Today I Learned

For stuff that is general.
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

The speeding up of the game in Space Invaders was a result of memory being freed up as players killed aliens. It worked well for the game, so they left it in.

GTA was originally just a racing game, but constantly crashing into things made the developer just decide to say the driver was a bad guy, and voila.
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Post by TheCatt »

Leisher wrote: Sun May 04, 2025 8:33 pm The speeding up of the game in Space Invaders was a result of memory being freed up as players killed aliens. It worked well for the game, so they left it in.
I didn't know that either, was a pretty cool mechanism

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.co ... wer-aliens

has more detail.
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

August 5th is National Underwear Day.

Enjoy a thread of nice things to look at. There's even some in there for Cake.

Putting it in Spoiler tag because the very first post is NSFW.

“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

Irving Gordon put over 3.4M miles on his 1966 Volvo 1800S. Yes, that's a world record.

Huge, huge miss by Volvo not featuring this guy and his car in ads.
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Post by TheCatt »

Leisher wrote: Mon Sep 08, 2025 11:08 am Irving Gordon put over 3.4M miles on his 1966 Volvo 1800S. Yes, that's a world record.

Huge, huge miss by Volvo not featuring this guy and his car in ads.
Gordon purchased his Volvo P1800S in June 1966 from Volvoville, a dealership in Huntersville, New York.[1][2] He had owned two new Chevrolet Corvair models, but was dissatisfied with their reliability.[2] At the time, Gordon's daily commute was around 125 mi (201 km).[1][2]

Gordon decided to maximize the car's mileage after hitting 250,000 mi (400,000 km), having never had to repair the car outside of its routine scheduled maintenance.[1][2] The car's engine was rebuilt after 680,000 mi (1,090,000 km) – Gordon insisted on the service as a precautionary measure, despite the dealership advising it was unnecessary.[1] It transpired there had been nothing wrong with the engine, and Gordon said he "learned his lesson" about unnecessary maintenance.[2]

He set the record for most miles driven by a single owner in a non-commercial vehicle in 1998, when he had driven 1,690,000 mi (2,720,000 km) in the car, claiming the Guinness World Record.[1][2][3] He had driven 2,000,000 mi (3,200,000 km) by 2002, and 3,000,000 mi (4,800,000 km) by 2013.[1] The car had a second engine rebuild in 2009, when wear on bearings and piston rings led to pressure loss.[2] Its bodywork also had to be repaired after it was damaged by a freight company who were transporting it to the annual SEMA show to be displayed at the Volvo stand.[2][4]
..However, Volvo took greater interest in Gordon and his P1800S as the car approached 1,000,000 mi (1,600,000 km) on the road, gifting him a new Volvo 780. Gordon drove the 780 for around 450,000 mi (720,000 km) before selling it.[1][2] He was later gifted another two cars: a Volvo C70 after passing 2,000,000 mi (3,200,000 km),[4][7] and a Volvo XC60 after passing 3,000,000 mi (4,800,000 km).[8]

After setting the record, Gordon regularly collaborated with Volvo and appeared at their events.[6][7] He also promoted Castrol, his preferred brand of oil.[6]

The car was returned to Volvo after Gordon's death.[9][5]
That's pretty amazing.

I want to say I remember seeing him in ads for Volvo in the 90s? With medal-looking things that had mileage? Though I couldn't find any such thing in a quick google search.
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

He should be to Volvo what [REDACTED] was to Subway.
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Post by Leisher »

I knew it should be white, but I don't know if I knew why. Now I do.
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Post by TheCatt »

What if they are just bleaching the pasta to make it white?
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Post by Leisher »

Good question, but let me respond with 2025 corporate reality:
Bleaching pasta costs additional money, and thus, negatively impacts the bottom line. Most consumers have no idea that pasta should be white, so it's not worth it.
“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell
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Post by Leisher »

I googled and it says VA does do this. WTF?
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Post by TheCatt »

Leisher wrote: Mon Oct 06, 2025 4:42 pm I googled and it says VA does do this. WTF?
Are there places that don't do property taxes? I pay them on our cars ever year.
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Property (home), yes. Things we own? No. We do pay registration/tags every year, and I believe they are based on the car you drive, or the year, or something. But newer expensive cars have higher registration fees than old busted cars.
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Post by Leisher »

People on SNAP benefits are more overweight than working people not on SNAP.

It's around 40-42% to 57%.

If you're able to get fat or maintain a fat body off of a government "assistance" program, that program is broken.
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Post by TheCatt »

Leisher wrote: Mon Nov 17, 2025 8:25 pm People on SNAP benefits are more overweight than working people not on SNAP.

It's around 40-42% to 57%.

If you're able to get fat or maintain a fat body off of a government "assistance" program, that program is broken.
It's cheap to get calorie dense, processed food.

The healthy food is expensive.
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Post by Leisher »

That's absolutely true, but there are videos that exist of people making better choices with their SNAP.

Also, it seems like if the government has to pick up the medical bill for these folks, perhaps they should be doing more to ensure quality food is affordable?
“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell
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Post by Leisher »

Today I learned "Hobby Dogging" is a thing.

I hate humanity just a little more.

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Post by TheCatt »

Bring back the asylums.
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Ok, well. . . they admit that "hobby dogging" was started as satire, which is not crazy. And then someone said, "Hey, this is a good way to train the people that do agility courses with their dogs." which is also not crazy. So, I dunno. I give this one a pass. There might be some people that are crazily doing agility with imaginary dogs. It appears most are doing it as a joke, or are being taught how be a better handler when doing agility with their dogs.
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Post by Leisher »

It's a joke that's funny for maybe 3 seconds. They're doing it regularly and there are no dogs anywhere in sight. Know why? They're all on death row at the pound because nobody will adopt them. They're too busy training leashes...
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Post by TheCatt »

Cakedaddy wrote: Fri Dec 19, 2025 2:13 pm Ok, well. . . they admit that "hobby dogging" was started as satire, which is not crazy. And then someone said, "Hey, this is a good way to train the people that do agility courses with their dogs." which is also not crazy. So, I dunno. I give this one a pass. There might be some people that are crazily doing agility with imaginary dogs. It appears most are doing it as a joke, or are being taught how be a better handler when doing agility with their dogs.
Well, this is far too rational of a take. BAH
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