totm aug 2023 What funny/interesting thing happened in your life today?

[Geonovast]

As I mentioned before, I'm currently cleaning all of my Xbox controllers.  Well, I'm also printing some extended joysticks for the ones where the original joysticks are shot.  So far that's been.. mostly fine, but something was off when I put the latest one back together.  Case didn't really want to shut.  I didn't see anything wrong, so I just screwed it together.

Well, something was wrong.  The first time I pulled the right trigger (Halo: Reach), the trigger got stuck down, completely.  This put the gun into flint lock mode (DMR), as the gun would fire again if I reloaded.

It was interesting.  Kinda wish I could set that up as a game type..

[cubinator]

This morning I turned off my alarm from the device itself and my phone but it hadn't stopped playing. I then discovered I had forgotten to wake up first.

[p1t1o]

10 hours ago, cubinator said:

This morning I turned off my alarm from the device itself and my phone but it hadn't stopped playing. I then discovered I had forgotten to wake up first.

On myphone, I swipe an icon to the right to turn off the alarm.

Unfortunately, in my 70%-still-asleep state that I am in for the first few mins of waking up, I find this an impossibly difficult task.

Its so weird that you can be awake but, like, not fully awake, trying to operate with severely compromised faculties.

 

***edit***

Holy poop!

I read this short story last week (Edgar Allen Poe, about being buried alive):

https://poestories.com/read/premature

...and it contains this passage:

"Apart from the tendency to trance, however, my general health appeared to be good; nor could I perceive that it was at all affected by the one prevalent malady -- unless, indeed, an idiosyncrasy in my ordinary sleep may be looked upon as superinduced. Upon awaking from slumber, I could never gain, at once, thorough possession of my senses, and always remained, for many minutes, in much bewilderment and perplexity; -- the mental faculties in general, but the memory in especial, being in a condition of absolute abeyance."

 

Weird huh?

Edited October 25, 2018 by p1t1o

[kerbiloid]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 hours ago, p1t1o said:

On myphone, I swipe an icon to the right to turn off the alarm.

Unfortunately, in my 70%-still-asleep state that I am in for the first few mins of waking up, I find this an impossibly difficult task.

Its so weird that you can be awake but, like, not fully awake, trying to operate with severely compromised faculties.

Sounds like the app I use, only if I don’t successfully complete that impossible gesture, it just sets the snooze. So I might actually be up, stirring around, when suddenly I hear the drums of Africa start playing again.  

[cubinator]

3 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Its so weird that you can be awake but, like, not fully awake, trying to operate with severely compromised faculties.

Just the day prior, I came down with a complex migraine, which is something I get occasionally because my brain is overclocked or something. When that happens, I have trouble communicating, words get swapped between my head and my mouth or turned into unintelligible chatter. I get trouble reading and writing, then it really kicks in and I get numb on parts of one side, and blind spots in my eye. It's the worst because my brain is who I am, and having to sit there feeling braindead for hours sucks.

If I start to feel one (which is difficult, it's a subtle feeling deep in my mind) I just drink a liter of water right away and it seems to help it go away.

Anyway, it sucks and I hope it never happens while I'm in space.

[p1t1o]

58 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Sounds like the app I use, only if I don’t successfully complete that impossible gesture, it just sets the snooze. So I might actually be up, stirring around, when suddenly I hear the drums of Africa start playing again.  

Oh its not an app to make things difficult, its literally my phones default thing and you just swipe right straight off the front screen.

But Im not sure I even understand the concept of "an icon" when Im still in boot-up.

But my fiance does (she just like WAKES up, how do people DO that?!) and she a much lighter sleeper, so sometimes shes shouting "TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF" and she pushing my phone into my hands and shes shouting and my phone is blaring some saccharine tweetle-twotter at max volume and Im pawing at my phone feebly, trying to figure out what the noises coming out of my finace's mouth mean.

Life's a wild ride sometimes.

[CatastrophicFailure]

14 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

But my fiance does (she just like WAKES up, how do people DO that?!) and she a much lighter sleeper, so sometimes shes shouting "TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF" and she pushing my phone into my hands and shes shouting and my phone is blaring some saccharine tweetle-twotter at max volume and Im pawing at my phone feebly, trying to figure out what the noises coming out of my finace's mouth mean.

Morning people. SMH. 

[Ultimate Steve]

I had a weird dream last night and I only remember 2 things. One, I was randomly looking through some old rocketry supplies, it may have been a rocket given to me, and I found two F size rocket motors, which are absolutely massive and I have never set one off before.

Later in the dream I rode a really fast spaceship to Minmus only to suddenly stop right next to it because it had turned into a small, red gas giant with several moons (maybe 10?) orbiting literally with their surfaces touching Minmus' cloud tops. I reached out and grabbed one of the moons only to find that it was an inflatable red ball.

[Geonovast]

22 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Later in the dream I rode a really fast spaceship to Minmus only to suddenly stop right next to it because it had turned into a small, red gas giant with several moons (maybe 10?) orbiting literally with their surfaces touching Minmus' cloud tops. I reached out and grabbed one of the moons only to find that it was an inflatable red ball.

[Delay]

Recently I discovered a TV channel that I'd consider interesting.
Channel 417, which on our TV is BBC World News.

It kills two birds with one stone - I get informed about world events (which is something I needed to do for a while anywayys) while being exposed to the English language, thus it facilitates my learning.

[Ultimate Steve]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

Unfortunately, that is all I remember.  My dreams sort of come in phases, I won't remember any for a few months and then I get a period of like a week where I remember everything vividly... Maybe this is a start of a remembrance phase!

[Geonovast]

3 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Unfortunately, that is all I remember.  My dreams sort of come in phases, I won't remember any for a few months and then I get a period of like a week where I remember everything vividly... Maybe this is a start of a remembrance phase!

Watch "The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnasus" Before bed tonight and maybe it'll jump-start something.

[0111narwhalz]

6 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Its so weird that you can be awake but, like, not fully awake, trying to operate with severely compromised faculties.

I'm reminded of the time I was falling asleep in one of my classes while taking notes. The letters remained legible, but their arrangement was completely nonsensical.

Also of the time I stayed up far too late watching conlanging videos. The next morning I had to think really hard to speak English without letting the crazy in.

[Ultimate Steve]

2 hours ago, 0111narwhalz said:

I'm reminded of the time I was falling asleep in one of my classes while taking notes. The letters remained legible, but their arrangement was completely nonsensical.

Also of the time I stayed up far too late watching conlanging videos. The next morning I had to think really hard to speak English without letting the crazy in.

Bro!

The exact same thing happened to one of my friends either today or yesterday! She fell asleep writing a response to a story and she kept writing random stuff, she even managed to stay inside the lines!

[CatastrophicFailure]

So today I just learned about this awesome and terrifying thing: the SLAM nuclear powered cruise missile.  More like an autonomous Mach 3+(!) nuclear bomber if it had come to fruition, it was studied during the early part of the Cold War. Basically the idea was a nuclear ramjet that could loiter for weeks near the target until the “destroy all humans” command was given, it would then drop down to only a few hundred feet altitude and race at its targetS, dropping multiple warheads and then, if the Powers that Be were feeling particularly salty, continue to zip around the landscape demolishing anything below its path with its supersonic shockwave and irradiating it all to sterility just for good measure. Talk about scorched earth. 

Fortunately, even during the heady “throw aeronautical crap at the wall and see what sticks” 50s/60s, Someone had the good sense to realize that opening this particular drawer of Pandora’s Box would be a really bad idea. 

That, and it soon became more convenient to simply spread Armageddon with rockets, anyway. 

Sauce, presented by Varys:

Spoiler

 

totally gonna have to steal the idea... 

Edited October 26, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure

[p1t1o]

2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

So today I just learned about this awesome and terrifying thing: the SLAM nuclear powered cruise missile.  More like an autonomous Mach 3+(!) nuclear bomber if it had come to fruition, it was studied during the early part of the Cold War. Basically the idea was a nuclear ramjet that could loiter for weeks near the target until the “destroy all humans” command was given, it would then drop down to only a few hundred feet altitude and race at its targetS, dropping multiple warheads and then, if the Powers that Be were feeling particularly salty, continue to zip around the landscape demolishing anything below its path with its supersonic shockwave and irradiating it all to sterility just for good measure. Talk about scorched earth. 

Fortunately, even during the heady “throw aeronautical crap at the wall and see what sticks” 50s/60s, Someone had the good sense to realize that opening this particular drawer of Pandora’s Box would be a really bad idea. 

That, and it soon became more convenient to simply spread Armageddon with rockets, anyway. 

Sauce, presented by Varys:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

totally gonna have to steal the idea... 

Welcome to the party pal! Project Pluto comes up on here quite often, and yes, it is ultra cool.

Some extra FunFacts:

Cruising at Mach 3 at low altitude, it would have glowed cherry-red.

It was cancelled for being "destabilising", that is, it was such a powerful weapon system that if put into produciton, would have risked starting WW3 simply by existing. (Adversary would be encouraged to launch a first strike as once the Pluto's went up, they would have been impossible to stop [at the time])

The ceramic fuel inserts for the reactor were made by Coors - yes the beer company. It actually makes sense as they had (have?) a large glass-handling plant for production of beer bottles, and I guess they had the expertise to make whatever ceramic component Pluto needed.

The nuclear ramjet was built and tested full-scale:

Those rows of things? Those are compressed air cylinders, connected in parallel, so that Mach 3 airflow could be provided to the intake for about 1minute.

[Kernel Kraken]

In my honours algebra class, we had to take locations on the Fortnite map and find equations, slopes, and coordinates. 

Yeah. I have a picture, I'll upload it later- it was something like: if I travel from dusty Depot to moisty mire, what is the slope of the line?

https://imgur.com/a/r2z8x9V 

I can't figure out how to imbed it, so I'll just leave the link.

 

<blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/r2z8x9V"><a href="//imgur.com/r2z8x9V">Fortnite algebra homework...</a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

So the embed code dosent work, I'll figure it out later.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Kernel Kraken

[YNM]

29 minutes ago, Kernel Kraken said:

Fortnite map

Must've been too difficult finding a map with UTM coordinate grid on it.

[CatastrophicFailure]

4 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

can't figure out how to imbed it, so I'll just leave the link.

 

You’ll need to use the direct image link with the file extension (right click + copy image address). Then just paste and enter, and it should work. 

Unless you’re on a mobile browser... 

[CatastrophicFailure]

We got a bunny.

Sir Albert Fluffington Einstein. 
Don't ask, my wife does the naming. I'll just call him Bunny.

The Girls were not impressed, once they learned he was not edible.

 

Wasted no time in getting into trouble.

Never had a longhair before. I see much shedding in the future.

[Ultimate Steve]

...I got asked out via pigpen cipher.

[CatastrophicFailure]

7 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

...I got asked out via pigpen cipher.

A... wat?

[Ultimate Steve]

13 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

A... wat?

[qzgy]

2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

-snip cuteness-

Awwww it looks really nice. And the guinea pigs too. Hope they work out well. 

Our family had a bunny once. Called either Lady, lady fluffington, bunbun, the blob, or a not so forum appropriate term. Wasn't sure of the gender. The shedding wasn't really I think the main concern, more the waste products. Then again, wasn't a longhaired rabbit. 

2 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

...I got asked out via pigpen cipher.

Congrats? Did you accept in an equally nerd-ish fashion? 

As for a thing from me - Ftc season is on. Went to a meet today for that (first one for me). Apparently we were a finalist in the meet. 4th during qualifying. I think that's pretty good for a rookie team....