yvesdot

Alright, fine, here's the backstory about replacing my Microsoft Copilot key with a picture of a carp. Warning: that's the whole story.

When I bought my latest laptop, which coincidentally is already losing functionality in multiple keys, I noticed that the right Control button was no longer a right Control button. This was a bad sign for me, someone who fairly frequently used the right Control button. Worse still, it now bore the Microsoft Copilot logo and would open, when pressed, Microsoft Copilot. Not having personal interest in that particular robot, I was now in the market to rebind that key to something else.

I initially considered setting it up as my dedicated The Sims 2 button, but not only do I not yet have The Sims 2 installed on this computer, the way I play that game, it takes upwards of 15 minutes to boot up. I knew I would be constantly accidentally hitting this key, and I did not want to be constantly accidentally opening The Sims 2.

My partner immediately suggested that I set it to open "a jpeg of a fish." I Googled "carp," found an image, and set my right Control key to open a tiny browser window with a link to said fish. Though it is a .png file from pngtree labeled "pngtree-rohu-carp-fish-png-png-image_4022775.png", in an effort to display matrimonial piety, I dutifully labeled it "fish jpeg."

I now accidentally open this link multiple times a day, which is great, because it means I have a lot of opportunities to see a fish. Sometimes I accidentally hit it several times in quick succession, which means I get to see several fish! When I close all my open programs to shut down my computer, I usually find at least one forgotten fish. Things are working out beautifully, and everyone is happy.

The other day I brought up this story to a friend and relayed the saga of my success to her through her obvious confusion. At the end of my tale she asked me, "Why didn't you just bind it back to right Control?" and I had to admit to her that it honestly never occurred to me.

comfybutter

Mommy's going to take you out of the freezer and leave you in a room temperature environment, ok? Awww you're already dripping condensation... There's a puddle gathering at your base, my leaky little condensation slut.

maidthings

can you put that on a coaster

comfybutter

No. I want her to see all her little circle stains on the table...

maidthings

okay thats cute and all but this table was my grandmother's so i would really appreciate it if you could stop and actually consider other peoples belongings for 2 fucking seconds

algorithmist

shared in one of my discords, sort of interesting

The phrase “the US kill line” has gone viral on Chinese social media in recent days, igniting extensive discussion about economic vulnerability and systemic risk within American society. The term is now used among netizens to describe a precarious financial state in which individuals or households have virtually no margin for error—where a single shock can trigger rapid and potentially irreversible collapse.

The expression “kill line” itself originates from video games, where a “kill line” refers to a health threshold below which a character can be instantly defeated, regardless of remaining defenses or abilities.

The newly aroused attention among Chinese netizens follows a video uploaded on December 8 to the Chinese online video-sharing platform bilibili.com by Chinese content creator “Sikuiqidawang,” titled Cutting Flesh with a Dull Knife and the Kill Line. In the video, he discusses the heavy burden of medical expenses on ordinary Americans and uses the phrase “kill line” as a metaphor for what he describes as a slow, grinding economic pressure. The creator also shared other videos with one depicting the difficult lives of homeless people and people from lower-income groups he encountered in Seattle.

goatsgomoo

The article mentioned a discussion on reddit without linking it; here it is.

charish-cherish

reconnecting with my new england roots this winter break. I’m pretty sure this is sorta incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar to the area.

massachusetts-official

Official Post of Massachusetts

taggsvansen

🐐THE GOAT HAS FALLEN 🐐

cheryl-is-a-flower

HELL YEAH!!!!

totally-cis-offical

I need a “humans are space orcs” thing where all sentient species are weird like that, but in their own unique ways

And a lot of them are aware of this (like we are when we make these “humans are space orcs” stories)

Maybe one species enjoys getting bit by something equivalent to mosquitoes. Maybe one actively avoids the hospitable places on their planet because it’s boring without a challenge. You get the gist.

I want to see a bunch of aliens (+humans) sitting around a table talking about how their own species is a bunch of freaks

Everyone is space orcs

totally-cis-offical

Best possible addition. This is a top-tier insight

@hotcheetohatred

stephenleasheppard

The thing about "humans are space orcs" is it was originally conceived of as a response to science fiction tropes in which every alien species had its own special thing except humans, whose special thing was either Most Generic, Most Adaptable, or Most Je Ne Sais Quoi. Like, in a lot of science fiction, Klingons are Honorable Warriors, Vulcans are Logical Scientists, Romulans are Cunning Strategists, and humans are all of the above in a way that leaves us slightly less good than any of them at their shtick but better overall and able to triumph because of our lack of specialization and the assumption that we are, somehow, just destined to be the best. See this scene from Enterprise for what I'm talking about. There's a similar scene in Mass Effect where Mordin talks about how humans are more variable and adaptable and less predictable than all the other races in that setting, which is super annoying if you know anything about how much our species is defined by the genetic bottleneck we suffered during the Ice Age -- the generic bottleneck that has left us all so genetically similar to each other that we can do crazy things like donate blood and organs to each other, things other species can't tolerate.

@prokopetz proposed that humans ought to get something special of our own that isn't just "We are the bestest and specialist in some generic way that feels like a vague and unsettling metaphor for American superiority and manifest destiny amidst all the other cultures of the world," and settled on space orcs because "Pursuit predators with freakish endurance" was the ecological niche we occupied during our own evolutionary history up until we started doing the civilization thing. The assumption from the start was that every other sci-fi or fantasy species would each be freaks in their own way, and the point of humans are space orcs was to let us be our own sort of freak, too.

People who expanded on the humans are space orcs stories immediately turned it into a reason to write little stories where humans are the biggest freaks or the only freaks and we are, in fact, the specialest most manifest destinyest je ne sais quoi-laden metaphors for the superiority of American culture over all the other cultures of the world. I hate it I hate it I hate it.

Which is to say you've reinvented the point of humans are space orcs from first principles. That's pretty cool.

prokopetz

I think my mistake was failing to appreciate just how readily "humans have exceptionally high cardiovascular endurance due to our real-world evolutionary history as specialised persistence predators" could be twisted around into "humans have superior Will to Power", which is the other problematic special niche humans have historically been assigned in popular science fiction.

capacity2

I just can’t believe some of u are soooo young u didn’t experience the early 2000s at all like even briefly . U were born and ur mother door dashed you home from the hospital

starlit-syncopation

actually i was in the NICU for a couple weeks after being pieced together by surgeons but whatever lmao

capacity2

That’s because she used klarna. To pay through 4 easy installments with no interest