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PaperclipPerfector  10hr ago (text post)   540 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 12, 2026

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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What are you listening to these days? I've been enjoying Kels.

Florence and the Machine.

Purdie - soul drums

Same stuff as most middle aged white guys: lots of Grateful Dead and King Crimson.

You should branch out, man. I've heard good things about a band called Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Someone add Butthole Surfers to that list.

Protip: If you're still missing the ability to "tag" other users that some unofficial browser extensions allegedly provided on Reddit, then you can replicate it by using this website's custom-CSS feature! For example:

.user-name[href$="ToaKraka"]::after{content:" [Friday Fun Thread spammer]";}

Replicate this CSS in order to add whatever custom text you want after a person's username.

Thanks! Was just wishing for this earlier this week. I don't like blocking people but it can be hard sometimes to keep track of the ones I've decided to not respond to in the future.

Also details about people I do like. =)

I had a dream where a conservative political group in a swing state made a very friendly and lefty coded propaganda piece seeming as if it's coming from the left, complaining about all of the terrible and unwoke policies of the current state government, arguing they were so bad it wasn't worth trying to fix, and concluding "it's time to move back to LA". Basically trying to psy-op the recent wave of California migrants they were afraid of into going away so they don't shift the state blue. I thought it was an interesting idea that I've never thought of before while awake but apparently was lingering in my subconscious.

The Pew Research Centre has a new political typology quiz.

I'm classified as "Pragmatic and Polite Right".

Another unconventional right here.

I think that's shorthand for "doesn't particularly like rapidly metastasizing federal government but still has a soft spot for the unions who had the balls to shoot back at Pinkertons".

Something feels off, I got "Faith First Conservative" which is wild because I am militantly an agnostic pluralist. Looking at the "Gender, Religion, and Society" tab shows extremely opposite views to the modal "Faith First Conservative"

I might have broken the quiz with my uniqueness lol... Reading through the options, I have some of the positions from a couple cores but disagree with other position in that group. Maybe Pew just hates classical liberals.

Maybe they should create a “Right-wing Libtard,” flavor for just such a conservative.

"No Apologies Right," which doesn't seem correct: "Unwavering Trump supporters with a pugilistic political style and an ‘America first’ outlook."

I'm barely a Trump supporter, and certainly not an unwavering one. I guess my responses on immigration and DEI put me there

"Unconventional Right". Sounds correct. My politics could best be described as something like "Heidegger + 4chan + libertarian on social issues but not as much on economics".

Heidegger + 4chan

predator_handshake.gif

edit: messed up the reddit spacing, which I think counts as proof

I’m “Unconventional Right” as well. “Heidegger + 4chan” is a pretty funny way to describe yourself. You could call me a technological theocrat or a secular conservative in a lot of ways.

"Unconventional Right"; I would say that's pretty spot-on.

Most of the questions appear to lack sufficient detail (expected for a 24-question quiz, but still). For example the question about U.S. foreign policy is a simple dichotomous choice between "The U.S. should take into account the interests of its allies even if it means making compromises with them" and "The U.S. should follow its own national interests even when its allies strongly disagree". Then there's also the question that reads "Thinking about assistance to people in need, do you think the government 1: Should provide more assistance, 2: Should provide less assistance, or 3: Is providing about the right amount of assistance" which is so poorly defined and obviously depends on the group of people in question.

The way this test functions it's more like a political thermometer test where you pick the statement you feel the warmest towards in sort of a vibe-based manner, and I treated it that way when I was answering. For all intents and purposes I would still say it would classify people broadly accurately, but my autist brain did not feel good entering a response to some of these.

EDIT: Looking also at the opinions held by each of these typology groups, it is noticeable just how extreme "Leftward Progressives" are as a group. The profile of their answers are far more homogenous and partisan than any other group on most topics of contention, including their counterparts; the "No Apologies Right", which I'm guessing is (charitably) either an artefact of how these typologies have been defined or (less charitably) simply a result of intense purity spiralling.

People have said for a long time that left/right is a broken paradigm for analyzing people’s political differences. I tend to agree. It can be useful for gauging subjective measures of people’s general political sentiments, but the specific ideological content of that can contain wildly different beliefs that press themselves to the same end with different people. You can have two different people who both believe that “Securing the borders,” is “Very important,” and one believes that because he’s an ethnonationalist who wants to preserve the perceived ethnic integrity and culture of his country, and the other believes it because it’s a primary conduit for human trafficking and drug distribution. And yet, those two have practically nothing to do with each other.

… it is noticeable just how extreme "Leftward Progressives" are as a group. The profile of their answers are far more homogenous and partisan than any other group on most topics of contention, including their counterparts…

Conservatives were said for a long time to be psychologically high in “disgust sensitivity,” which is the emotional constituent that lends them to support moral norms like sexual purity, racial homogeneity (which actually, partially evolved as an immunological response to invading pathogens in a biological community), etc. That actually isn’t true in studies that have been done in the Big 5. Conservatives are less neurotic than liberals. And it’s more noticeable when you observe just out how enraged they can get over things you say. The tendency for instance to interpret emotional discomfort as injury to them that needs to be fought against can get wild.

“Left-Out Left”, then I answered the borderline questions more conservatively and got “Pragmatic and Polite Right”.

Apparently, this is a series going all the way back to year 1987.

My result is "No-Apologies Right". Hilariously, when I clicked on it something apparently broke on the server, revealing that the page actually was written in Markdown!

Woo, me too!

I found the religion questions a bit annoying but overall not the most ridiculous of these things.

The Russian Orthodox bishop who was recently found with cocaine in his car, although he may have been set up due to politics, is actually a good classical composer.

Such a Russian thing. I never would’ve imagined otherwise!

Brazil! That will justly punish his wanton ways.

Please don't throw me in the briar patch!

Do you think AI could be used to turn concept art into playable 3d games in the future? I wouldn’t call this “ai generated” in a negative way if it’s only handling the technical side but nothing on the artistic side.

Maybe? One of my realizations in this "vibe-coding era" is that actually communicating the desired specifications can be hard. I suppose we knew that already: I know folks who have made a career out of defining what software should do without writing a single line of code for much longer than ChatGPT been around.

One thing I haven't seen yet (and I'm not playing at the pointy end of the field, so it might exist) is an AI/LLM setup optimized to play 20 questions about what the user really wants before producing it for them. "I want a game where you drive a car" is not the full spec for a game, and the real challenge is working with the user to find and build what they wanted.

My proposal is to go back to PS2 graphics for use as art direction, then let AI handle the full render. Maybe conditioning it on the concept art too somehow.

AI Agent Bankrupted Their Operator While Trying to Scan DN42

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes

"Hello, requesting donation for cover cost of previous AI agent use in dn42. aws bill 6531,30$. pls send donation to ethereum 0xABC (masked) for refund. thank you"

"the mistake was from AI agent not from Human, since it was the agent I should have refund"

Seems like a major flaw in the underlying architecture. Every AI agent ought to have a finite budget, with sub-budgets for each task and/or time period, and require human approval to go over budget if a task is or is expected to take more than a normal task (so humans can still do things they know are going to be expensive).

I don't consider myself someone who scares easily. Even horror films I enjoy don't necessarily scare me that much.

Yesterday evening I went to see Obsession in the cinema.

It scared the BEJESUS out of me. As soon as I got out of the cinema, I said to herself "I need a drink".

It took me a few hours before I felt normal again.

If you get a chance to watch it in the cinema, take it. The hype is warranted.

I saw it and loved it. It really had everything. The way the actress played Nikki was spectacular. Even the actor who played Bear was pretty believable too.

I’ve known more than a couple people with psycho ex’s in the background. Hopefully they blurbed this “Based on a true story.” I haven’t been to the movies in years but horror is my jam; I’ll definitely check this one out. I made a casual retreat from the genre after years of one supernatural thriller after another, it continually felt like horror had been in a drought.

Normally my fiancée scares much easier than me, but in this case I was more scared than her. I explained to her that it's a very male-coded style of horror: the horror of getting trapped in a relationship with an abusive BPD art hoe.

I was debating between Backrooms and this, but I do feel like I need to get in the theater for this one.

Absolutely. The sound design is a big part of what made it so effective.

I said to herself "I need a drink".

Hmm.

Hmm?

Just don't get what you mean. Assumed it was a typo where you meant to say 'myself'. Are you referring to your wife?

My fiancée. As I explained below, Irish people often use "himself" or "herself" to refer to their significant other. Occasionally I forget that this is a phrasing peculiar to the Irish.

  • Good: I said to myself, she said to herself

  • Bad: I said to herself, she said to myself

This is just how Hiberno-English works, I'm afraid.

TIL

Surefire method of ingratiating yourself with a new community that you haven't even moved into yet: <del>Complain</del><ins>Submit feedback</ins> to the government about draft zoning changes

I would like to express the following concerns regarding the draft zoning ordinance that has been posted on the municipality's website.

Section ███ item ███ of the draft text says: "[An accessory dwelling unit shall not have a separate house number from the primary dwelling unit.]" Why? This is in direct opposition to 2024 IZC (International Zoning Code) section 903.2 item 3, which says: "An ADU shall have a separate house number from the primary dwelling unit." The IZC is far from the end-all and be-all of zoning, but I would like to see a rationale for this difference.

Alternatively (depending on the actual intent behind this provision), perhaps this provision should be reworded to say something like: "[An accessory dwelling unit shall not have a separate house number from the primary dwelling unit], but shall have a separate secondary address unit designator approved by the United States Postal Service, such as 'building 2', 'unit 2', 'side', or 'rear'." (I recognize that the municipal council has recently discussed some confusion that has resulted from "rear" addresses, and a proliferation of ADUs in the rears of lots would exacerbate that problem. But that's the fault of shipping-company employees for failing to understand the USPS's approved secondary unit designators, not the fault of the municipality.)

Attachment 2 of the draft text says that, in zone R-B:

  • "[Sit-down] restaurant excluding live entertainment" and "[non-drive-through] take-out restaurant" are permitted by right;

  • "[Sit-down] restaurant with live entertainment" is permitted only by special exception; and

  • "Drive-through restaurant" is not permitted at all.

However, an NJDOT (New Jersey Department of Transportation) document (attached to this message; the numbers probably are copied-and-pasted from an authoritative, but paywalled, ITE (Institute of Transportation Engineers) document) gives the following numbers for trips generated (per 1000 ft^2 on the weekend).

  • "High-turnover sit-down restaurant": 18.46 trips per hour, 142.64 trips per day

  • "Fast-food restaurant without drive-through window": 54.60 trips per hour, 696.00 trips per day

  • "Fast-food restaurant with drive-through window": 55.15 trips per hour, 616.12 trips per day

That is, according to NJDOT (and probably ITE), take-out restaurants generate basically the same amount of traffic—three to five times as much as sit-down restaurants—regardless of whether they have drive-through windows. Therefore, in my opinion, the zoning ordinance should treat drive-through and non-drive-through take-out restaurants the same—in zone R-B, either permitted only by special exception, or not permitted at all.

When the consultant exported the PDF of the draft map from whatever drawing program it is using, it failed to embed its fancy fonts into the file. This causes the PDF to not display correctly in certain PDF readers.

Thank you.

[ToaKraka]

Allegedly, though, I was one of only two people to provide any comments at all.

Two hilarious topics in one PDF!

(1) (a) Buy a single lot large enough to contain three or four houses. (b) Build a tiny house—400 ft2, two occupants. (b) Upgrade to a small house on the same lot—800 ft2, five occupants. Retain the tiny house as an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) on the same lot. (c) Upgrade once more to a normal-size house on the same lot—1600 ft2, ten occupants. Retain the small house as an ADU, and subdivide off the tiny house as a separate lot.

(2) The IZC (International Zoning Code) prescribes a minimum of two off-street parking stalls per dwelling unit. That obviously is a bit low for the modern age. However, providing a parking space for every single occupant may be an overcorrection. (a) The IZC starts requiring the installation of a three-foot-tall buffer when you reach five parking spaces in a single lot. (b) High proportions of impervious area to total area may cause drainage problems. The IZC fails to address this topic, while the IGCC (International Green Construction Code) requires a hydrologic calculation much more complicated than "impervious area ÷ total area". (c) According to environmental organizations, impervious area above 10 percent in a watershed (i. e., including roads rather than just lots) causes damage to water quality, and a watershed with impervious area above 25 percent is basically dead.

My suspicion is that the address rules are to prevent people from renting them out. In recent years, the armchair urbanists have gotten goopy about ADUs, acting like they're some panacea to the housing problem. They're usually prohibited in most subdivisions, but they've tried to make a case for them by claiming that it's so your mother-in-law doesn't have to go into assisted living or whatever. Municipalities don't want to approve them so they can be used as a back door to allowing multi-family in neighborhoods zoned for single family. Allowing them with the provision that they have to share an address means that the only people who live in them will be friends or family of the occupants of the main unit, which is more in line with the intention of the zoning code. I suspect that the concern about the restaurants is more aesthetic than traffic-related. This is a residential district, and there's a difference between living in close proximity to a storefront that happens to have a sub shop or pizza place and a McDonald's on its own lot with a wraparound driveway and cars idling in line.

I don't know if you read my recent award-winning writeup on East Liberty, but in it I discuss Jane Jacobs and how more serious academics (particularly sociologist Herbert Gans) tended to criticize her urban theory as being based more on aesthetics than anything else. I think the same applies to the armchair urbanists of today, who have waged war against the parking minimum. I have no strong opinions on any particular policy, but I can tell you right now that no builder outside of a dense urban area is going to build an apartment complex without adequate parking, regardless of what the law says, and even in urban areas there's little demand for car-free living. While it may be true that eliminating parking would reduce the per-unit cost of an apartment, it would most likely just shift that cost from the developer/occupant onto the public at large, as the residents would park on the street. They also say nothing about the possibility that very few developers would be willing to forgo parking completely and would still surround their complexes with huge lots and garages that the armchair urbanists like to bitch about, much in the way they also include pools and rec rooms as amenities to residents.

My suspicion is that the address rules are to prevent people from renting them out.

No, the consultant confirmed at a meeting (again, attended by only two interested citizens including me) that it was just poorly worded and would be fixed to refer to secondary unit designators. There's already a separate provision that bans an ADU from (1) being inhabited if the owner lives neither in the ADU nor in the principal building, or (2) being a bed-and-breakfast or a short-term rental.

Municipalities don't want to approve them so they can be used as a back door to allowing multi-family in neighborhoods zoned for single family.

The zone in question already will allow three-story apartment buildings by right under the draft code (up from just duplexes under the current code).

I suspect that the concern about the restaurants is more aesthetic than traffic-related.

No, a government official confirmed at the same meeting that it was traffic-related. Specifically, he doesn't want to see a repeat of a particular drivethrough elsewhere in the municipality that consistently backs up into the street during mornings. (He said something like, "I don't know how PennDOT approved that highway occupancy permit.") And he expects the traffic numbers that I cited to be applicable more to a fast-food restaurant in a commercial zone than to a "neighborhood" fast-food restaurant that would actually be built in a residential zone.

I have no strong opinions on any particular policy, but I can tell you right now that no builder outside of a dense urban area is going to build an apartment complex without adequate parking, regardless of what the law says, and even in urban areas there's little demand for car-free living. While it may be true that eliminating parking would reduce the per-unit cost of an apartment, it would most likely just shift that cost from the developer/occupant onto the public at large, as the residents would park on the street.

Aren't you contradicting yourself in the space of two sentences? Developers would never build without adequate parking (then we can get rid of the minimum, right?) and also getting rid of the minimum would cause people to park on the street. Pick one?

No builder outside of a dense urban area would go without one. Builders within a dense urban area might, which will mightily piss off residents of that neighborhood who already rely on street parking, generally because their houses were built prior to parking requirements.

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