The first thing that struck me while watching the video (in the article) is how low the ceilings are compared to the height the pyrotechnics display reached. From the videos (and comments under them) of this disaster elsewhere, it seems that such pyrotechnic displays are common in weddings and that the venue also has substandard and inflammable (non-fireproof) ceilings, lack fire extinguishers, fire exits, and other safety measures.
A horrible, horrible mental image entered my mind: a priest dunking an infant into the baptismal font during a baptism ceremony and then proceeding smoothly to a requiem prayer as the infant drowns in holy water.
The majority aren't dissatisfied enough to do anything about it, despite complaints. However, I'm hoping that some future action from Huffman will affect them adversely enough that it'd push them over that threshold and decide to do something about it—quit that site. I doubt a lot of them will make their way over here, so just them quitting is good enough for me.
Because my day isn't shitty enough, I went over there to see what's the vibe. Sure enough, people are complaining. There's also a surprising amount of bootlickers who parrot the "argument" that people have been saying things have been going downhill, but Reddit still is popular so it can't be going downhill. As if shitty things can't be popular.
I've seen a couple of people who saw this as the last straw, which is better than nothing, but I feel that those remaining in that site, no matter how they kvetch about it, deserves to be frog stew (as in that boiling frog metaphor). I'd love to be proven wrong though.
My analysis didn't really go deep (pun unintended) into the details of how the information might be encoded, but taking a cue from what you'd said, position can be encoded into six bits: 000;000 would be a1 (white king's rook starting position, right?) and h8 would be 111;111b4 would then be 001;011. Perhaps we can save things into just three bits (there are just seven unique pieces in chess: pawn, rook, knight, white bishop, black bishop, queen, and king) if we just need to communicate which piece is to be moved. Maximally, the accomplice can communicate both the piece and the destination in nine bits, though following this discussion, it seems there's not much need for it, and it'd introduce complexities that would hamper comprehension (like having to distinguish between the three cases so far: position of the piece to be moved, the piece to be moved, or the piece to be moved and the location of the destination).
As for how to send information (as opposed to receiving), there's only one signal that would be needed, if the accomplice is watching a live feed of the match: "Help!" which would be a continuous anal clench, or something fanciful as clenching SOS to avoid any random anal clenching to be mistaken for a call for help.
Now, as for a cheating device inside a butt plug not triggering a metal detector, I don't know for certain, but I've got no reason to disbelieve you. If there's someone that manages to pull it off though (the entire thing, sneaking in a device up their butt and using it to cheat at live chess competitions), I'd love to hear about the details.
Ah, yeah~ I actually wasn't really into chess, but I was intrigued about how it might actually work in practice. Like, perhaps a code taken from chess notation, and then optimized to keep messages to a minimum. Such messages are then composed of bursts of vibration, some longer and less intense, and some short but intense. This is where my mind went to bandwidth, lol! How fast can you alternate "dots" and "dashes" such that they would still remain distinct from one another, and not be perceived as just one long buzz session?
they’ll either use some form of chess computer that they sneak away to use, or have an accomplice and a one way method of communication.
It's the first case that I thought about when I first heard of this. Kinda like braille, but for butts. And then rather than use your fingers, you clench your butt. That way, one can operate a chess computer while seated in a tournament. At the end of it, I was like "that's some serious kegel action!"
An accomplice sending the necessary hints/information would be more plausible, I think. And now that I'm thinking about it, electrical impulses (through the skin, like in the small of the back, another sensitive area) might do the trick as well, perhaps going full braille action this time.)
But yeah, I just enjoyed overthinking about something like this. No offense meant to anyone. I'm just like "maybe it's stupid enough to work?"
It's in the ankles, right? I guess even if it's a different part of the body than the inside of one's butt (a sensitive part of the body), makes it plausible that it's also possible for communication (perhaps one-way—towards the plug wearer).
I'm assuming the accomplice would then be watching through some camera feed, right? That makes it at least plausible since there's no need for kegels (to send information the other way).
I remember when I first heard the rumours and I immediately thought of how sensitive one's anal linings would be to perceive Morse code via a butt plug. Then pondered upon the max possible bandwidth of buttplug-mediated information transfer. Finally, I thought about how to send back information via rythmic anal clenching.
Only then did I conclude that it's probably easier to get better at chess.
Mid-December 2020. My mom had to attend a reunion with her former workmates and I was pretty much isolated from anyone except my family at that time. My mom's reunion happened late November, and she started having symptoms early December. Sometime between then and mid-December, me and my siblings got infected. So, around two weeks between getting infected and getting symptoms, I suppose.
I started having muscle pains first, and didn't really think much of it. My mom was sent to hospital soon after I started showing symptoms, and her condition started requiring hospitalization. My other siblings were all sent to the hospital as well, while I got the entire house to myself for isolation, haha.
Not the best way to deal with things, but we agreed that had I been subjected to the stress of finding a hospital, then having minimal care (if not left in the hallways due to the lack of beds), I would have fared much worse. Fending for yourself while sick at home is better than fending for yourself while sick in a very stressful and crowded hospital setting. My mom got the best care as she got a slot in a private lying-in clinic. My siblings got taken care of by their respective spouses. I managed by forcing some milk into my system as regularly as I could along with medicine that took care of the symptoms.
Spending Christmas eve alone and deliriously sick was quite an experience though. Neighbors and relatives sneaked in a pretty nice Christmas dinner that unfortunately went to waste because I can't stomach any food at that time.
Back in late June, I was thinking of making a community here. While drawing up more concrete plans for it, I realized it'd be way too much work for me, even ignoring the fact that I'm completely new to the task of moderation (and hence, would likely fumble around in handling issues). Furthermore, a lot of related communities I've followed never went anywhere, which discouraged me.
All that's ignoring the fact that I was thinking of creating an extremely niche community (a community for Anki, focusing on its use for language learning), I decided it's not yet time. I was too late to capitalize the early stages of migration, but I'm too early to capitalize on the number of people being able to support niche communities.
The struggle I sometimes face when I SSH into somewhere, lol! Fortunately, there's a lot of differences that it's easy realize that "this is a different machine", and I just open a different terminal tab/window to look up the pure command versions if I need to.
Haha! Yeah! Though my intention is really one last excursion out into nature. One last sight-seeing trip, one last camp out. No alarms, no surprises, just a nice walk out into the woods, and then silence.
It'd be really sad to go out in a hospital bed, surrounded by white walls, white ceiling, and white floors. I might not even be enjoying shitty hospital food. That's just too sad.
definitely don’t want a slow, miserable downward spiral before my hardware finally can’t sustain the ghost.
And this is why I reserve my right to self-deliverance. When I think my time is nigh, I'll take a long walk into the mountains, without any electronic devices nor identification, and never look back.
You're welcome. Others might think it's too bleak, and I sort of agree. But it's freeing, as you've said. It allows us to focus on the here and now. And while we're here (for whatever reason, be it by choice or not), why not enjoy what we can?
The first thing that struck me while watching the video (in the article) is how low the ceilings are compared to the height the pyrotechnics display reached. From the videos (and comments under them) of this disaster elsewhere, it seems that such pyrotechnic displays are common in weddings and that the venue also has substandard and inflammable (non-fireproof) ceilings, lack fire extinguishers, fire exits, and other safety measures.
Here's a news report on the disaster mentioning the venue's faults: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFxbXRfnkis