• 0 Posts
  • 299 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 7th, 2023

help-circle


  • If you’re referring to the wavy pattern along the cutting edge, that’s not from the folding process. The hamon is added to the blade during the quenching process, by adding clay to the steel. The clay causes the covered steel to heat differently than the uncovered steel. That differential heating is what is visible as the hamon.

    It’s largely decorative, but does have function as it determines what part of the blade can be sharpened to an edge.


  • Yeah, Japanese steel wasn’t great, but they were working with what they had available at the time. Katanas were basically made out of iron dust, which had been melted into slag by filtering through charcoal. The resulting chunks of steel were basically straight up slag, not nice even ingots. So the steel they got was actually extremely high carbon in places, but that also meant it was brittle as hell, because those carbon pockets were prone to shattering.

    So the folding was invented, to even out the steel’s carbon content (just like how a Damascus steel blade has visible stripes, Japanese steel had invisible stripes of high and low carbon steel) and to lower the carbon content overall; Every time you heat for another fold, you’re evaporating some carbon. So the folding process took the steel from extremely high carbon pockets to a more evenly distributed carbon content.

    Now that modern steel processing exists, the only real reason to stick to the folding method is tradition. There’s no need to fold modern steel ingots because they’re already homogenous and can be produced at whatever carbon level you want.



  • Cats do pant, but they’re also just better adapted to heat than dogs are.

    Smaller frame means less body heat to disperse; As size increases, the volume:surface area ratio heavily skews towards volume. More volume means more trapped heat. By minimizing volume and maximizing surface area (skin) cats are able to effectively stay cool passively.

    Cats also have a higher basal metabolism, which means their body temperature is naturally higher. And creatures don’t feel heat in an absolute sense. Temperature is felt relative to your own body temperature. That’s why a warm shower after swimming feels downright scalding, (because you’re cooled down from swimming, then hopped into a warm shower,) or why the regular room temperature bedroom feels chilly when you have a fever (because you’re warmed up from the fever, so the room feels colder than it normally would.) You’re feeling those things relative to your own body temperature. Since cats have a higher base body temperature, they feel warm environments less than we do. This is also why they spend so much time lazing around in patches of sunlight, or snuggled up next to the radiator; Room temperature is comfortable for us, but slightly chilly to them.

    Third, they are originally adapted from the desert. This means they also have some quirks, like tolerating high temperatures better, and having a high tolerance for thirst, (the latter often leads to kidney issues later in life, since cats don’t tend to drink enough water even when it’s readily available.)



  • This looks like it was a timing analysis attack. Basically, they’re trying to figure out which user did something specific. They match the timing of the event with the traffic from the user, and now they know which user did the thing.

    It can be fuzzed by streaming something at the same time, because now your traffic is way harder to time analyze when you have a semi-constant stream of data running. But streaming something over Tor is an exercise in patience, (and it’s not something the typical user will just always have running in the background) so timing analysis attacks are gaining popularity.


  • That’s more on the OS than the text protocol. The protocol doesn’t just hold a text in the ether until it’s time for delivery. A scheduled text is you telling the phone “hey, wait to send this message until it’s time.” Then your phone sends it at the proper time.

    iOS still doesn’t have built in text scheduling. There are workarounds, (like using the Shortcuts app to build a “send this text” automation that runs at a specific time), but that’s not the same thing as native support.


  • It’s more about the lack of iMessage features. Things like editing, unsend, text effects, etc are absent in regular texts. If everyone is on iMessage, everyone can use those enhanced features. They’re apparently pretty popular in group chats, but even a single android user will drag the entire conversation into regular text messages instead. So lots of iPhone users (especially the younger gen Z and alpha) started complaining whenever someone had an android, or even outright bullying them for it.

    And for android users, texting with an iPhone user is a horrible experience; Images are horribly compressed, videos are severely limited in file size and compressed, group texts need to be opened as an attachment to be read, etc… All because iOS refused to use the more modern RCS texting protocols.






  • There is also the hilariously misguided belief that good coders do not produce bugs so there’s no need for debugging.

    Yeah, fuck this specifically. I’d rather have a good troubleshooter. I work in live events; I don’t care if an audio technician can run a concert and have it sounding wonderful under ideal conditions. I care if they can salvage a concert after the entire fucking rig stops working 5 minutes before the show starts. I judge techs almost solely on their ability to troubleshoot.

    Anyone can run a system that is already built, but a truly good technician can identify where a problem is and work to fix it. I’ve seen too many “good” technicians freeze up and panic at the first sign of trouble, which really just tells me they’re not as good as they say. When you have a show starting in 10 minutes and you have no audio, you can’t waste time with panic.




  • I’m a venue manager. If Trump’s team wanted to organize a rally at my venue, (and I was forced to allow it), I would require 100% payment in full before they were allowed in the building.

    In fact, my building collects a refundable cleaning/damage deposit, and I would intentionally over-estimate everything about the event; We estimate the event costs and require clients to pay up front. Then any overages can be claimed from that deposit, or invoiced after the event. Equipment costs, labor needs, room rental times, catering commission, merch commission, etc…

    I would intentionally over-estimate all of that. So when they inevitably have some overages, (like maybe they use more mics than expected, or maybe they show up two hours early), those are already paid for in their initial payment. Then I’d just return any unused overages with the deposit, which is SOP. Because I know that if I had unbudgeted overages and tried to invoice after the fact, I’d never see a single cent.