Hard-Times Hard Drives – A Haphazard Happening

I have returned from my seemingly eternal slumber to bring you an update that nobody asked for: the absolute mess that is this piece of shit hard drive that I bought a few weeks back and haven’t messed with since I found out that it was broken. Well, seemingly broken, anyway.

The hard drive in question is a… Seagate Expansion drive of sorts. It has a capacity of eight staggering terabytes. Big woop. That would have been great, but what the fuck does it matter if I can’t even use the drive in the first place?

The Hardest of Hard Drive Hardships

So I’m sitting in my chair (as per usual), and I’m browsing the Internet (as per usual). I see that there is a new update for Flashpoint out: version 11.1 of Flashpoint Ultimate. For those who are unaware, this is the full version of (BlueMaxima’s) Flashpoint, which is a project that serves to preserve Flash games and animation as well games and animations made with other technologies. Naturally, my other external hard drives are full because I have a tendency to hoard a bunch of shit I don’t need, so with the advent of this news, I decide to go and buy a new external hard drive.

The purchase goes through fine – why wouldn’t it? However, unbeknownst to me, I had just bought what amounted to an eight-terabyte paperweight that would but serve to cause nothing but pain and agony (read: it wasn’t that agonizing) as I would try to use it.

After bringing this heap of spinning dogshit home, I connect it to my computer, expecting the thing to just work out-of-the-box as was the case with all four other fucking Seagate Expansion drives I had bought over the years. Considering this blog post exists, it should come as no surprise that this lump of insipid pissnuggets is not working at all. Or, actually, it is working; it’s just that it doesn’t want to cooperate with the computer aside from reading and writing files just fine.

Having plugged the miserable stack of hardened shitrags into the computer and feeding it now-oh-so-valuable electrical power, I go to the Flashpoint website and download the torrent file for the newest release of Ultimate. “It’s seems to be working fine,” I probably thought to myself, clueless as to the extent of the absolute idiocy of oceanic proportions this thing was about to unleash upon my frail psyche.

The thing fails to do anything properly. If I right-click the Flashpoint 7-Zip archive that’s being downloaded, it freezes the file explorer window. At this point, doing anything is like playing Russian Roulette – if I open this folder, will it freeze? I have HWiNFO running. I shouldn’t close that and open it again while the drive is acting up because it’s going to freeze on startup. Oh, I can’t use CrystalDiskMark after the drive has started acting up? No, it’s freezing now as well. What about qBittorrent? Surely, I can access the torrent options for the Flashpoint torrent?

No. Nothing works. I do this, the window freezes. I do that, some other window freezes. I go here, nothing works. I unplug the drive, I fuck up whatever it’s doing, but at least the turdfruit releases its fucking death grip on everything, and the system returns to normal again.

Man, I Tried Fixing It

Even though I’m not nearly as tech-savvy as others make me out to be, I still did some basic research and ran some bullshit tests and stuff on the thing to make sure that it wasn’t broken. As far as I can tell, there are no bad sectors, and the I/O is operational even though the system appears unresponsive – I verified this by looking at HWiNFO (showing reading and writing activity), NetMeter Evo (showing network activity), and qBittorrent itself (showing torrent U/D statistics before it keeled over after trying to access the torrent options).

To verify that the drive was at least somewhat functional, I ran some basic tests with CrystalDiskMark, and it didn’t die for the duration of these – see the accompanying image with the cutesy weeb magnet that I picked because I NEEDED SOMETHING THAT DIDN’T INDUCE INCOMPARABLE WRATH TO LOOK AT.

I also ran the chkdsk command via the Windows command line tool (specifically, chkdsk D: /F /X /R), which did fuck up the drive because it dismounted the drive and never mounted it again. In fact, the latter test is still running on my laptop, and I’m going to leave it there overnight to see if anything at all happens. My hopes are underground.

Conclusion: I’ll Just Return It

That’s a decision decided and done. I’m not going to entertain the notion of enduring this banjax of astronomical proportions on the part of whatever geniuses at Seagate managed to make this happen in the first place. I’m quite literally just going to return this. Throw it in the fuckers’ faces if they refuse to take it back. I can’t use it, anyway.

And, no, I’m not taking the drive’s casing apart and inserting the drive internally. All that would do is void my warranty at the risk of the drive itself or some driver being faulty somehow and not just the drive’s USB interface.

I just have one final question, though: WHY THE FUCK IS THE DRIVE USING THE exFAT FILE SYSTEM? I’M PRETTY SURE THAT THE LAST TIME I CHECKED (WEEKS AGO), IT WAS AN NTFS DRIVE. JUST WHAT THE HELL MADE IT CHANGE ITS MIND MIDWAY THROUGH MY TROUBLES? FUCK!

GRAIWEUGBHAEIUGBUIAVBFGUIRABGUIGERTUGAGHAGVAWUIAERGHTOAIUWERYGTUIOAGBVA BHJVBDSFHJGBUERAUGTOQEWUYIGTYUREBVFEYUAG ERAYGAE RYUGREAGAGERGHGERHOU IRGEAHOUIHGUIOREAGHIUAEEAWUIGHFUIGWTYUIWGHVSDFBZGJHGRPTWEAGER AERGYUAWGFYUWEGYUWAEGYF WAERTYUOGAWEF EWESFGDHAYUGFESGFAEUYSWEYUOFGASGFWEYUAOGAFOUWEYAFGOUWEY

THROW IT IN THE SEA WHERE IT BELONGS! SEAGATE? MORE LIKE: SEE THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT I’M THROWING INTO THE FUCKING OCEAN BECAUSE IT’S A WORTHLESS SACK OF SHIT I CAN’T FUCKING USE ANYWAY.

Ok, I’m done.

Quarterly Update (?) of April 2022

I guess it’s that time of the year again: the time to bring about a useless update that nobody reads.

It’s been a while since I’ve written an update. In fact, I believe it’s been a little too long; I don’t remember how to construct coherent sentences anymore! But, regardless, there has been much ado about nothing these past few months.

I have renewed my subscription for RuneScape, but what’s the point? For some reason, I stopped playing RuneScape again in favor of just… spending time doing nothing. Well, actually, I spend most of the time I’d spend playing games on YouTube instead. I’m also doing problems at LeetCode, although not much is happening on that front either.

Since this post is already a trainwreck, I’ll just shoehorn even more trash in: LeetCode is an extremely annoying website. That’s it. Everybody has code that’s 100% faster and more memory-efficient than everybody else’s. Then, half of the problems are these idiotically abstract and arcane walls of text that are so out of this world that I just can’t even be bothered to understand the problem text in the first place. Fuck! If I wanted shit like that, I’d just whip out a book on calculus and do that instead! Fuck all of these trash problems that go all like: “lmao, take this array a and something-something-something and then a[i – 1] something-something invert the corollary quagnaffle something-something-something then do b[a[i + j – 2 * k] % n] but only if something-something-something.”

Look, I can’t even write proper rants anymore. How far the Rude hath fallen. Anyway, the YouTube channel had its ten-year anniversary last month. Somehow, it’s still up, and I don’t know why. I think it’s still pumping out videos that I had set to be publicized weekly on Wednesdays. I should check that.

Actually, fuck that. I’ll just slowly wither away instead. And utilize my RuneScape membership that I paid for and haven’t used in a month. Good job, dumbass.

P.S.: Fuck off, Grammarly.

P.P.S.: I should update my channel’s description; it’s so woefully outdated.

P.P.P.S.: The new WordPress editor is trash. Why does everything have to fall victim to this horrendous “modern” web design bullshit? Half of the space is wasted on empty regions!

Haphazard Happenings: XXII Edition

I guess it’s time to make an update.

Not much has been happening lately. I’ve added a few videos to my channel, but they’re not really suited to anyone in particular; I’ve simply begun compiling some clips I’ve accumulated over the last year while playing RuneScape because I’ve been documenting my journey through the game, and it’s not going very well.

For starters, the game seems to have a mind of its own and as such appears to find pleasure in coming up with new ways to torture me in the dumbest of ways. For a 21-year-old game, it’s not very well-designed: everything in the game is plagued with design hiccups and minor annoyances to such a degree that doing anything is a test of patience. Quite literally, playing the game is an act of face-desking futility as every session is littered with these annoyances that just build up.

I wish Jagex would stop trying to make the game about all this bossing bullshit and just let it continue to be the laid-back adventure it used to be. But, no, we have to cater to… whomever and add all these dumb fucking bosses to the game and fuck up the economy with the de facto gambling mechanic (the so-called “Treasure Hunter” bullshit), which is designed to suck up money from the retards that are dumb enough to pay for the damn thing.

No, really, tell me why anyone would spend money on that thing. Unless they’re actually retarded, that is. During the Christmas event, people kept discussing buying these keys in bulk – some turd even lamented his inability to purchase more because his daily limit was reached! Are you that dense that you think you’re going to get your stupid fucking green Santa hat that’s going to tank in price anyway? Knowing the absolute crackheads at Jagex, they’re probably going to bring it back as a regular, seasonal item. Some fucking rare item you got!

On another note: fuck this fucking game for being such a fucking piece of shit that removed the trimmed masterwork armor some guy dropped! Had I been there ten seconds earlier, I could have picked up the whole set instead of just the legs and boots! I’m still salty over that, and I’m not going to stop complaining until my streak of bad luck in this game ceases to be such a persistent cunt!

Fuck, shit, ass, balls! This game keeps pissing me off, and yet I keep coming back like some dog that won’t stop coming back despite getting the shit beaten out of it every time. Is this some kind of special case of Stockholm syndrome?

Whatever. At least I’m getting content out of it since I’m recording it. Too bad nobody watches it, but then I’ve been running my channel under this very expectation for almost a decade now.

Ecce ludi auctores britannos, qui ludum etiamnum gerris suis confringunt. Aut ineptitudinem eicite, aut ludum augere desinite! Nempe quidquid facere statuatis, scelestis iam placuistis stultitia vestra.

Oki, I’m done. Back to the lurking…

The Twelfth Hour

Since I’m on such a roll after a relatively long period of just not posting, I’ll give my two cents regarding the absolute travesty that is the twelve-hour clock.

Some people may excuse the twelve-hour clock as some sort of abstract concept that serves perfectly as some sort of analogy to – flat-Earthers beware! – the rotation of the Earth. And they’d be half-right; the Earth’s axial tilt relative to its orbital plane on which it orbits the sun means that it’s not a perfect fit. Besides, a day isn’t even 24 hours long; it’s about 86164.1 seconds. That’s 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds.

But whatever. That’s not my point. I don’t care if it’s been used for millennia. I only care whether it is of practical use and isn’t a pain in the ass. And it’s a pain in the ass… a twelfth of the time.

The Confusing Offset

For the most part, the twelve-hour system is perfectly reasonable. It roughly corresponds to the passage of day and night, and twelve-hour analog clocks – while some zoomers may disagree – fully legible. Then, some moron up and decided to screw everything up.

Let’s say the time is three o’clock in the afternoon. I’m going to assume you’re familiar with the twelve-hour notation, and so, clearly, by definition, this would be written as “3:00 PM.” That’s three o’clock in the afternoon (post meridiem). If it’s seven o’clock in the morning, one would write “7:00 AM.” That’s seven o’clock in the morning (ante meridiem).

So far, so good, but it’s a shame that it breaks a twelfth of the time. What if the time is a half-hour past twelve in the afternoon? Well… usually “0:30 AM” or “0:30 PM” aren’t notations that are widely used, so it has to be “12:30 something.” If that’s the case, then it must be that a half-hour past twelve in the afternoon is written “12:30 AM” because it’s been twelve hours and a half since the beginning of the “ante meridiem” part of the day.

So it turns out that a half-hour past twelve in the afternoon corresponds to “12:30 PM” because we’ve already started the “post meridiem” part of the day. Likewise, “12:30 AM” is a half-hour past midnight for the same reason. By whose reasoning is this a good reason? Some dumbass, probably.

Even the Guv’ment Gets It Wrong

You’d think this would be a minor problem, but it’s apparently problematic enough for the US government to get it wrong; the government’s printing style manual changed midnight from “12:00 p.m.” to “12:00 a.m.” in 2008 (compare the 2000 edition (p. 156) to the 2008 edition (p. 271)).

You’d think that when the government screws something up and starts flip-flopping, something would be done about this awful system, but of course not. Hey, how about starting with saying “12:00 noon” instead of “12:00 PM?” Or just “noon?”

It’s Mathematical Ineptitude

I think the main problem is that the current system screws up the inherent modulus of the twelve-hour clock. For example, “19:00” can be converted by performing modular arithmetic thus: 19 ≡ 7 (mod 12). Therefore, “19:00” is the same as “7:00” in the twelve-hour system. Then, you just stick on the appropriate abbreviation, which would be “PM” since 19 ≥ 12.

This falls flat, however, when you consider the conversion of “12:30” in 24-hour time to twelve-hour time: 12 ≡ 0 (mod 12). So it’s “0:30?” No. It’s “12:30” because 12 ≡ 12 (mod 12) is also true. Finally, we can add “PM” since 12 ≥ 12.

That’s my attempt at trying to make this system somewhat sensible, but it’s ruined by the fact that 12 ≡ 12 (mod 12) is not properly reduced! Were you people not told to reduce your fractions? 4/20 = 1/5 and all that? It’s a standardized system that doesn’t reduce its “fractions,” so to speak.

How It Should Be

Going from midnight to midnight, here’s a list of the “algorithm” the system should follow:

1. Midnight is “0:00 AM” (or “00:00 AM”).
2. The time one minute to noon is “11:59 AM.”
3. Noon is “0:00 PM” (or “00:00 PM”).
4. The time one minute to midnight is “11:59 PM.”
5. Repeat.

To determine whether one should use “AM” or “PM,” use the following inequality: h ≥ 12, where h is the hour in 24-hour time. If this inequality is false, use “AM.” If it’s true, use “PM.” That’s it. Minutes can be ignored since they are common to both systems.

Let’s try the same computation again, starting with “19:00” in 24-hour time (h := 19):

19 ≡ 7 (mod 12), so we have “7:00.” Since h = 19, h ≥ 12 is true, and so we add “PM” and arrive at “7:00 PM.”

Let’s now try converting “12:30” from 24-hour time to twelve-hour time (h := 12):

12 ≡ 0 (mod 12), so we have “0:30.” Since h = 12, h ≥ 12 is true, and so we add “PM” and arrive at “0:30 PM.”

Other Minute Grievances

This may come across as bitching about something that’s incredibly easy to figure out, but I am steadfast – stalwart, even! – in my assertion that something as simple as this should be as simplified as possible. It clearly isn’t; 12 ≡ 12 (mod 12) can be simplified further. It’s the offset that makes it confusing.

I also found something really dumb on Wikipedia’s article (edit) on the twelve-hour clock:

[…] It is an example of a duodecimal system.

Nederlandse Leeuw

Is it really? The twelve-hour clock doesn’t concern itself with anything but the time; the current date is ignored, and the numbers used are all usually decimal numbers, anyway! Besides, following this logic, minutes and seconds follow the sexagesimal system, and milliseconds follow the millesimal system! No, the number of hours is just represented by an integer in the range [0, 11]. That’s just modular arithmetic. In fact, the quote from the following Wikipedia article (originating from this edit) reinforces my argument:

The sexagesimal system as used in ancient Mesopotamia was not a pure base-60 system, in the sense that it did not use 60 distinct symbols for its digits.

Modified quote from David Eppstein

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Whatever. I’m done. Just stop using dumb systems. I had fun binary-searching my way through Wikipedia edits, though.

Man, I just realized I made an unintentional pun in the last header. Good.

Small Talk – The Ultimate Evil

Most people, I would think, know what small talk is. It’s that one thing people do whenever they’re just casually hanging around or doing something productive together that doesn’t really require any intense mental effort. It’s meant to be a “social crutch,” so to speak, and it helps lighten the mood in many cases. Of course, there are people that don’t understand even the basics of human interaction.

So, I’m browsing Reddit because I obviously have nothing else to do besides your usual dreading the very nature of reality itself. I come across this post. It’s a Reddit post on that one there subreddit I was banned from because I posted on one of their blacklisted subreddits. Yes, indeed, it’s /r/TwoXtraChromosomes /r/TwoXChromosomes.

At first glance, a subreddit dedicated to female Homines sapientes is fine. Obviously, men and women have a lot of problems respective to their sex, but I’m increasingly finding myself questioning whether this subreddit should be a default subreddit anymore; surely, the slew of negative remarks and incessant griping at the most minute of things would be better off directed at a personal diary more so than a public forum? It’s just embarrassing.

I read the title of the post in question, and I’m just left wondering: “Is this someone who’s actually trying to be purposefully degrading, or is it just small talk?” Then, I remember that this is just an imagined scenario and that the poster is obviously unable to comprehend the very notion of small talk in the first place.

Screenshot 1: The original post along with the top comment.

Clearly, the original poster (OP) is completely inept at recognizing simple small talk; from this post alone, I can tell that she either (1) is incapable of communicating with the men at her workplace, (2) is irritable after the clearly stressful post-partum period, or (3), in the event that this is not supposed to be a negativity-laden question, doesn’t realize how incredibly poorly it’s been stated. Apparently, the popular opinion, as seen from the “best” comment in the lower half of the screenshot, is that her imagined male antagonist is behaving like an infant… because people who make small talk are obviously equivalent to a whiny child swinging their arms about in a temper tantrum.

I’d also like to point out that the “best” comment was written by a self-proclaimed Norse god. Sorry, “Norsk” god. The Universe have mercy upon us all.

Screenshot 2: Your average Redditor, unable to understand basic social cues.

I just love this one. This is exactly why stereotypes exist. Posts like this invariably lead to certain groups of people being lumped in with absolute nutcases such as this.

We get it: having a child is hard. Being a parent is hard. Only a fool would disagree. However, we’re currently living in the 2021st Year of Our Lord (the current year), and previously luxurious items such as contraceptives and services such as abortion are widely available. You chose to see your pregnancy to the very end; the pains of your labor were brought about of your own accord.

I’m sorry someone tried to lighten the mood. OP should clearly just tell her co-worker to directly harass her instead of beating around the bush with such offensive behavior as “small talk.” Why bother being indirect?

Screenshot 3: Sorting by “controversial,” we finally see a glimmer of sanity.

Somehow, I find myself surprised as to how such a mundane response could have ten upvotes. Likewise, I am even more (pleasantly) surprised to see the lower comment, full of vitriol, of course, has regressed into the negatives.

Once again, I would like to point out that you did this of your own accord. We do not live in the medieval period anymore.

Screenshot 4: A student is assumed to feign illness by a teacher.

I have no idea what the hell “Jim and Pam” is, but, AnotherCatgirl, have you considered that teachers may or may not encounter a lot of students that fake having illnesses for the purpose of avoiding going to school? Just because you happen to be female (an assumption on my part; God forbid) doesn’t mean the teacher is being rude for the sake of it. If the teacher is truly as repugnant as you claim, however, I will not argue. I’m just having trouble taking anyone seriously in this ridiculous charade of a post.

On another note, I just looked up what “Jim and Pam” is referring to. It’s a reference to a lovey-dovey office couple or something from “The Office.” There’s another stereotype for you: if there’s a Redditor, you can be damn sure they watch “The Office.”

Screenshot 5: A sight for sore eyes followed by yet another insufferable scab-ripper.

I think the first comment speaks for itself, but we have another comment that claims that simply making small talk is comparable to acting like an infant child, never mind the fact that, in the imagined scenario, OP’s male co-worker does nothing but simply ask “how was your vacation?” Not one place was there any mention of crying, moaning, or complaining. In fact, the co-worker exists as an emotionless entity that simply stated a question. But, of course, being the hyperreactionary antisocial pfurlan25 is, any even remotely sarcastic or jestful remark must be met with tenfold antagonism.

Screenshot 6: Antisocials respond to an everyday, jovial question with crude nonsense.

While the responses in this screenshot could be acceptable if phrased correctly, I have a hard time believing that any of these suggestions were made in good faith.

Let me also remind you that a baby is not even close to being as wide as a watermelon. I keep seeing this comparison in the comments to this post, but it’s just not true in the context of giving birth. I assure you: if a baby were as wide as an average watermelon, you would be hard-pressed to give birth naturally. Let’s not forget that a baby’s head is squashed significantly during birth to facilitate its “excretion.” Good luck doing that with a sizeable melon.

Screenshot 7: A dichotomy of hatred and proper behavior.

I have no idea what Mr. Plato Underscore is trying to say aside from that he is completely unaware of just about everything related to social interaction. Found the Brit, though; “chod” is apparently a Tyneside phrase, according to Wiktionary.

As for -4twenty-‘s comment, I have nothing to add. Seems like a perfectly reasonable response that doesn’t come across as douchey. It’s still probably a tad too long and… womansplainy… if you’ll allow me this one transgression.

Screenshot 8: The dry and woefully moist.

I don’t know why I downvoted Archer39J’s comment. It’s not bad, but it comes across as something an autist would say. I say this because I know that this is exactly something I would say, being relatively socially awkward. I probably downvoted the comment in an act of projection.

As for notthatwon’s comment, I would consider recognizing small talk not as stand-up comedy but as situational relief and basic human interaction. If this is the typical response people on the subreddit would give, it’s no wonder they’re driven to turn it into such a circle-jerking echo chamber.

Screenshot 9: McStaken mistakenly mistook watermelons for grapefruits.

Apparently, these people don’t know how geometry works. On average, a baby’s head is somewhere around 34 centimeters in circumference. If you had followed along in math class, you’d know that a circle’s circumference C = 2πr, where r is the radius. Alternatively, C = πd, where d is the circle’s diameter. If we approximate a cross-section of the baby’s head at its widest as a circle, we can rearrange this to find the diameter: d = C / π. This gives us that d = 34 cm / π ≈ 11 cm. The last time I checked, a watermelon is much wider than that.

Whatever. This is just me responding to snark with snark.

Screenshot 10: The comments section culminates in a semblance of sanity.

Like I’ve been trying to convey, it’s quite literally just small talk. Jesus, after this post, I’m going to start seeing the word “small talk” everywhere, what with how much I’ve been using it.

Screenshot 11: The non-return of the “Norsk” god Loki.

I accidentally took a screenshot of this comment twice, but it’s clearly gone past 3000 upvotes since the first screenshot. Please, make yourself look as ignorant as you possibly can. Twice.

Screenshot 12: Gore.

And here we have the return of the type that would respond to a basic question by reciting various war crimes committed by unrelated warmongers, the horrible working conditions of people in third-world countries, how giving birth is like being torn open by Jack the Ripper, and how talking to them is blatant sexual harassment. A complete non-sequitur.

Screenshot 13: A grandmother existed somewhere.

Rorcanna, I’m sure Swedes have problems of their own, but I’m willing to bet that the reason your grandmother’s co-workers didn’t “repeat themselves” is because they realized that making any sort of joke in front of her is a good way to have an otherwise alright day ruined.

Screenshot 14: A sociopath unleashes a barrage of vitriolic garbage.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this one; it’s just a heap of unsubstantiated nonsense that comes across as annoying whining more than anything else.

People obviously appreciate your labor. You are getting paid, are you not? Besides, if a co-worker tries to initiate a conversation with you, does that not mean they would like to include you in their group? Maybe you’re just blind to this, but if you work at a male-dominated workplace, any male worker is inherently going to act as though most of the workplace is male. A male co-worker is going to talk to you like he would to another male co-worker because that’s what he’s used to.

You’d think that these people would understand the male mindset more clearly given how they’re so incredibly quick to jump to conclusions regarding the male mindset, but that would be applying logic to the situation.

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Alright, I’m just so done. Basically, responding with vitriol to someone asking you how your vacation was when you were doing something like giving birth to and taking care of a child is just stupid. Don’t do it. Recognize that it’s just someone trying to strike a conversation with you. Not everyone is out to get you. Good Lord.

This is devolving into a stream of consciousness at this point. I’m just going to end this post before it turns into a word cloud. I’ll see you all… whenever. Assuming I don’t get banned for posting this.

Can We Please Use the Whole Rating Scale?

It sure has been a while since I wrote something on this blog. I should probably do that. Therefore, I have decided to write something of substance rather than just jot down a bunch of words for the sake of filling the post with… something.

Seriously, can we just use the whole scale when rating something? I don’t care which scale you use; just use the whole scale! Almost every time, assuming a 10-point scale, I see something like this:

Rating	Descriptive equivalent
< 7	Okayish or just trash
7	Good
8	Gooder
9	Goodest
10	Default rating

Your typical brainlet’s rating system.

Anything below a 7 is either passable or complete garbage; there is apparently no use for any of the ratings below 7 unless the game is just absolute trash, in which case, a rating of 0 or 1 is used. If a game would be a 5, it’s just a 1. Period. Here is some Python-style pseudocode representing these brainlets’ thinking process:

MIN_RATING = 7

def apply_rating(self, ratee: Rateable, rating: int) -> None:
	ratee.rate(self, MIN_RATING if rating < MIN_RATING else rating)

Meanwhile, here’s how the rating system should look:

Rating	Descriptive equivalent
0	Absolute trash nobody should bother watching/playing/reading/…
1	Garbage fit only for the most gullible and low-standard of people.
2	Just bad.
3	Not very good.
4	It’s… alright, I guess.
5	Just about average.
6	Decent.
7	Hey, this is pretty good!
8	Wow.
9	Dude, this shouldn’t even be able to exist.
10	Absolute perfection.

My brainlet self’s rating system.

Mapping this to any other point scale (e.g. 1-5 or 0-100) is trivial: simply adjust the intervals accordingly.

Note that this scale is not linear; it may appear linear in the middle, but, really, it should be considered that items rated by this system are distributed along some inversely exponential distribution (i.e. something roughly like L(r) = e^-Cr, where e is Euler’s number, r is the rating (variable), C is some constant, and L(r) is some descriptor of how likely it is for a given rating r to be assigned). Going from 0 to 1 on this scale is extremely easy, 4 to 5 moderately difficult, and 9 to 10 a practical impossibility.

I know it’s probably difficult, and this apparent rateardation [sic] is most certainly why websites like YouTube and Netflix moved away from value-based rating systems in favor of a binary upvote-downvote system. This is why people despise the so-called “normies.”

I can’t believe I returned after five months of absence to bring up something like this, but there you go. Give the normies something to chew on and make the world a better place where we can abstain from the inferior binary rating systems. Just use the scale correctly, already!

I’ve been… folding, I guess.

Clearly, there have been no updates to my Let’s Play of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Special Edition) as of late, so I have decided to use my spare computing power to fold fucking proteins.

Long story short, my body will not allow me to play my games in peace; the specific details of this kinda-sorta self-imposed inability are not something I am willing to write publicly because it would ruin my fragile ego the Internet does not need more of my whining than it should minimally require.

My psychosomatic fragility and delinquent tendencies notwithstanding, my computer is now folding proteins on folding@home a full twenty-four hours of the day. Of course, this means that there is a hell of a lot more power being used up by my computer, but since it’s cold as shit thanks to the Arctic spewing its freezing hatred down south, the extra heat comes in handy, anyway, although I should be grateful I don’t live in fucking Texas, where they keep losing power because the Texan power grid is apparently equivalent to that of a fourth-world country’s.

My only complaint (aside from my corporeal woes) is that I wish I could get a 3000-series graphics card instead of having to stick with my aging 980ti, but it’s damn-near impossible to obtain any kind of graphics card without having to pay a premium. I mean: for fuck’s sake, there are years-old graphics cards being sold at release-date prices not only thanks to these fucking miners hopping onto the bandwagon to grow fat on that there new-fangled Ethereum currency, but it’s the scalpers that are the lowest of the low. I recommend watching this video for my precise opinion on these subhuman dregs of human civilization.

At least I can say that if it weren’t for these scalper cunts, there would be more scientific progress because I would have obtained a 3080 just to have it just sit there folding, anyway. And, no, I’m not getting a 3090; the performance increase going from a 3080 to a 3090 does not warrant a doubling of the price. I’d much rather save that money for getting a new chair that can replace the current backbreaker that is in my possession.

Too long; didn’t read: I’m a fragile shitrag who can’t play games because I’m gritwise diminutive, so I have my old 980ti folding fucking proteins because I refuse to pay scalpers a premium for an otherwise-obtainable graphics card.

Imagine having to underline that it’s a joke to a bunch of jesters…

I know it’s become a common theme amongst many popular online discussion fora, if you have to explain that something specific is indeed that one specific thing to a forum that is entirely dedicated to said specific thing, we have a problem.

Mind you that I don’t think any of these people would have a sense of humor good enough to fit the role of a jester or any occupation that would require a modicum of comedic grit. And don’t even get me started on all the lowlives that scoot in begging for karma by using the child card: “my seven-year-old came up with this joke.” Yes, and just like everything else that’s made by seven-year-olds, it’s painfully mediocre and not worthy of the title as the best joke of the day.

On the subject of jokes, here’s an actual joke:

/r/jokes

Well, well, well… the Streisand effect strikes yet again, it seems.

This is ridiculous. So much faux outrage over a handful of pixels.

Last night, the PogChamp emote was removed by Twitch because some dumbass named Gootecks or whatever made some vague kinda-sorta violence-inciting statement (specifically, civil unrest), and now an emote of his face is removed.

I’m not going to argue as to whether this is a morally sound decision, but from a purely intellectual point of view, it’s an absolutely retarded decision to make. Think about it: next to nobody knew whose face the emote was supposed to represent. To most, it was just a splotch of pixels one could almost count on one hand. However, they decide that it would be a good idea to make a big deal out of his statement and remove the emote.

My point is that they clearly disagree with his statement, but then why are they making such a big deal out of it and directing a bunch of attention towards the guy and bringing him more followers. I don’t get it; who the hell would even bother to think about whose face it was? Even if someone did, it’d probably be someone who doesn’t have a fucking stick up their ass and looks for reasons to screech and get their non-existent balls in a twist over FUCKING PIXELS like me.

I wouldn’t even be this annoyed if the website worked. It doesn’t; it keeps breaking. It’s run by idiots who get neither the community-related nor technical aspects of it right. Oh, and they’ve coerced third-party services such as FrankerFaceZ to remove any PogChamp derivative from its database, it seems.

TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp TIME TO THROW PogChamp

Update five minutes prior to publishing: Apparently, BetterTTV will not be removing any PogChamp derivatives. Let the triggering begin.

Babby’s First Game

I just rage-quit Terraria again. Not because I died to an enemy or a boss. No: because I literally can’t do the Old Man’s Army because I didn’t realize that, if I postponed the event until the end of the game, it would be nearly impossible for me to kill all the enemies in time before they gangrape the shit out of my crystal on that pedestal or whatever the fuck it is. Sorry, I thought the event had its own progression. Silly me.

At least there is something else to look forward to, today: not this game.