding a love for one style or another from acting. Fencing ends up being fairly popular among stage actors, though they rarely compete, and never seriously that I’ve ever heard of.

  But could Keanu do the same things as in the movies? Hell no. Dude is human, and doesn’t have an entire team supporting him in a real fight. Nobody could pull off the stuff John Wick does because he has plot armor. He’s going to get hurt, but not catch a stray bullet in the head and drop dead.

  Could Keanu hold his own in a realistic fight? Probably. He’s physically fit, has done at least a little training, and those two things are huge advantages in a random fight with some asshole looking for trouble. Could he step into an MMA gym and hold his own with fighters his own weight class and age range? I don’t know. Maybe, like I said, he stays in good shape, so he wouldn’t be an utter failure.

  But it depends on how much work he puts in on his own time. A year of training for a movie isn’t going to mean shit if that’s all the training you ever do, no matter how good the training is. Fighting is one of those things where you will lose your skills to some degree if you don’t practice in some way. I’ve lost a good bit of ability over the years since I can’t train the way I used to. I can’t take falls, I can’t move the same, so if I was to jump on the mat and try to roll, I’m likely going to need a doctor. I might, however, be able to fake it on camera with a little help.

  But I have had violent encounters since becoming disabled, and that’s not the same as sparring with someone trained in controlled settings. So I did fine. Came out of it uninjured entirely in every case, though I felt like I’d been beat to hell because my body just ain’t what it used to be. So I wouldn’t count an actor entirely as untrained if they were dealing with a low threat fight over a parking spot or whatever.

  So, there’s no single answer here. In some cases it’s a hell no, they’re toast; in others it’s where I’m not likely to start a fight with them

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨3D Printed Damascus⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Alex Steele is bloody awesome

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guepinia helvelloides - Apricot Jelly⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I just looked it up because the joke answer, while perfect, isn’t very useful to a genuine question.

  Apparently it is safe to eat, but lacks any significant flavor, so it isn’t eaten much.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guepinia helvelloides - Apricot Jelly⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  At least once

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guepinia helvelloides - Apricot Jelly⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  They’re like a real life version of Willy Wonka’s edible buttercups

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨this 82 year old woman dressing like she was 40 or younger makes me think about how ridiculous I'll look like when and if I reach that age. Am I misguided?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Yup, you’re misguided.

  Be yourself, all the time, unless you’re a bigot.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can you see magic eye pictures?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s harder than it was before I needed bifocals, but yeah.

  Once you learn the trick of it, it gets easier to do.

  I wanna say I was late teens/early twenties when they first started showing up in my area, and I stood in the store I first saw one for like a half hour trying to see the image. My vision was kinda bad across the board, even then. But I got the first one, which was a boat, and then flipped through the rest of the selection they had, maybe five or six different ones?

  But any time I got new glasses, it would take a few minutes to adjust when I’d run across one again. Same if I needed new ones.

  They really are fun

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Yet another community about Mod Abuses and Power Trips⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Horse shit, there’s a few regular commentors that do their best with every question they can, and even more that contribute irregularly but in good faith, even if they fall short of accuracy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Preach! We should be way past the silliness of body hair choices being open for other’s opinions. It took my sasquatch looking ass a while to get there for myself, but there’s still social pushback that just pisses me off. I’m glad you found your balance :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: If you set up a Lemmy instance, and follow the Docker setup instructions to the letter, it will send lemmy.ml your admin password during the setup process⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Just for the hell of it, I don’t know about OP, but I don’t even know how to.

  I went to the relevant linked section and couldn’t find a way to raise an issue directly. I’m going to try again, and if I succeed I’ll return here and make a top level comment for anyone scrolling by and wondering. I’ve never tried to do this before, so I’ll see how it goes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  People are fucking weird. There’s also prudes and morons that assume any contact at all has to be some kind of horror.

  But we’re supposed to teach our kids how to clean and manage their bodies. That’s the job; we do it for them when they’re too young to do it themselves, or if something temporarily/permanently disables them from doing so.

  It isn’t weird to help with genital care under those circumstances either. You gotta teach kids how to wash their junk, and if they want/need to change their pubic hair, it’s part of the job to discuss it, decide if it’s the right choice at that point, and if the mutually agreed answer is yes, to teach them how not to screw up.

  For real, who else is supposed to? You gonna hire a nurse or nurse’s assistant to teach them? That’s weird, and there aren’t any specialists in aesthetics that are going to agree to it in most circumstances when the kid is under the local age of consent. Too much risk.

  And even that assumes that the kid is going to be okay with a stranger helping them with their genitals. Not every kid would be. For me, there’s no way I’m going to have a total stranger fiddling with my kid’s junk for non medical reasons, even if the kid was alright with it.

  You did the job, end of story.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, I don’t miss the kiddie porn being dropped into chat rooms and forums randomly like could happen back in the day. But I like having a decent chance of finding whatever product I want/need and a better than zero shot at finding whatever obscure thing I’m interested in on Wikipedia.

  There’s tradeoffs. But the old net was a lot more fun.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is possible to learn to swim, just by reading a lot about it?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Into a pool? Yeah, it really isn’t that hard. Plenty of people manage to get in their first time after verbal instructions and make it short distances.

  You won’t have great form, and you’ll probably wear yourself out fast because of it, but as long s you know ahead of time that there’s some basics that even a dummy can do to stay afloat while you rest, you’d be fine.

  Wouldn’t even take six months. If there was a book written with basic techniques, described well, you could absorb that in however long it takes you to read.

  Panic would be the barrier, not knowledge. But knowledge can sometimes prevent panic, so it’s totally doable.

  I mean, fuck, I know people that have started out with way more complex movements with nothing but reading up and done well for a first timer. If there’s illustrations, it’s even easier.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the "dip"?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It really was a great era for CG.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Very water-resistant chalk for asphalt?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The problem is that to get the look of chalk, you have to use something that applies at least close to the same, and nothing that would be waterfast or similarly durable isn’t going to apply the same. Like pastels, they’re basically in between chalk and crayon in the way they transfer to a surface, but you can tell at a glance that it isn’t the same effect. The livers lines look more structured, fill in the valleys of something like cement or concrete more than chalk. And asphalt isn’t much different.

  So you have a few choices. First is to go with chalk and a fixative. If you’re going for something artistic, that’s your best choice. It won’t last forever, but it’ll look like chalk while it lasts.

  Second is to use grease markers. They’ll still smear, but should last through rain at least. It won’t look like chalk, but it’ll still have a similar enough vibe to maybe carry it off. You’ll have a limited palette unless you make your own, but you can get similar effects with something like cray-pas. It’ll be expensive as fuck though with pastels and such, that stuff isn’t meant for big projects.

  Then there’s temporary marking paints. Like the guys that mark power lines use. Won’t last forever, but it’ll take some wear before flaking off the surface. They won’t look like chalk at all, but if you’re doing something more like hopscotch lines, it’d be a better pick imo.

  It really comes down to your project. Like, I used to do fairly frequent sidewalk art on my own sidewalks with neighborhood kids. They’d do their thing, I’d do something a bit more complex. There’s sidewalk chalks that will hold up being walked on lightly for a few days as long as it doesn’t rain. Better than your typical chalk you’d use on paper or a chalkboard at least. Crayola was actually pretty reliable in that regard, but the colors were all primary or pastel; so you’d have to pick up anything else as regular artist’s chalk, which is a thing at most hobby and art supply stores.

  But if I wanted a section to last longer for some reason, I’d usually make my own parafin or beeswax blocks. A little cheap pigment (like tempera powder as one example), some heat and molds, you have a slightly crumbly chunk of color that won’t get rinsed away in the first rain. It’ll melt and make a mess in the summer though, so you won’t want it where you’ll walk on it much.

  Tempera paint actually does decent for very temporary but more wear resistant sidewalk art. Once dry, people can walk over it a little without it being wrecked. Rain makes it run though.

  Damn, I just realized I miss the fuck out of those days. Come home from work, and there’s a gang of kids waiting. Break out the boxes of chalk, and everyone is just making happy pictures all over the porch, the sidewalk, even the street if there were other adults to run interference with traffic. There usually were, but not always. Rule was that if there weren’t two adults that could manage traffic, the street was off limits.

  Since it kinda turned into a thing, there were days when not only my house, but houses all up and down the street would have suns and houses and stick figures under trees all over the driveways and such.

  Anyway, old man memories aside, it depends on what you’re doing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In languages which use complex written characters (such as Chinese's logographs), is there an equivalent to English's "text speak" shorthand?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Damn, I don’t have an answer, but that’s a fucking great question. I had just assumed it would be the case, but never thought to ask about it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Which ia better etiquette?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Understand that most meals requiring this kind of etiquette tend to not have finger foods on the same plate as loose veggies or rice. So you’re talking about a really niche thing.

  I was taught that, other than bread, no food should be held in the hand while eating other food, and bread should only be used in that way with specific dishes, not as a general thing.

  So, first option should be another utensil. That’s what they’re there for. It’s unusual that you would have only one.

  If that isn’t present, then you would use another piece of food. You would ideally use a dry food, like toast or bread, but a breaded piece of meat served as a finger food would be acceptable if the dish is served without other utensils. It would be weird, but not unheard of.

  However, you shouldn’t finger the food at all. If the food isn’t a finger food itself, and you’ve been provided a utensil, you would normally expect to just leave what can’t be scooped up with said utensil.

  All of that said, the best etiquette advice possible is: when in doubt, slow down and watch your host. There’s really no situation outside in common etiquette where eating slowly is a bad thing. And, doing as one’s host is doing is equally universally acceptable. So chew well, placing your utensils down on the plate and engage with the other people. Dinner parties of any significant scope are not about eating as the primary goal. The dinner is the setting for social interactions. So, unless the host or most of the table are just shoveling it in, you have time to estimate the accepted behavior. And, if they’re shoveling it in, there’s your answer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the "dip"?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Aight, just a bit of background first.

  Back in that era, there was a hip-hop subgenre called miami bass. There was an offshoot of that called booty bass. The difference is largely in the stew degree of rap over the beats, and the nature of the beats. This only matters because Miami at that time was pumping out some serious club bangers. Shit you could really dance to, but would also rattle windows blocks away when played loud.

  Da dip was booty bass and a dance song. Like the twist, the macarena, the watusi, the tootsie roll, and other dance fads, the songs were meant to be danced to by the very dance the song was about.

  Da dip is basically a modified grind. I put my hand upon your hip (literally), then I dip, you dip, we dip. Dipping in this context is better shown than described.

  It’s a dance simple enough even drunks, and white kids, can do it; but it’s able to be elaborated on by more advanced dancers. Taken to an extreme, it runs fairly close to dirty dancing ala the movie of the same name. It’s all hips and grinding of groins. In it’s simplest version, it’s a couples oriented version of a line dance.

  And yes, you would indeed see people doing da dip. Not as popular as just straight up grinding on someone, but it definitely showed up when the song played, and when similar booty bass tracks would. It required less coordination than the tootsie roll or the butterfly for sure, so it saw a short degree of popularity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What happens if you pluck a hair thats rooted under a scab?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You pluck the hair. That’s it.

  If the hair was still in place after whatever injury caused the scab, then you pluck it, and the root comes out, it means the follicle was intact.

  That in turn means that, assuming the motion doesn’t remove pieces of the scab, that it’s just like plucking any other hair.

  That’s not uncommon at the edges of scabs. People will pull away a scab, and the hair gets pulled out because it was partially buried in the scab. But you’ll also see hairs poking through scabs at times.

  That’s it. Hair comes out, end of story.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can all the milk replacements bubble if you blow thru a straw in it like a child?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s both, and the ratio between them. Or that’s what I ran across back ages ago when I looked into it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The fuck are you smoking? Russian grown weed, I guess

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can all the milk replacements bubble if you blow thru a straw in it like a child?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not all of them, no.

  Most of them don’t do those nice, sturdy bubbles at all, but they’ll get close. Iirc, almond milk comes closest…

  It matters in some recipes whether or not the milk substitute will have the right properties. Say, something like a mushroom cream sauce, none of the substitutes work because there’s just not duty enough fats. Milk gravy is hit or miss, with almond being the least bad choice iirc. American style biscuits, soy and almond do okay, but need extra acid to get a good rise like you can with buttermilk. But they sub in fine for regular milk in terms of texture and taste.

  Stuff like that. Blowing bubbles is a quick way to test a fake milk. Or even types of cow milk, or milk from other animals. Goat milk, as an example, is so close to cow milk in terms of structure it’s an easy substitution if flavor isn’t a factor. The powdered milk you can get for long term storage or baking is no better than the usual non dairy stuff when reconstituted, and not even as good as skim milk despite being the dry parts of skim milk.

  For good bubbles, you need fats. And they need to be similar enough to milk fats, so there’s a high degree of parity between a bubble test and cooking outcomes