IJBMer Updates

fourteenwings

Though I want to believe my LEGO Friends days are far behind me, there are many developments I want to discuss;

When I was doing stuff in my thread, I rebuilt a set called Andrea's Accessories Store from a one-storey building into Andrea's Atelier, which was a two storey building with a dress workshop on the top floor.

Lo and behold, this year LEGO presented us with Emma's Fashion Shop, which... is the same thing. A two storey building with a dress shop on the bottom floor and a workshop on the top floor. It even features that same goshdarned green scooter and Emma and Andrea. I guess Emma finally figured out Andrea's capitalistic wiles and is now using them against her.

Similarly I created a small, compact folding set merely a few months before LEGO debuted the LEGO Friends Play Cube series.

Basically what I am saying is that LEGO has totally ripped me off.

More obviously, with the first set LEGO tend to reuse concepts and this one is literally just a better rework of the Accessories Store model, which is a thought I once also happened to have. And as for the play cubes, I even said at the time;

fourteenwings wrote:

I'm surprised there hasn't ever been an official Friends set like this. Maybe eventually.

Aside from this obvious copyright infringement, since this year has been hard on distribution lines, it seems LEGO is in the habit of re-using concepts, including blue-and-pink awnings. The funny thing is that both of these are Emma sets, but the hair salon is owned by a character called "Nina". Maybe Emma is the owner of the place, and Nina is just the manager?

For teenagers, LEGO Friends sure do believe in property ownership being the key to success.

And a bit more on the Play Cubes; despite LEGO (and I) believing that they would be a huge success, it seems that they kind of bombed. I mean, some claim that with a lot of physical stores just closed, there didn't seem to be much demand for this sort of product.

I see the merit in that, but I personally don't think that's the case, since they could be ordered online as an add-on to whatever, and brands that depend on this model before LEGO Friends joined the fray are all doing pretty well. It seems the truth is really that they just didn't hit right. It's so bad that the only place to get the cubes beyond Series 2 is LEGO's own official site, and the Series 3.5 Emma Jungle Play Cube is only available in Australia.

Literally the morning I say this the Series 3 Summer Cubes show up on all the online stores.

glennmagusharvey

The problem with proscribing the use of "different X than Y" is that there is no other word that can be easily substituted for it.

e.g.

I think this might be one game where the DRM-free version has a different save location than the Steam version.

I think this might be one game where the DRM-free version has a different save location from that of the Steam version.

You need to add "that of" for it to work.

But "than" implies the requisite comparison already...I think?

glennmagusharvey

Come to think of it, in fiction, a common trope is that rumors the audience has not yet known the cause of, and statements that begin with something akin to "let me tell you how it really works", are very often true. In real life, these turn out to be frequently false, more often than not.

Stormtroper

Yesterday I wasted my entire afternoon looking up MtG stuff, I must not let that happen again.

lrdgck

I must not let that happen again.

*sad nod*

Stormtroper

Well, I did do something useful today.
The problem is that said useful thing was fixing an underground pipe leak, that was exhausting.
Speaking of plumbing, water service was on for a very short time, the tanks filled very little, if there's no incoming water soon we'll be lacking running water for several days, that's going to be hugely annoying.

glennmagusharvey

re "green needle" vs. "brainstorm"

1. the lower frequencies give "brainstorm" and the higher frequencies give "green needle" when run through a mental filter (i.e. an operation of trying to find patterns)
2. it's possible to hear "brain needle" or "greenstorm" too
3. it's supposed to be "brainstorm"
4. you can bias what you hear toward one or the other based on your choice of audio playback hardware: for example, if you have headphones and wear them some distance from your ears, which biases toward higher frequencies, you end up getting "green needle" more easily than "brainstorm"

TL:DR given something of sufficiently bad quality, it's possible to see a bunch of different patterns in it

Stormtroper

4. you can bias what you hear toward one or the other based on your choice of audio playback hardware: for example, if you have headphones and wear them some distance from your ears, which biases toward higher frequencies, you end up getting "green needle" more easily than "brainstorm"

So it's like the audio equivalent of the sad face/angry face optical illusion.

fourteenwings

>green needle/brainstorm
>the dress

yet no Laurel/Yanny...

glennmagusharvey

i had nothing interesting to say about it

it follows a similar low/high frequency differentiation though

fourteenwings

Today I witnessed firsthand the glorious nature of the dental surgery technique probably known as "holding 14w's jaw down as his dentist saws at his gums with a glorified razor blade".

Stormtroper

It hurts just to read that. I'm guessing that at least the problem that warranted that has been dealt with?
Over the years I've seen people calling "efficiency" the coeficient of performance (a ratio of heat transfer to work in heat engines), which is unusual since it's not a measure of real vs. ideal as you'd expect of something with "efficiency" in its name. To my surprise the US Department of Energy and this badly written Wikipedia article agree (the latter half-heartedly) with them, and according to the latter what we called thermal efficiency in class is actually called Carnot efficiency.
I've been posting about thermodynamics often lately.
Speaking of mechanical engineering, I've been watching lots of videos about aircraft disasters lately.

fourteenwings

I'm guessing that at least the problem that warranted that has been dealt with?

Eyup.

I've been watching lots of videos about aircraft disasters lately.

I was surprised to find out that there was a whole National Geographic show dedicated to this sort of thing; Air Crash Investigations. Whenever it's on, my dad can barely take his eyes off the screen.

Stormtroper

Oh, those are pretty good. When I worked as an auto repair shop clerk those came up around the time I was at the office so I got the chance to watch several episodes as well as some other programs about accidents. Also Brain Games.

fourteenwings

Brain Games was great! Apparently it's still around in some new format.

Stormtroper

Hah, yeah, I loved it. I wonder if I can still get around to watch it. Another one I liked was None of the Above.
I watch virtually no TV nowadays tho.

fourteenwings

I used to be the big TV guy around here. At one point I was watching basically everything the CW put out, as well as a few episodes of every Disney Channel Original series, plus a whole bunch of other live-action series.

Nowadays I only watch a few live-action shows, almost all from CBS, and the occasional Canadian teen drama.

I'm tempted to try and do a list to compare my TV viewing habits from like, 2016 to today.

fourteenwings

Okay so via some wikipedia research I composed a list of shows I was watching back then.

Frankly I don't actually understand how I watched all these shows in one year at basically the same time.

Pretty Little Liars
The Fosters
Switched at Birth
The Catch
Speechless
Timeless
American Housewife
The Mysteries of Laura
Scream Queens
The Flash
Legends of Tomorrow
Arrow
Supergirl
Law & Order: SVU
CSI: Cyber
Devious Maids
Limitless
Notorious
Person of Interest
Telenovela
Unforgettable
Jane the Virgin

uhhhhh

To compare, right now I am watching: S.W.A.T., Magnum P.I., F.B.I., American Housewife, and The Rookie. Occasionally, I watch an episode of LEGO CITY Adventures.

Maybe this is why I feel like I get more stuff done nowadays.

On the bright side, this reminded me that I really wanted to rewatch insane Pretty Little Liars spinoff Ravenswood.

fourteenwings

LEGO and Levi's announce collaboration

LEGO teases Adidas partnership

IKEA and the LEGO Group introduce BYGGLEK

This is getting weird.

lrdgck

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A bit vertically stretched, but works.

glennmagusharvey

is that thonking shrek

glennmagusharvey

IJBM: the fact that some people associate the term "doujin" with "hentai manga".

fourteenwings

I think that's a perfectly fair assumption considering 90% of doujin is just that?

Why ask this in IJBMU and not Animu/Manga?

glennmagusharvey

fourteenwings wrote: »

I think that's a perfectly fair assumption considering 90% of doujin is just that?

Why ask this in IJBMU and not Animu/Manga?

Probably because 90% of the time I use it I'm referring to doujin games, and 90% of those doujin games aren't hentai either.

Stormtroper

I think I had been making good use of my time, but the day that ended a while ago was an exception, I'm not sure where that time went.
I hadn't made a post like this in a while.

Yandere_Waifu

I had a(nother) dream that everyone that I know and love hated me and wanted me dead and it was a little too real for me to be comfortable with, lmao. I guess that's why it's hard reaching out to people. It's easy to just assume that you've burnt a bridge somehow and never look back, but actually asking people how they've been and what they think of you now? ...LMAO FUCK THAT NOISE, who needs people when you've got copious amounts of [ ] anyway? Not meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee hahahahahahaha.

Stormtroper

I went to the dentist today, it wasn't that bad, doc put some stuff on my molar and sealed it. It's not a given yet that I'll have to have that molar removed, perhaps if I brush my teeth 20 times a day I can avoid that fate.

glennmagusharvey

It's always a good time to brush your teeth.



source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/63626923

fourteenwings

It's always a good time to brush your teeth.

Disappointed that this isn't a Nisemonogatari joke.

Things that should not be abbreviated:

Frame Arms Girl
Cape Union Mart

glennmagusharvey

I think they abbreviate the first one "F. A. Girl".

Its fansubbers gave less of a crap and just called themselves "finfags".