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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: June 23rd, 2025

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  • New instructions and only having to deal with one codebase are big, but there are some fringe reasons regarding security that I could see also being a factor. A 32-bit processor means something like a thunderbird athlon on the high end, maybe an old Pentium 4. Single core and pushing 30 in the best cases. You need an operating system that supports that chip, and there really is only so much you can do to make that setup even work in 2025.

    It’s more a matter of why support that? Trying to run steam on a single core Athlon from 2000 would be painfully slow, to the point of being unusable. You couldn’t reasonably even keep steam running with a game, it would hog too much CPU. It’s possible to try it if you have an ancient tower laying around (don’t use your real steam account online with something like windows XP, it will be compromised in seconds connecting to the internet).

    People with systems like that are going to need to use gog installers or use period accurate methods to install games. 32-bit only processors were already on the chopping block when steam came out, they really can’t handle modern steam. It would be a bit unreasonable to expect them to add a separate version for those chips, especially with the vulnerable operating systems they require going online being an issue, so we are left with a vestigial feature of 32-bit support for no great reason.

    It really just makes more sense to cut it than keep it for the sake of novelty. There is some liability in keeping it, as well as technical overhead.

    Sorry for the ramble.





  • Welds need a super clean surface to start with, if there is any oil or rust it will form a layer within the weld where the metal won’t melt together properly. Brake cleaner doesn’t really leave much of a residue, and it is an excellent degreaser. Problem is when you empty a can onto a prepped weld surface surrounded by tons of rust and gunk, it’s the solvent that gets trapped in there and blasted with heat and intense UV from the weld arc that can form phosgene. It can also happen when people try to torch rusted hubs after trying to use a can to break rotors and the like loose, that’s one of the reasons they moved to non-chlorinated stuff most places.






  • So you might be able to save both the jar and the weight here.

    Finish the pickles, empty the jar and clean it out so you just have the jar with the weight inside. Dry it out and put like a drop of vegetable oil around the weight.

    Put the whole jar in the freezer, get it super cold, more importantly get the air inside of it super cold.

    While it’s cold get the weight in the mouth of the jar and get it trying to come out, it should want to pull a vacuum. Once it does, just warm the jar and the air inside of it up to room temperature. The pressure from the air warming up should pop the weight right out, if not use a hair dryer.




  • A lot of the same issues VR has that relegates it to a very niche hobby, as well as VR itself becoming more of a thing.

    Basically, it’s twice the cost at a minimum. Want 3D movies? Well, that’s 2 cameras, double the storage, and all of the added workload in alignment, effects needing to be done for each eye… Basically double everything and add some to stitch them together.

    3D games? Same thing, but with calculations. You have to render each eye, plus the calculations to keep them aligned and in the right place.

    3D screens? You have to render each eye, so you have to either do glasses or funky screen tech like the 3DS to get that image to each eye at the right time, so the usual minimum is a screen that refreshes twice as fast plus a bit extra with the glasses to tie it all together.

    See the pattern? It’s twice as hard, twice as expensive, plus a little extra.

    Which begs the question:

    Is it twice as good, plus a little extra?



  • Penicillin isn’t just growing some mold, it was selected for out of literally tens of thousands of strains of mold that were sent in from around the globe to find one that wouldn’t kill the patient. You would, at a minimum, need: microscope optics, glassblowing equipment to perform extractions and purifications, a source of solvents (ether will only go so far), assaying equipment (even old school stuff needs indicators), and enough industrial progress to make and machine steel to be able to scale any of it up.

    Just finding the correct strain of mold to begin to produce any form of antibiotics would need a pretty insane amount of hardware to make what we would consider a rudimentary lab in modern times, let alone isolating it in a way that’s safe for human consumption.