But you don't have to charge this one! (because you can't) :D

UT2003 was the first online multiplayer game I ever played, and I played it a lot, mostly at the office with coworkers; we then moved to UT2004. So, so many fond memories of both. Glad is back.

do you remember the map called Phobos II? for some reason they didn't include it with 2004, it was my favorite map

Not that it'll happen, or at least I haven't heard of it, but I'd love for MiniDiscs to also make a comeback (not that they ever were that popular), and see new releases in that format. It's my favorite one, a nice blend of CDs and compact cassettes (no worries about scratches thanks to the protective shell, even when you carelessly throw the discs in your pockets).

And they feel so futuristic!

Sorry for the tangential, but as a non-native English speaker, and still learning... this really caught my attention: "grows smaller". It looks like a kind of contradiction. Is it common to use that instead of, say, "shrink"?

“Grows” is sometimes used as a synonym for “becomes” or “becomes more”.

“Becomes smaller”

Thanks, TIL.

Among others (e.g.: "trans fatty acid"), in this particular case either "today's featured article" or "the f**ing article". I guess the latter.

This along blows my mind: I picture this bin bang and everything expanding from that point and... that everything is now a sphere. In my mind. But it isn't? Yes, I know next to nothing but love thinking about all of this.

It is often presented this way because models generally mix up the observable universe and the universe. One key notion is that we are at the center of the universe. Not the Milky Way, not the Sun, Earth is. Yet we know that Earth isn't at the center, so what is that? Because it is defined as our ability to travel from where we are at. Each of us could be considered at the center of our own observable universes, but this is a distinction we don't make because they overlap so closely that we don't have tools with the precision to tell them apart. I would guess that even aliens on the other side of Milky Way have an observable universe that overlaps so closely with our that they are equal to whatever level of precisions our tools allow for. Once you get to someone in a different galaxy, especially one that is moving away from us and not closer, then they have a different observable universe.

But then, what is the universe? One way to think of it is to imagine that every galaxy has at least one intelligent species with their own observable universe. The universe is the sum of all observable universes. The very nature of how to sum them together, what it means to combine multiple sets of thing which include items that don't exist relative to other items in the set, is a question we can't really answer yet. Because of this, even a question like the size of the universe is unknown, and even the question of if more of the universe exists outside of the observable universe isn't simple to answer and gets into the nature of what it means to exist. If someone exists in the universe, but not in the observable universe, it becomes an instance of Russell's Teapot.

Picture an infinitely long piece of elastic. Now stretch that elastic.

OOMkilled

Isn't this a 1d or 2d simplification?

Yes, 1d. But it's easier to go from a strip to a sheet to a block than trying to imagine an infinite block from scratch.

The important part is that at any given point on the elastic strip, both sides are getting further away. Everything else is getting further away.

You might think if A-B-C-D are points on the tape and A-B are expanding and C-D are expanding, then B and C must be squished together, but the distance between them is also expanding. You have infinite elastic, but you also have infinite room to stretch it (even along the direction it already occupies). You now have A--B--C--D.

It's tempting to think about that stretch from the point of view of the floor/table beneath the elastic, in which case some parts of the elastic move faster than others as they stretch, but if you always think from a point on the elastic, then the speed of the rest of the elastic depends on how far away it is. Stuff twice as far away moves away twice as fast. Stuff infinitely far away moves away infinitely fast. That's true for every point on the elastic. No bunching up.

I usually just imagine an n-dimensional space and then substitute n as needed

> This looks like what web developers have been waiting literally decades for.

Count me in. Most times it didn't matter to me but there were some cases when I wanted or needed them to have a specific style matching other elements and, yes, I could only do it -to the best I knew- with JS.

Let's see if it becomes widely supported.

I'm specifically intrigued by that loading bar with magnetic blocks.

nothing too wild. Found a wall sticker on etsy of a pixled loading bar:

  _____________________
  |                   |
  |___________________|
      L O A D I N G

The sticker is on the wall and looks all pixled, and then I have 7 black, thin foam 5"x6" rectangles that I've glued magnets to the back of, and then on the wall, I have nail heads that the magnets connect to. I can load up the bar, one block per day, or I can just have it as my energy indicator haha.

Ah, I was imagining something way more complex and wilder, with electronics and LEDs and what not :D But that's cool too, if simpler, nice way to track stuff. Thanks for explaining! ;)

Nor mine. I mostly sub to small niche topics and there's hardly anything political. Large subs on the other hand...

I've watched Requiem for a Dream a couple times and you got me curious about the commentary, so I'll try to get a copy. Thanks for the unexpected tip.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.