Completely Inconsequential Hot-Takes 2: People Take Too Long to Post New Threads

[Blackdrop]

The old thread is dead! Long live the new thread!

Ionathus will explain:

Do you have a rant you need to get off your chest? A rant about something small? Something so unimportant that you're flabbergasted it's still on your mind? Something that's so bafflingly non-polarizing that you yourself are shocked by your possession of an opinion on the subject?

Well, so do I. Welcome, friend.

Two rules:
You must share a hot-take. A rant. It's got to be a bold claim and you've got to feel strongly about it.
Your rant MUST be terminally unimportant. Like, Ryan Gosling's SNL Papyrus sketch levels of unimportant. Bonus points if nobody else can even understand why it upsets you.
No dissecting other people's rants. Helpful observations or discussion is encouraged, but please don't turn it into a full-on debate! Hopefully these things are already too inconsequential to be worth debating...Yes I a

Completely Inconsequential Hot-Takes Thread 1

[Keltest]

I approve of the hot take in the title.

[DavidSh]

Meanwhile I was waffling about coming up with some kind of play on words about inconsequential hot-cakes.

[Rater202]

Buffets that put condiments in like, bins on a cart instead of in bottles or dispensers and then don't adequately label them are the work of non-denominational adversary figure.

Especially if the cocktail sauce is right next to the ketchup.

[Peelee]

Inconsequential hot take: creators of the next thread in line who don't put a link to the new thread in the old thread are still probably lauded for making the new one, but c'mooooon.

[Blackdrop]

Inconsequential hot take: creators of the next thread in line who don't put a link to the new thread in the old thread are still probably lauded for making the new one, but c'mooooon.

I...was...uhhhhh...oh, I know!

I was working under the belief they we aren't supposed to post in threads that went over 50 pages and figured that if a moderator thought a link to the new thread was necessary, they would post the link when they locked the old thread.

Yep, that's definitely it. I didn't forget in the rush to bogart the new thread 5 seconds after I came up with the title.

[Rockphed]

Disney's version of The Black Cauldron put fantasy movies back at least 20 years. Not, I should note, that it is a bad movie, or even a bad version of the Prydain stories. No, the part where they decided not to go all in with Gurgi's sacrifice was the problem. There is a pot that raises an army of the dead, let the heroic sacrifice actually be a sacrifice.

Also, my local library has a horrible fantasy and science fiction section. I don't think they have anything by Aasimov and probably don't have anything by Heinlein either.

[Draconi Redfir]

i'm still real sad the whole "Phonebloks" idea never took off.

Basically it was an idea for a "Phone" that was effectively just a circuit-board with various connectors and pins around it, and you purchased the individual parts you wanted to customize your phone, and keep the thing long-term.

Want a phone for making calls and don't care about the camera? Replace the camera for some extra battery space. Use your phone to hold a lot of information? swap out the memmory for something with a bit higher power. Like taking photos? Get a really specialized camera. Want to do all three? Just mix and match the parts you like as needed.

This way you could also do things like just replacing the camera when the camera breaks, instead of needing to buy a whole new phone Or swapping out a touchscreen for a normal screen and some keys if you'd like.


It was a great idea, but unfortunately never took off. Real shame, i hate being forced to throw out otherwise perfectly good electronics just because one small, but important piece of it broke.

[NichG]

Roll-cut vegetables are neither more aesthetically appealing nor more convenient to cook than angled discs. Why does this cut even exist?

[veti]

Roll-cut vegetables are neither more aesthetically appealing nor more convenient to cook than angled discs. Why does this cut even exist?

The idea is to form a mouthful-sized mass of vegetable with plenty of surface area. As far as I can make out, they're meant to be roasted. If you're cooking any other way, they're probably the wrong answer.

... well, you asked.

[Ionathus]

Roll-cut vegetables are neither more aesthetically appealing nor more convenient to cook than angled discs. Why does this cut even exist?

I'd never heard of these and after looking them up, I immediately have strong opinions about them. Thanks for the new thing to be confused and annoyed about!

[Bohandas]

i'm still real sad the whole "Phonebloks" idea never took off.

Basically it was an idea for a "Phone" that was effectively just a circuit-board with various connectors and pins around it, and you purchased the individual parts you wanted to customize your phone, and keep the thing long-term.

Want a phone for making calls and don't care about the camera? Replace the camera for some extra battery space. Use your phone to hold a lot of information? swap out the memmory for something with a bit higher power. Like taking photos? Get a really specialized camera. Want to do all three? Just mix and match the parts you like as needed.

This way you could also do things like just replacing the camera when the camera breaks, instead of needing to buy a whole new phone Or swapping out a touchscreen for a normal screen and some keys if you'd like.


It was a great idea, but unfortunately never took off. Real shame, i hate being forced to throw out otherwise perfectly good electronics just because one small, but important piece of it broke.

I believe they're designed like that because it makes people have to throw them away

[halfeye]

I believe they're designed like that because it makes people have to throw them away

Which is also why they kept changing the design of laptop batteries and are now making them non-replaceable, GRrr.

[Draconi Redfir]

I believe they're designed like that because it makes people have to throw them away

Right, and that's terrible and i hate it.

Please just let me fix the camera or whatever else is broken, and let me keep the rest. i do not consent to adding unnecessary pounds of electronic waste to the world when i don't actually need too.

[tyckspoon]

I believe they're designed like that because it makes people have to throw them away

They're designed like that because it simplifies design, manufacture, and software development for them. Removable parts requires additional mechanisms for attachments, and every clip, pin, slot, latch, or cable you have to use for that eats up space in devices where every millimeter counts and becomes a potential point of failure. Upgradeable or expandable parts means your potential device configurations you have to account for becomes a combinatoric explosion, and future designs either become locked into the restrictions of past design decisions or the 'upgradeability' you sold your customers on doesn't really exist because the CPU, RAM chips, and flash storage cards of two years in the future don't work with the control board you put in the phone today. You'd end up with a more expensive to make, less capable device in pursuit of a feature set/benefit that the vast majority of your potential market doesn't actually care about.

The efficient design also being more difficult to repair and tending to lead people to replace their phones instead of holding onto the old one for extended periods is not the reason for doing that, it's a side effect of the other reasons for doing it. The marketing teams are happy to be able to put 'Thinner! Lighter!' on their brochures, tho.

[Velaryon]

I love the thread subtitle! I liked some of the suggestions in the last one as well, but the tongue-in-cheek passive aggressiveness of this one fits the subject matter in a way that's just *chef's kiss*

Something I want to touch on from the last page of the old thread, regarding hand sanitizer, rubbing alcohol, etc.: at my library we have some bottles of a sanitizer that contains no foaming or thickening agent, meaning it's basically rubbing alcohol with maybe some minor differences. The reason we have these bottles is because basically everyone hates them, so they never get used. I have taken to dabbing Kleenex in them and using them to wipe off book covers or sometimes my workspace, essentially making crummy disinfectant wipes with them, as that's the only way we're ever going to get rid of the things. Nobody, myself included, likes using it on their hands.

Also, with regard to the "do people ingest hand sanitizer?" question, I'm reminded of the book Turtles All the Way Down by John Green. While it's a work of fiction (and not one of his best IMO), it touches heavily on mental illness and the ramifications of it. The main character is a huge ball of anxiety and OCD who ingests hand sanitizer in order to kill bacteria, and ends up making herself very sick in so doing. I have no idea if this is based on real stories or not, but it's at least very plausible.

[Bohandas]

Does anyone else think that the use of motion blur and depth of field in videogames makes it seem like the protagonist is both nearsighted and drunk?

The eye may not be able to focus on everything at once, but unless something is wrong with it whatever specific thing you are looking at at a given time is always going to be in focus.

Similarly, unless you're drunk or something, running or turning your head isn't going to be enough to make the entire world go blurry. And even that isn't enough to explain the motion blur in some of these games, like the ones where there's sort of afterimages; to get that kind of tracer/pointer trail effect in real life you would have to be either very sleep deprived or very high.

[Rynjin]

Motion blur is one of the two effects I immediately turn off when starting a new game (along with Chromatic Abberation). Irredeemably bad effects.

DoF I'm fine with because it makes it easier to tune out unimportant details without completely getting rid of ambiance.

I will say the after-images thing works for some games, I've been really liking it in Alan Wake 2, but that game is SUPPOSED to feel like you're in a dream (well, nightmare, specifically).

[tyckspoon]

Does anyone else think that the use of motion blur and depth of field in videogames makes it seem like the protagonist is both nearsighted and drunk?

The eye may not be able to focus on everything at once, but unless something is wrong with it whatever specific thing you are looking at at a given time is always going to be in focus.

Similarly, unless you're drunk or something, running or turning your head isn't going to be enough to make the entire world go blurry. And even that isn't enough to explain the motion blur in some of these games, like the ones where there's sort of afterimages; to get that kind of tracer/pointer trail effect in real life you would have to be either very sleep deprived or very high.

Motion blur, screen shake/flash effects, and controller rumble. And I suspect the only reason I don't have a vendetta about depth-of-field is I have significant motion sickness issues with most first-person cameras to start with and basically don't play games where that is even a thing.

[veti]

Does anyone else think that the use of motion blur and depth of field in videogames makes it seem like the protagonist is both nearsighted and drunk?

The eye may not be able to focus on everything at once, but unless something is wrong with it whatever specific thing you are looking at at a given time is always going to be in focus.

Similarly, unless you're drunk or something, running or turning your head isn't going to be enough to make the entire world go blurry. And even that isn't enough to explain the motion blur in some of these games, like the ones where there's sort of afterimages; to get that kind of tracer/pointer trail effect in real life you would have to be either very sleep deprived or very high.

"Very sleep deprived or very high" probably describes the developers of the game pretty well, so that might account for why you see those effects so often.

Depth of field is the dumbest idea, in my opinion. Yes, sure it happens, but when you translate it into a FP game, you make the assumption that the player is always focused on the dead centre of their monitor. You can't see anything clearly just by directing your eyes at it, you have to point your mouse at it too. I hate that with a passion. It's the opposite of immersive.

[Bohandas]

Also, what person in their right mind wants to burn up processor power to make the game look worse?

Like, those things aren't even desirable in real life, why would you want them in a game?

[SerTabris]

Motion blur, screen shake/flash effects, and controller rumble. And I suspect the only reason I don't have a vendetta about depth-of-field is I have significant motion sickness issues with most first-person cameras to start with and basically don't play games where that is even a thing.

Never liked any of those, though at least I can turn them off. I'd throw film grain in there too; it's kind of baffling. Controller vibration is something I even turned off at the system level on my PS5, which has an option for it.

[Draconi Redfir]

urgh, yup. i once played a game similar to Dead by Daylight where the whole premise is "you need to escape a killer quickly!" and it had the bright idea of inducing motion blur for every time you moved your POV.

I. Could not. SEE! Every dang swing of my head caused my entire screen to become such a mess of colours that i had no idea what was happening or where i was going! something you really don't want happening when there is a killer on the loose and you need to avoid them!

Thankfully i found the setting and disabled it by my second game. made things so much more bearable

[Peelee]

Inconsequential hot take: in my prime, i could beat all y'all in Guitar Hero.

[Rater202]

Inconsequential hot take: in my prime, i could beat all y'all in Guitar Hero.

In my prime, I could read an entire 700+ page novel in one sitting.

[Mystic Muse]

Inconsequential hot take: in my prime, i could beat all y'all in Guitar Hero.

I struggled with medium difficulty, so yes.

[Draconi Redfir]

back in elementary school, i was pretty sure i could name all 151 pokemon from memory.

Never truly attempted it, and things got muddied a bit once they started adding more pokemon, but i digress.

[Batcathat]

In my prime, I could read an entire 700+ page novel in one sitting.

back in elementary school, i was pretty sure i could name all 151 pokemon from memory.

Never truly attempted it, and things got muddied a bit once they started adding more pokemon, but i digress.

I can relate to both of these (not specifically with Pokemon, of which I've only known like three, but being able to remember a lot of things in elementary school, which was probably also the peak of my reading focus. I know more as an adult, but I think I might be dumber. ).

[Bohandas]

If a soap needs fragrance added to it then perhaps it needs to be better at being soap

[Draconi Redfir]

the dental hygiene industry is in DIRE need of new flavors for it's products.

Let's see, toothpase? Well your choices are: Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, bubblegum, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, berry, Mint, Mint, Mint, and Mint. And the bubblegum one isn't even a very good toothpaste cleaning-wise.

Mouthwash? ahh well lets see! our flavor options are: Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Orange, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, and Mint.

And just for fun, Dental floss? Ahh well you see for THOSE we have: Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Mint, Unflavored, Mint, Mint, Mint, and Mint.



... I don't like Mint! i downright HATE the taste of mint! It is like frozen fire on my tongue! i do not WANT this! Please provide alternatives that don't make me actually want to gag and don't make it feel like I'm filling my mouth with actual acid!