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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1454 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 1, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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https://hbd.gg/play/

Spicy and educational.

Top 10%, but it feels like I got off easy, getting all relatively recognizeable phenotypes

3744, top 26%. 4 perfect rounds, my biggest mistake was placing what is apparently a Hungarian ethnic group (not one I have encountered though?) in Central Asia.

I got pretty good score with Europeans and Asians, but messed up big time confusing Africans with Indonesians which gave me pretty miserable score at the end.

messed up big time confusing Africans with Indonesians

Yep, that's what got me as well. I remain amused how well I did with Asians and actual Africans. Real "wait, why do I know this?" feelings.

Yeah, Negritos tripped me up as well.

2710, top 16%. Scored 0 on three rounds, due to the Sentinel Islands, some tribe in Papua New Guinea, and an ethnic group with 10,000 people in the far east of Russia.

Edit: looks like the same questions when I refreshed? Put the answers in spoilers just in case.

I think it has daily challenges, like Wordle

1797 score, which put me in the top 55% for today. I got several incredibly tricky ones (ended up being greater Indonesia) which tanked my average. Other than those, I was generally remarkably close.

What are the most up to date, high quality documentaries that show developments in robots/androids/AI? Just wanna inform myself.

Green, yellow or red?

I've always been indifferent to sports. Team sports kinda bore me, and for the American ones, like baseball or handegg, I can't even comprehend the rules, let alone understand what's going on in the field. Individual competitions look pointless to me - after all, jumping 2.40 or 2.42 high looks exactly the same. I mean, I understand how much it means to the athletes, but it doesn't excite me. And the combat sports look too cruel - I'm not a pacifist but I can't really enjoy so much pain being purposely inflicted on a person that didn't really deserve it.

However, some time ago, the Facebook algorithm, for reasons known only to it, started to suggest to me a lot of sumo content. Initially I just ignored it, as I ignore most auto-suggested stuff. I never thought much of sumo, and considered it being rather comical. But, after watching a few bouts out of idle curiosity, I discovered, to my big surprise, that I am actually enjoying it. So I looked for more, and turns out I like the sport! It has everything I want: it's competitive but not cruel (yes, it can be quite traumatic at times, but they don't try to hurt each other intentionally). The bouts are short (2 minutes is considered a long one, though lower leagues have longer ones but never seen such a long one in the top league so far) so I do not get bored. The rules - at least the basic ones I need to understand what's going on - are extremely simple. The participants are varied - everyone has its own style and approach. It has a lot of tradition behind it and also has varied and sometimes complex technical aspects.

During the last two basho - May and July - I found myself checking the results each morning and watching the highlights each evening, which I never ever did before with sports. I totally did not expect it but it looks like I became a sports fan. I definitely will also follow the next basho - in September one - closely.

I went through a phase in the Asashoryu years where I kept a log each basho, bought a book on moves, and would attend every year the March basho in Osaka. I've been many times. Great fun; I usually imbibe on these days and am well into my cups by the last bout at 6.

This and that occured, and all the wrestlers I used to follow are now either ringside judges or back to Mongolia. I once shook Ama's hand (he would later be Harumafuji) in a back alley in Tokyo day before his match. He was with two very large tsukebito (lower ranked wrestlers who are essentially lackeys) leaning up against a massive obsidian SUV that looked as if it could carry a black Op wet team into the PM's office. Anyway he lost the next day (so much for my handshake being lucky.)

It's rumored to be a world of hookers and gangsters, hardcore tradition mixed with courtesy, violence, extortion, and quietly ignored prostitution. That said many top wrestlers end up marrying announcers, actresses, or models and retire to a life of television guest spots, reasonable dieting, and possibly a position as a stable oyakata.

That said many top wrestlers end up marrying announcers, actresses, or models and retire to a life of television guest spots, reasonable dieting, and possibly a position as a stable oyakata.

Not much different from what is happening in Western sports, as I understand.

In sumo, can steroids give you an edge? Does anyone do steroids? Any scandals?

The Freakonomics guys were insistent that at least during the era they were doing their data collection there were (to them) clear cases of fraud (in this case match throwing). A sumotori must have a winning record to avoid demotion, which means 8/15 by the final day at least. It is my understanding that they analyzed many bouts and cases where wrestlers just happened to win on days when it was do or die were statistically improbable unless something was awry. Combine this with the reality that it's man-to-man, and no one can get inside the head of either wrestler, and matches can be over in a few seconds. I personally suspect it's happened, but isn't commonplace, particularly now.

There's currently an ethnically Japanese yokozuna (the highest rank) which has been rare since the Takanohana days (lots of Mongolian or Pacific Islander guys) and that generates local interest. Though alas, young people are often disinterested in this traditional sport and focus more on soccer, volleyball, basketball, or even judo. It doesn't help that not just any kid can do sumo or even play around at it. You have to be big, and the professional guys are packing away food and booze in impressive proportions.

There are other more culture warry scandals but this isn't the thread for it.

edit: typos

I'm sure random kids can't do professional sumo, but several decades back, I was convincing my buddies to let me draw a circle in the dirt with stick and then to shove each other till one of us lost our footing or fell out haha.

I would be very interested in reading a longer post about Sumo if you wrote it. Or if you know of any blog posts that talk about it in general.

There are a few of non-Japanese guys in the top league now - Mongolians of course, but also one Kazakh, one Russian (actually Buryat but he says he identifies as Russian so...) and two Ukrainians. One of them is going down to lower league soon (maybe he will be back) but another has a decent chance of becoming an Ozeki if he keeps fighting like he does. So if somebody is upset by non-Japanese getting in (I have no idea but I assume some people would) their battle is pretty much lost by now.

As for scandals, I'm sure Japanese are human so they may have their own share. There were Yokozunas retired because of bad behavior. And maybe somebody fixes matches too - but even in my short period of watching I've seen a lot of unexpected wins and upsets (including the last basho, where I haven't seen a single person who could predict the result even mid-way) so even if someone would play dirty, it'd likely be hard to notice because of how it's inherently unpredictable anyway. Statistics can only get you so far.

AFAIK the number of places for non-ethnically-Japanese is capped at 10% to maintain the character of the sport.

I don't know of any outcry of anyone "upset" as such, because many of the yokozuna of the past have been not-fully-Japanese, but I think after such a spell of Mongolian powerhouses (Asashoryu, Hakuho, Harumafuji, Kakuryu, Terunofuji, etc.) having a Japanese yokozuna brings in fans who like to root for a wrestler who is fully Japanese (though he sucked this last basho as I'm sure you are aware).

If you're looking for something a bit more mainstream, I fell in love with tennis for many of the same reasons:

  • competitive but not cruel
  • extremely simple rules
  • the points are short (though full matches are not)
  • stylistic variation in participants

The last one has been in decline for the last couple of decades, much to my dismay, but at any given point there are at least a handful of players who make it to the top ten or so that add some variety, if not as pronounced as in the past (I've been considering writing a semi-effort post on this, relating it to more general trends towards homogenization in the myopic pursuit of optimization that I feel like I see almost everywhere now). Sampras-Agassi, Federer-Nadal, Federer-Djokovic, and the modern Sinner-Alcaraz are great examples of match-ups with contrasting styles.

In reading some responses to yutes asking why Ozzy was such a big deal, I noticed the answers tended to follow the grug/midwit/genius bell curve.

Black Sabbath effectively invented heavy metal and anyone who denies that is just trying push their own niche pet theory that nobody gives the slightest shit about.

All the attempts to claim other bands as progenitors/contemporaries in metal are laughable. Like people will bring up Deep Purple or Hendrix (or more rare bands like Lord Baltimore) but it's so obviously not metal when compared to Paranoid

there really wasn't another metal band until Judas Priest

Even Judas Priest wasn't metal until their second album, the 1976 Sad Wings of Destiny. That's six years between Black Sabbath releasing Paranoid and Judas Priest doing anything that could be called metal. I think much of it is Black Sabbath's influence being so ubiquituous in metal that people don't realize that it's all taken straight from Black Sabbath. Things like heavy power chord riffing, ubiquituous use of tritone as integral part of the riffs / melody, Geezer Butler's bass playing, down tuning etc.

It's a bit like people claiming The Beatles weren't that influential without realizing that the very concept of a rock band as we know it is based on their template.

Well I took the bar exam this week. It sucked, but it's over. Fortunately my test center was relatively undisturbed, but many other test centers had a bunch of shit go laughably wrong and I'd like to regale you all with some of the stories I've accumulated from some of my friends who took the exam in other states and from reading the /r/barexam subreddit.

1 - DC. DC was apparently Ground Zero for the shit-storm this year. Day one they failed to do any bag searches for prohibited items, and I guess DC has a reputation for being incredibly lax on security, so multiple people brought cheat-sheets with them to the exam and would study them in the bathroom during the exam. People had friends and family bring them outlines during the lunch break. This led to much (justifiable) complaining on reddit, so on Day 2 the proctors chewed out the entire group and conducted bag searches, leading to about a dozen people getting written up for having prohibited items. Also on Day 2, perhaps as some form of protest perhaps out of sheer stupidity (I believe stupidity for reasons that will become clear) four different times people tried to walk out the wrong door and set off the fire alarm. Someone fired up a joint in the bathroom, and half the testing center reeked of weed. At least one person, and possibly more, filled out their scantron for the multiple choice in highlighter.

2 - Virginia. Virginia was apparently mostly well-proctored, but the building that the exam was conducted in, which is the same building the July bar exam has been conducted in every year for something like 10 years, conducted fire alarm testing during the afternoon session of Day 2. The building also had multiple toilets back up on both days, because the convention center the exam was being conducted in claimed they were unused to the demands of a few hundred people using the shitter at the same time.

3 - Iowa. Someone crammed their lunch into the toilet, which caused it to back up and spew raw sewage all over the bathroom floor.

4 - New York, Hofstra Center. This one is actually pretty horrific, a student had a heart-attack during the exam, and the proctors apparently made every wrong decision they could, including shush-ing people who were begging them to call 911, chastising students for trying to provide first aid, and ultimately causing a delay of several minutes before the student could receive medical attention. All students who didn't suffer a heart attack were expected to continue working on the exam. Reddit link with most of the facts.

5 - Hawaii. Tsunami warning meant the center evacuated. No word as of yet as to how they'll be addressing that.

There's probably more that I missed, but I think those are the highlights.

Someone crammed their lunch into the toilet, which caused it to back up and spew raw sewage all over the bathroom floor.

How does this even work? Is American plumbing significantly different?

Over here the tighest spot is the S-shaped curve at the bottom of the toilet itself, so that anything that gets past it cannot cause further blocks. Thus at worst you get (mostly) clean water spilling on the floor if you insist on flushing a blocked toilet multiple times.

In home or small business settings, or modern construction, that's the typical failure mode, and it's possible that the reporting is just conflating things. That said, in older construction of large buildings, it is very common to have choke points well in grey or blackwater pipes well after the restroom itself, either because of pipe narrowing around fittings, because of bad slope, or because of partial obstruction (roots, partially collapsed piping). When clogged at those points, you'll get wastewater from all of the points above it backfeeding over time.

This still isn't technically sewage, since it hasn't made it to the sewer, but it's still going to end up being quite a large number of toilets backing up at once.

I'm completely unsure, but the comment I saw said there was "raw sewage" everywhere as a result of the aforementioned lunch-smushing.

Someone fired up a joint in the bathroom

So, somebody went to a bar exam, the most important exam to become a lawyer, and thought "what I really need right now is to get really stoned! Like, completely baked out of my mind, this would do wonders for me!" And this person may soon become a lawyer and one day represent somebody in court.

It’s like Goku’s training weights, except they never take them off.

Past discussion of lawyers and marijuana

There are people, including lawyers and lawyers-to-be, who go through their entire days stoned. I have met them. They do things like take vape hits from THC pens the entire time they are awake. Someone getting high during the bar exam surprises me not at all.

I would guess they thought that weed would make them more relaxed and therefore more capable. Like the Ballmer Peak but with a different drug. I have no experience so can't say if it's plausible.

Well I took the bar exam this week. It sucked, but it's over.

UBE or a state-specific one?

State-specific.

I took it back in the stone age before the UBE, so mine was state-specific as well. From what I hear, the UBE seems pretty tame compared to the days of the state-specific wild and woolly bar exams. Hopefully yours didn't have too many curveballs.

Apparently this year the UBE was the one that went hog-wild. A lot of complaining about the essay portion focusing on subjects that are rarely tested, and not testing at all some of the "big" ones. I don't know which ones specifically, though I saw a comment saying that the MEE didn't have a single contracts question on it which I struggle to believe.

When I took the bar exam I was curious about the whole proctor situation. I mean, who takes a job that works four days a year? They were all elderly and obviously retired, but I thought that maybe they worked for some kind of proctor service where they would occasionally work whatever exam needed proctoring. But then I asked one of them and nope, they worked two days in February and two in July. I then talked to the guy who was reading all the instructions and looked to be in charge, thinking that he might be a professional, but no, he got the job after someone saw him in a community theater production and thought he had a good speaking voice.

So for the New York thing, I do remember them talking about what would happen in case of an emergency, but it was more like a fire or something else that would cause the building to be evacuated, and they emphasized that that had never happened (I guess they'll have to change that language now). I can't remember if they said anything about medical emergencies, but they did emphasize that the test would not stop for any reason. A friend from law school whom I took the test with (in February, the day after a snowstorm) said that because the MBE is published only twice a year all states have to administer it on the same day to prevent the answers from getting out. Even beyond that, there are logistics concerns that make it really inconvenient to postpone anything, and there's a need to reassure students who have been stressing out about the test for months that things aren't going to be delayed and the test will proceed as normal regardless of what happens.

So you have proctors who are given very strict instructions, with no one from the Board of Bar Examiners present with the authority to grant exceptions, and you get situations like this. It seems like the proctors weren't given adequate training in how to respond and they doggedly stuck to the rules. To be fair, I don't know if yelling was the best response on the part of the students; I think a more appropriate instruction would be to quietly inform a proctor, with the main guy making a general announcement that there has been a medical emergency and EMS has been called. It said in the Reddit comments that Connecticut and Florida kept EMS on hand to deal with these situations, which seems like a good idea. Also, there was some mention of students deliberately not helping because they were worried about the test. Fuck that, if someone is going to die, having to retake it in six months isn't the end of the world.

While we're on the subject of bar exams, I had an idea when I took it called the Mount Everest of Lays. There may be more difficult situations to get laid in, but I haven't though of one that has the same combination of a necessarily limited time frame, situational inappropriateness (without being too inappropriate), and theoretical availability of women. The idea is getting laid on the evening between the two days of the bar exam with someone you met at the bar exam. The strategy would be to finish early, then hang around the room where they let you keep your stuff, waiting for an attractive member of the opposite sex to come in. You'd have an instant entree for conversing with a stranger, seeing as you both finished early. Then you'd see if she wants to go to lunch, or grab a drink, depending on whether it's the morning or afternoon session. Lunch would be ideal, because it's low-commitment and would allow you to establish a rapport before you asked her out for drinks later. Either way, after the first day of the exam you ask her for dinner and/or drinks and try to make your move.

It goes without saying that most people are incredibly stressed by the bar exam and invest a lot of time into studying for it. But it's also true that pretty much anyone who knows about prepping for it will tell you that you're better off not studying the night before the test, because after studying for two months you need to relax and not get too stressed. You can use this to your advantage since she might not have anyone in town to hang out with and distract her, and you can press the fact that she needs to relax all the way into bed. I will concede that this is an exceptionally low-probability play, but the theoretical framework is there. When I took the bar exam I finished early both sessions but didn't get the opportunity to hit on anyone. That's how I imagine it would go for most people.

Another fun bar exam story: One of the guys I was sitting next to was a little older and obviously neurotic. The rules specify what you're allowed to bring in with you and he had exactly everything you're allowed to bring in with you, including a plastic baggie filled with Certs or something like that. I rightly assumed that this guy was a bit more anxious than the average test-taker. Shortly into the exam, he consumed one of the Certs by biting it in half. I chuckled at the thought of quietly asking him to knock it off since it was keeping me from focusing on the test, which was guaranteed to make this guy feel somewhat ashamed for his minor breach of etiquette. A few minutes later, I noticed something else.

The Pennsylvania Bar Exam includes a practical component where you're given materials and asked to draft something—a brief, a motion, etc.—based on them. Every test prep service says that component should not be started until all the essay questions are complete, as it's really easy to get lost in the project and use up an inordinate amount of time. I glanced in his direction shortly after the test started and noticed that he immediately started on the practical section. Uh oh. I glance over again periodically to see where he's at with it. Every time he was still working on it. An hour in and he's still working on it. Two hours in and he's still working on it. Finally, with like 45 minutes to go, he finally starts on the first of three essay questions. I finish about ten minutes early and leave. As I'm walking to lunch, I break out laughing at the prospect of having stayed until the end to see how he finished. As I left he was frantically scribbling the beginning of the last essay. I wondered how he'd react if I had said "Man, you started the practical part first. BIG MISTAKE! You're gonna fail, dude.

I mean, seriously, how could a guy who is this neurotic not know that you save the practical part until last. Even starting it first, how could he be that oblivious to time management? Either way, had I actually said that, and made the earlier remark about the Certs, I probably would have put this guy on full tilt for the rest of the exam, and would have risked him having a heart attack and I probably would have failed myself after taking the time to render aid. Then again, for all I know he's been repeatedly failing the bar for the past fifteen years because he still hasn't figured out that you don't do the practical part first, and I could have tipped him off early and saved him a ton of trouble. Then again, the opportunity to get laid, how ever infinitesimal the chance, is worth more than causing unnecessary anxiety for laughs.

While we're on the subject of bar exams, I had an idea when I took it called the Mount Everest of Lays. There may be more difficult situations to get laid in, but I haven't though of one that has the same combination of a necessarily limited time frame, situational inappropriateness (without being too inappropriate), and theoretical availability of women. The idea is getting laid on the evening between the two days of the bar exam with someone you met at the bar exam.

Entirely different profession, but I almost managed that. I had just given the first of the two exams needed to get licensed as a doctor in the UK. Funnily enough, the same buddy I was supposed to come visit in London was with me, and once it was done, we were both gassed, deeply anxious about the results, and in dire need of a stiff drink.

We set off for a nearby pub, and were just about done discussing and drowning our sorrows when a pair of pretty ladies came up to our table.

They said they'd recognized us from the exam center, and evinced an interest in going out dancing. I can't dance to save my life, but I was several drinks in and willing to give it a go, especially when a pretty woman was asking.

That was a night to remember. I probably danced six hours straight, till maybe 4 am. For once, I wasn't the worst dancer on the floor, as my friend thought standing on the spot and autistically stimming up and down counted. He had a six-pack, so I'm sure it wasn't a deal breaker.

I would have gotten laid, if I hadn't been honest and told them that I was taken while we were riding an elevator up to the clubs. I resigned myself to being a good wingman, but even on the dance club, I'm sure that if I had fewer scruples it would have worked out.

Once even the girls, who absolutely could dance, were done (or the club kicked us out, I don't remember), we caught a cab. Ah, good times. Even if I didn't get laid, the mere optionality had plenty of value in my eyes.

Your story feels like one of my favorite Mr. Bean bits where he has to write a test - down to the material neurosis to the doing the wrong test. I'm sure you've seen it but if not

https://youtube.com/watch?v=inQrHXAgkag?si=mtSKkCLJ1s4PUDAR

Court opinion:

  • A person accused of harassment drives to the police station in order to give a statement. The investigating officer (1) watches from the lobby as the suspect stumbles out of his car after parking, and (2) observes a fresh injection mark on the suspect's arm while taking the statement. The officer tests the subject for intoxication, and arrests the subject after the suspect fails two of three tests. Five officers immediately search the suspect's car, without impounding it* or getting a warrant for the search. They find, not just a second intoxicated person in the passenger seat, but also illegal drugs and a gun with an illegal "large-capacity magazine" (capable of holding more than ten rounds). The suspect is charged with three felonies. (The prosecutors don't bother to charge him with the misdemeanor of driving while intoxicated.)

  • The defendant moves for suppression of the evidence, but the trial judge denies the motion, and the appeals panel affirms. The federal supreme court has ruled that, if there is probable cause that a person has driven while intoxicated, then the "automobile exception" applies—there is no need to get a warrant before searching the vehicle, because vehicles are both readily moved outside the current jurisdiction and so pervasively regulated that their users have a reduced expectation of privacy in them. It is true that the state supreme court chose to significantly narrow the automobile exception, ruling that it does not apply when the vehicle already is at police headquarters and therefore is not at risk of disappearing before a warrant can be obtained. However, when the state supreme court said "headquarters", it meant a secure impound lot at a police station, not an unsecured ordinary parking lot at a police station.

  • The state supreme court reverses. "Headquarters" includes an unsecured ordinary parking lot at a police station, especially when the vehicle is parked close enough to the building that the officers can keep an eye on it from inside. After the second intoxicated person was removed from the car, it was securely under the control of the police, and there was no exigency justifying a warrantless search.

*Under state law, if a person is arrested for driving while intoxicated, the vehicle that he was driving must be impounded for twelve hours.

Interesting idea:

Books should be structured as expandable trees. One-paragraph summary of each chapter, expandable into summaries of component points/stories, expandable into the full text. Can read the whole book in five minutes or five hours.

It was always unlikely that the best format for long-form information in the pre-hyperlink world (books) would continue to be the best format in the post-hyperlink world. Authors should experiment more with different ways of structuring complex and interlinking sets of ideas.

Have I mentioned how awesome HTML is?

So did the defendant end up getting all charges dropped?

In the trial court, he pleaded guilty to the three felonies. The state supreme court now has reversed those convictions and remanded the case back to the trial court. The prosecutors technically are allowed to try prosecuting the three felony charges again, but there wouldn't be much point in doing so with all the evidence of those crimes suppressed, so they probably will just drop the charges. (I assume that, four years after the event, it's too late for the prosecutors to charge him with the misdemeanor of driving while intoxicated, which they previously didn't bother to charge him with.)

Awesome. For as stupid as a person is to walk into a police HQ intoxicated or high on drugs, I find it deeply unfair for the police to throw the "felony book" at him. Particularly when he was there to, presumably, assist the police in an investigation.

Books should be structured as expandable trees. One-paragraph summary of each chapter, expandable into summaries of component points/stories, expandable into the full text. Can read the whole book in five minutes or five hours.

I hope the author means nonfiction books.

Books should be structured as expandable trees. One-paragraph summary of each chapter, expandable into summaries of component points/stories, expandable into the full text.

Every longer comment here on The Motte itself should be mandated to have that or the user gets an automatic week long ban.

The guy who runs KiwiFarms wrote an interesting piece about digital self-sufficiency. The site itself is not to everyone's taste (lots of 4chan-style shitposting and racism) but he has had to deal with an insane amount of pressure from big tech just to run a glorified gossip website. It illustrates just how hard it is to run a website nowadays when you're blacklisted by Cloudflare, search engines, payment processors, and even T1 ISPs.

https://madattheinternet.com/2021/07/08/where-the-sidewalk-ends-the-death-of-the-internet/

The trans streamer incident was in 2022, one year after Null's article in 2021. I believe the 2021 article comes after a video game emulator developer named Byuu killed himself in June of that year. His death was weaponized by Hector Martin and blamed on the farms, despite ample evidence to the contrary, which resulted in Dreamhost dropping the site in 2021. Later in 2022, Byuu's death was one of the things referenced during Keffals' #DropKiwifarms to successfully pressure Cloudflare into dropping them too.

I have been a regular at kiwifarms, unfortunately, God, I have wasted my life.

I've written 10 threads there and I find the site is useful in knowing what NOT to do if you ever find yourself in trouble.

The slate star codex subreddit, astral codex ten open thread, and data secrets lox are all pretty good.

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